Forging liberal states: Palmerston’s foreign policy and the rise of a constitutional monarchy in Spain, 1833–7

British and Spanish historiography have consolidated the idea that Palmerston’s foreign policy toward Spain during the first Carlist War is representative of a ‘liberal phase’ in his career as foreign secretary. However, a close study of Palmerston’s private correspondence with his minister in Madrid, George Villiers, reveals that this compromise with liberalism actually masked a brute struggle with France for political ascendancy in Spain. Historiography considers realpolitik to appear only in his late career (c.1848–65), but this study of Palmerston’s approach to the Spanish Question reveals that it was the moving force of his foreign policy from the very beginning.