Álvaro Figueroa Torres, Count of Romanones

Don
Don (honorific)
Don, from Latin dominus, is an honorific in Spanish , Portuguese , and Italian . The female equivalent is Doña , Dona , and Donna , abbreviated "Dª" or simply "D."-Usage:...

Álvaro de Figueroa y Torres-Sotomayor, 1st Count of Romanones, Grandee of Spain, (Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

9 August 1863 – 11 October 1950) was a Spanish politician. He was the Prime Minister

Prime Minister of Spain

The President of the Government of Spain , sometimes known in English as the Prime Minister of Spain, is the head of Government of Spain. The current office is established under the Constitution of 1978...

of Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

three times between 1912 and 1918, president of the Senate and seventeen times minister. He belonged to the Liberal Party

Liberal Party (Spanish Restoration)

The Liberal Party was a Spanish political party created in 1880 by Práxedes Mateo Sagasta. With the Partido Conservador of Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, it formed a bipartite system of alternating governments that characterised the Spanish Restoration during the final part of the 19th century and...

of Sagasta

Práxedes Mateo Sagasta

Práxedes Mariano Mateo Sagasta y Escolar was a Spanish politician who served as Prime Minister on eight occasions between 1870 and 1902—always in charge of the Liberal Party—as part of the turno pacifico, alternating with the Liberal-Conservative leader Antonio Cánovas...

and Canalejas

José Canalejas

José Canalejas y Méndez was a Spanish politician, born in Ferrol.-Early life:Canalejas graduated in 1871 from the University of Madrid, took his Galicia doctor's degree in 1872 and became a lecturer on literature in 1873...

Biography

He was the second son of Ignacio de Figueroa Mendieta and Ana de Torres Romo, marquises of Villamejor, rich owners of land and mines. He graduated in law from the Universidad Central de Madrid in 1884 and obtained a doctorate from the university of Bologna but he never practiced law and always was involved in politics and business.

He started his political career with the support of his father in law who was an influential politician and he was representative for Guadalajara without interruption from 1886 to 1936. He was elected councilmember to Madrid City Hall and in 1894 Mayor of Madrid. His political career was always linked to the Liberal party of Sagasta

Práxedes Mateo Sagasta

.

He was Minister of Public Instruction and the Arts (1901-1902) in the government of Sagasta

Práxedes Mateo Sagasta

during which he incorporated teachers' salaries in the nation's budget. In 1903 he founded a political newspaper, Diario Universal.

In the Liberal governments of 1905-1906 he was Minister of Development (Fomento which included agriculture, industry, commerce and public works), Justice and Interior. He contributed to the rise of José Canalejas

José Canalejas

to the top of the Liberal Party and, as a reward, he was appointed minister of Public Instruction in 1909 and later propmoted to the presidency of the House of Representatives (Congreso de los Diputados) in 1912.

After the assassination of Canalejas

José Canalejas

he became one of the prominent figures in the Liberal Party and he was appointed prime minister (1912-1913) during which time he negotiated with France a treaty concerning Morocco

During the First World War he held a pro-French stance which put him in conflict with the official declaration of neutrality of the government of Eduardo Dato and with the pro-German stance of the conservatives. When he again became prime minister (1915-1917) he changed Spain's foreign policy closer to the allies and confronting Germany over an incident where Spanish ships had been torpedoed by German submarines. Incapable of resolving Spain's social problems and attacked by the conservative press which was favorable to Germany, he finally resigned.

Shortly after he participated in the coalition government of Antonio Maura as Minister of Instruction and of Justice and in the government of Manuel García Prieto

Manuel García Prieto

Manuel García-Prieto, 1st Marquis of Alhucemas was a Spanish politician who was prime minister several times in his life....

as Minister of State (1918), and he presided a brief-lived government in December 1918 which was toppled by the autonomist agitation in Catalonia and by the labor conflicts. He was replaced in April 1919 after issuing the so-called Eight Hour Workday Decree.

He was Minister of Justice (1922-1928) in the liberal government of García Prieto

Manuel García Prieto

Manuel García-Prieto, 1st Marquis of Alhucemas was a Spanish politician who was prime minister several times in his life....

and became president of the Senate in 1923 where he was when the military coup of General Primo de Rivera

Miguel Primo de Rivera

Miguel Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja, 2nd Marquis of Estella, 22nd Count of Sobremonte, Knight of Calatrava was a Spanish dictator, aristocrat, and a military official who was appointed Prime Minister by the King and who for seven years was a dictator, ending the turno system of alternating...

on 13 September 1923.

