The Chivalrous King:
Carlos VII
(1866-1909)
On 30 March 1848 Doña Maria Beatriz de Austria-Este , wife of Juan III Carlist King of Spain gave birth in Laybach to a son who was to be named Carlos Maria de los Dolores by his godfather and grandfather Carlos V. His godmother was the Princess of Beira. His father’s character made it necessary for his education to be placed in the hands of his grandfather the Duke of Modena. Following and as a result of the reunification of Italy he and his tutor moved to Vienna where he received a cosmopolitan education without abandoning his Spanish studies which were in the hands of the Princess of Beira. Already fully aware in 1866 of his obligations he wrote a letter to his father in which he urged the latter to state his position on his succession rights and obligations. Don Juan did not deign to reply to the letter with the result that from that moment on his son considered himself King of Spain in the fullness of his rights and obligations. At age 18 he married Doña Margarita de Parma at Frohsdorf castle. In July 1868, Don Carlos convened a Grand Carlist Council in London at which it was decided that he would take on the dynastic name of Carlos VII and that in exile he would use the title of Duke of Madrid. Later, after a meeting with his father, the latter abdicated in his favor on 3 October 1868 in Paris. This was the year when the queen Doña Isabel, dethroned by the Revolution, arrived in Paris and tried to meet with Don Carlos in order to work together for the Restoration .
Events in Spain, however, were moving so fast that the Revolution without hesitation placed a Savoy on the throne which caused Don Carlos to issue a call to General Rada which was the long awaited call for a new Carlist uprising:
"Geneva, 14 April 1872. Dear Rada: The solemn moment has arrived. Good Spaniards are calling for their legitimate King and the King cannot lend a deaf ear to the clamor of the Fatherland. I order and command that on the 21st of this month a general uprising take place in all of Spain to the cry of ¡Down with the foreigner! ¡Long live Spain! I shall be in the front line. Those who carry out their obligations will be well-rewarded by the King and the Fatherland; those who do not comply will suffer the full rigor of my justice. God keep you."
Don Carlos, as his grandfather Carlos V before him crossed the border at Dancharinea and after the capture of the town of Estella, established the Court there.
The successful evolution of the war on all fronts resulted in that most of the north was in the hands of Don Carlos except for the important cities. Important towns were also taken in Catalonia, and in Aragon. Carlist forces operated with a great deal of mobility in the center and in the mountainous northwest. The great victory at Lácar was the culminating point of Carlist arms and was where Alfonso XII, the sworn constitutional monarch had placed himself in front of his troops and almost lost his life. After Lácar, Carlos VII solemnly swore to uphold the Vizcayan statutes before the millenary tree of Guernica . The Madrid government however unleashed a cruel political persecution against Carlism which affected the war in such a way that toward the end of 1875 Don Carlos’ army was forced to beat a retreat. On 27 February 1876, Don Carlos VII crossed the border again pronouncing the famous, "I shall return" which turned out to be in vain as he was not again to step on Spanish soil or take up arms in defense of his rights. Once in exile he addressed himself to the Spaniards:in the following terms:
"Wishing to contain the bloodshed, I have decided not to continue the struggle, glorious to be sure, but for the moment sterile. Though I see myself forced to give in to circumstances I neither lose heart nor faith and I maintain intact my rights which are those of the legitimacy of Spain…"
The first few years of exile became period of constant travel to cities all over the world until his mother gave him the Loredán palace in Venice where he established his residence and where for the rest of his life he received every Spaniard regardless of condition or ideology who wished to pay his respects. In 1884 he took a trip to India and the Far East and in 1887 his curiosity took him to Spanish America where he was received as King of Spain by the majority of the Spanish colony.
After the death of his wife Doña Margarita de Parma in 1893 he married Doña Berta de Rohan the following year. She tried by all means at her disposal to separate him from his faithful followers. After several trips with his wife he settled again at Loredán . Shortly thereafter he passed away in Varese on 18 June 1909 of an attack of hemiplegia and was buried in Trieste dressed in the uniform of Captain General bedecked with the Golden Fleece, the Grand Cross of San Fernando and the campaign medals of 1872-76.
He had been the most popular of Carlist kings, beloved of Spaniards, the most chivalrous and royal. His bearded figure still evokes the sympathy of the beholder. Not only was he King over a good part of the national territory, he was a popular leader with the charisma of a medieval patriarch. Had he won the war his generous and catholic heart would have won the peace. With his rout, Spain lost a great historical opportunity to reconcile Carlist traditionalism with what was known as the "spirit of the century" and who knows, would have avoided the civil disturbances which followed . A Carlist victory would, without a doubt, have nipped the birth of splintering regional nationalisms in the bud.