Lord Holland, a name which no Spaniard can pronounce without strong feelings of affection and respect, as that of a zealous and steadfast friend of their country.

Traditional historiography focuses on French influence in the Peninsula in the early nineteenth century – first through the spread of revolutionary doctrines, and then through the impact of invasion. Only recently have historians recognized there was at least some English influence on the origins of Iberian Liberalism. There are various reasons for this neglect: there were few contemporary signs of such influence and, above all, it was the French version of Liberalism and its constitutional ramifications that prevailed. Yet Manuel Alonso rightly argues that English influence was present. Indeed, it seems clear that Lord and Lady Holland were its chief protagonists. While Lord Holland's plans for Spain were overtaken by events, many of the friends he made during his Spanish and Portuguese journeys later became major figures in the government and politics of their countries. It is probably through them, rather than through constitutional minutiae, that the significance of Holland's contribution should be traced. In Spain, the Hollands were directly involved in politics, whereas in Portugal their influence is harder to trace. Hence, while Spanish historians now acknowledge the Hollands’ involvement in the constitutional cause, Portuguese still virtually ignore it.

The histories of Spain and Portugal display many similarities. At the time of the Renaissance, the Peninsula made an enormous contribution to European culture and enterprise. Thereafter, as Antero de Quental observed in 1871, it sank to become a ‘dark, motionless, poor, unintelligent and half unknown world’. In Alonso's metaphor, Lord Holland sought to sow this barren land with the seeds of English Liberalism. Spain and Portugal were Catholic countries, despotically governed for centuries and ruling large but declining empires. To a limited extent, both had been exposed to the ideas of the Enlightenment and to those of the French Revolution. Then, both experienced French invasion. The crucial question was whether to welcome the French as liberators from an oppressive past or to resist them as tyrants and conquerors. For those who favoured resistance, there was difficult choice: either they could oppose the French on the basis of tradition and Absolutism or they could combine an appeal to patriotism with a programme of liberty and modernization.