Reign of Alfonso XII

[19] At the end of February 1870 the prince traveled to Rome to receive the first communion from Pius IX, but without achieving, as the ex-Queen intended, that the pope publicly recognize the Bourbon dynasty as the legitimate depositary of the rights to the Spanish throne and that he condemn the "revolutionary regime" established in Spain.

[58] What was to be a decisive step in the Alfonsine restoration took place on August 22, 1873 ―in the midst of the cantonal rebellion after the proclamation of the Federal Republic and only one month after the pretender Carlos VII had returned to Spain, thus giving a great impulse to the third Carlist war― when Isabella II gave her full support to Cánovas, in spite of her antipathy towards him,[59] and entrusted him with the direction of the Bourbon dynastic cause.

[74] Manuel Suárez Cortina has pointed out that "the identification between revolution and democracy, the fear radiated by the Parisian Commune and the decisive fact that the Sexenio had not substantially altered the foundations of power had stimulated the reorganization of the sectors most inclined to liquidate the democratic experience.

[96][97][98][99] Formally, it was a letter sent from the British Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, where Prince Alfonso had entered at the beginning of October at the initiative of Cánovas with the aim of enhancing his constitutional image,[100][101][102] in response to the numerous congratulations he had received from Spain on the occasion of his 17th birthday.

No one like Your Excellency, to whom I owe and thank so much for your relevant services, as well as the Regency Ministry that you have appointed, using the powers that I conferred on you and today confirm, can interpret my feelings of gratitude and love for the nation, ratifying the opinions consigned in the manifesto of December 1st last and affirming my loyalty to fulfill them and my very lively desires that the solemn act of my entrance into my beloved homeland be a pledge of peace, of union and of forgetting the past discords, and, as a consequence of all this, the inauguration of a true freedom and that adding our efforts and with the protection of heaven, we can reach for Spain new days of prosperity and greatness.

In Peralta (Navarra) he appealed to the Carlists in favor of peace ("Before unfurling my flag in battle, I want to present myself to you with an olive branch in my hand"), but he also assured them that he was not going to "tolerate even a useless war like the one you wage against the rest of the nation" and "that they had no reason to continue it" ("if you took up arms moved by the monarchic faith, see in me the legitimate representative of a dynasty that was loyal to you until its passing fall.

[163] The fundamental objective of the political project of Antonio Cánovas del Castillo ―who prided himself on "paying due tribute to prudence, to the spirit of compromise, to the law of reality"―[164] was to achieve, at last, the consolidation and stability of the liberal State, on the basis of the Constitutional Monarchy defined in the Sandhurst Manifesto.

[166] In order to implement his political project, Cánovas had the absolute confidence of King Alfonso XII, who in a conversation with the British ambassador Austen Henry Layard had expressed his desire to "introduce in Spain the constitutional system to which England owed its liberties and greatness".

[164][171][172][173] Although the ultimate goal pursued by Cánovas was to divide them and attract them to his project,[174][175][176] at the beginning he made concessions to the moderates and the first measures agreed by the new government meant a revision of what had been done during the Sexenio, besides building a very negative image of the period and especially of the first year of the First Spanish Republic, described by the traditionalist Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo as "times of apocalyptic desolation".

[164][194][195][196] In the circular that accompanied the decree addressed to the rectors of the universities and signed by Minister Orovio, the latter were invited "not to consent that in the chairs supported by the State they should explain against the Catholic dogma that is the social truth in our country" and it was also warned that any professor who "did not recognize the established regime or taught against it" would be sanctioned.

With the same purpose ―"to give confidence to the moderate sectors and neutralize any attempt to put an end to the regime"― he also "sought the reestablishment of relations with the Vatican, restored the budget for worship and clergy [the economic endowment that the State gave to the Catholic Church] and reintroduced the obligatory nature of canonical marriage".

[200] According to Carlos Seco Serrano, Orovio's presence in the government ―and his controversial decree― was due to "the fact that the civil war had not yet been defeated, demanded, in any case, the adoption of political measures that could suppose a more or less homologous "gesture" with the monarchic and religious concept that animated the Carlist camp ―in order to disarm it ideologically"―.

[226][227] The king supported it without fail, in spite of the "systematic siege" to which he was subjected "by Moderate politicians, a large part of the nobility and high clergy, and even by the princess of Asturias, favorable de cuore, in the opinion of the pontifical representative, to the Catholic cause".

