page_title: History of Spain
section_title: Reign of Alfonso XII and Regency of Maria Christina
hierarchical_section_title: History of Spain / Restoration (1874–1931) / Reign of Alfonso XII and Regency of Maria Christina
caption_attribution_description: Español: Yo la cojo, me la quitas - tú la sueltas, yo la agarro - Pacto de tomarla el pelo - según el pacto del Pardo, ilustración en la revista satírica española Don Quijote.
context_page_description: The history of Spain dates back to the Middle Ages. In 1516, Habsburg Spain unified a number of disparate predecessor kingdoms; its modern form of a constitutional monarchy was introduced in 1813, and the current democratic constitution dates to 1978. After the completion of the Reconquista, the Crown of Castile began to explore across the Atlantic Ocean in 1492, expanding into the New World and marking the beginning of the Golden Age under the Spanish Empire. The kingdoms of Spain were united under Habsburg rule in 1516, that unified the Crown of Castile, the Crown of Aragon and smaller kingdoms under the same rule. Until the 1650s, Habsburg Spain was among the most powerful states in the world.
  During this period, Spain was involved in all major European wars, including the Italian Wars, the Eighty Years' War, the Thirty Years' War, and the Franco-Spanish War. In the later 17th century Spanish power began to decline, after the death of the last Habsburg.
  The former Spanish Empire overseas quickly disintegrated with the Latin American wars of independence.
context_section_description: Although the former queen, Isabella II was still alive, she recognized that she was too divisive as a leader, and abdicated in 1870 in favor of her son, Alfonso.
  Alfonso XII of Spain was duly crowned on 28 December 1874 after returning from exile. After the tumult of the First Spanish Republic, Spaniards were willing to accept a return to stability under Bourbon rule. The Republican armies in Spain – which were resisting a Carlist insurrection – pronounced their allegiance to Alfonso in the winter of 1874–75, led by Brigadier General Martínez-Campos. The Republic was dissolved and Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, a trusted advisor to the king, was named Prime Minister on New Year's Eve, 1874. The Carlist insurrection was put down vigorously by the new king, who took an active role in the war and rapidly gained the support of most of his countrymen. This new period witnessed the instauration of an uncompetitive parliamentary system in which two "dynastic" parties, the conservatives (formally the Liberal-Conservatives), led by Antonio Cánovas del Castillo (the mastermind behind the Restoration system), and the liberals (or liberal-fusionists), led by Práxedes Mateo Sagasta alternated in control of the government (turnismo). Election fraud  (materialized in the so-called caciquismo) became ubiquous, with elections reproducing pre-arranged outcomes struck in the Capital. Voter apathy was no less important. Alfonso XII suddenly died at age 28.
  Constitutional monarchy continued under King Alfonso XIII,he was born after his father's death and was proclaimed king upon his birth. Until the coming of age of Alfonso XIII in 1902, his mother Maria Christina of Austria served as Regent. The prime minister Antonio Cánovas del Castillo was assassinated in 1897.
caption: 1894 satirical cartoon depicting the tacit accord for seamless government change (turnismo) between the leaders of two dynastic parties (Sagasta and Cánovas del Castillo), with the country being lied in an allegorical fashion.
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