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The internal situation in Spain was favorable to Napoleon's plans. The opposition to Godoy prepared a palace coup, the Aranjuez mutiny, between March 17 and 19, 1808, which caused the fall of Godoy while Carlos IV abdicated his son Fernando. -
The fall of Godoy and Carlos IV and the elevation to the throne of Fernando VII aggravated the crisis of the Spanish monarchy. This favored the plans of Napoleon who managed to attract the royal family to the French town of Bayonne, between April 21 and May 10, 1808. There, Napoleon obtained the abdications of the monarchs, Carlos IV and Fernando VII, resigning to his rights to the Spanish crown. -
On May 2, 1808, the people of Madrid erupted in anger and clashed with the French army. The fight was popular in character. The military garrisons in Madrid were ordered not to intervene against the French; only a few officers disobeyed orders and joined the rebellion. -
The most outstanding event of this first phase of the war was the battle of Bailén, where a French army led by General Dupont was defeated on July 19 by a Spanish army improvised by some provincial boards of Andalusia. -
The French emperor, at the head of the Grande Armée, entered Spain in November 1808. In December he took Madrid, where he returned to place his brother. Napoleon left Spain leaving a strong army under address of General Soult. -
The advance of the French army had forced the Central Supreme Board to move to Cádiz, a city more easily defended and free from French occupation, where ideas of renewal of politics and society could easily spread. -
The third and final phase of the war began in the spring of 1812, when Napoleon was forced to withdraw a very important part of his troops from Spain to swell the Grande Armée that was preparing for the invasion of Russia. The weakening of the French troops was taken advantage of by the Anglo-Portuguese and Spanish troops of the Duke of Wellington. A prudent and experienced military man, he led the English army that had landed in Lisbon in 1809. -
After the corresponding debates, the first Spanish Constitution was approved, a liberal Constitution that was approved on March 19, 1812, known as "La Pepa" for its approval on Saint Joseph's Day. -
In December 1813 Napoleon signed the Treaty of Valençay, in which Ferdinand VII was restored to the throne and put an end to the war. -
Fernando VII arrives in Spain, enters through Catalonia (March 1814), continues towards Zaragoza, and from there to Valencia, in this city he receives the Manifesto of the Persians, a letter from sixty-nine deputies urging him to implement the Old Regime and therefore the absolute monarchy. -
In 1820 Lieutenant Colonel Rafael del Riego revolted in Las Cabezas de San Juan with the troops that were concentrated to quell the rebellion in America; he and other soldiers who joined the uprising demanded that the king swear to the Constitution of 1812. -
On July 7, 1822, in Madrid, an absolutist military coup could end the liberal government. Behind him was also the king. It was put down by the National Militia and by armed civilians. Its effect was the fall of the government, moderate, of Martínez de la Rosa and his replacement by another, radical, chaired by the General Evaristo San Miguel. -
By decree of October 1, 1823, the king declared the nullity of everything approved by the Cortes and the government during the three constitutional years. Fernando VII unleashed a violent repression, the white terror, against the liberals, many of whom, including Rafael del Riego, were executed. -
By 1824 most of the colonies had become independent from the Spanish crown -
The reformist absolutists, in addition to putting down the ultra-realistic insurrections, also repressed all the liberal uprisings. The last attempt, the one carried out by a group led by José María Torrijos, ended with the execution of Torrijos and the 49 men arrested with him (December 1831). -
The supporters of Don Carlos, also called Carlists, in September 1832 staged the so-called events of La Granja, a conspiracy that forced a seriously ill Fernando VII to re-implement the Salic Law, when the monarch recovered, he repealed the aforementioned law and Don Carlos himself had to leave the court, going to Portugal, where he declared that he did not recognize his niece Isabel as a legitimate heir. -
On September 29, 1833, Fernando VII died and the regency of María Cristina began. Days later, in different parts of the country, there were armed uprisings in favor of Don
Carlos, thus began a civil war that pitted the Carlists against the Elizabethans.