As for ex-Queen Isabella II, unwilling "to play decorative roles",[230] Cánovas sent her a letter to Paris in April 1875 explaining why she should not come to Spain:[231][232]Whoever comes to Madrid, the opinion will remain calm, unless you, V.M., that then a dozen illusions, moved by particular interests, will think to see in you, Your Majesty, a banner of grievances and perhaps of revenge, that will satisfy their evil passions; others will fear the beginning of a reaction that will remove from power all those who have more or less figured in the last six years and, before they are thrown out, they will voluntarily leave, creating a vacuum around the Throne... And all because you, Your Majesty, are not a person, but a reign, a historical epoch, and what the country needs today is another reign and another epoch, different from the previous ones.Not only Cánovas, but also his own son urged him not to travel to Spain, alleging that "no one can impose his will on the King".

[316] As José María Jover has pointed out, "any historical analysis of the Constitution of 1876 must start from the fact that the political dynamics foreseen in its articles ―the decisive role of the electoral body, of the parliamentary majorities that theoretically share with the king the function of maintaining or overthrowing governments― not only is it not going to develop in practice in accordance with such formal provisions, but its very architects count beforehand on this mismatch between the letter and the reality of its application".

[317] Based on this duality "formal constitution and real functioning of political life",[318] "the parties could [from power] develop their projects at the same time that they had the budget and jobs in the administration to satisfy their clientele; that is, to grant favors to their followers, who could share common ideas, but also sought material benefits", asserted Carlos Dardé.

[322] On the military level, the first operation, commanded personally by the Minister of War, General Jovellar, was directed against the so-called Carlist "center" zone, which included territories of Aragon, the extreme south of Catalonia, the north of Valencia and Castile, where guerrilla groups were active.

[358] In the instructions, disagreed by the less conservative ministers of the government such as Manuel Alonso Martínez or José Luis Albareda and also by the foreign ambassadors, particularly the British one, it was stated:[359] It is a public manifestation (and therefore constitutionally subject to prohibition) any act executed in the street or on the exterior walls of the temple or cemetery that makes known ceremonies, rites, uses and customs of the dissident cult.

[390][391][392][393] Sagasta's constitutionalists protested because they were not called to govern, but, according to Carlos Dardé, "it seems clear that this party was still too weak and, above all, that some important military elements of it, such as General Serrano, Duke de la Torre, had not yet fully accepted the new monarchy and were involved in republican projects".

[391][412] The slaveholders succeeded in getting the law's implementing regulations to introduce even greater restrictions, such as the application of the punishment of "stocks and shackles" to "sponsored slaves" who refused to work, left the plantation without authorization, promoted strikes or disobeyed the orders of the overseers.

[441] On January 19, 1881, in the midst of an intense parliamentary debate, Sagasta claimed from the "royal prerogative" his right to govern, warning that without his concurrence the Alphonsine Monarchy would not be consolidated and launching a veiled threat:[442][443][444]If my efforts and my sacrifices were sterile because of your obstinacy and your tenacity, I will see it with a sorrowful soul, but with a clear conscience; because whatever the vicissitudes, whatever the destiny we all have prepared, as I must always fall on the side of freedom, I will then say with my forehead raised: I am where I was; neither then did I obey the inspirations of patriotism, nor today do I yield to the impulses of duty and the feelings of the heart.Shortly afterwards, the king received the highest party officials at the Palace on the occasion of his birthday (January 23) and finally forced the resignation of Cánovas on February 6 when he refused to sign a decree that he presented to him, and then entrusted the formation of a government to Sagasta.

[452][465] Sagasta had to maintain the balance between all of them,[452][465] also taking into account that the liberals, like the conservatives, "were organized, like any party "of notables" of the time, in dense clientelist networks that spread from Madrid throughout the peninsular geography and whose loyalty depended, more than on great ideological programs or personal friendships, on their ability to dispense all kinds of favors to their co-religionists that presupposed the discretionary, arbitrary and, therefore, fraudulent use of the administrative mechanisms".

