[1700 - 1808] The Bourbon Dynasty and the Enlightenment

We begin in the year 1700. The air in Spain is thick with the dust of a magnificent, but decaying, empire. In the royal palace in Madrid, King Charles II, last of the Spanish Habsburgs, lies on his deathbed. He is a tragic figure, frail and childless, the sad product of generations of royal inbreeding. For years, the great powers of Europe have been circling Spain like vultures, for with Charles’s last breath, the vast Spanish Empire—stretching from the Americas to the Philippines—is up for grabs. When the end finally comes, a continent holds its breath. His will is read, and the name it declares as heir is not an Austrian Habsburg, but a Frenchman: Philip, Duke of Anjou, the grandson of the mighty Sun King, Louis XIV of France. The decision ignites a firestorm. An alliance of European powers, fearing the union of the French and Spanish crowns, declares war. For over a decade, the War of the Spanish Succession turns Spain itself into a battlefield. It is a brutal, draining conflict, a true world war of its time. Cities are besieged, fields are burned, and the Spanish people are viciously divided. While the region of Castile supports the French Philip V, the lands of the Crown of Aragon—Catalonia, Valencia, Aragon itself—back the Austrian claimant, Archduke Charles. By 1714, the war is over. Philip V is securely on the throne, but at a tremendous cost. Spain has lost its European possessions—Sicily, Naples, the Spanish Netherlands—and most gallingly, the British have seized the strategic rock of Gibraltar, a wound that has not healed to this day. With the war won, Philip V, the first Spanish Bourbon, begins to remake the country in the image of his native France. The old system, where regions like Catalonia and Valencia had their own laws and institutions, is swept away. With a series of decrees known as the *Nueva Planta*, Philip imposes a single, centralized Castilian system of law and administration across all of Spain. For the first time, Spain is not just a personal union of different kingdoms, but something approaching a unified state. The change is not just political; it’s visible, tangible. The severe, fortress-like architecture of the Habsburgs gives way to the light and opulence of the French Baroque and Rococo. When the old Royal Alcázar burns down in 1734, Philip seizes the opportunity. He commissions a new Royal Palace, a colossal statement of Bourbon power with an astonishing 3,418 rooms, designed to rival Versailles. Court life transforms. The austere black cloth of the Spanish Habsburg court is replaced by the silks, powdered wigs, and elaborate etiquette of France. The gardens of the royal palace at La Granja de San Ildefonso become a wonderland of fountains and sculpted hedges, a piece of Versailles transplanted to the mountains of central Spain. Yet, for the vast majority of Spaniards, life remains a hardscrabble existence governed by the seasons and the church bells. Nearly 90% of the population works the land, often as tenants for powerful, land-owning nobles or the immensely wealthy Catholic Church. A deep, conservative piety runs through society, often clashing with the new, foreign ideas filtering in from France. This tidal wave of change, the great European Enlightenment, truly arrives with King Charles III, who takes the throne in 1759. He is the very model of an "enlightened despot." Having already ruled Naples for two decades, he comes to Spain not as a philosopher, but as a practical, tireless reformer. He looks at his capital, Madrid, and sees a medieval city—filthy, unpaved, and dangerous at night. He gets to work. Streets are paved and widened. A sewer system is planned. Over 10,000 oil lamps are installed, making Madrid one of the best-lit cities in Europe. He commissions grand neoclassical monuments like the Puerta de Alcalá and lays the groundwork for institutions like the Prado Museum and the Royal Botanic Garden. He is determined to drag Spain, kicking and screaming if necessary, into the modern age. His reforms go deeper. He attempts to curtail the vast, unchecked power of the Church, most dramatically in 1767 when he expels the powerful Jesuit order from all Spanish territories, a shocking move that sends tremors through the Catholic world. He tries to stimulate the economy by creating "Royal Factories" for luxury goods like porcelain and tapestries, breaking up monopolies, and improving roads. During the 18th century, Spain’s population grows from around 8 million to over 11 million, a clear sign of increasing prosperity. But the old Spain does not yield easily. In 1766, Charles’s Italian minister, the Marquis of Esquilache, enacts a decree to modernize public dress, banning the traditional long capes and wide-brimmed hats—the *chambergo*—which were often used by criminals to hide their faces and weapons. The reaction is explosive. The people of Madrid riot. It is not just about hats; it is a protest against a foreign minister, against rising bread prices, and against a government seen as attacking Spanish identity itself. The Esquilache Riot is a violent reminder of the deep resistance to change. Charles III is forced to back down and dismiss his minister, learning a hard lesson about the limits of absolute power when it confronts popular tradition. The optimism of Charles III’s reign, however, fades with his son, Charles IV, who ascends the throne in 1788. A well-meaning but weak and indecisive ruler, he is far more interested in hunting and clock-making than in the complex affairs of state. Power falls into the hands of his wife, Maria Luisa of Parma, and her charismatic, ambitious favorite, Manuel Godoy. As the court descends into a swamp of intrigue and corruption, a storm gathers across the Pyrenees. The French Revolution of 1789 changes everything. Spain, horrified by the execution of its Bourbon cousin Louis XVI, initially goes to war with revolutionary France, but is soon defeated. Godoy, in a stunning reversal, then allies Spain with France, now led by the brilliant and terrifying Napoleon Bonaparte. This alliance proves disastrous. In 1805, at the Battle of Trafalgar, a combined Franco-Spanish fleet is utterly annihilated by the British under Admiral Nelson. The defeat shatters Spanish naval power and leaves its vast overseas empire vulnerable and disconnected. By 1808, the situation has reached its breaking point. Napoleon, seeing the weakness and division of the Spanish monarchy, sends his armies into Spain under the pretext of invading Portugal. But his troops stay. He lures Charles IV and his son, Ferdinand, to the French city of Bayonne, and there, through a series of threats and manipulations, forces them both to abdicate the Spanish throne. In their place, he names his own brother, Joseph Bonaparte, King of Spain. Napoleon believed the Spanish people, freed from their corrupt monarchy, would embrace his modern, enlightened rule. He could not have been more wrong. He had not seized a throne; he had ignited a nation. The story of the Enlightenment in Spain ends here, not with a philosophical debate, but with the roar of a popular uprising that will engulf the peninsula in a new, even more brutal war.