Royal travels : The modern staging and legitimation of the Spanish monarchy, 1858–1931

Abstract

Spain's contemporary kings transformed the Crown decidedly for the purposes of nationalization, in order to adapt the institution to liberal reality and mass society. The aim was to offer a more popular and modern image of monarchy, using means of propaganda like royal trips and visits. This essay analyses the symbiosis between monarchy and nation through the celebrations and ceremonies that accompanied royal visits from Isabel II to Alfonso XIII. Focusing on monarchs' public dimension, the chapter studies the traditional link between Crown, Church and army on the one hand, and a European-style monarchism on the other that presented the monarchy as a benefactor of the people. The monarchs' discourses in their visits to regions, provinces and cities, however, reinforced a unitary identity, conservative and Castilian, without considering emerging sub-state identities. The monarchy became a symbolic reference for the nation but, by not making tradition and modernity cohere, it did not become a truly popular institution.