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VIKTÓRIA SEMSEY
1he other famous defender of Catholicism, the Spanish Juan Donoso Cortes
(1809-1853), published significantly in the middle of the century, writing of
Catholicism and the modern era."
1he history of nineteenth century Protestantism in Spain had its inspiration
from abroad. Ihe November 2011 international conference in Madrid about
the Protestant reformation in Spain restated, as does the academic literature,
that in the nineteenth century there was a second reformation (or second phase
of the reformation) in Spain. This was not the continuation of the sixteenth
century reformation, and it is important to note that it arrived via foreigners
from the rest of Europe. In addition, it did not gain support in large urban
centres as much as in villages and among the poor. The background was in part
English Protestant influence, since from the beginning of the century English
military help appeared on and off again in Spain; and in part the Liberal Span¬
ish emigrants who had lived in London; and in part of poor villages lacking a
parish priest.
There were English (and Portuguese) troops present on the Iberian Peninsula
to help against the French from 1808 to 1814. In 1814 and 1823 many Liberals
fled from Ferdinand VII’s absolutism to England. English-Spanish connections
became more intensive after 1833, with the begining of the First Carlist War,
in which English volunteers helped the Queen against the Carlists. Between
1841 and 1843, under the regency of Baldomero Espartero (1840-1843), the
English presence increased, because of equity investments, and also in trade
and grape production.® In the 1850’s exiles living in England and France began
to organise help for the Spanish Liberals in removing Isabella II (1833-1868)
from the throne. The first Protestant newspaper in Spanish appeared in 1849
in London, with the title E/ Catolicismo Neto.
The nineteenth century reformation in Spain began with the spreading of
Bibles. This was however a Catholic version by Félix Torres Amat (1772-1849),
translated from the Vulgate. The various different independent churches and
sects appeared only after 1868 and mainly from the direction of Gibraltar. The
churches arriving at the beginning of the century were the Comité Metodista de
Londres and the Scottish Evangelization Society from Edinburgh, in addition
to the Sociedad Americana de Tratados Religiosos. Protestantism spread mainly
in the countryside of Andalusia, Galicia, and Catalonia. The first Lutheran
7 Larios MENGOTTI, Gonzalo, Donoso Cortés. Juventud, politica y romanticismo, Bilbao, Grafite,
2003.
HERNANDEZ FIGUEIREDO, José Ramon, El protestantismo en la Espana de la II. República a la
luz de los Informes del Archivo Secreto Vaticano, Hispania Sacra 63 (2011), 305-371, especially
308.
e 226 "