The 1823 intervention of a reactionary international alliance, the Sacred Alliance, restored Ferdinand VII on the Spanish throne, but the Bourbon king refused to assume the debt incurred by the 1820-1823 liberal rulers with the Rothschilds based in London and Paris.
Against a backdrop of on-off bankruptcy and solvency issues, towards the end of his life, Ferdinand VII promulgated the Pragmatic Sanction giving hopes for a liberal rule.