page_title: First Carlist War
section_title: Historical background
hierarchical_section_title: First Carlist War / Historical background
caption_attribution_description: English: Engraved Portrait of Baron James de Rothschild by A. Gilbert (lithographer&#160;?) &amp; Charles-Jules Robert
context_page_description: The First Carlist War was a civil war in Spain from 1833 to 1840, the first of three Carlist Wars. It was fought between two factions over the succession to the throne and the nature of the Spanish monarchy: the conservative supporters of the late king's brother, Carlos de Borbón, became known as Carlists, while the progressive supporters of the regent, Maria Christina, acting for Isabella II of Spain, were called Liberals, cristinos or isabelinos. Aside from being a war of succession about the question who the rightful successor to king Ferdinand VII of Spain was, the Carlists’ goal was the return to an absolute monarchy, while the Liberals sought to defend the constitutional monarchy. Portugal, France and the United Kingdom supported the regency, and sent volunteer and even regular forces to confront the Carlist army.
context_section_description: At the beginning of the 19th century, the political situation in Spain was extremely problematic. During the Peninsular War, the Cortes of Cádiz – which served as the Regency for the deposed Ferdinand VII –  collaborated on the Spanish Constitution of 1812, at that point possibly the most modern and most liberal in the world. After the war, when Ferdinand VII returned to Spain (1814), he annulled the constitution in the Manifesto of Valencia, and became an absolutist king, governing by decrees and restoring the Spanish Inquisition, abolished by Joseph I, brother of Napoleon I.
  The 1805 Battle of Trafalgar had all but shattered the Spanish navy, with the Peninsular War leaving the Spanish society overwhelmed by continuous warfare and badly damaged by looting. While the Spanish Empire collapsed, the maritime trade trickled to the Americas and Philippines, and Spain's military struggled to keep their colonies, with Mexico getting its independence in 1821. The customary overseas revenue to the metropolis was at a historic low, the royal coffers were empty. Financing (solvency) and recruitment to the military became an overriding concern for the Spanish Crown, with the governments under King Ferdinand VII failing to provide new solutions and stability.
  During the Trienio Liberal (1820-1823), the progressive liberals decided to resort to the international money lenders to revert the economic meltdown Spain was facing. They turned to Paris, and particularly London, where many liberals (many of them Freemasons) had fled on Ferdinand VII's comeback (1814). In London and Paris, the liberals ruling (shortly) Spain engaged in negotiations with the Jewish financiers Nathan Rothschild and James Rothschild. They bailed out the Spanish liberal regime, with Great Britain also supporting it on its last stage, not so much on the strength of its liberal tenets but with a vested view to securing the debt engaged in previous years.
  The 1823 intervention of a reactionary international alliance, the Sacred Alliance, restored Ferdinand VII on the Spanish throne, but the Bourbon king refused to assume the debt incurred by the 1820-1823 liberal rulers with the Rothschilds based in London and Paris. For more than a decade, the pending liberal debt became for Ferdinand VII's negotiators a persistent sticking point with these financiers during talks for new loan requests.
  Against a backdrop of on-off bankruptcy and solvency issues, towards the end of his life, Ferdinand VII promulgated the Pragmatic Sanction of 1830 giving hopes for a liberal rule. Ferdinand VII of Spain had no male descendant, but two daughters, Isabella (later Isabella II) and Luisa Fernanda. So he promulgated the 1830 "Pragmatic Sanction", to allow Isabella to become Queen after his death, returning to traditional rules of Spanish succession. Without the above Pragmática Sanción, Carlos de Borbón, the king's brother, would have normally become king.
  He and his followers, such as Secretary of Justice Francisco Tadeo Calomarde, pressed Ferdinand to change his mind. But the agonizing Ferdinand kept his decision and when he died on 29 September 1833, Isabella became the legitimate queen. As she was only a child, a regent was needed, so her mother Queen Consort Maria Christina was appointed.
  A strong absolutist party did not want to lose its position. Its members knew that regent Maria Christina would make liberal reforms, so they looked for another candidate for the throne; and their natural choice, with the background of the Salic Law, was Ferdinand's brother Carlos. The differing views on the influence of the army and the Church in governance, as well as the forthcoming administrative reforms paved the way for the expulsion of the ultra-Conservatives (absolutists advocating for Carlos) from the higher governmental circles, not that it opened the doors to the most progressives.
  Cea Bermudez's centrist government (October 1832-January 1834) inaugurated a period of opening and return to Spain of many exiles in London and Paris, e.g. Juan Álvarez Mendizabal (born Méndez). The rise of Ce
caption: James (Jacob) Rothschild, head of the French branch of the family
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