Upon the death of Ferdinand, they supported the royal claim of the king's only child, the three-year-old Isabel, under the regency of queen mother Maria Christina of the Two Sicilies.
When the monarchy was restored in 1874 following the First Spanish Republic, they united with the Liberal Union to form the Conservative Party under the direction of Antonio Cánovas del Castillo.
The party's political ideology of "Moderantism" (Spanish: moderantismo) is comparable to British conservatism and, especially, to French doctrinairism, from whom its ideologues (especially Juan Donoso Cortés) took part of their argumentation.
Economically the party tended to support free trade, allowing the export of agricultural surplus, a policy compatible with the interests of its social base.
Once Carlism had been defeated militarily, the 1839 Convention of Vergara that put an end to the war allowed some of the more moderate Carlists to join the party or to support it from without.