Among the former, the provincial organic law, which established an electoral census close to universal suffrage ―on the other hand, the bills on local administration, right of association, contentious-administrative jurisdiction and trial by jury were not debated in the Cortes― and among the latter, the trade treaty with France in February 1882, which aimed to open the French market to Spanish wines in exchange for tariff concessions to French industrial products, which was contested by the protectionist sectors, especially in Catalonia,[481] and the reform of the Treasury, carried out by the Minister of Finance Juan Francisco Camacho de Alcorta ―which included a law on the conversion of the public debt, which with notable success allowed to lighten the burden of this in the budgets and to recover the credit in the international markets―, although the changes in the fiscal field were minimal (the consumption tax, falling on the popular classes, continued to be the most important after the customs tax).

[497] In fact, General Martínez Campos refused to be relieved at the head of the Ministry of War and also demanded that Vega de Armijo continue as Minister of State —he was to be replaced by the Marquis of Sardoal, another politician who like Romero Girón came from the Dynastic Left— and Sagasta had no choice but to compromise.

[567] Pidal y Mon had stood out during the debate on the Constitution of 1876 for his fierce defense of Catholic unity, but in 1880 he had accepted the legality in force and made a resounding appeal to "the honest masses who, thrown into the countryside by the excesses of the revolution, formed the Carlist party" to join the conservative camp.

[567][572][573] On April 27, 1884 ―that day the serious railway accident known as the catastrophe of the Alcudia Bridge in which 53 people died took place―[574] elections were held, again by census suffrage, which predictably gave a large majority to the Liberal-Conservative Party (318 deputies) due to the "good work" of Romero Robledo from the Ministry of the Interior.

[563][604] Despite the fact that his state of health was worsening ―"as a courageous man, he resists well and hides the progress of the ailment from the Queen and the doctors, but he loses strength every day", commented Cánovas del Castillo privately―, the king made an incognito trip to Aranjuez to visit the local cholera patients, which caused a constitutional crisis, since he did so against the express prohibition of the government.

Since I stood up to propose concord and to ask for a truce, there was no other way to make people believe my sincerity but to remove myself from power.As Ramón Villares has pointed out, "the death of King Alfonso XII and the agreement or pact of 1885 (improperly called the Pacto del Pardo) definitively marked the consolidation of the regime" of the Restoration.

[622] A good part of the Catholic ecclesiastical hierarchy, with the nuncio Rampolla at the head, also played an important role in the consolidation of the regime by making public on December 14, 1855, a declaration of support for the Regency, applying the principles of the encyclical Immortale Dei on the relations between Church and State that Pope Leo XIII had just published.

[627][628] As for the Carlists, the pretender Carlos VII, in exile after his defeat in the war like many other leaders, decided in 1878 to abandon the insurrectionary path and named Cándido Nocedal his representative in Spain ―his press organ would be El Siglo Futuro―, who imposed the identification between Carlism and Catholicism.

