To be honest I am still figuring out the specifics. Speaking in board terms, the Phillipines along with Cuba and Puerto Rico will eventually get a say in their own governance. Whether it is a modified dominion-like status or something else I am not sure.
Viva El Regente!: The Birth of Modern Spain
- Thread starter Patton
- Start date
To be honest I am still figuring out the specifics. Speaking in board terms, the Phillipines along with Cuba and Puerto Rico will eventually get a say in their own governance. Whether it is a modified dominion-like status or something else I am not sure.
Cuba 1842-1845
The plantation owners initially thought they had nothing to fear from the new governor-general. Why should they? They had dominated every governor-general for decades, and Serrano was so inexperienced and so young, how could he succeed where Tacon had failed? They soon realized that they were gravely mistaken. Serrano was unlike any previous governor-general. He was both brilliant and ruthlessly ambitious. He was determined to achieve greater power, and saw his success in Cuba has vital to achieving higher political office back in Spain. Serrano also enjoyed the full confidence of Espartero, and as such that of young Queen Luisa. As a result, the planters would not be able to rein Serrano in as they had Tacon, by appealing over his head to a sympathetic Maria Christiana. Upon arriving in March 1842, Governor-General Serrano got immediately to work. He began by resuming Tacon’s program of internal improvements, but with one major difference, a new focus on railroads. Tacon had been horribly ambivalent about railroads, feeling it was improper for Cuba to have railroads before motherland did but recognizing their enormous economic potential. He was also reportedly contemptuous of America and Engalish dominance in the railroad business referring to it as “Anglo-Saxon ironmongery”. These odd beliefs lead Tacon to adapt a chaotic laissez-faire approach in which the colonial government did little to promote the railroads. Instead the driving force behind them was the plantation owners, who saw them chiefly has a way to move larger quantities of sugar to market in a shorter amount of time. This had lead to Cuba’s railroad system to develop haphazardly, with multiple lines connecting the main sugar producing regions to ports like La Habana, but few lines directly linking cities together. Furthermore, outside of the main sugar producing areas, they were no railroads. In fact the entire province of Oriente (the southeast portion of the island) did not contain a single railroad. Serrano centralized railroad construction under the colonial government’s control. He additionally hired American and English engineers not only to build the railroads but to also mentor Spaniards and Cubans in the trade as well. Over the years, this policy would drastically increase the speed of transportation of both people and goods across the island. However, while it would lead to increase sugar production and the wealth of the island, it would not cause a diversification 0f the Cuban economy, but rather increased its dependence on the mono-cropping sugar.
One figure that would play a pivotal rule in Serrano’s tenor was David Turnbull, the British consul in La Habana and an avid abolitionist. He had pressured the previous governor general, General Geronimo Valdes to enforce previous treaties banning the slave trade. Valdes, however had owned his position to his sister’s friendship with Maria Christina. With the failure of the October Plot, Valdes realized that he lacked the authority to make any substantial changes in policy and it was likely that he would soon be recalled to Spain. Turnbull decided to be patient and see what the new captain-general’s position would be. [1]
Serrano was unlike his predecessors. He had clear orders to end the slave trade but in the way he saw fit, not on British terms. He cracked down on the slave trade hard. Slavers, who had grown used to impunity, were devastated and numerous ships were seized. Squeezed by the Spanish in Cuba and the British in West Africa, the slave trade would steadily decline from 6,300 slaves imported in 1841 to only 230 in 1846. Despite the severity of the crackdown, Turnbull was not yet satisfied. He reiterated the old British demand that all slaves imported since 1820 be emancipated. Serrano refused because he knew this was impossible, the planters were already furious at his crackdown and any move towards even limited emancipation would likely be meet by massive resistance. Turnbull attempted to have a squadron of warships sent to La Habana to in order to force Serrano’s and Espartero’s hands. However, Turnbull had overplayed his own hand. While Foreign Secretary Palmerstone might of approved of such a confrontational scheme, the new Foreign Secretary Lord Aberdeen was much more cautious. Additionally, Aberdeen was under heavy pressure from the pro-Free Trade members of Parliament to eliminate the high tariffs on Cuban sugar, not go to war with Spain and cut them from off from that market completely. Thus Turnbull did not get his ships and showed Serrano he had no way to back up his ridiculous demands. Despite this success, the planters were furious at Serrano. They wrote a multitude of missives to their Moderado allies in the Cortes. But, the Moderados were still suffering immensely in the aftermath of the October Plot and thus could provide little support.
