Family Compact

The Family Compact is the epithet applied by their opponents to a small closed group of men who exercised most of the political, economic and judicial power in Upper Canada (modern Ontario) from the 1810s to the 1840s. It was the Upper Canadian equivalent of the Château Clique in Lower Canada. It was noted for its conservatism and opposition to democracy.

The term Family Compact first appeared in a letter written by Marshall Spring Bidwell to William Warren Baldwin in 1828. "Family" did not mean relations by marriage, but rather a close brotherhood. Lord Durham noted in 1839 "There is, in truth, very little of family connection among the persons thus united".

The Family Compact emerged from the War of 1812 and collapsed in the aftermath of the Rebellions of 1837. Their resistance to the political principle of responsible government contributed to its short life. At the end of its lifespan, the Compact would be condemned by Lord Durham as "a petty corrupt insolent Tory clique".

Pacte de Famille

The Pacte de Famille (French pronunciation: ​[pakt də famij], Family Compact; Spanish: Pacto de Familia) is one of three separate, but similar alliances between the Bourbon kings of France and Spain.

The first Pacte de Famille

The first of these (Primer Pacto de Familia) was made on November 7, 1733 by King Philip V of Spain and King Louis XV of France in the Treaty of the Escorial.

Philip V was the grandson of Louis XIV and had become the first Bourbon King of Spain in 1700 upon the extinction of Spanish Habsburgs. After a long war, the War of the Spanish Succession, he was recognized as king by other European powers in the Treaty of Utrecht with the condition that the thrones of Spain and France never be united. In addition, Spanish possessions in Italy were ceded to the surviving branch of the House of Habsburg.

Louis XV was Philip's nephew. He had married Maria Leszczyńska, the daughter of King Stanislaus I of Poland. Because of this marriage alliance France became involved in the War of the Polish Succession in 1733.