The Succession of an Unborn King: Constitutional Politics in Spain after the Death of Alfonso XII

Abstract

Spain’s Glorious Revolution of 1868 brought the reign of Isabel II and the Bourbon dynasty to an end. The heir to the throne, Isabel’s son Alfonso, was a child of 11 years when the Spanish royal family was forced into exile. Their departure on 30 September 1868 marked the beginning of the so-called Democratic Sexennium (1868–74), during which Spaniards first established the parliamentary monarchy of Amadeo de Savoy and then proclaimed Spain’s First Republic. On 29 December 1874, however, the last successful pronunciamiento of nineteenth-century Spain occurred.¹ The aim of this military coup was to reinstate the Bourbon dynasty by placing Alfonso XII on the throne. The public face of the pronunciamiento was General Arsenio Martínez Campos, but as he himself pointed out, the coup had been orchestrated by Spain’s captain general in Cuba, a widely revered military hero. In fact, Martínez Campos would later inform the king ‘that the only person I have obeyed is the Conde de Valmaseda, crowned by so many laurels in Cuba: he, and he alone was the initiator, I confined myself to implementing his wishes and his commands’.²