Official portrait of Alfonso XII by Federico Madrazo shortly before the king's death in November 1885 ( Museo del Prado , Madrid).
Caricature published by the satirical magazine Gil Blas on October 4, 1868, four days after Queen Isabella II was forced to go into exile. It was entitled To France!
Prince Alfonso de Borbón , aged twelve, when he was a pupil at the Stanislas school in Paris (1870).
The ex-queen Isabella II around 1870, in her exile in Paris.
Prince Alfonso with his preceptor, the Duke of Sesto , when he was a student at the Theresianum in Vienna.
Palace of Castile , residence of the ex-Queen Isabella II in Paris. She bought it with the money she had sent abroad during her reign in anticipation of losing the Crown. There she made her abdication in favor of her son Prince Alfonso and there it was decided to entrust the leadership of Alfonsismo to Antonio Cánovas del Castillo .
Antonio Cánovas del Castillo in 1872. From August 1873 he headed the "Alfonsina" cause.
General Serrano , President of the Executive Power of the Republic after the triumph of Pavía's coup on January 2, 1874.
Death of the Marquis of Duero (1884) by the painter Joaquín Agrassot . The death of General De la Concha , Marquis of Duero, in the siege of Estella in June 1874 thwarted Cánovas' plans to proclaim Prince Alfonso as King of Spain after the victory over the Carlists (which would not take place until February 1876).
View of the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst with the statue of Queen Victoria in the foreground. Prince Alfonso had been attending military studies there since October 1874.
General Arsenio Martínez Campos .
Portrait of General Joaquín Jovellar , whose support for Martínez Campos's pronunciamiento in Sagunto was decisive for its triumph.
Portrait of Alfonso XII made by Carlos Luis de Ribera y Fieve, as soon as he was proclaimed king of Spain.
Caricature by Tomás Padró published in La Flaca in 1874 entitled "From Alcolea to Sagunto. Passing through different points...". It shows the different stages that took place in Spain from the Revolution of 1868 ("Alcolea") to the pronunciamiento of Martínez Campos ("Sagunto"), to finally return to the beginning: the restoration in December 1874 of the Bourbon monarchy dethroned in September 1868. Appearing from left to right: the three military men who led the "Glorious Revolution" (Generals Prim and Serrano and Admiral Topete, the latter waving the Spanish flag with the motto " Long live Spain with honor"); the regent Serrano; King Amadeo I (at his feet Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla and Cristino Martos); the four presidents of the Executive Power of the First Spanish Republic (Estanislao Figueras, Francisco Pi y Margall, Nicolás Salmerón and Emilio Castelar); General Manuel Pavía whose coup d'état led to the unitary Republic of 1874 (the silhouette of Sagasta appears); and finally, showing his head behind the monarchic coat of arms, General Martínez Campos.
The screw frigate Navas de Tolosa , which was the Spanish Navy ship that carried Prince-king Alfonso from Marseilles to Barcelona.
Engraving showing the entrance of King Alfonso XII in Madrid as he passes under a triumphal arch erected in Alcalá Street by the association of ladies of the nobility.
Four images of the trip that Alfonso XII made to the north front . In the one at the bottom right: the visit he paid to General Baldomero Espartero on his return.
Portrait of the Constitutional Party leader Práxedes Mateo Sagasta by Ignacio Suárez Llanos (1877). Although he was the last president of the Government of the Republic, he was willing to collaborate with the new monarchy, especially to defeat Carlism and put an end to the Cuban insurrection . He was invited to the Palace by Alfonso XII.
Caricature of the president of the Government and leader of the Conservative Party, Antonio Cánovas del Castillo , dressed in the royal ermine, a frequent accusation among his detractors: "Mr. Cánovas reigns and governs at the same time, although he shows more fondness for the former than the latter", stated a prominent liberal leader. Satirical magazine El Buñuelo , February 10, 1881.
The Vicarage of Mariano Fortuny (1870). The government of Cánovas repealed the Provisional Civil Marriage Law of 1870 and reestablished the obligatory nature of canonical marriage .
Manuel Orovio Echagüe , Marquis of Orovio, Minister of Public Works, author of the decree bearing his name that limited academic freedom .
Board of Directors of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza : in the center Laureano Figuerola , president; above Justo Pelayo de la Cuesta Núñez , rector and vice-president; below, Hermenegildo Giner , secretary; in the right column and from top to bottom: Eduardo Gasset y Artime , Federico Rubio and Gumersindo de Azcárate ; in the left column and from top to bottom: Juan Anglada , Manuel Ruiz de Quevedo and Eduardo Chao .
Caricature published in La Madeja in January 1875. The caption reads: "Between light and darkness; the choice should not be doubtful". Spain, represented by a young woman, chooses the light ( tolerance and freedom of worship ) and rejects the darkness ( absolutism and Catholic unity that prohibits any other worship).
