Carlism Berween Liberalism and Right-Wing Conservatism

The Case of Juan III (1861–1868)

Abstract

The article is dedicated to Juan III (1822–1887), the Carlist pretender to the Spanish throne in 1861-1868, who opposed himself to the Carlist «mainstream» by expanding the ideological framework of this movement to the left up to liberalism. As a liberal, Juan III becomes an exponent of the trend (left-wing bias within Carlist conservatism) which originates from Carlist general R. Maroto Yserns` activities who signed in 1839 the peace of Vergara with the Isabelites and expresses in Carlos VI`s attempts to find an agreement between the two branches of the Spanish Bourbons in the form of a dynastic marriage with Isabel II. The article analyzes the failures of Juan III as a political practitioner who sought to combine in his activities the desire to integrate himself into the New — liberal-bourgeois — Order (but for that it was necessary to find agreement with the liberal-conservative wing of the «moderados» on the right and the progressives on the left) and to remain at the head of the Carlist «mainstream» which stood on the positions of right-wing conservatism. To identify the contradictions between such incompatible intentions, Juan III's views are contrasted with — the second wife of Carlos V — Maria Teresa, Princess de Beira`s ideas who expressed the interests of the Carlist «mainstream» on the eve of the liberal-bourgeois revolution of 1868-1974 and the third Carlist war. It is shown that the figure of Juan III — for all its irrelevance in the socio-political conditions of Spain in the XIX century — becomes a kind of herald for the modern leaders of Carlism (traditionalist and liberal conservative ones) who live and act separately from the currently marginal “right-wing faction” of Carlism which still stands on the positions of right-wing conservatism.