The nationalisation of the monarchy in Spanish liberal constitutionalism through royal travels: from Ferdinand VII to Alfonso XIII
Margarita Barral Martínez
Faculty of Geography and History
University of Santiago de Compostela
ORCID: 0000-0001-6621-8561
Published: 21/12/2024
DOI: https://doi.org/10.31338/ahi.2024.3.3
ABSTRACT: This study investigates how Spanish liberalism included the image of the crown in defining national identity. The dialogue between monarchy and liberalism that began with the Constitution of 1812 would develop throughout the 19th century through intense struggles and transactions where, in addition to political and constitutional materials, cultural elements were also exploited to define the symbolic function that the monarchy had to take over. The work focuses on the specific case of royal trips as key elements in the popularisation of the monarchs and in disseminating the national identity that this implied, an identity that always added Catholic morality and bourgeois domesticity. Based on the analysis of political and cultural historiography, period chronicles and newspaper sources, the text shows that the Spanish monarchy also needed to assume the new symbolic role that liberalism theorised.
KEYWORDS: monarchy, Spanish liberalism, nation, royal travels, bourgeois culture.
