The San Francisco call., 1898-05-08
DOW CARLOS $ READY
 70 SEIZE THE THRONE.
For Thirty Years Ke and Hs FohIowers Have Been Striving to Take Advantage Of Just Such q Crisis m Spanish Afairs.

sue, but only an infant daughter, Don- na Isabella. The Salic law, which had been In force since 1713, excluding fe- males from the throne, the crown should therefore have passed to his brother, Don Carlos.
 4 But Ferdinand in the later years of his life had been absolutely under the domination of his fourth wife, Chris tina of Naples, a handsome, forceful and interruptions woman. Her sway had been confirmed by the birth of her daughter Isabella in 1880. She induced the weak and ailing monarch to issue a decree disinheriting his brother in favor of his infant daughter. That he transcended his royal prerogative is generally conceded.
 The church threw its influence on the side of Don Carlos. The King, who according to the state of his failing health, passed from abject submission to the will of his wife to equally ab- ject dread of the church, was harassed with perpetual qualms of conscience as to the succession. Time after time he changed his mind.
 The final victory, however, was won by the Queen.
 Princess Isabella was declared Queen of Spain, under the regency of her mother. For five years afterward the country was desolated by terrible civil war, carried on with varying for tune and unwavering ferocity between the Carlists and the partisans of Isa- bella But France and England sided with the latter and in 1889 Don Carlos quilted Spain in despair. The question of succession appeared to be settled in favor of Isabella II, a child not even yet in her teens.
 Had the new dynasty been conducted with ordinary prudence. good faith or loyalty, the world might never have heard further of the Carlist pretender to the throne. But the scandals which brought Queen Christmas regency to a premature close the ill-fated maria ge of Queen Isabella to her imbecile cousin Ferdinand VII, and the reck- lessness of her own conduct kept alive the hopes of the pretenders partisans.
 Don Carlos, the first pretender, died in 1855. A second pretender arose at once in the person of his son, Don Car los, Count de Montemolin. In 1860 an attempt was made in Valencia to start the CarliSt insurrection afresh. The Count was defeated. He and his broth CT Ferdinand were captured. They were released only after signing a re- nunciation of all their claims to the Spanish throne.
 There was third brother, Don Juan. In 1868, when Queen Isabella was forced to fly from Spain and Carlism once more became a possibility Don Juan abdicated all his rights in favor of his son, the present Don Carlos, who there upon became the third pretender. Nor were his pretensions a mere pre- tense. Prim and Sagasta, the two most powerful members of the provisional government established after Isabella's flight, offered him the crown. But the gift was conditioned on the promise that the country should have a consti- tuition, and that the church and state should be separated. Don Carlos re- fused the gift if it came trammeled by any conditions. He would follow the Carlist traditions and be an ab- solute monarch or none at all.
 When I come into my kingdom,' he said, 'I shall rule as see fit"
 It was a youth of 20 who spoke thus firmly, for Don Carlos de los Dolores Juan Isidoro Josef Francisco Quirino Antonio Miguel Gabriel Rafael, Duke of Madrid and Pretender to the Span ish throne, was born on March 30, 1S4S