The July 1822 Spanish coup attempt, also known as the coup d'état of July 7, was a failed coup d'état that took place in Spain during the Liberal Triennium. It was intended to put an end by force to the constitutional regime, reestablished after the triumph of the Revolution of 1820, and to restore the absolute monarchy. As Juan Francisco Fuentes has pointed out, "it was the most serious attempt of absolutist coup d'état, which not in vain had its epicenter in the Royal Palace of Madrid", although it had numerous ramifications outside the capital, which demonstrates "the existence of a relatively broad and mature plan". "It marked a turning point in the course of the Triennium", stressed Ángel Bahamonde and Jesús Antonio Martínez. The same thesis is held by Pedro Rújula and Manuel Chust: "The July crisis marked in a traumatic way the evolution of the constitutional regime".

According to Emilio La Parra López, the idea of carrying out a coup d'état against the constitutional regime arose from a private interview of King Ferdinand VII with the French ambassador Count de La Garde which took place at the beginning of May 1822 and during which both agreed that it should follow the model of Napoleon's 18th Brumaire. The definitive project of the coup, according to La Parra, was devised in the entourage of Fernando VII and its specific plan was taken from the "Conspiracy of Matías Vinuesa" of the previous year. The "Confidencias", the secret network spread throughout the country of absolutist groups financed and directed from the Palace, would be in charge of its execution, and the officer of the corps Ramón Zuloaga, Count of Torrealta, would be in charge of revolting the Royal Guard. The Marquis de las Amarillas, direct witness of the events, wrote in his Memories: "The king was the soul and first motive of the insurrection". On July 4, in the middle of the coup, Ambassador La Garde communicated to his government in a coded message: "The king is completely committed and is the one who orders things" —according to La Garde, the king asked him to try to get the government to join the operation, but it failed—.

On July 1st the Royal Guard revolted and Ferdinand VII was on the point of "leaving with the rebels to lead the counterrevolution". The king consulted with the government of the moderate liberal "anillero" Francisco Martínez de la Rosa, whose members spent most of the time in the Royal Palace as virtual prisoners (and there were orders prepared for their imprisonment), and the latter advised against it because it was too risky. "The Government allowed itself to be locked up in the Palace, together with the King, because in short, what was being done was to put Vinuesa's old plan into practice", said Alberto Gil Novales. "For a whole interminable week the palace was the center of an ambitious counterrevolutionary action. Madrid became hostage to the forces of the King's Guard, and the monarch himself, with his ambiguous and silent attitude, held the Executive hostage, preventing it from taking action and leaving the initiative to the rebels", Rújula and Chust pointed out. Finally, the Royal Guard was defeated in the "Day of July 7" by the constitutional forces led by the National Militia.

Background

During the spring of 1822 the actions of the royalist parties increased notably (especially in Catalonia, Navarre, the Basque Country, Galicia, Aragon and Valencia, and more sporadically in Asturias, Old Castile, Leon, Extremadura, Murcia, Andalusia and New Castile) and there were several attempts at absolutist rebellions, the most important of which occurred in Valencia on May 30, 1822. On that date the artillerymen of the Citadel rose up in the name of the absolute king and proclaimed as Captain General of Valencia General Elío, who had already led the coup d'état of 1814 that restored absolutism and who was then in prison. The insurrection only lasted one day as the constitutionalist forces stormed the Citadel. General Elío, who probably had not participated in the conspiracy, was tried and condemned to death by garrote vil, a sentence that was carried out on September 4. "Elío paid with his life not so much for the uprising of 1822 as for the pronunciamiento of 1814 and the long repression he had exercised over the liberals", Alberto Gil Novales has pointed out. That same day, May 30, the King's name day, a crowd gathered around the Palace of Aranjuez to acclaim Ferdinand VII with shouts of "Long live the King alone!" and "Long live the absolute King!" and there were moments of tension between members of the Royal Guard, which had become one of the mainstays of the counterrevolution, and the National Militia. "The relevant thing about that day is that it did not seem to be a spontaneous movement but was almost unanimously interpreted as a planned royalist action. It was even rumored that it was a plan to proclaim the absolute king".

