Raising Heirs to the Throne in Nineteenth-Century Spain

The Education of the Constitutional Monarch

Richard Meyer Forsting

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9783319754901
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia europea

This book analyses royal education in nineteenth-century, constitutional Spain. Its main subjects are Isabel II (1830- 1904), Alfonso XII (1857-1885) and Alfonso XIII (1886-1941) during their time as monarchs-in-waiting. Their upbringing was considered an opportunity to shape the future of Spain, reflected the political struggles that emerged during the construction of a liberal state, and allowed for the modernisation of the monarchy. The education of heirs to the throne was taken seriously by contemporaries and assumed wider political, social and cultural significance. This volume is structured around three powerful groups which showed an active interest, influenced, and significantly shaped royal education: the court, the military, and the public. It throws new light on the position of the Spanish monarchy in the constitutional state, its ability to adapt to social, political, and cultural change, and its varied sources of legitimacy, power, and attraction.

© The Author(s) 2018

Richard Meyer ForstingRaising Heirs to the Throne in Nineteenth-Century SpainPalgrave Studies in Modern Monarchyhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75490-1_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Richard Meyer Forsting¹

(1)

Wietmarschen, Germany

Richard Meyer Forsting

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

1.1 The Importance of Royal Education

In March 1894 Adolfo Posada, a prominent sociologist and prolific writer, published an article entitled ‘La Educación del Rey’ in Spain’s leading cultural magazine La España moderna. The 14-page piece reflected on how best to educate the king of Spain, Alfonso XIII, who was only seven years old at the time. Posada had already published works on female education, European constitutional law, and parliamentary government in Spain. ¹ Compared to these topics royal education might seem like a niche and rather inconsequential topic; it did not to Posada and his contemporaries. He opened his article with great confidence: ‘I do not believe that anyone will think the subject of this study a trivial thing and unworthy of a citizen’s reflection, no matter how he might think about political matters, as long as these really concern him and he takes them seriously.’ Anyone interested in politics should care for how their monarch was brought up. Posada was certain that the ‘education of the king is an issue that should matter greatly to all [Spaniards] (…).’ Furthermore, he claimed that the monarch’s upbringing had become a more significant and more complex issue during the constitutional period: ‘The education of the modern king, the constitutional king, in a democratic society like that of our time, is a difficult question (…).’ It was not immediately apparent how one should raise a monarch, whose position, powers, and function had changed so drastically after the death of the last absolutist king, Ferdinand VII, in 1833. How was one to educate a child who was to be the embodiment of ‘this modern political institution that we call the constitutional king; this king who reigns and does not govern; something like a line that is neither straight nor bent’? ²

Posada’s treatise is one example of several instances in which the education of a future constitutional monarch was publicly discussed in nineteenth-century Spain. Indeed, royal upbringing had acquired political importance from the very early stages of the emergence of the liberal state. The monarchy and its future, personified in the heir to the throne, whether that was Isabel II, Alfonso XII, or Alfonso XIII, were at the centre of political and public attention at various moments throughout the century. Contemporaries considered the monarchy an important institution. Taking the preoccupations of the time seriously raises fundamental questions: why did the monarchy continue to be regarded as relevant? What role did the heir play in this regard? Is the close attention paid to royal education indicative of the monarchy’s enduring social and political power, importance, and appeal?

Modernisation is a consistent theme in discussion on the persistence of the monarchy. Given Spain’s purported ‘backwardness’, her isolation from political, social, and economic developments in Europe and the supposed failure of liberalism, Posada’s description of Spain’s constitutional monarchy as modern is striking. ³ Intellectual historians Javier Fernández Sebastián and Gonzalo Capellán Miguel have demonstrated that Spanish elites reflected extensively on ‘modernity’, conceived of in terms of the rejection of tradition, the adaption of new technologies, and a transition from feudalism to capitalism. They argued that notions of Spanish exceptionalism should be revised to point out the parallels in the development of intellectual thought, much in the same way as the German Sonderweg, French singularité, and England’s uniqueness have been re-examined. ⁴ In some ways the categorisation of Spain as backward makes little sense. As Joaquín Varela has pointed out, the 1812 Cadiz Constitution was admired for its progressivism by radical liberals and democrats across Europe. Its reinstatement in Spain in 1820 gave renewed hope to European liberalism, which was on the retreat following the 1814 Congress of Vienna. More recently, Jens Späth has highlighted the importance of the 1812 Constitution to what he calls the ‘emergence of a pan-European transnational civil society’. ⁵ The Cadiz Constitution provided one of the central point of reference for European liberals. This is by no means the only example of the advancement of progressive thought in Spain. Spanish intellectuals never stopped engaging with Enlightenment thought, as evidenced by the effects of Krausism on education, science, and technology, and its popularity among Spanish academics. As Christian Rubio has argued, the ideological currents associated with Krausism allowed intellectuals to challenge tradition and develop new conceptions of a modern society, which ultimately led to the emergence of a Spanish avant-garde. ⁶

