Economic transformations throughout the century included the privatisation of communal municipal lands—not interrupted but actually intensified and legitimised during the Fernandine absolutist restorations[1] —as well as the confiscation of Church properties.

The 1868 Glorious revolution deposed Isabella and installed a provisional government, leading up to the election of a constituent assembly under universal manhood suffrage that elaborated the 1869 constitution.

The brief spell of Amadeo of Savoy as constitutional monarch was followed after his abdication by the proclamation of the First Spanish Republic, which was replaced after a 1874 coup by the reign of Alfonso XII, bringing the Bourbon dynasty back to power.

Although there were a few Spaniards who supported Napoleon's seizure of power in Spain, many regional centers rose up and formed juntas to rule in the name of the ousted Bourbon king, Ferdinand VII.

The anticlerical policies of the Progresista government led to friction with the Roman Catholic Church, and its attempts to bring about industrialization alienated ancient trade guilds.

The Inquisition—which had been abolished by both Joseph Bonaparte and the Cortes of Cádiz during the French occupation—was ended again by the Progresista government, summoning up accusations of being nothing more than afrancesados (Francophiles), who only six years before had been forced out of the country.

More radical liberals attempted to revolt against the entire idea of a monarchy, constitutional or otherwise, in 1821; these republicans were suppressed, though the incident served to illustrate the frail coalition that bound the Progresista government together.

The Spanish army, fraught by internal divisions, offered little resistance to the well organised French force, who seized Madrid and reinstalled Ferdinand as absolute monarch.

Carlos, however, was a reactionary and an authoritarian who desired the restoration of the traditional moralism of the Spanish state, the elimination of any traces of constitutionalism, and a close relationship with the Roman Catholic Church.

In 1830, at the advice of his wife, Maria Christina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Ferdinand VII decreed a Pragmatic Sanction that had the effect of fundamental law in Spain.

As a result of the sanction, women were allowed to accede to the Spanish throne, and the succession would fall on Ferdinand's infant daughter, Isabella, rather than to his brother Carlos.

By 1835, what was once a band of defeated guerrillas in Navarre had turned into an army of 30,000 in control of all of Spain north of the Ebro River, with the exception of the fortified ports on the northern coast.

Reinforced with British equipment and manpower, Isabella found in the progressista general Baldomero Espartero a man capable of suppressing the rebellion; in 1836, he won a key victory at the Battle of Luchana that turned the tide of the war.

After years of vacillation on the issue of reform, events compelled Maria Cristina to accept a new constitution in 1837 that substantively increased the powers of the Spanish parliament, the cortes.

Freed from the Carlist threat, Maria Cristina immediately embarked on a campaign to undo the Constitution of 1837, provoking even greater ire from the liberal quarters of her government.

The severity with which Espartero crushed the rebellion led to considerable unpopularity; the cortes, increasingly rebellious against him, selected an old rival, José Ramón Rodil y Campillo, as their chief minister.

With its finances more in order, the government was able to rebuild the military and, in the 1850s and 1860s, embark on successful infrastructure improvements and campaigns in Africa that are often cited as the most productive aspects of Isabella's reign.

The Second Carlist War, though contemporaneous with the revolutions of 1848, is rarely included as part of the same phenomenon, since the rebels in Spain were not fighting for liberal or socialist ideas, but rather conservative and even absolutist ones.

Murillo's negotiations with the Papacy were aided by Narváez's role in the Revolutions of 1848 in the Italian states, where he had led Spanish soldiers in the pope's defense against revolutionaries.

Prominent among the reforms he suggested were the reduction of the powers of the cortes as a whole in favor of Murillo's office as President of the Council of Ministers, and the ability for the executive to legislate by decree in times of crisis.

Sartorius – who had gained power only by betraying Luis González Bravo and following the fortunes of General Narváez – was notorious for falsifying election results in favor of his co-conspirators and himself.

Riots against the power loom erupted in the cities, and progresistas outraged at a decade of moderado dictatorship and the corruption of the Sartorius government broke out in revolution.

The two caudillos, who came into power with immense popularity, attempted to reconcile their differences and form a coalition party that crossed the progresista-moderado lines that had dominated and restricted Spanish politics since the Peninsular War.

The "Unión Liberal", as it was called, attempted to forge a policy based on progress in industry, infrastructure, public works, and a national compromise on constitutional and social issues.

The resistance of the cortes, however, meant that most of his term was spent deadlocked; the coalition that Espartero relied on was built on both liberals and moderates, who disagreed fundamentally on the ideology of the new constitution and policies.

Even before the constitution had been passed, Espartero endorsed Pascual Madoz's desamortización against communal lands in Spain; the plan was strongly opposed not only by the moderados in the cortes, but also by the queen and General O'Donnell.

The die was cast in September 1868, when naval forces under admiral Juan Bautista Topete mutinied in Cádiz – the same place that Rafael del Riego had launched his coup against Isabella's father a half-century before.

The aged Espartero was brought up as an option, still having considerable sway among the progresistas; even after he rejected the notion of being named king, he still gained eight votes for his coronation in the final tally.

The younger son of Victor Emmanuel II of Italy, Amadeo had less of the troublesome political baggage that a German or French claimant would bring, and his liberal credentials were strong.

Amadeo was instantly confronted with a cortes that regarded him as an outsider, even after it had elected him King; politicians conspired with and against him; and a 1872–1876 Third Carlist War erupted, chiefly in the north of the Iberian Peninsula.