Turnbull had not taken his recent failure well. Instead of graciously accepting defeat, he secretly began organizing a slave rebellion. In September, Serrano’s military forces captured the troublesome British diplomat and expelled from the island. However, his co-conspirators, Vice Consul Francis Cocking and Jose Miguel Mitchell (an emanicipado) fled into Cuba’s interior. [2]. Then in February 1843 two separate slave rebellions broke out. The first erupted on the Cardenas rail line. However, thanks to Serrano’s centralizing control over the railways, the rebellion was quickly suppressed. The second revolt would prove more difficult to defeat. Inspired by rumors of the railway revolt, the slaves of the Alcancia Plantation rose up in rebellion. The plantation was almost completely razed to the ground and soon plantations across Cardenas were burning. Serrano’s forces were stuck in the interior trying to mop up the remnants of the railroad rebellion and thus chaos reigned in Cardenas; the rich and powerful planters flee for their lives and dozens of whites are massacred.
The destruction of the Alcancia Plantation, which marked the beginning of the 1843 slave revolt.
A slave accused of taking part in the revolt is forced to undergo La Escalera punishment.
In light of what they deemed his “strong and forceful approach”, Serrano regained much of his standing in the eyes of the planters. Even so, Serrano realized that repression, no matter how horrible was merely delaying the inevitable. Only abolition could prevent the creation of another Haiti in Cuba. Slowly, he won some of the more liberal of the planter families to the idea that gradual and compensated emancipation was better than an endless cycle of repression and rebellion. However, the more conservative planters refused to admit that slavery could not be maintained indefinitely. In order to safeguard their “peculiar institution” they began to look to their neighbor to the north who shared it, the United States.The Cuban planters had always viewed the Americans, in particular the Southerners as their not too distant of cousins. The United States was Cuba’s largest trading partner and the smartest Cuban aristocrats had sent their sons to be educated in American university for decades. The major Cuban sugar families maintained offices in New Orleans and New York to market their products in America. But what the planters of Cuba really admired about the United States was the vast amount of political power and protections that its slave owners enjoyed. With Serrano’s decision to abolish the slave trade, many believed that Madrid would inevitably enforce abolition at some point. The only way to preserve their vast fortunes was to throw off the yoke of Spanish “oppression” and run into the benevolent arms of the expansionist United States. To implement their scheme turned to an old colleague of Governor Valdes, the Venezuelan-born General Narcisco Lopez. Lopez had quickly resigned from his post after Serrano’s arrival and traveled to the United States as an agent of the annexationist planters in 1845. Upon his arrival in New Orleans in the fall of 1845, he was warmly welcomed in political circles but the growing crisis with Mexico over Texas held America’s attention and few were interested in Lopez’s scheme…. for now.
[2] In OTL, both were quickly captured.
[3] While these revolts did take place OTL, they were suppressed quickly. However with most of Serrano’s troops focused on the railroad revolt and Turnbull’s accomplices helping the slaves organizing, the plantation revolts spiral out of control. La Escalera was a real (and quite horrific punishment) however, its famous use was in the aftermath of an 1844 slave revolt, which does not occur in TTL simply because the 1843 revolts are much bloodier and thus more severely repressed.
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It's a very great AH, with a great original POD. I hope you can update it very very very soon, Patton. 
However, I think you should take into account certain facts which involve a great unlikelihood to the course of events that you have exposed in your AH:
When Pope Gregory XVI criticized the interference of the Spanish State in the Spanish Church, Espartero responded with a measure that nobody had expected: he threatened with the creation of a Spanish national Church separate of the papal authority, taking as an example the Anglican Church.
For this, the Minister of Justice appeared before the Spanish Parlaiment two bills, dated June 31, 1841 and January 20, 1842, with the final purpose of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction was abolished and diplomatic relations with Rome were broken. However, both projects failed to gain the parliamentary support necessary to succeed. In your AH, you could use the political consequences from the assassination of the little Isabel II to achieve the creation of a Spanish national Church, which could pick up elements of the OTL Opus Dei (ie, the sanctification of daily work, which could increase the productivity of the Spanish economy, accelerating its future industrialization).
PS: By the way, will you have in mind the possible Iberian unification through a dynastic union?