The following month, believing that Prince Carlos was going to lead the uprising, the Carabineers Brigade rebelled in Castro del Río, which on July 1 was to be dissolved in compliance with a decree of the Cortes of May 19. The Carabineers Brigade was, together with the Royal Guard, one of the two military corps most disaffected with the constitutional regime, since they were exponents of the Old Regime's own estamental army. Of the Royal Guard, Francisco Fernández de Córdoba said that he had a brother in it: "they lived in a state of permanent conspiracy, and they were busy... in hatching plots and forging plots to overthrow the restorers of the Constitution in a short period of time". The rebellion of the carabinieri was the prologue to the uprising of the Royal Guard and almost coincided with the capture of La Seu d'Urgell on June 21 by the royalist parties. "From that moment on, the counterrevolution had a rebellious nucleus in Spanish territory. It was one of the conditions that France had imposed to lend its support to the king. When the news reached Aranjuez, the courtiers raised their spirits and resumed conspiratorial activity with new energy". The Marquis of Miraflores wrote in his Apuntes histórico-críticos (1834) that on the eve of the "Day of July 7" "Spain [offered] the horrible spectacle of a bloody civil war".

Coup d'état

Uprising of the Royal Guard

On June 30, 1822, when the king returned from closing the session of the Cortes —the monarch had returned to Madrid three days earlier from Aranjuez where he had been residing since March— in the vicinity of the Royal Palace groups of civilians shouted "Long live the Constitution!" which were answered with "Long live the absolute king!" from the Royal Guard. Then an altercation took place which resulted in the death of a member of the National Militia and the liberal lieutenant of the Royal Guard Mamerto Landaburu murdered by his comrades in the courtyard of the palace (in his honor the Landaburian patriotic society would be founded). The lieutenant had confronted them, reproaching them for their behavior (they had expelled the National Militia that was in charge of the security of the area and had cordoned off the perimeter of the Palace) and their cheers in favor of the absolute king. According to the Historia de la vida y reinado de Fernando VII published in 1842, once the king arrived at the palace, the guard dislodged a guardhouse of the National Militia and the peasants who occupied the Plaza de Oriente and advanced their positions without heeding the orders of their superiors, encouraged from the balconies of the palace. In such a situation, Mamerto Landaburu, 1st lieutenant of the Royal Guard Infantry Regiment, known for his liberal ideas, tried to impose order on his subordinates, who responded with insults. The young lieutenant responded to the insubordination by wounding one of the guards with his saber and, although other comrades-in-arms tried to save him from the irritation of the wounded man's companions, taking him into the palace, he was killed by three grenadiers who shot him in the back.Historia de la vida y reinado de Fernando VII de España: con documentos justificados, órdenes reservadas y numerosas cartas del mismo monarca, Pío VII, Carlos IV, María Luisa, Napoleón, Luis XVIII, El Infante Don Carlos y otros personages (in Spanish), Madrid, Imprenta de Repullés, 1842, t. II, p. 322. The news of the murder of Lieutenant Landáburu and of the defiant attitude of the Royal Guard circulated rapidly throughout Madrid.

Faced with these events, the City Council of Madrid took the initiative, which would be joined by the Permanent Deputation of Cortes, mobilizing the National Militia and demanding that the Government punish those guilty of the murders and disorders. It was also presented an exposition to the king in which it was said that Madrid was "in general alarm" and insisted on the "constant conspiracy" that had been observed "for some time against our precious liberties". On the night of July 1 to 2, four battalions of the Royal Guard, totaling some 1,500 men, left their barracks to position themselves in El Pardo —where they tore off the constitutional plaque—, while the other two remained guarding the Royal Palace. "This movement constituted the first act of an operation of assault to the constitutional order that would keep the country in suspense for seven days". In fact, it was foreseen that Fernando VII with his family would go to El Pardo to be proclaimed absolute king there, but "the king did not dare to leave Madrid or did not consider it convenient, and tried to finish everything from the palace", surrounded by aristocrats and military men of his full confidence, among whom was the Marquis of Las Amarillas.

Due to the paralysis of the political head of Madrid (and of the Government), the City Council assumed in practice all the powers and organized the resistance of the capital. The already mobilized militiamen were joined by the local garrison, commanded by General Morillo, generals who went to the City Hall —Riego, Ballesteros and Palarea— and a group of officers without a posting in Madrid who that same day, July 1, formed together with fellow countrymen the Sacred Battalion, armed by the City Hall, and which was commanded by General Evaristo San Miguel. The Marquis of Miraflores affirmed in his Apuntes histórico-críticos (1834) that Madrid "was an encampment", with its center in the Plaza de la Constitución defended by the Militia and by some artillery pieces. The newspaper El Universal wondered in its July 3 edition in reference to the Royal Guard in revolt:But what are these illusions trying to do? What is their plan? What do they foresee as the outcome of this outrageous sedition? Do they expect that the inhabitants of the capital, its brave garrison, its valiant militia, and so many brave and determined patriots, who at this moment are with arms in hand, determined to die for the constitution, will be humbled by receiving the law from a handful of undisciplined soldiers?