3. The Bourbon Dynasty

The Bourbon Dynasty

Juan Antonio López Luque

Chapter 3

• Carlos II died in 1700; in accordance with his will, a grandson of Louis XIV of France ascended the Spanish throne as Felipe V.

• Other European powers were determined not to permit a great new Bourbon power bloc (Spain-France) in southwestern Europe.

• A coalition was organized in 1702 between nearly all the other states of western and central Europe.

• Felipe V, born Philippe d'Anjou, was fully accepted by most opinion in Castile

• The rival candidacy, the Austrian Archduke Karl, backed by the anti-Bourbon alliance, relied to a considerable extent on the main Protestant powers of Europe.

War of the Spanish Succession (1702-1714)


Claimants to the Spanish throne


• At the beginning of his reign in 1701, Felipe V specifically reconfirmed the traditional privileges and exemptions of the Catalan constitution.

• Aragón and Catalonia were swept into the Habsburg cause only after allied forces had landed in eastern Spain.

• The Habsburg candidacy took full advantage of social tensions and encouraged a peasant revolt against the seigneurial control of the aristocracy, Archduke Karl freeing them of many seigneurial exactions.

• Most of the aristocracy, ecclesiastical hierarchy, and state officials in Aragón and Valencia remained loyal to the Bourbon succession.

• Only in Catalonia did opposition to the Bourbon crown include all social classes.

Felipe V & War of the Spanish Succession


• In 1710 all participants were exhausted and increasingly interested in a solution to the conflict.

• The death of the Habsburg Emperor Josef I in 1711 cleared the path for the Archduke Karl to inherit the Austro-Habsburg Empire and removed him from the Spanish struggle.

• By the end of 1710, the Bourbon forces held all of Spain, save Catalonia. After the siege of Barcelona (1713-1714), the city was a wreck, the region's economy ruined, and the historic Catalonia a thing of the past.

• The region did not recover for an entire generation or more



• The remaining imperial possessions on the continent were swept away, and the English seized Gibraltar and took over the island of Menorca as well.

• By the peace of Utrecht in 1713, Felipe V is confirmed as king of Spain and also of the Spanish America (but the Spanish possessions in the Netherlands and northern Italy go to the Habsburgs).

• Spanish America held fast from foreign assault, and its further development after mid-century was a major factor in the later advance of the Spanish economy.




War of the Spanish Succession

Bourbon forces

Allies against the Bourbons

Bourbon attacks

Allies attacks

Bourbon forces

Allies against the Bourbons

Bourbon attacks

Allies attacks


Felipe V, the first Bourbon

• The immediate effect of the change of dynasty in Spain is that the court and government become dominated by French advisers.

• This represents an improvement, since French bureaucracy is superior to that of Spain.

• The support of support of the Habsburg cause by some regions provides a welcome pretext for centralization, removing the traditional liberties still enjoyed by these medieval Spanish kingdoms.


Felipe V, the first Bourbon

• For the most part of the 18th century the Bourbon link with France, signing agreements which become known as Family Compacts.

• Spain uses these conflicts, and the resulting treaties, mainly to secure her possessions in Italy.

• But the third Family Compact, signed in 1761 in the last stages of the Seven Years' War, proves a costly disaster. Its main result, for Spain, is the loss of Florida.

Louis XIV of France


Fernando VI and the Marquis of Ensenada

• The great virtue of Fernando VI as ruler was that he kept Spain at peace and avoided further entanglement in European struggles.

• His outstanding ministerial appointee, the Marqués de la Ensenada, who tried to reform taxes, advance commerce and the navy, and promote the professional interests of the middle classes.

• The last five years of the reign of Fernando VI, who ultimately lapsed into madness like his father, were a time of vacuity and inaction.


Carlos III, the Enlightenment

• Fernando VI was succeeded by his half-brother Carlos III (1759–1788), eldest son of Isabella Farnese and until 1759 king of the Two Sicilies.

• His was the most enlightened and most prosperous reign in modern Spanish history.

• Carlos III was an ambitious prince but a very well disciplined one and much given to the out-of-doors and the chase, even to the extent of having a rather rustic air.

• His record as ruler of the Two Sicilies was good. There he had learned most of the principles of eighteenth-century enlightened despotism, and he brought a number of Italian administrators and reformers to his government in Spain.



• Spain is once more engaged in war against Britain (again as an ally of France, this time in support of the American colonies). On this occasion there are certain clear benefits. Menorca is won back from the British in 1782, and Florida in 1783.

• During the reign of Carlos III, the Spanish empire overseas reached its greatest extent.

• The crown also enjoyed success in its relations with Muslim northwest Africa: Morocco came to terms in 1780, and Algiers, after being bombarded by the Spanish fleet in 1783 and 1784, signed a general treaty in 1785. Satisfactory agreements were also made with Tunis and Tripoli.


Carlos III, the EnlightenmentThough its achievements on the international plane were notable, the reign of Carlos III owes its fame chiefly to its many domestic reforms:

Financial and economic reforms favoring the activity of the middle classes.

New efforts to improve urban government and administration,

Attempts to make taxation more equitable and efficient, and raise the level of church appointments.

First efforts at agrarian reform in modern Spanish history.

Free internal commerce in grain.

The imperial canal of Aragón was completed and new irrigation projects were started.



Direct measures to improve education: establishment of the royal academies.

The first really reliable Spanish censuses were made.

Basic work in peninsular cartography, and organized the historical archives of the Indies and the crown of Aragón.

A national road network was planned

Paper money was first introduced and the first attempt at a national bank. During the course of the century, currency was slowly becoming standardized in the peseta.

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Carlos IV

In 1788, the year before the French Revolution, Charles IV succeeds to the throne.

He was about forty years old, good- hearted but weak, simple-minded and singularly unable to stand up to his strong-willed wife, Maria Luisa of Parma.

The beginning of the French Revolution in 1789 drastically altered the policy of the Spanish crown.

Chief minister Conde de Floridablanca

censorship


Carlos IV

Carlos IV replaced Conde de Floridablanca

with the elderly Conde de Aranda, who while no supporter of the French Revolution was a liberal and a Francophile, convinced of the importance of the French alliance.

He relaxed the censorship

Finally Aranda was also replaced by a handsome, sturdy young guards' officer from Extremadura, Manuel Godoy, friend of the royal family.

For most of fifteen years 1792-1808 Godoy was the real ruler of Spain. A new valido.


Godoy

Godoy considered himself a man of the

new generation, a reformer and continuer of the policies of Carlos III.

The main concern of the Spanish crown was the challenge presented by revolutionary France and its successor, Napoleonic imperialism.

Spain joined the alliance of legitimacy against the French revolutionary regime in 1793- 1795

War. the Anglo-Spanish fleets failed and the Spanish army was no rival to the new French military masses. Peace was signed in 1795


Godoy

Libelous stories about Godoy and the

queen brought the royal family under fire for the first time in a century, and lowered respect for the crown.

Meanwhile in 1797 Spain suspended commercial restrictions within the Spanish American empire, opening trade to neutral nations (It was actually because of the British naval blockade)

This was a sign of Spain being incapable of maintaining its pretended monopoly (a step toward the ultimate independence of the colonies)

The financial situation continued to deteriorate with riots in many cities

3. The Bourbon Dynasty

Education

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