After all, Luisa Fernanda de Bourbon was born on January 30, 1832 and the future Pedro V of Portugal was born on September 16, 1837, allowing a marriage that united the two Iberian crowns in the next generation, making the Iberian unification in the near time to the Italian and German unifications. In addition, the Braganza Wettin dynasty (a branch of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, also reigned in Great Britain and Belgium) was always much more willing to parliamentary monarchy that the vast majority of the Spanish Bourbons. It also allows greater independence in its foreign policy, making Iberia/Spain was far more independent of the Franco-British interests, you avoid the Spanish diplomatic mantra between 1833 and 1939: "When England and France go according, Spain follows them: when opposing each other, Spain refrains."
Also, if you decide to marry Luisa Fernanda de Bourbon with the heir to the Portuguese throne, General Espartero could use a constitutional amendment to extend his term as regent (that reform could have done immediately after the assassination of Isabel II or when a Progressive not akin to Espartero reached the rank of Prime Minister after 1843 elections), and that marriage is performed in less than one year after the end of the Espartero Regency.
What do you think about it?
However, I think you should take into account certain facts which involve a great unlikelihood to the course of events that you have exposed in your AH:
- The Regency Espartero was reviled in its time, not only by events that you have avoided (Barcelona uprising and subsequent repression would be prevented by the fact of convince Espartero from the enormous damage to Spain's interests if his government signed this free trade agreement with Great Britain, damaging the fledgling Spanish textile industry, concentrated mainly in Catalonia), but above all for his authoritarian -and even dictatorial- government. Although we have to understand him, because he didn't trust politicians (and he had his reasons, in view of the continuing scuffle occurred between Moderates and Progressives during the course of the 1st Carlist War). However, he only trusted in his comrades in arms, especially those who had fought with him in the Spanish America (including General Jose Ramon Rodil y Campillo, who was Prime Minister between June 17, 1842 and May 9, 1843 in OTL), defending the Spanishness of those lands. That leads to alignment against him by the vast majority of politicians, including most of the Progressives. This would surely lead to that, when elections were held in 1843, the new parliament settle a Progressive government headed by a Progressive political not too amicable to the personalist political form of government by Espartero.
- The drafting of a new constitution, I think in my opinion, is a big mistake because the Constitution of 1837 (which was a reform of the Constitution of 1812) was a text product of consensus existed between Progressives and Moderates, whose main intention was that new constitutional text had a long period of time effective to prevent the continuous succession of party constitutions, as happened in Revolutionary France and as would be the nineteenth century in Spain because of political intransigence of Moderates and Progressives. The new laws that you say it could be done perfectly from the constitution of 1837, as its subsequent legislative development. However, I think convenient a small constitutional reform in the near future (1850s) to retrieve the parliamentary representation given to Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines (in the 1812 Constitution there was that representation, but in the 1837 Constitution proclaims that the overseas provinces will be governed by special laws) to prevent it from happening Cuban separatist insurrection, as it happened in OTL 1868. As for the drafting of a new constitution, the only ones willing to do so at that time would be the most right-wing Moderates to establish a definitive solution to the Carlist challenge, marrying the liberal Queen with Don Carlos' eldest son, Infante Carlos, Count of Montemolin (this possibility caused Don Carlos' abdication about his rights to the Spanish crown in 1845). And if the 1837 Constitution is still in force, the Regency Espartero continue until January 30, 1846, when Luisa Fernanda de Borbon had 14 years old and it would be of age under the Constitution (unless you decide to amend the 1837 Constitution to establish the majority of the monarch to a older old age, as at 18; then Espartero could remain as Regent until January 30, 1850).
- At that time I doubt that Espartero or any Spanish leader approve a large increase in voting rights due to the powerful influence of the clergy (too akin to the Carlism) and the revolutionary mood against the government in years of severe scarcity by the more rebellious elements. Therefore, there would continue a suffrage limited to those men who could attest to the payment of a certain annual income to the Treasury by the new taxes created by the recent tax reform. Therefore, any electoral reform is discarded if whose requirements for be a voter would be a Spanish man able to read and write, unless it is a late proposal advocated personally by Espartero himself, because so he would try to secure control of the Spanish government after the end of his Regency.
