The regencies of María Cristina and Espartero (1833-1840)

Isabella II was just three years old when Ferdinand VII died. Hence, her mother Maria Cristina of Borbon was her regent between 1833 and 1840. The main event in Maria Christina’s regency was the outbreak of the First Carlist War (1833-1840):
Carlos Mª Isidro did not accept his niece’s coronation and declared war on her.He defended the absolutism as the political system. Most of his supporters could be found in the Basque Provinces, Navarre, and some areas of Aragon, and Catalonia. The Carlist motto was God, Fatherland, and King.
Maria Christina sought support in the liberals, who would govern in Spain from then on.
After many years, the Carlist general Maroto and the Isabellan General Espartero reached an agreement in the so-called Embrace of Vergara (1839):

Isabella II was acknowledged as the queen of Spain.
The Basque and Navarrese charters of privileges (Fueros) were respected.
The Carlist soldiers could join the national army and they would be granted the amnesty.

The liberals governed in Spain during Maria Christina’s regency. The regent preferred the moderate liberals, who governed with Cea Bermúdez and Martínez de la Rosa.

They enacted a kind of Constitution: the Estatuto Real (1834), where Queen and Cortes shared the sovereignty.
The minister Javier de Burgos made the current provincial division of Spain in 1833.

The progressive liberals seized the power after some revolts. Their leaders were Mendizábal, and Calatrava.They drafted a new Constitution in 1837 with their political ideas with national sovereignty and a real division of powers. In order to end with the war Mendizábal decreed the Confiscation (Desamortización) of ecclesiastical goods (1835):

The religious orders were suppressed and all their goods may be nationalised and subsequently auctioned.
He meant to raise 100,000 soldiers to fight against the Carlists.
The financial problems were to be solved by the income obtained from the auction of those ecclesiastical goods.

The consequences of the Confiscation were:

Not all the expected money was got in the auctions.
Large estates became much more common in the south, whilst in the north it was full of smallholdings.
Many art pieces were lost
The money that the bourgeoisie invested in the lands was not invested in the industrialisation.

After a revolt, Maria Cristina had to leave Spain and the General Espartero was appointed a Isabella II’s new regent (1840-1843). He declared the free trade, which caused many uprisings in Catalonia due to the arrival of many British products: Espartero bombed Barcelona (November 1842) in order to put down the revolt and he lost all the support the Catalans had given him before.
The moderate General Narváez fought against Espartero and defeated him. Hence, the regent left Spain in June 1843 and Isabella II was declared legally of age with just 13 years of age.