1 - THE IBERIAN STATES

Summary

In 1763 Spain emerged from the Seven Years War a weaker and a wiser power. It was now clear to Charles III and his ministers that there was no short-cut to strength and security, and that the survival of Spain as a colonial power and her recovery of status in Europe depended on her own political and economic resources, the decline of which the earlier Bourbons had done something to arrest but little to reverse. Already be-fore his accession to the throne of Spain in 1759 Charles III had displayed his reforming ideas as duke of Parma and king of Naples and had declared his intention of leading Spain back to greatness. He had considerable qualifications for the task. In spite of his own limited intelligence—seen perhaps in his childish obsession with hunting—he impressed foreign observers and his own subjects with his seriousness and application to business. His religious devotion was accompanied by a sober personal life and a chaste loyalty to the memory of his wife, María Amalia of Saxony, who died soon after their accession to the Spanish throne. He was highly conscious of his own sovereignty, and his absolutist views can be seen in the advice which he gave to his son: ‘Anyone who criticises the actions of the government, even though they are not good, commits a crime.’ Above all, however, he showed his talent for government in his ministerial appointments: he chose his advisers not from the aristocracy, who were politically inept, nor, as is sometimes alleged, from the middle classes, who were not yet a recognisable force in Spain, but from a group of university-trained lawyers among the lower ranks of the nobility, who were devoted to absolute monarchy and whose minds were open to the practical applications of the Enlightenment.