When Pope Gregory XVI criticized the interference of the Spanish State in the Spanish Church, Espartero responded with a measure that nobody had expected: he threatened with the creation of a Spanish national Church separate of the papal authority, taking as an example the Anglican Church.
For this, the Minister of Justice appeared before the Spanish Parlaiment two bills, dated June 31, 1841 and January 20, 1842, with the final purpose of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction was abolished and diplomatic relations with Rome were broken. However, both projects failed to gain the parliamentary support necessary to succeed. In your AH, you could use the political consequences from the assassination of the little Isabel II to achieve the creation of a Spanish national Church, which could pick up elements of the OTL Opus Dei (ie, the sanctification of daily work, which could increase the productivity of the Spanish economy, accelerating its future industrialization).
PS: By the way, will you have in mind the possible Iberian unification through a dynastic union?
After all, Luisa Fernanda de Bourbon was born on January 30, 1832 and the future Pedro V of Portugal was born on September 16, 1837, allowing a marriage that united the two Iberian crowns in the next generation, making the Iberian unification in the near time to the Italian and German unifications. In addition, the Braganza Wettin dynasty (a branch of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, also reigned in Great Britain and Belgium) was always much more willing to parliamentary monarchy that the vast majority of the Spanish Bourbons. It also allows greater independence in its foreign policy, making Iberia/Spain was far more independent of the Franco-British interests, you avoid the Spanish diplomatic mantra between 1833 and 1939: "When England and France go according, Spain follows them: when opposing each other, Spain refrains."
Also, if you decide to marry Luisa Fernanda de Bourbon with the heir to the Portuguese throne, General Espartero could use a constitutional amendment to extend his term as regent (that reform could have done immediately after the assassination of Isabel II or when a Progressive not akin to Espartero reached the rank of Prime Minister after 1843 elections), and that marriage is performed in less than one year after the end of the Espartero Regency.
What do you think about it?
It's a very great AH, with a great original POD. I hope you can update it very very very soon, Patton.
However, I think you should take into account certain facts which involve a great unlikelihood to the course of events that you have exposed in your AH:
By the way, I think you should consider a possible political line encouraged by the Regent:
- The Regency Espartero was reviled in its time, not only by events that you have avoided (Barcelona uprising and subsequent repression would be prevented by the fact of convince Espartero from the enormous damage to Spain's interests if his government signed this free trade agreement with Great Britain, damaging the fledgling Spanish textile industry, concentrated mainly in Catalonia), but above all for his authoritarian -and even dictatorial- government. Although we have to understand him, because he didn't trust politicians (and he had his reasons, in view of the continuing scuffle occurred between Moderates and Progressives during the course of the 1st Carlist War). However, he only trusted in his comrades in arms, especially those who had fought with him in the Spanish America (including General Jose Ramon Rodil y Campillo, who was Prime Minister between June 17, 1842 and May 9, 1843 in OTL), defending the Spanishness of those lands. That leads to alignment against him by the vast majority of politicians, including most of the Progressives. This would surely lead to that, when elections were held in 1843, the new parliament settle a Progressive government headed by a Progressive political not too amicable to the personalist political form of government by Espartero.
- The drafting of a new constitution, I think in my opinion, is a big mistake because the Constitution of 1837 (which was a reform of the Constitution of 1812) was a text product of consensus existed between Progressives and Moderates, whose main intention was that new constitutional text had a long period of time effective to prevent the continuous succession of party constitutions, as happened in Revolutionary France and as would be the nineteenth century in Spain because of political intransigence of Moderates and Progressives. The new laws that you say it could be done perfectly from the constitution of 1837, as its subsequent legislative development. However, I think convenient a small constitutional reform in the near future (1850s) to retrieve the parliamentary representation given to Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines (in the 1812 Constitution there was that representation, but in the 1837 Constitution proclaims that the overseas provinces will be governed by special laws) to prevent it from happening Cuban separatist insurrection, as it happened in OTL 1868. As for the drafting of a new constitution, the only ones willing to do so at that time would be the most right-wing Moderates to establish a definitive solution to the Carlist challenge, marrying the liberal Queen with Don Carlos' eldest son, Infante Carlos, Count of Montemolin (this possibility caused Don Carlos' abdication about his rights to the Spanish crown in 1845). And if the 1837 Constitution is still in force, the Regency Espartero continue until January 30, 1846, when Luisa Fernanda de Borbon had 14 years old and it would be of age under the Constitution (unless you decide to amend the 1837 Constitution to establish the majority of the monarch to a older old age, as at 18; then Espartero could remain as Regent until January 30, 1850).
