ons, six Spanish-American colonies had been recognized as
free and independent states (1826). Spain had for three centuries
ruled the richest and the fairest land on the earth. She had shown
herself utterly undeserving of the opportunity, and unfit for the
responsibilities imposed by a great colonial empire. She had sown
the wind and now she reaped the whirlwind. She did not own a foot of
territory on the continent she had discovered!

CHAPTER XXIII.

In 1833 King Ferdinand VII. died, leaving one child, the Princess
Isabella, who was three years old. Here was the opportunity for the
adherents of Don Carlos.

The "Salic law" had been one of the Gothic traditions of ancient
Spain, and had with few exceptions been in force until 1789; when
Carlos IV. issued a "Pragmatic Sanction," establishing the succession
through the female as well as the male line; and on April 6, 1830,
King Ferdinand confirmed this decree; so, when Isabella was born,
October 10, 1830, she was heiress to the throne, _unless_ her
ambitious uncle, Don Carlos, could set aside the decree abrogating the
old Salic law, and reign as Carlos IV.

In the three years before his brother's death he had laid his plans
for the coming crisis. Isabella was proclaimed Queen under the regency
of her depraved mother Christina. The extreme of the Catholic party,
and of the reactionary or absolutist party, flocked about the Carlist
standard; while the party of the infant Queen was the rallying point
for the liberal and progressive sentiment in the kingdom; and her
cause had the support of the new reform government of Louis Philippe
in France, and of lovers of freedom elsewhere.

The party of the Queen triumphed. But the Carlists survived; and, like
the Bourbons in France, have ever since in times of political peril
been a serious element to be reckoned with.

During the infancy of the Queen, Spain was the prey of unceasing
party dissensions; Don Carlos again and again trying to overthrow
her government, and again and again being driven a fugitive over the
Pyrenees; while the Queen Regent, who was secretly married to her
Chamberlain, the son of a tobacconist in Madrid, was bringing disgrace
and odium upon the Liberal party which she was supposed to lead.

In 1843 the Cortes declared that the Queen had attained her majority.
Her disgraced mother was driven out of the country and Isabella II.
ascended her throne. Isabella had a younger sister, Maria Louisa, and