The Persians' Manifesto
The The Persians' Manifesto[1] (Spanish: Manifiesto de los Persas) was a text signed in Madrid on April 12, 1814 by 69 Spanish deputies, headed by Bernardo Mozo de Rosales and Juan López Reina, to urge King Ferdinand VII, who had arrived in Puçol on his return from exile, to restore the Old Regime and repeal the laws of the Cortes of Cádiz.
Contents
Historical context
The name of the manifesto refers to the custom of the ancient Persians of holding five days of anarchy following the death of the king. In the text, this anarchy is associated with the liberal system established in Spain with the promulgation of the Constitution of 1812, the latter seen as the Spanish counterpart of the French Revolution.
The Royal Order by which the manifesto was published, so that "these sentiments... be known by all through the press", is dated in Aranjuez on April 12, 1814, and signed by Pedro Macanaz and Mozo de Rosales.
Ferdinand the Desired, freed by Napoleon after the Treaty of Valençay, had returned to Spain and in theory was supposed to go to the capital in order to swear an oath to the Constitution of 1812, but his intentions remained unknown and he took a different route to that which the Regency authorities had set for him. On April 16 Ferdinand made his triumphal entry into Valencia, protected by General Francisco Javier de Elío. It was then that Mozo de Rosales presented him with the manifesto he had brought from Madrid.
The signatories of the manifesto defended the full sovereignty of the king (defining absolute monarchy as "a work of reason and intelligence... subordinated to divine law, to justice and to the fundamental rules of the State"), and called for the "holding of a special Cortes legitimately assembled, in freedom, and in accordance with the ancient laws" (which would thus be the true and "the ancient Spanish Constitution"), considering that those of Cadiz were not.
The document served as the political basis for the Decree of Valencia of May 4, which proclaimed the restoration of the Old Regime, abolishing the liberal Constitution and all the legislation of the Cortes of Cádiz.
Draft and signers
The manifesto was drafted at the house of Joaquín Palacín, a "fanatic and highly educated" canon and auditor, who lived on Calle de las Fuentes, 2nd floor. The sessions took place in a large and very reserved room. The soul of these meetings was Bernardo Mozo de Rosales, but it seems that Jerónimo Castillón, then Master at the University of Huesca, who lived in the same house, directed the discussion when Rosales was not present. The meetings were attended daily by some 20 or 22 people.[2]
There may have been drafters or inspirers of the manifesto who later did not appear among the signatories; among those mentioned by different sources are Juan Pérez Villamil, denied by other sources; Pedro Gómez Labrador and Juan López Reina.[3] The way of obtaining the signatures was also controversial, with some complaining later that they had done so without reading the final text, relying on some brief description of it given by those who had urged them to do so.[4]
Although the absolutists were a minority among the deputies in Cortes, they were significantly present among the 19 of the 39 deputies whose powers had been signed on January 15, 1814, the last to join, when the Duke of San Carlos was already present in Madrid, seeking support for the restoration. In the Cortes sessions they managed to obtain the vote of between 68 and 92 deputies, even achieving some parliamentary victories, such as the one that allowed the validation of the deputies from Galicia whose legitimacy the liberals disputed. Even so, the absolutists lost (123 against 17) the most controversial vote, which involved the opening of a case against one of their deputies, Juan López Reina (who, before the scandalized chamber, had proclaimed Ferdinand VII's status as absolute king).
Among the 69 signatories (32% of a maximum of 215 deputies in the Cortes of 1813–1814), at least 32 were clergymen, while only two are known to be military. Among the Aragonese deputies they were the majority (seven out of nine — in reality 9 was their theoretical number, but there were 18 Aragonese deputies in those second Cortes or "ordinary Cortes", as those of the first Cortes or "extraordinary Cortes" continued in office). The ten deputies for Galicia (out of a total of 14), in addition to the seven for Burgos (the total), the four for Toledo (out of a total of five), four for Valencia (out of a total of 22), three for Seville (out of a total of 7), three for Cordoba (out of a total of 5), two for Asturias (out of a total of 5), two for Catalonia (out of a total of 21), and two for Palencia (out of a total of 21) stand out for their number, two for Palencia (the whole), two for León (out of a total of 3), two for Segovia (the whole), two for Soria (the whole), two for Granada (out of a total of 11), two for Extremadura (out of a total of 6), one for Salamanca (out of a total of 3), one for Zamora (the whole), one for Toro (out of a total of 2), one for Ávila (out of a total of 2), one for Álava (the whole); and the rest, that is, ten, for overseas constituencies, all Americans (out of 69 present). There are none from the Balearic Islands (3), Cádiz (4), Canary Islands (2), Cuenca (4), Guadalajara (2), Guipúzcoa (2), Jaén (3), La Mancha (4), Madrid (4), Murcia (5), Navarra (4) and Vizcaya (1).
They were rewarded by the King, promoting them in their careers and granting all of them the Cross of distinction of the Sixty-nine faithful deputies; but among the positions they obtained were not those of his maximum confidence. In 1820, the liberals of the Triennium repressed them, confining in convents those who did not go into exile and depriving them of their offices and salaries, even removing from their dioceses those who were bishops; although by the decree of October 26, 1820, they were relieved of the formation of a cause. With the return to power of the absolutists in 1823, they were restored to their offices and positions.
Signatory list
Notes
- ↑ "The Persians' Manifesto" is how the document is commonly known. The full title of the manifesto, as it appeared in 1814, reads: Representation and manifesto that some deputies to the Ordinary Courts signed in the greatest straits of their oppression in Madrid, so that the Majesty of Don Ferdinand VII, upon his return to Spain from captivity, would be informed of the state of the nation, the wishes of his provinces, and the remedy that they believed to be opportune; everything was presented to His Majesty in Valencia by one of the said deputies, and is printed in compliance with a royal order.
- ↑ Incausa Moros, José María (2012). "Los Clérigos Absolutistas: Luis Joaquín Palacín y Jerónimo Castillón," Cuadernos de Historia Jerónimo Zurita, No. 87, pp. 85–96.
- ↑ Tusell, Javier ed. (1990). Manual de historia de España: Siglo XIX. Madrid: Historia 16, p. 95.
- ↑ Villanueva, Joaquín Lorenzo (1825). Vida Literaria de Dn. Joaquin Lorenzo Villanueva: o, Memoria de sus escritos y de sus opiniones eclestiasticas y politicas, y de algunos sucesos notables de su tiempo, Vol 2. Londres: Dulau, pp. 83–84, 117–18.
References
- Del Corno, Nicola (2019). Spagna Controrivoluzionaria: Il Manifesto de los Persas (1814). Alessandria: Edizioni dell'Orso.
- Fontana, Josep (1987). La Quiebra de la Monarquía Absoluta, 1814-1820. Barcelona: Ariel.
- Novella Suárez, Jorge (2007). El pensamiento reaccionario español, 1812-1975: tradición y contrarrevolución en España. Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva.
