Abolition of the Spanish Inquisition

The abolition of the Spanish Inquisition occurred in four stages. In December 1808 the Spanish Inquisition was suppressed by Napoleon Bonaparte through the Decrees of Chamartín, which were applied in “afrancesado” Spain. In “patriotic” Spain, however, abolition occurred several years later, when the Cortes of Cádiz decreed its suppression on 28 February 1813. In July 1814 the Inquisition was restored by King Ferdinand VII together with the entire Ancien Régime, ordering that all decrees of the Cortes be “removed from the course of time.” Yet on 9 March 1820, compelled by the triumph of the Riego uprising, which reinstated the Spanish Constitution of 1812, the king again abolished it. After the restoration of his absolute powers in October 1823—thanks to the intervention of the Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis ending the Trienio Liberal—Ferdinand VII did not re-establish the Inquisition; instead, certain dioceses created Juntas de Fe. In July 1834, at the beginning of the regency of Maria Christina of Bourbon, the moderate liberal government of Francisco Martínez de la Rosa issued a decree whose first article declared: “The Tribunal of the Inquisition is definitively suppressed.” This was the fourth and final abolition of the Inquisition in Spain.