Carlism (Basque: Karlismo; Catalan: Carlisme; Galician: Carlismo; Spanish: Carlismo) was a Traditionalist and Legitimist political movement in Spain aimed at establishing an alternative branch of the Bourbon dynasty, one descended from Don Carlos, Count of Molina (1788–1855), on the Spanish throne.
The movement was founded as a consequence of an early 19th-century dispute over the succession of the Spanish monarchy and dissatisfaction with the Alfonsine line of the House of Bourbon, and subsequently found itself becoming a notable element of Spanish conservatism in its 19th-century struggle against liberalism, which repeatedly broke out into military conflicts known as the Carlist Wars.