- At that time I doubt that Espartero or any Spanish leader approve a large increase in voting rights due to the powerful influence of the clergy (too akin to the Carlism) and the revolutionary mood against the government in years of severe scarcity by the more rebellious elements. Therefore, there would continue a suffrage limited to those men who could attest to the payment of a certain annual income to the Treasury by the new taxes created by the recent tax reform. Therefore, any electoral reform is discarded if whose requirements for be a voter would be a Spanish man able to read and write, unless it is a late proposal advocated personally by Espartero himself, because so he would try to secure control of the Spanish government after the end of his Regency.
When Pope Gregory XVI criticized the interference of the Spanish State in the Spanish Church, Espartero responded with a measure that nobody had expected: he threatened with the creation of a Spanish national Church separate of the papal authority, taking as an example the Anglican Church.
For this, the Minister of Justice appeared before the Spanish Parlaiment two bills, dated June 31, 1841 and January 20, 1842, with the final purpose of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction was abolished and diplomatic relations with Rome were broken. However, both projects failed to gain the parliamentary support necessary to succeed. In your AH, you could use the political consequences from the assassination of the little Isabel II to achieve the creation of a Spanish national Church, which could pick up elements of the OTL Opus Dei (ie, the sanctification of daily work, which could increase the productivity of the Spanish economy, accelerating its future industrialization).
PS: By the way, will you have in mind the possible Iberian unification through a dynastic union?
After all, Luisa Fernanda de Bourbon was born on January 30, 1832 and the future Pedro V of Portugal was born on September 16, 1837, allowing a marriage that united the two Iberian crowns in the next generation, making the Iberian unification in the near time to the Italian and German unifications. In addition, the Braganza Wettin dynasty (a branch of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, also reigned in Great Britain and Belgium) was always much more willing to parliamentary monarchy that the vast majority of the Spanish Bourbons. It also allows greater independence in its foreign policy, making Iberia/Spain was far more independent of the Franco-British interests, you avoid the Spanish diplomatic mantra between 1833 and 1939: "When England and France go according, Spain follows them: when opposing each other, Spain refrains."
Also, if you decide to marry Luisa Fernanda de Bourbon with the heir to the Portuguese throne, General Espartero could use a constitutional amendment to extend his term as regent (that reform could have done immediately after the assassination of Isabel II or when a Progressive not akin to Espartero reached the rank of Prime Minister after 1843 elections), and that marriage is performed in less than one year after the end of the Espartero Regency.
What do you think about it?
Thank you for your very kind words Linese. They are very much appreciated as our your ideas. I will be honest with you, I would have liked to keep the Tl updated regularly. However, my life has been quite busy and hectic lately. Additionally the other reason is that I have had tremendous difficulty finding sources in English (as I am not fluent in Spanish), on both Spain and her colonial possessions during this time period. As you seem quite knowledgeable, perhaps you could recommend some sources?
As such, I didn't want to write about things I didn't know enough about. In retrospect, there are several things in the TL I would change, particularly writing a completely new constitution. Part of the problem was I couldn't find good translations of the OTL constitutions. In the future, I hope to do a reboot of this TL, once I have the time to give it the attention it deserves and I am able to find good enough sources.
You raise several interesting points and I shall to address each of them adequately:
1. I realize Espartero was unpopular OTL. However, due to events in this TL is quite popular among the people, such as the crushing of the traitors who murdered young Queen Isabel II, the implementation of a new liberal constitution, and the refusal to sign the free-trade with Great Britain. Thus the liberals, desiring electoral victory are hesitant to cast him aside. As for his dictatorial style, I am aware of it and I planned on him being quite frustrated with the lessening of his power as he moved from regent to "mere" prime minister and making unpopular moves as a result.
2. The idea of a national Spanish Church is a fascinating one. However, I think it makes more sense to use as a threat than to actually implement. It would hand the Carlists the support of the Vatican, and would alienate many pious Spaniards from the regime.
3. I admit that I hadn't thought of Pedro as a potential match but he would certainly make things more interesting than any of the suitors I previously had in mind. Although a wonder if the union of the two countries would be supported both at home or tolerated by Britain and France. However, I must say it is a fascinating idea.