The question for this study is where and how the monarchy fits into these challenges to normative notions of Spanish backwardness. In what ways was the monarchy, and in particular the design of the heir’s education, an important factor in the modernisation of Spanish political culture? How did changes in the ways in which heirs were taught help the monarchy adapt to a more liberal, constitutional context and remain relevant in a rapidly changing socio-economic and political environment? Such changes would indicate that the institution was more flexible and, most importantly, more modern than it is usually given credit for. Additionally, this discussion opens up questions about Spain’s position in Europe and the extent to which other monarchies served as models of progressive, cosmopolitan, and modern reinvention.

Historians have paid little attention to royal education in nineteenth-century Spain. One reason for this is a more general lack of studies of Spanish history for the period, in particular outside of Spain. The nineteenth century sits somewhat uncomfortably between two of the most densely researched periods of Spain’s modern history—the imperial golden age and the tumultuous years of the Second Republic and the Guerra Civil. Moreover, a lack of publications by Spanish historians in English and the undeniable decline of Spanish influence in high politics, culture, and diplomacy since the eighteenth century have led to the history of nineteenth-century Spain becoming ensimismada—occupied with itself—and isolated from English-language historiography. This has contributed to what Adrian Shubert has called a ‘seriously truncated view of what constitutes Europe.’ ⁷ As we have seen this resulted in a reading of Spain’s history that focused on the state’s failure to reform, economic decline, excessive military intervention, and general backwardness. ⁸ By pointing to some of the more modern features reflected in royal education, its public discussion, and its engagement with political, social, and cultural changes, this investigation aims to add to the revision of accounts that exclude Spain from a wider European narrative and to challenge notions of Spanish backwardness and the failure of liberalism on the Peninsula. The second and third chapters will also address historiographical controversies over Spanish post-1824 imperialism and militarism in the nineteenth century, which has sometimes been interpreted as the forerunner to Spain’s twentieth-century military dictatorships. ⁹

This investigation aims to be part of a recent reappraisal of nineteenth-century Spanish studies by historians, linguists, and social scientists. These scholars have highlighted the importance of the nineteenth century to the development of modern Spain: her institutions, her conflicts, and her identity. This renewed interest has led to the revision of traditional tropes of decline and overly teleological interpretations and allowed for important insights into Spanish politics, society, and culture. ¹⁰ The foundation of the Nineteenth-Century Hispanist network is further evidence of a growing interest in the period and the effort to re-establish the Spanish experience as part of a broader European narrative. These developments are enabling a more extensive exchange of ideas, encouraging further research into hitherto neglected areas, and providing a platform on which to discuss and present new insights and interpretations. Contributing to this growing body of scholarship is one of the central goals of this study.

Research on the monarchy has not been excluded from this new-found interest, but there are still relatively few works that consider the crown’s role in the development of a modern constitutional state. ¹¹ Royal education has unsurprisingly not been studied systematically or in-depth. ¹² There is some treatment of this in biographies of Spanish kings and queens. Isabel Burdiel’s unrivalled biography of Isabel II dedicates several pages to the queen’s education as well as to her raising of Alfonso XII. ¹³ The latter’s upbringing was first documented by Manuel Espadas Burgos in his study of the origins of the Bourbon Restorati...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Teachers and Courtiers
• 3. Officers and Educators
• 4. The Public Sphere and Royal Education
• 5. Conclusion
• Back Matter