could inherit, and to this arrangement he adhered during the last year of his life. In Spain, therefore, as in Portugal, an uncle representing the Absolutist cause was opposed to a niece whose friends, whether they wished it or not, were forced to become Constitutionalists. At the time of Ferdinand's death, Carlos was with Miguel at Evora, and it was probable that if he were to make a dash for the throne, he would meet with but feeble resistance.

The moral support of England and France, implied in their prompt recognition of the child-queen Isabella, saved her throne for the moment, but it was evident that a mere declaration of sympathy was not enough. A decisive blow must be dealt at both the Pretenders; and Lord Palmerston so contrived it that, as he wrote to his brother, not only did it "settle Portugal, and go some way to settle Spain also, but, what is of more permanent and extensive importance, it establishes an . . alliance among the constitutional States of the West which will serve as a powerful counterpoise to the Holy Alliance of the East. Like all strokes of genius, the proceeding was extremely simple. On the 22nd of April 1834, a Quadruple Treaty was signed by England, France, Spain, and Portugal, by which the four Powers bound themselves to compel Carlos and Miguel to withdraw from the Peninsula.

I carried it through the Cabinet by a coup de main [wrote Palmerston to his brother, with a chuckle] taking them by surprise and not leaving them time to make objection. I was not equally successful with old Talley and the French Government, for they have objections in plenty. But they were all as to the form in which I had proposed to make them parties to the transaction [i.e., that France should give her consent to an arrangement previously concluded between England, Spain, and Portugal], not to the thing itself.

Palmerston's triumph was immediate and apparently complete. Metternich was much annoyed, and would certainly have interposed on behalf of Don Carlos if Palmerston had not taken the initiative. "Isabella," he wrote to the Austrian minister at Paris, "is the Revolution incarnate in its most dangerous form; Don Carlos represents the monarchical principle hand to hand with pure revolution.” But the instant collapse of the Pretenders left him no excuse for intervention. Miguel threw up the game and went to Genoa, Carlos to London.

Nothing [writes Palmerston on June 27] ever went so well as the Quadruple Treaty. It has ended a war which might otherwise have lasted months. Miguel, when he surrendered, had with him from twelve to sixteen thousand men, with whom he could have marched into Spain, forty-five pieces of artillery, and twelve hundred cavalry. Had he dashed into Spain, and taken Carlos with him, there was only Rodil with ten thousand men between him and Madrid, and part of Rodil's army was suspected of Carlism. But the moral effect of the treaty cowed them all-generals, officers, and men; and that army surrendered without firing a shot.

"The cause of Carlos," continued Palmerston, "is desperate "; but there he made a mistake. Carlos reappeared in Spain, and his arms, though confined to the northern provinces, were there, thanks to the abilities and ferocity of his general Zumalacarregui, uniformly successful. The Isabellists were unfortunate in their chief; for Christina, though a woman of great ability, was wholly ignorant of government, and much addicted to gallantry. But, worst of all, Constitutionalism in Spain proved to be a plant of sickly growth; the forms of party government were there, a ministry and an opposition, Moderados and Progressists, but the spirit was wanting; there were no fixed principles, no political creeds, nothing but envy, strife, division, and a struggle

for the loaves and fishes of office. These evils were intensified by the growing want of cordiality between France and England, for when the British minister at Madrid gave advice to a Progressist premier, it was an effective counterblow for the representative of France to promise moral support to the Moderado leader of the Opposition.

It was in 1835, after the Whigs had returned to office under Melbourne, that the entente cordiale between England and France, which had won Belgium its liberty and saved Portugal from Miguel, began to wane and perish until, to anticipate a saying of Palmerston's at the time of the Spanish marriages, there was neither entente nor cordialité. This unfortunate coolness may undoubtedly be traced, to a considerable extent, to personal causes. Talleyrand, the doyen of the diplomatic world entertained strong feelings of antipathy towards Palmerston, who probably spoke as he wrote of him, as "old Talley," and who certainly treated him, though quite unintentionally, with scanty courtesy. Madame de Lieven, with the usual exuberance of feminine spite, informed Greville that it was impossible to describe the contempt as well as dislike which the whole Corps Diplomatique had for Palmerston, and, pointing to Talleyrand who was sitting close by, surtout lui. In 1835 the old Prince returned to Paris, and promptly took his revenge on the English secretary by informing Louis Philippe that intimate relations with England were no longer worth preserving, and that Palmerston was hopelessly untrustworthy. The result of these representations was that France began to draw rapidly nearer to the autocratic Powers, whereby, as Palmerston pointed out in a letter to Lord Granville, "she [a constitutional monarchy] was placing herself

in a false position, and at no distant time would find her mistake."

The informal dissolution of the Quadruple Alliance naturally had its effect upon the fortunes of Isabella. Little or no head was made against the Carlist generals, whose hideous ferocity was almost worthy of Alva; ministry succeeded ministry; and the constitutional cause, assailed by the forces of absolutism from without, was nearly shattered by a revolutionary outbreak from within. The Queen Regent soon discovered that the Quadruple Treaty was far from proving a good working plan. The joint intervention of England and France, which would have ended the war in a moment, was out of the question; and neither of the Powers was willing to act as the other's catspaw by marching into Spain alone. "France," said Louis Philippe to the Chambers, "keeps the blood of her children for her own cause." There was even a time when Lord Palmerston accused the French Court of openly sympathising with the Carlists, and when the Pretender's bands were allowed to smuggle arms across the Spanish frontier in direct contravention to the supplementary articles of the Treaty.

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Under the circumstances, Palmerston was forced to play a somewhat unsatisfactory part. At one time, in accordance with the terms of the Treaty, a British squadron was stationed on Spanish coasts with orders to co-operate with the Isabellists; but such assistance was only partial in its operation, and had but little effect. on the ultimate result of the war. Even less effective was the British legion which in 1835 was allowed by an Order in Council to volunteer for Spanish service under Colonel de Lacy Evans. All the arguments that had been used against the volunteers to Portugal could be

used, and were used, with even greater strength on the present occasion. Lord Mahon pointed out in an exceedingly telling speech, made on March 10th, 1837, that, even if it were allowed that intervention in the affairs of Spain were justifiable, the means adopted were the worst that could have been chosen. "It was peace without tranquillity, war without honour. . . . If the noble lord was determined to unclose the temple of peace for war, he should have thrown open the main portal through which British soldiers could have walked upright; and not have sent them through a side door, by which they had to creep upon their hands and knees through the slimy and intricate intrigues of the court of Madrid." On the 17th of April, Sir Henry Hardinge criticised the military side of the question, and argued that Spain where the butchery of prisoners was the order of the day, was no school for British soldiers. He had been for a long time in the army, but he had never witnessed or heard of such acts of insubordination, mutiny, and ferocity, as had been committed by the soldiers of the Legion. Palmerston made brilliant replies to these attacks, and, as usual, carried the House with him, but his examples, taken from the Elizabethan epoch, of auxiliary forces sent to the aid of the Huguenots and the Protestants in the Low Countries, were really not much to the point, any more than his periods about the advantages of a Constitutional over an Absolutist government. The success of the Legion would have cut the ground from under the feet of the Tories; but, alarmed by a proclamation issued by Don Carlos that all foreign prisoners would be shot, halfdisciplined, half-starved, and grossly neglected by the Spanish Government, General Evans's force accomplished little beyond co-operating in the important