The Royal Statute of 1834 (Spanish : Estatuto Real), was a royal charter of the Kingdom of Spain under the rule of Maria Christina, wife of the deceased King Ferdinand VII of Spain, who ruled as Queen Regent during the infancy of her daughter Queen Isabella II of Spain. It came into effect on 10 April 1834.
The law created the new Legislature, which was designed as a compromise between the existing Assembly, and a new Bicameral model based on the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The new Legislature (Spanish: Cortes) would consist of an upper chamber (whose members would be unelected and instead appointed by the monarch from the nobility, aristocracy and the rich) and a lower chamber which was designed to be an elected body mirroring the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. Suffrage was limited to a little over 16,000 citizens out of a population of 12 million people.
The Royal Statute was not a Constitution because, amongst other reasons, National sovereignty was not derived from it. Instead, Absolute Sovereignty was invested in the Monarch who could limit or extend their own powers at will, following the model of the Charter of 1814 issued by Louis XVIII during the Bourbon Restoration.
Three legislative sessions of the Cortes were held under the Statute: [1]
The Act of Settlement is an act of the Parliament of England that settled the succession to the English and Irish crowns to only Protestants, which passed in 1701. More specifically, anyone who became a Roman Catholic, or who married one, became disqualified to inherit the throne. This had the effect of deposing the remaining descendants of Charles I, other than his Protestant granddaughter Anne, as the next Protestant in line to the throne was Sophia of Hanover. Born into the House of Wittelsbach, she was a granddaughter of James VI and I from his most junior surviving line, with the crowns descending only to her non-Catholic heirs. Sophia died less than two months before Queen Anne, and Sophia's son succeeded to the throne as King George I, starting the Hanoverian dynasty in Britain.
In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. The term is similar to the idea of a senate, synod or congress and is commonly used in countries that are current or former monarchies. Some contexts restrict the use of the word parliament to parliamentary systems, although it is also used to describe the legislature in some presidential systems, even where it is not in the official name.
The Parliament of Canada is the federal legislature of Canada, seated at Parliament Hill in Ottawa, and is composed of three parts: the King, the Senate, and the House of Commons. By constitutional convention, the House of Commons is dominant, with the Senate rarely opposing its will. The Senate reviews legislation from a less partisan standpoint and may initiate certain bills. The monarch or his representative, normally the governor general, provides royal assent to make bills into law.
Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in others that is a separate step. Under a modern constitutional monarchy, royal assent is considered little more than a formality. Even in nations such as the United Kingdom, Norway, the Netherlands, Liechtenstein and Monaco which still, in theory, permit their monarch to withhold assent to laws, the monarch almost never does so, except in a dire political emergency or on advice of government. While the power to veto by withholding royal assent was once exercised often by European monarchs, such an occurrence has been very rare since the eighteenth century.
The Liberal Wars, also known as the War of the Two Brothers and the Portuguese Civil War, was a war between liberal constitutionalists and conservative traditionalists in Portugal over royal succession that lasted from 1828 to 1834. Embroiled parties included the Kingdom of Portugal, Portuguese rebels, the United Kingdom, France, the Catholic Church, and Spain.
In a parliamentary or semi-presidential system of government, a reserve power, also known as discretionary power, is a power that may be exercised by the head of state without the approval of another branch or part of the government. Unlike in a presidential system of government, the head of state is generally constrained by the cabinet or the legislature in a parliamentary system, and most reserve powers are usable only in certain exceptional circumstances.
A speech from the throne, or throne speech, is an event in certain monarchies in which the reigning sovereign, or their representative, reads a prepared speech to members of the nation's legislature when a session is opened. The address sets forth the government's priorities for its legislative agenda, for which the cooperation of the legislature is sought. The speech is often accompanied by formal ceremony. It is often held annually, although in some places it may occur more or less frequently, whenever a new session of the legislature is opened.
DomMiguel I, nicknamed "the Absolutist", "the Traditionalist" and "the Usurper", was the King of Portugal between 1828 and 1834. He was the seventh child and third son of King John VI and Queen Carlota Joaquina.
The governor-general of India was the representative of the monarch of the United Kingdom in their capacity as the emperor/empress of India and after Indian independence in 1947, the representative of the monarch of India. The office was created in 1773, with the title of governor-general of the Presidency of Fort William. The officer had direct control only over his presidency but supervised other East India Company officials in India. Complete authority over all of British territory in the Indian subcontinent was granted in 1833, and the official came to be known as the governor-general of India.
The Spanish Constitution is the supreme law of the Kingdom of Spain. It was enacted after its approval in a constitutional referendum; it represents the culmination of the Spanish transition to democracy.
The Parliament of England was the legislature of the Kingdom of England from the 13th century until 1707 when it was replaced by the Parliament of Great Britain. Parliament evolved from the great council of bishops and peers that advised the English monarch. Great councils were first called Parliaments during the reign of Henry III. By this time, the king required Parliament's consent to levy taxation.
The Cortes Generales are the bicameral legislative chambers of Spain, consisting of the Congress of Deputies and the Senate.
The Federal Constitution of the United Mexican States of 1824 was the first constitution of Mexico, enacted on October 4 of 1824, inaugurating the First Mexican Republic.
The Political Constitution of the Spanish Monarchy, also known as the Constitution of Cádiz and as La Pepa, was the first Constitution of Spain and one of the earliest codified constitutions in world history. The Constitution was ratified on 19 March 1812 by the Cortes of Cádiz, the first Spanish legislature that included delegates from the entire nation and its possessions, including Spanish America and the Philippines. "It defined Spanish and Spanish American liberalism for the early 19th century."
The United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves was a pluricontinental monarchy formed by the elevation of the Portuguese colony named State of Brazil to the status of a kingdom and by the simultaneous union of that Kingdom of Brazil with the Kingdom of Portugal and the Kingdom of the Algarves, constituting a single state consisting of three kingdoms.
The Cortes of Cádiz was a revival of the traditional cortes, which as an institution had not functioned for many years, but it met as a single body, rather than divided into estates as with previous ones.
Napoleonic Spain was the part of Spain loyal to Joseph I during the Peninsular War (1808–1813), forming a Bonapartist client state officially known as the Kingdom of Spain after the country was partially occupied by forces of the First French Empire.
The Spanish Constitution of 1837 was the constitution of Spain from 1837 to 1845. Its principal legacy was to restore the most progressive features of the Spanish Constitution of 1812 and to entrench the concepts of constitutionalism, parliamentarism, and separation of powers in Spain.
José Máximo Agustín De la Cerda y Palafox, 6th Marquess of Bárboles, 7th Count of Parcent, etc.,, was a Spanish aristocrat, academic and politician, member of one of the most prominent noble families in Spain, the House of De la Cerda, and who was proximate to the tendencies of Moderate Liberalism, a mid-term between reactionary liberalism and absolutism. José de la Cerda was an important figure of the early 19th century, which witnessed the development of Spanish parliamentarianism in the unstable era of transition between the Ancién Regime and Liberalism. José De la Cerda, known by his title of Count of Parcent, was a proximate figure to Queen Maria Christina, last wife of Ferdinand VII of Spain and mother and regent to Queen Isabella II. Parcent was one of the aristocrats who supported a moderate tendency of Liberalism against both the extreme versions of Liberalism and absolutism (Carlists).
Queen Isabella II of Spain was barely three years of age when her father, King Ferdinand VII, died on 29 September 1833. The years of her minority were marked first by the regency of her mother, Maria Christina of the Two Sicilies, and then under General Baldomero Espartero, covering almost the first ten years of her reign, until 23 July 1843, when Isabella was declared to be of age.