Note 140 — BOOK VIII[61]
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos translation
Ferdinand VII. King of Spain (1784-1833) had been compelled to grant a Constitution to his subjects in 1820, but revoked it, with the material aid of the King of France, in 1823. It was owing to Ferdinand's unconstitutional repeal of the Salic Law, without the consent of the Cortes, that the present Alphonsist Branch occupies the throne of Spain, to the prejudice of the Legitimist, or Carlist, Branch, and as the result of a long series of bloody civil wars.—T.