Former Queen Elizabeth II with her three youngest daughters in Paris (1875).
Wedding of Alfonso XII with his cousin María de las Mercedes de Orleans that took place in the basilica of Atocha on January 23, 1878. The former queen Isabella II did not approve of the marriage and did not attend the ceremony.
Manuel Alonso Martínez , leader of the sector of the Constitutional Party , who joined Cánovas' project to approve a new Constitution , abandoning the vindication of the Spanish Constitution of 1869 . In agreement with Cánovas, he convened the assembly of notables that met in May 1875 and participated in the nine-member commission that drafted the Constitution. His followers were called centralists because of the name of the group they formed: the Parliamentary Center.
Francisco Romero Robledo , a "repentant" " septembrist " who joined the Canovist project. As Minister of the Interior, he stood out for his electoral "maneuvers" to achieve an overwhelming majority for the Canovas Government, thus inaugurating one of the defining characteristics of the political regime of the Restoration : electoral fraud .
Portrait of Alfonso XII next to the throne and one of the two lions in the Cortes building by Alejandro Ferrant y Fischermans ( circa 1875).
Caricature from El Loro (1881) about " the peaceful turn " between the two great parties of the Restoration: conservatives and liberals . In the image above it is the liberal leader Sagasta who serves the table of the conservative government presided by Cánovas. In the image below, it is Cánovas who does the same with the liberal government presided by Sagasta.
Carlist coin of five peseta cents with the effigy of the pretender Charles VII . The Carlists had constituted in the Basque Country and Navarre an embryo of State with capital in Estella .
Engraving published on March 11, 1876 showing King Alfonso XII reviewing the Army of the North deployed in the Basque Country and Navarre to fight the Carlists .
Entrance in Madrid of King Alfonso XII after the victory over the Carlists (the triumphal arch was erected by the artillery corps in honor of the king and the army of operations). Engraving from La Ilustración Española y Americana , March 30, 1876.
Equestrian portrait of Alfonso XII painted by Román Navarro twelve years after his death (1897). It shows the monarch in his role of "soldier-king".
Fidel Sagarmínaga , General Deputy of Biscay , was one of the maximum representatives of the intransigent position. He rejected the law of July 1876 and refused to negotiate with the government, as the provincial councils of Alava and Gipuzkoa had already begun to do. For this reason the Provincial Council of Biscay was suppressed in May 1877, being replaced by an ordinary Provincial Deputation . The same thing would end up happening six months later to the Provincial Councils of Alava and Gipuzkoa because they still did not recognize the abolitionist law of July 1876. [ 348 ]
Caricature of El Buñuelo (March 13, 1881) of the integralist Carlist leader Cándido Nocedal , director of El Siglo Futuro , depicted with cassock and blunderbuss, like the priests of the Carlist parties. He strongly opposed the Catholic possibilism advocated by the new Pope Leo XIII and represented in Spain by Alejandro Pidal y Mon , founder of the Catholic Union .
General Arsenio Martínez Campos .
Triumphal entrance of General Martínez Campos in Havana after the signing of the Peace of Zanjón that put an end to the Ten Years' War ( La Ilustración Española y Americana , June 14, 1878).
Engraving that reconstructs the attack against Alfonso XII as he passed on horseback through the Calle Mayor in Madrid, from which he was unharmed (October 23, 1878). The author of the attempted assassination, Juan Oliva Moncusí , who declared that he belonged to the IWA, was arrested on the spot. He would be executed by garrotte on January 4, 1879.
Government presided over by General Arsenio Martínez Campos (above center). Below right Salvador Albacete , Minister of Overseas Territories.
Opening session of the Cortes held in the Senate Palace on July 1, 1878 ( La Ilustración Española y Americana , July 8, 1878).
Slaves working on a sugar cane plantation in Cuba.
La situació d'Espanya ( La Campana de Gracia , July 27, 1879). The caption reads: "Free Spain, happy and independent...". Spain is represented by a woman gagged by the Printing Law and besieged by misery, debt, phylloxera , trichina and the locust plague.
Engraving by Juan Comba on the visit of Alfonso XII to the Murcian town of Alcantarilla on the occasion of the terrible floods known as the Santa Teresa flood.
Postal stamp of the island of Cuba with the effigy of King Alfonso XII (1878).
Engraving of Le Monde Illustré that reconstructs the failed attempt against Alfonso XII and his wife the queen María Cristina perpetrated in Madrid on December 30, 1879.
Portrait of the liberal leader Práxedes Mateo Sagasta by José Casado del Alisal (1884).
