King Ferdinand VIII of Spain has spent the last ten years in what the persecuted liberals call the “ominous decade” (and what will later be called an “orgy of repression”).

After the defeat of an attempt to force Queen Consort María Cristina to recognize the rights of Don Carlos, Ferdinand’s brother, during the king’s illness (September 1832), María Cristina's faction had become dominant at court.

She has succeeded in securing every important military command in the hands of supporters of the claims of Isabella.

Ferdinand recovers, banishes Don Carlos, and looks for moderate liberal support for his little daughter.

However, when, on September 29, the forty-nine-year-old Ferdinand dies, his three-year-old daughter becomes Queen Isabella II, with his twenty-seven-year-old widow ruling as regent.

María Cristina is obliged to lean on the liberals as Don Carlos asserts his royal claims from Portugal.

Conservative elements, the Catholic Church, and much of Navarre, Aragon, and Catalonia rebel against the government in support of Don Carlos; thus begins the so-called First Carlist War, which will last until 1839.