Thanks again Linese. I do truly appreciate your thoughtful feedback and intriguing ideas
.Thank you for your very kind words Linese. They are very much appreciated as our your ideas. I will be honest with you, I would have liked to keep the Tl updated regularly. However, my life has been quite busy and hectic lately. Additionally the other reason is that I have had tremendous difficulty finding sources in English (as I am not fluent in Spanish), on both Spain and her colonial possessions during this time period. As you seem quite knowledgeable, perhaps you could recommend some sources?
As such, I didn't want to write about things I didn't know enough about. In retrospect, there are several things in the TL I would change, particularly writing a completely new constitution. Part of the problem was I couldn't find good translations of the OTL constitutions. In the future, I hope to do a reboot of this TL, once I have the time to give it the attention it deserves and I am able to find good enough sources.
You raise several interesting points and I shall to address each of them adequately:
1. I realize Espartero was unpopular OTL. However, due to events in this TL is quite popular among the people, such as the crushing of the traitors who murdered young Queen Isabel II, the implementation of a new liberal constitution, and the refusal to sign the free-trade with Great Britain. Thus the liberals, desiring electoral victory are hesitant to cast him aside. As for his dictatorial style, I am aware of it and I planned on him being quite frustrated with the lessening of his power as he moved from regent to "mere" prime minister and making unpopular moves as a result.
2. The idea of a national Spanish Church is a fascinating one. However, I think it makes more sense to use as a threat than to actually implement. It would hand the Carlists the support of the Vatican, and would alienate many pious Spaniards from the regime.
3. I admit that I hadn't thought of Pedro as a potential match but he would certainly make things more interesting than any of the suitors I previously had in mind. Although a wonder if the union of the two countries would be supported both at home or tolerated by Britain and France. However, I must say it is a fascinating idea.
Thanks again Linese. I do truly appreciate your thoughtful feedback and intriguing ideas
I understand your position, Patton, and I hope you can return to write your AH very soon.
About some sources in English, I have to say I have not found any decent about this period of contemporary history of Spain. However, the Wikipedia in Spanish is quite good with regard to information relating to him and his terms in office (the Regency and the Progressive Biennium), but there isn't a translation of its content into Wikipedia in English.
In terms related to the different constitutions Spanish sources, the following link takes you to a catalog with all these constitutional provisions, in Spanish: http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/con...n=fechapublicacionoriginal&paginaNavegacion=1
As for the numbered points:
1. Espartero was very unpopular in OTL... in the political class. But Espartero was very very popular among the working and middle classes. The Spanish people loved him. And as for the implementation of the free trade policy, I think he could be convinced to not sign a free trade agreement with Great Britain by the statements of one or more technocrats of its time (as you do with Ramon de Santillan), but in exchange he would encourage a fall in tariffs to force a continuous modernization of the emerging Spanish industry, preventing its lethargy before the great boost that would keep the Spanish captive market (and its overseas provinces and colonies) for the Spanish industry (well, it was completely impossible because of the huge smuggling from Gibraltar that existed since its capture by the British in 1704; it had become the largest nest of smugglers in Europe), encouraging business competition to force the continuous modernization of the Spanish industry (and incidentally, to avoid the concentration of most of the Spanish industry in Catalonia, Basque Country and Asturias; ie, achieve the survival and further development of the industry pioneers in other regions, as was the case in OTL with industries located in Malaga and its surroundings, that disappeared because of high tariffs to English coal, much cheaper and better quality than Asturian coal -and the port of Gijon was not yet ready to transport Asturian coal in industrial quantities-, and delays in obtaining official permission to build a railway connecting the Malaga industries with coal mined in the towns of Belmez (Jaen province) and Peñarroya (Córdoba province)).
2. I recognize that this idea is very attractive (above all, by its likely relations with Latin American Catholicism through Cuba and Puerto Rico), but certainly would not apply at all (it will surely arise Carlism again, much stronger than in 1833), although it could perhaps be a measure of pressure to Rome for the Spanish State obtain higher privileges on the Spanish hierarchy (for example, taking advantage of the power vacuum after the French Revolution of 1848 to occupy Andorra, an independent principality whose heads of state were the French head of state and the Spanish bishop of La Seu d'Urgell), claiming false Carlists proclamations transmitted from Andorra (a likely possibility, due to the fact that during the Liberal Triennium, the head of the diocese of La Seu d'Urgell proclaimed and chaired an absolutist Council of Regency against Madrid's liberals authorities put in place in 1820).
