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Spanish traditions of mixed monarchy were revived in the face of Napoleonic occupation, and later championed by opponents of restored autocracy. Discussions of ‘democracy’ as an option for modern Spain were both encouraged and constrained by this setting. Popular support for the absolutist claimant in the civil war of the 1830s set the scene for endorsements of Doctrinaire liberalism, entailing vesting power in the propertied and educated, for the benefit of the people. But sharp differences over how inclusive such a governing class should be encouraged some to argue for something more radically inclusive. A ‘democratic party’ first emerged among left-liberals in the 1840s, persisting as a force in Spanish politics thereafter. During the 1850s and 60s, there were many calls for democracy, variously interpreted. Democracy provided a leitmotif of politics after the revolution of 1868, leading subsequent historians to describe it as having inaugurated a ‘democratic sexennio’.

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