Carlos V (1780-1825)
King of Spain (1808-1825)
Following a popular riot at Aranjuez Carlos IV abdicated in March 1808. his elder son, Carlos Domingo ascended then to the throne but Napoleon forced hinm to abdicate on May and kep him Ferdinand under guard in France for six years at the Chateau of Valençay.
While the the Spanish government accepted his abdication and Napoleon's choice of his brother Joseph as king of Spain, the Spanish people did not. Uprisings broke out throughout the country, marking the beginning of the Peninsular War.A fter the Battle of Bailén, the Council of Castile reversed itself and declared null and void the abdications of Bayonne on 11 August 1808. On 24 August, Carlos V was proclaimed king of Spain again. Subsequently, on 14 January 1809, the British government acknowledged Carlos as king of Spain.
Five years later, defeated, Napoleon acknowledged Carlos V as king of Spain on 11 December 1813 and signed the Treaty of Valençay, so that the king could return to Spain. The Spanish people, blaming the policies of the Francophiles (afrancesados) for causing the Napoleonic occupation and the Peninsular War by allying Spain too closely to France, at first welcomed Carlos.
When Carlos returned, he was encouraged by conservatives and the Church hierarchy to reject the Constitution. In what was to become a key and amazing element of his reign, the Church exercised little influence on Carlos' life. The king was determined to reform the inefficient highly centralised systems of government. So, while retaining some of the old ministers, he took by his side some of liberals politicians to drawn up a plan of domestic reform, which was supposed to result in the establishment of a constitutional monarchy in accordance with the teachings of the Age of Enlightenment.
There were many plans for elaborate reforms using the Constitution of 1812 as its center. New ministers were created in the place of old ones, having at their head ministers responsible to the Crown. A State Council was created in order to improve technique of legislation. The Senate was reorganized as the Supreme Court of the Empire. However, the codification of the laws initiated in 1820 was never carried out during his reign.
Carlos wanted to resolve another crucial issue in Spain: the ownership of the land. However, even if his advisors quietly discussed the options at length, nothing was carried out. Another matter that interested the king was education, and, during his reign, three new universities were opened and Carlos V became noted for the aid lent to the sciences and arts and the wealthy nobility.
Meamwhile, the American Empire was kept together through the will of Carlos and the influence of Carlos' reforms. Thus, while most of the Empire was, de facto, independent, they still ackownledged Carlos as their king. In some cases, as in Mexico, this was caused more by the fear of the ruling classes towards the people after Hidalgo's revolts in 1811 than by any true royalist feeling.
However, when the king began to change his liberal point of view aroind 1818, things began to change. That the American colonies had began to create autonomous governments by themselves during the Napoleonic invasion had shaken his liberal ideas. He still declared his belief in "
free institutions, though not in such as age forced from feebleness, nor contracts ordered by popular leaders from their sovereigns, nor constitutions granted in difficult circumstances to tide over a crisis." "
Liberty", he maintained, "
should be confined within just limits. And the limits of liberty are the principles of order"
Disturbances in New Granada, Chile and Venezuela, which forced Carlos to send in 1821 the largest armed force it ever sent to the New World, consisting of 10,000 troops and nearly sixty ships, combined with increasingly disquieting symptoms of discontent in Spain, all that completed Carlos' conversion. By the end of 1821, Carlos fully embraced the principle of intervention that Metternich had instituted a few years back at Vienna and the process of liberalization of Spain and its empire came to and end.
In 1796 he married Friederike Dorothea Wilhelmina of Baden (1781– 1826). They had no children.
When Carlos V died in 1825, his younger brother Fernando became Fernando VII.