Who Should Rule?

"When Philip V prevailed over his rival Archduke Charles of Austria in 1713, the Spanish Bourbon dynasty attempted to create a new power elite, based on a more professionalized, modern, and educated military officer corps. At the same time, the Bourbons wanted to govern by relying on 'men of letters, ' who were well educated in a modern, enlightened curriculum. Both the military and the men of letters were often drawn from the provincial elite, not the traditional aristocracy, and they would form the core of the centralized Bourbon state, replacing the 'composite monarchy.' These groups emerged first in Spain and later the empire to defend and govern the Spanish Atlantic world. In the years after the French invasion of the Iberian Peninsula, a struggle in Spain and America developed over who would rule. Writers and lawyers produced new legislation to radically transform the Spanish world. Military officers would defend the monarchy in this new era of imperial competition. Additionally, they would govern. From the start, the rise of these political actors in the Spanish world was an uneven process. Military officers came to being as a new and somewhat solid corps. In contrast, the rise of men of letters confronted constant opposition. Rooted elites in both Spain and Peru resisted any attempts to curtail their power and prerogatives and undermined reform. As a consequence, men of letters found limited spaces in which to exercise their new authority, but they aimed for more, paving the way for decades of unrest. Monica Ricketts emphasizes the continuities and connections between the Spanish worlds on both sides of the Atlantic and the ways in which liberal men of letters failed to create a new institutional order in which the military would be subjected to civilian rule"--Provided by publisher.