The Romantic King: Carlos VI
(1845-1861)
King Carlos VI (Don Carlos Luis, Count of Montemolín) was born in the royal palace in Madrid on 31 January 1818. He was the son of the Infante Don Carlos Maria Isidro and his first wife Doña Maria Francisca de Asis de Braganza. His godfather was his august uncle King Ferdinand VII. He became acquainted with the intrigues of the court at a very early age and followed his father into exile returning to Spain in the middle of the Civil War when he was twenty years of age. General Montenegro was made responsible for his education. The King was forced to taste the bitterness of exile. He took part in the conservative machinations to wed him to his cousin Isabel upholding the Carlist position that both be considered kings in the full plenitude of their rights and so repeating the original formula used by the Catholic Kings of Spain. The incipient negotiations failed, however because the other side insisted that he accept the role of King Consort, which was incompatible with the royal dignity that his father flaunted and that he himself would flaunt upon the former’s abdication.
In 1845 he accepted the Crown of Spain from the hands of Carlos V at the same issuing a manifesto to all Spaniards which among other things stated:
"During the ups and downs of the Revolution transcendental changes have occurred in the social and political organization of Spain, some of which I have deplored, as would a religious prince and Spaniard; however those who think that I am ignorant of the true situation and think that I want to accomplish the impossible are mistaken. I know full well that the best way of avoiding revolution is not to persist in destroying its accomplishments or in raising all that it has destroyed. Justice without violence; separation without reactions; prudent and equitable compromise between all sides; taking advantage of much of the good which our ancestors have left us without blocking what is healthy in the spirit of the age."
During this period the King settled in London where he madly fell in love with a young English aristocrat and considered abdicating, but the events of 1846 which resulted in General Ramón Cabrera’s uprising in Catalonia resulted in Carlos VI’s abandoning his passion to take an interest in the war which ended in 1849 with the defeat of Carlism. On 10 July 1850 he married Princess Doña Maria Carolina de Borbón de Parma in the royal palace in Caserta, which resulted in a rapprochement between his cousin Isabel and her husband Don Francisco de Asís and with an exchange of letters and a project of agreement on the mutual understanding and recognition of Carlos VI as legitimate King, which never came to fruition.
Carlos VI, now convinced that the problem of the governing of Spain could only be solved by the force of arms prepared a new national Carlist uprising, which attempted to compromise important commands in the liberal party. On 29 March 1860 with the complicity of the governor the King arrived in Mallorca and from there organized an expedition to land on the mainland. This finally occurred at San Carlos de la Rápita and resulted in the King being taken prisoner by the disaffection of the liberals who had joined the conspiracy but who now shamefully abandoned the plot.
In order to obtain his freedom the King, under duress, was forced to sign an act (null and void in law) renouncing the throne, which he honored . Once freed with his brother Don Fernando he convinced the infante Don Juan to accept his abdication . He died on 13 January 1861 in Trieste of typhus which he had caught from his brother the infante Don Fernando who predeceased him on 1 January of the same year.