4 - The Romantic stage

Summary

The death of Fernando VII, which forced the theatres to close and the actors to plead for subsistence payments during the period of mourning, ironically brought renewed life to the Spanish stage. Following the King's death in September, 1833, m s widow, Maria Cristina, launched a campaign to liberalize the country, or at least to liberate it from the worst excesses of its restrictive past. The Queen Regent, acting in the name of her daughter, Isabel, appointed new ministers and took steps toward the dismantling of the ancien régime and the creation of a more moderate form of government. In January, 1834, Francisco Martínez de la Rosa, an exiled liberal and author of plays which had previously encountered problems with the censors, took office as Prime Minister. He worked with the Queen Regent for the promulgation of his Estatuto Real, a document which annuled many of the absolutist policies of Fernando VII and moved toward the creation of a moderate constitutional monarchy. In June, an outbreak of cholera threatened to close the theatres again and Carlist victories in the north jeopardized the stability of the government.

But on Christmas Day the famous amnesty for all liberal intellectuals in exile was proclaimed, and the country was soon enriched by the presence of thinkers and writers who had been forced to live outside its borders (many in London and Paris) for years.