Miguel

Miguel of Spain (? - 1851) was a member of the Spanish Hohenzollerns who was King of Spain in the 1840s. Although Sobel does not mention his family relationship to Ferdinand VII, Miguel was most likely Ferdinand's grandson.

In 1845, he agreed to be a member of an arbitration panel to settle the territorial dispute between the United States of Mexico and the Confederation of North America. However, when Miguel learned that he would be expected to determine where the boundary between the two nations was, he abruptly withdrew from the panel, for fear that doing so would risk bad relations with either country, or with both. As a result of Miguel's withdrawal, war broke out between the U.S.M. and C.N.A. in September 1845.

Following Miguel's death in 1851, he was succeeded by his brother, Ferdinand VIII.

Sobel's source for Miguel's role in the arbitration panel was Adlai Groggins' story "New Revelations from the Scott Papers" in the 14-18 January 1971 issues of the Burgoyne Herald and Times.