Affair of the Spanish Marriages

Affair of the Spanish Marriages, the political maneuvering surrounding the dual marriages (October 10, 1846) of Queen Isabella II of Spain to her cousin Francisco de Asís de Bourbon, duque de Cadiz, and of her younger sister and heiress to the throne, Luisa Fernanda, to Antoine, duc de Montpensier, the youngest son of King Louis-Philippe of France. The marriages revived dynastic ties between Spain and France but caused the breakdown of friendly relations between England and France.

In 1843 and 1845 the French foreign minister, François Guizot, had assured the British that Isabella would marry within the Spanish or Neapolitan branches of the House of Bourbon and that her sister Luisa would not marry a French prince before the birth of one or more children to Isabella. This agreement was upset when, in June 1846, Viscount Henry John Temple Palmerston returned to the British Foreign Office and revived the idea of a marriage between Isabella and Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, the cousin of the English prince consort. Palmerston also opposed the French support of the Moderados, Spaniards who created the constitution of 1845. The Spanish and French governments feared the British designs, including possible British support for the Progresistas, who sought restoration of the liberal constitution of 1812, and so they planned and carried out the double marriage. Isabella had to be pressured into accepting her cousin, partly because he was thought to be impotent. Palmerston fruitlessly protested that the marriages were contrary to the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), which forbade the union of the French and Spanish Bourbons. The effect of the rupture with Britain and the liberal principles it represented was to push Louis-Philippe into closer alliance with the conservatives, led by Guizot, at a time when the liberals were gathering strength. This alliance contributed to Louis-Philippe’s downfall in 1848.