ABSTRACT
Following the ‘revolt of Aranjuez’, Carlos IV abdicated in March 1808 and his son Fernando acceded to the Spanish crown. On 5 May 1808 both resigned the crown to Napoleón, who put his brother on the Spanish throne and enacted the Estatuto de Bayona (Bayonne Statute), a pseudoliberal charter. Resistance to the French led to the formation of provincial juntas that constituted the Junta Central, which convened a unicameral parliament in Cádiz including representation from both metropolitan and overseas Spain, and enacted a liberal constitution that was to be particularly influential in Portugal, Italy and the Spanish colonies in America. The French Revolution had a significant impact in Spain, notably on the work of the Cortes of Cádiz, including the change from estate to national representation, and the introduction of equal citizenship. Although a large part of the elite accepted the ideas of constitutional government, on his return from France in 1814, Fernando VII refused to accept the Constitution of Cádiz and established absolute rule. In 1820, an army pronunciamiento, sent to put down the rebellion in Latin America, forced him to swear to uphold the Constitution: however, with the help of the Holy Alliance, he soon re-established absolutism. Only after the death of the king in 1833 was the ancién regime defeated in Spain, although not without a long war of succession between his brother, Don Carlos, and the supporters of his daughter, Isabel II, which was also a war between the defenders of absolutism, the special role of the Catholic church and traditional institutions, and those of liberalism. Nevertheless, the fight against the traditionalist reaction would continue for almost half a century, after two further wars in 1846-49 and 1872-76 (Carr 1982; Linz et al. 2000:371-2).