During Primo de Rivera

Miguel Primo de Rivera

's dictatorship he stayed out of politics although he participated in the conspiracy known as the Sanjuanada for which he was fined.

After the fall of Primo de Rivera's dictatorship in 1930 he became Minister of State in the government of Juan Bautista Aznar Cabañas

Juan Bautista Aznar Cabañas

Juan Bautista Aznar Cabañas, KOGF was a Spanish admiral who was made Prime Minister at a time of intense crisis, in the first months of 1931, when the monarchy was on the verge of falling under popular pressure for a republic. His attempts to save the crown failed, and King Alfonso had to go to...

but the elections in 1931 showed that the monarchy as a political option was exhausted and that the people were favorable to a republican form of government so he counseled the king Alfonso XIII

Alfonso XIII of Spain

Alfonso XIII was King of Spain from 1886 until 1931. His mother, Maria Christina of Austria, was appointed regent during his minority...

to leave Spain. Romanones talked personally with Niceto Alcalá Zamora and his revolutionary committee and agreed to the peaceful transfer of power to the Provisional Republican Government without military intervention in exchange of the guarantee for the life of the royal family. During the Second Republic

Second Spanish Republic

The Second Spanish Republic was the government of Spain between April 14 1931, and its destruction by a military rebellion, led by General Francisco Franco....

ha remained deputy representative for Guadalajara

Guadalajara (province)

Guadalajara is a province of central/north-central Spain, in the northern part of the autonomous community of Castile-La Mancha. It is bordered by the provinces of Cuenca, Madrid, Segovia, Soria, Zaragoza, and Teruel...

but his political weight was insignificant except to defend the honor of the departed king and his own legacy.

He did not participate in the military revolt of 1936 and the outbreak of the civil war found him in San Sebastian

San Sebastián

Donostia-San Sebastián is a city and municipality located in the north of Spain, in the coast of the Bay of Biscay and 20 km away from the French border. The city is the capital of Gipuzkoa, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. The municipality’s population is 186,122 , and its...

in charge of his own business from where he crossed over to France with the help of the French ambassador. He returned to the nationalist zone in 1937 but he never again participated in politics. After the war he wrote his memoirs and was president of the Real Academis de Bellas Artes de San Fernando and member of the academies of History and Jurisprudence.

He married Casilda Alonso-Martínez Martín, daughter of Manuel Alonso Martínez

Manuel Alonso Martínez

Manuel Alonso Martínez was a Spanish jurist and politician, and the principal redactor of the Spanish Civil Code of 1888/89.After working as a Burgos attorney, he entered public service in 1854 as a member of the Cortes...

liberal politician, friend of Sagasta

Práxedes Mateo Sagasta

, and owner of a renowned legal firm in Madrid

Madrid

. They had three sons, one of which was killed in the war in Africa in 1920, and one daughter.

Works and Ideology

Romanones was a prolific writer and he wrote his memoirs during the Second Republic

Second Spanish Republic

The Second Spanish Republic was the government of Spain between April 14 1931, and its destruction by a military rebellion, led by General Francisco Franco....

. He wrote several biographies as well as political works and essays.

Although Catholic, he was against religious intolerance and also against the influence of the clergy for which he often clashed with religious authorities. An example of this happened with the enactment of the Civil Marriage Law of 1905 which stated that those getting married did not have to declare their religion. He reinstated diplomatic relations with the Holy See

Holy See

The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...

but he was a fervent supporter of the separation of Church and State

Separation of church and state

The concept of the separation of church and state refers to the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state....

Honors Received

Doctor at Law by the University of Bologna

University of Bologna

The Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna is the oldest continually operating university in the world, the word 'universitas' being first used by this institution at its foundation. The true date of its founding is uncertain, but believed by most accounts to have been 1088...

and member of the Royal Academy of History and of the Royal Academy of Moral and Politica Sciences. Director of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando

Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando

The Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando , located on the Calle de Alcalá in the heart of Madrid, currently functions as a museum and gallery....

and president of the Ateneo Madrileño.

He was created Count of Romanones in 1893 and Grandee of Spain in 1911.

Trivia

He suffered an accident at age 9 when he was brushed aside by his father for having interrupted him and in doing so his father accidentally pushed him off the carriage which left him with a noticeable limp for the rest of his life. This was mercilessly exploited by his caricaturists and opponents. For many years he funded a hospital for crippled children.

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.