3. The marriage of Pedro da Braganza Wettin and Luisa Fernanda de Borbon (she being the Spanish Queen) it would be the culmination of a historic aspiration given since the time of the Reconquista: an only state for the entire Iberian Peninsula.
As for the possible inconvenience abroad who would oppose more would be the French, but if the wedding is held at the time of the Second French Republic (1848-1852), they have very little to say. As for Great Britain, on the one hand it would run against its historic policy with regard to Spain and Portugal, but on the other hand, considering that marriage would unify the Iberian countries on a side branch of his own future dynasty (the Braganza Wettin was a branch of the dynasty Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, dinasty of the children of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert), the British government did not intervene against that dynastic unification. And if they are much more prone to this marriage, they could deliver Gibraltar to Spain as a wedding gift in return for keeping intact its status as a port for supplies for British ships (just kidding,
. Without Gibraltar, the British will fail to have some influence on Western Mediterranean until Malta).By the way, I also believe that the new government out of the 1843 elections or of the first elections after the ending of Espartero Regency (as established in the 1837 Constitution, the maximum period of a parliament term of Congress is of three years, while that with each new election of the Congress of the Deputies, a third of the Senate is renewed), this new government (which will chaired by a Progressive, but not akin to the authoritarian policies of General Espartero) propose an amnesty for those conspirators against Espartero not directly involved in the events in Madrid that caused the assassination of Isabel II, as General Leopoldo O'Donnell (in the 1840s he was a Moderate without political aspirations, which sought to establish a healthy bipartisanship in Spain) and General Ramon María Narvaez (during the 1st Carlist War he became a Moderate because of his enmity with Espartero, who had recently declared Progressive himself). After all, the failed uprising of 1841 had an almost absolutist outlook, due to the political claims of Maria Cristina de Borbon and her husband about the Spanish Crown.
Thus, it would seek a final political reconciliation between Progressives and Moderates (the latter could have evolved into what was the Liberal Union led by General O'Donnell in the 1850s and 1860s, a new party which brings together left-wing Moderates and right-wing Progressives; while the more right-wing Moderates could join with former Carlists to form a new fundamentalist party, the Neocatholics), without removing opportunities for the Spanish colonial expansion, as the outdoor adventures approved by the governments of General O'Donnell in OTL (Cochinchina Campaign, Hispano-Moroccan War of 1859-1860, Franco-British-Spanish military expedition to Mexico, Annexation of the Dominican Republic and Chincha Islands War).
For example, Espartero could take advantage of the political chaos caused after the assassination of Isabel II to strengthen his government, improve the economy, make a small constitutional reform (to establish the majority of the monarch to a older old age, as at 18; then Espartero could remain as Regent until January 30, 1850, a more approximate date of her upcoming wedding date with the groom chosen by the Regent, probably Pedro da Braganza Wettin in order to unify Spain and Portugal in an only state) and start a war against Morocco (claiming the kidnapping of some Spanish merchants by the Rif tribes, something very common in those times) to distract officers from the old Carlist army and the Church hierarchy in a new crusade against the old enemy, the Moors (which could see the Spanish conquest of Morocco as a crusade against the Islam, as in the times of the Reconquista) in the 1840s (after all, the French began the conquest of Algeria in the 1830s).
And as for the later development of Spanish foreign policy (after the Spanish conquest of Morocco), I not surprise me that after a period of Spanish-British approach, Spain is redirecting towards an alliance with the emerging Prussia led by Bismarck (because of the British refusal of return Gibraltar to Spain), leading to the Spanish participation in the Franco-Prussian War to recover Roussillon (lost in the Peace of the Pyrenees in 1659) and get the French Algeria and Andorra (if there has not been annexed in 1848, taking advantage of the power vacuum in France because of the 1848 Revolution). And if that were the case, the Kingdom of Italy could follow the Spanish example and fight against France to recover Nice, Savoy and Corsica; significantly altering the European and global political context of the last third of the 19th century (especially if the Spanish politicals don't hinder the great technological progress made in the country, such as the invention of the electric submarine by Isaac Peral).
What do you think about it?
PS: My previous post was incomplete. Besides, my nick is Linense, not Linese.