A satirical auca on Sagasta's political career published by El Motín on April 24, 1881, two months after his accession to power.
Caricature showing the resistance of the conservatives to abandon power. The caption reads: "There goes the ship...". In the prow, the president of the government Cánovas , and in the stern, holding the sail, the Minister of the Interior Francisco Romero Robledo . Satirical magazine El Buñuelo , January 13, 1881.
Caricature representing the fall of Cánovas after the king refused to sign the decree that he had presented to him for signature because of its preamble (word that appears in the center of the explosion). The caption of the image reads: " Cuando menos se pensaba / El Monstruo al fin reventó " (When least thought / The Monster finally burst). Satirical magazine El Buñuelo , February 10, 1881.
Caricature celebrating the Conservative Party 's abandonment of power, with Cánovas at the head followed by his ministers ( the birds of the night ). The caption reads: "As soon as the sun of freedom is drawn on the horizon, the birds of the night flee in terror". Satirical magazine El Buñuelo , February 17, 1881.
The government of Sagasta (in the center). On his right General Arsenio Martínez Campos (War) and on his left Manuel Alonso Martínez (Grace and Justice). Above: Juan Francisco Camacho (Treasury); the Marquis de la Vega de Armijo (State); and Venancio González (Interior). Below: José Luis Albareda (Development); Francisco de Paula Pavía y Pavía (Navy); and Fernando León y Castillo (Overseas).
Caricature from El Motín (August 21, 1881) entitled "On which side will he fall?" showing Sagasta balancing between the right-wing and left-wing factions of his government, while the mice (conservatives, Carlists, democrats, republicans...) gnaw at the cheese on which he stands to make it fall.
Caricature from El Motín published on September 4, 1881 with the title "¡Ay, me pones en un tris!". It shows Sagasta disguised as a street florist putting a fleur-de-lis , the symbol of the Bourbons, in the buttonhole of the jacket of the republican Emilio Castelar .
Caricature from El Motín entitled Por dónde viene la muerte . It represents the dispute between the members of Sagasta 's government over the distribution of electoral districts. Following Sagasta (top left) and following clockwise: Venancio González , Francisco de Paula Pavía y Pavía , Manuel Alonso Martínez , Arsenio Martínez Campos , the Marquis de la Vega de Armijo , José Luis Albareda , Fernando León y Castillo and Juan Francisco Camacho .
Caricature from El Motín entitled "The fathers of the motherland, who at the same time are sons of it, and therefore grandfathers of themselves, addressing the Congress". In the foreground Sagasta leading his turkeys, followed by General Martínez Campos leading the members of his faction mounted on a donkey. Next the conservatives with Cánovas at the front, followed by the republican possibilist Emilio Castelar and the radicals, among them Segismundo Moret .
Caricature from El Motín depicting Sagasta (left, dressed as a sharpie) and Martínez Campos (right, in his general's uniform). The caption reads: "—Don't let me nick it instead of sharpening it. —Don't worry, I will leave it like Bernardo's".
Trial against the alleged members of La Mano Negra held in Jerez de la Frontera ( La Ilustración Española y Americana , June 30, 1883).
The exiled republican leader Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla . From Paris, he was the instigator of the 1883 pronunciamiento in Spain through the Asociación Republicana Militar , promoted and financed by him.
Meeting of the European kings and crown princes in the castle of Homburg invited by Kaiser Wilhelm I. In the center, King Alfonso XII wearing the uniform of colonel of the Hulans regiment stationed in Alsace (seized by Germany from France after its victory in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870) whose honorary command had been conferred on him by Wilhelm I (located on his right), which raised the protests of France.
Caricature published on the cover of the American satirical magazine Puck on November 28, 1883. It is entitled The Impulse of Bismarck (who is depicted as an elephant with a huge trunk) and the caption reads, "The Hulano king: 'I am taller than you, now.'" The hulano king is Alfonso XII that appears dressed in the uniform of colonel of the regiment of hulanos assigned in Alsace and that from the trunk of the elephant (Bismarck) says boastfully to a French soldier the phrase of the foot of the image: "I am higher than you, now".
Caricature of El Motín (October 16, 1881) titled " Uña por uña y diente por diente " (Nail for nail and tooth for tooth). It shows Cánovas and Sagasta holding in chains the lion that represents the Republic, while a civilian ( Eugenio Montero Ríos ?) pulls out its teeth and a military man (General Manuel Becerra y Bermúdez ?) cuts its claws. Emilio Castelar in the background seems to be making gestures. In the background the facade of the building of the Congress of Deputies .
Members of the government of José Posada de Herrera (center). To his right Segismundo Moret (Interior) and to his left General José López Domínguez (War).
