ABSTRACT
This chapter explains how and why the restoration of absolutism in 1814 failed to restore any consensus about the nature of legitimate power in Spain. Britain winked at Portugal–Brazil’s occupation of Uruguay in 1816 and at the 1818 Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, Spain failed to get the Concert of Europe to agree to extend its protection of ‘legitimacy’ to the Americas. The Holy Alliance invasion of Spain in 1823 ended Spain’s liberal regime and restored the king to his absolute powers. Spain’s patent second-power status was compounded by political upheaval and by plenipotentiary Pedro Gomez Labrador’s subordination to the more capable Talleyrand over the sideshow issue of restoring the Bourbon ‘legitimacy’ in France, Italy, and Spain. Spain underwent a renewed spate of diseases and famine, whilst the Justice Ministry was deluged with unsatisfied requests for land debt relief from small landowners, municipalities, and large feudal lords.
