After the fall of the Liberals (1820-1823), Ferdinand VII became once more the absolute king of Spain for the last decade of his life.

The documents presented in these volumes concern these years. Historiography of this period is very thin, and the historians who have written about it usually oversimplify it with the label of repression. Ferdinand, they say, hunted the Liberals as he hunted fox on the hills of El Pardo.

The editors of these volumes, Federico Suárez and Ana M. Berazaluce (both of the University of Navarra at Pamplona, Spain) believe that such an interpretation is outdated. In their opinion one cannot simply divide the forces operating in the Spain of that time into royalists and liberals. In fact, as these documents evidence, there existed a third force—that of the moderates. This group, faithful to the king but not extremist, was to have a decisive influence on Spain.

Volume II (the first in this series based upon documents found at the Royal Palace of Oriente, in Madrid) contains thirty papers dealing with the state of Spain in 1825. A brief questionnaire was sent by the king’s office to 24 bishops, 5 military leaders, and 1 judiciary court, that of Valladolid. This questionnaire dealt with the conditions of public order, religiosity, and political parties in the region. Given the background and circumstances of the respondents, the thirty reports obviously represent only a partial interpretation of the state of Spain in those times. But their views, conservative as they are, cannot be ignored, for they demonstrate the force of the moderates.

The other volumes contain the diary of a lawyer, José Arias Teijeiro, a moderate royalist whom the king appointed to a succession of jobs. Arias always remained faithful to Ferdinand, but at the same time he kept his eyes open and with some literary skill put down in his diary what he considered worthy of observation. Hence the value of these comments and notes—they portray his reactions to the events of a Spain in transition between the old regime and a more modern one.

Both series of documents are preceded by over-lengthy and too explanatory introductions that almost make it unnecessary to read the documents. In the opinion of this reviewer, such a method of presentation diminishes the value of uncovering these primary sources. Nevertheless, students of this period can learn a great deal about Spain in the 1830s by interpreting these fine sources, especially Teijeiro’s diary.