Eugenio Montero Ríos , drafter alongside Manuel Alonso Martínez of the "law of guarantees", the new program of the liberal party approved in 1885.
Antonio Cánovas del Castillo in 1884.
The neo-Catholic Alejandro Pidal y Mon , Minister of Development . "For Cánovas it meant the enlargement of the [conservative] party's base on the right and the integration into the regime of part of the Carlist electorate". [ 546 ]
Railway accident known as the catastrophe of the Alcudia bridge in which 53 people died ( La Ilustración Española y Americana , May 8, 1884).
Caricature of La Araña on the plagues that plague Spain (August 15, 1885). Above, Cánovas spreading two wings ( Desgobierno, Modus vivendi ). In the center the Carlist pretender Charles VII with the body of a bat and in the wings are the words Carlism and Obscurantism . Around the rest of the plagues: cholera, debt, phylloxera, famine, misery, loans, contributions, embargoes...
Collapsed houses in Alhama de Granada as a consequence of the Granada earthquake of 1884 .
Visit of King Alfonso XII to the victims of the Granada earthquake of 1884 .
Valentí Almirall , one of the main promoters and editors of the Memorial de greuges ('Memorial of grievances'). The following year he published Lo catalanisme , a key work in the history of political Catalanism .
Caricature from La Araña published on August 22, 1885, at the height of the Carolinas crisis . The caption reads: "As she is so beautiful - poor Spain - the more they undress her - the more beautiful she is - Those who look at her - few pity her - the more they envy her". Stripping the woman who represents Spain are Cánovas , Sagasta , Segismundo Moret , the Carlist pretender Carlos VII , Francisco Romero Robledo and General José López Domínguez . In the distance Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla is scandalized. The German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck , the President of the French Republic Jules Grévy and the King of Italy, among other foreign leaders, watching the scene.
Caricature from La Araña published on October 2, 1885 in the midst of the Carolinas crisis . The caption reads: "In the Manzanillo tree / Spain is subject / and suffers from more than one rogue / arrow after arrow / Her friends with courage / fight in their tenacity / such infamous arbitration / and go to the Prevention". It represents the attacks of the German press, paid by Chancellor Bismarck , towards Spain, represented by a half-naked young woman tied to a tree who embodies the Spanish Prime Minister Cánovas, while the Spanish press that tries to defend her is censored and its leaders arrested.
Engravings published by La Ilustración Española y Americana showing the trip of Alfonso XII to Aranjuez to visit the cholera patients and the enormous impact he had among the population who cheered him when he returned to Madrid.
Painting by José Bermudo Mateos representing the visit made by Alfonso XII to a hospital in Aranjuez where cholera patients were admitted. He did not have the approval of the government because he feared for his health.
Cánovas, President of the Government, and Romero Robledo, Minister of the Interior, visiting cholera patients in Murcia. La Ilustración Española y Americana, July 8, 1885.
The Palace of El Pardo in 1885. On October 31, Alfonso XII moved there on the recommendation of his doctors. He died there on November 25.
Death of Alfonso XII or the Last Kiss (1887) by Juan Antonio Benlliure . At the bedside Queen Maria Christina of Habsburg and the two daughters of the monarchs.
Engraving published on December 8, 1885, thirteen days after the death of the king.
Funeral chapel of Alfonso XII installed in the hall of columns of the Palacio de Oriente in Madrid on November 28, 1885. Thousands of people visited it.
Antonio Cánovas del Castillo in 1889. The improperly named Pact of El Pardo agreed between him and Sagasta meant the consolidation of the political regime of the Restoration .
Swearing in of the Constitution by María Cristina (Palacio de las Cortes, December 30, 1885) by Francisco Jover y Casanova and Joaquín Sorolla (1897). Cánovas is holding the copy of the Constitution on which the regent María Cristina de Habsburgo takes the oath. At the lower right is General Arsenio Martínez Campos .
Caricature from La Araña published on August 15, 1885 with the title "A Cándido muerto, Cándido puesto". It represents the appointment by the exiled pretender Carlos VII as the new head of Carlism in the interior of Spain of Ramón Nocedal , after the death of his father Cándido Nocedal .
Caricature of La Araña (July 18, 1885) titled " El mayor de los conflictos " in which appear the republican leaders Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla , Francisco Pi i Margall and Emilio Castelar feeding with coal the boiler that represents the country and that is about to burst. Conservative ministers Francisco Romero Robledo and Francisco Silvela try to avoid it, while the President of the Government Cánovas fears the worst. In the background the liberal leader Sagasta meditatively contemplating the scene.