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.

Though 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.
 …..

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

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3. The Bourbon Dynasty