Strong backing in UK for Spain, but no intervention

Two months after King George IV’s speech opening the new session of Parliament described the prospect of war between France and Spain as a calamity, his Tory ministers have little to show for their strategy and their diplomatic efforts to avert war.

However much the Earl of Liverpool’s government may be reviled at home by Radicals and progressive Whigs for its right-wing policies in the wake of the Peterloo massacre, it is now out on a limb, alienated from the even more conservative powers in Europe.

Britain was dubbed ‘an abettor of anarchy’ after refusing to join Austria, France, Prussia and Russia in backing action against Spain’s liberal regime at the Congress of Verona late in 1822.

George IV’s speech in February signally did not promise neutrality, but his ministers were realistic about their options, even as hopes remained in Madrid that Britain would take up arms with Spain.

Britain is not ready for a costly land war, less than eight years after Waterloo, and ministers feared it might endanger King George’s other domain, Hanover, and ally Portugal. But they will still hope French forces get bogged down and Spain prevails.

Support for Spain crosses political divides. Opposition politicians attended a dinner with the Spanish ambassador in March, and Sir Robert Wilson (Southwark, Rad), a general in the Napoleonic wars, told MPs that conflict initiated by France would be seem as “a war of tyrants, fanatics, and bigots, against the rights of free nations”.