The capture of Lisbon compelled the Miguelites to raise the siege of Oporto. The civil war continued, nevertheless, in other parts of the country. No sooner, however, was Dom Pedro, the Regent, installed in the capital than the British government recognized the sovereignty of Queen Maria, and undertook to protect her from aggression on the part of the King of Spain.[331] But the fear that Ferdinand might send military assistance to Dom Miguel was speedily set at rest. On September 29, 1833, he died, and Christina, thereupon, assumed the government in the name of her daughter Isabella, who was at once acknowledged as Queen of Spain by France and Great Britain. The partisans of her uncle Don Carlos were, however, upon the alert. The Basque provinces rose in arms to the cry of "Long live Carlos V. Long live the Inquisition," and Don Carlos was proclaimed King, on October 7, at Vittoria.[332] Don Carlos himself was fortunately absent from Madrid at the time of his brother's death. Some few months earlier he had been practically exiled from Spain and had joined Dom Miguel in Portugal. The presence of the Spanish Pretender at the headquarters of the Portuguese Usurper appears at last to have brought home to Christina and her minister, Cea Bermúdez, that the fortunes of Isabella must largely depend upon the success of the constitutional cause in Portugal. Mr. Villiers, the British minister newly accredited to the Court of Madrid, experienced, in consequence, none of those difficulties which had baffled Stratford Canning's ingenuity, whilst Ferdinand was alive. The Queen Regent's government consented, after some little hesitation, to propose to the contending parties in Portugal the joint mediation of Great Britain and Spain, and, when Dom Miguel declined to consider this offer, Cea Bermúdez announced that his refusal had released Spain from all engagements which she had contracted towards him.[333] At the news that Ferdinand was dead and that serious disturbances had broken out, the French government proceeded to concentrate troops in proximity to the Spanish frontier. These military movements excited considerable alarm in London, where it was feared that they were a prelude to an active intervention. Palmerston, however, was soon satisfied that neither Louis Philippe nor the chief members of his government wished to despatch an army across the Pyrenees.[334] In the opinion of Duc de Broglie, the expulsion of Dom Miguel from Portugal was a necessary preliminary to any attempt to settle Spanish affairs. Both he and his colleagues, he declared, were prepared to respect England's traditional dislike to any foreign intrusion in Portugal. But, under these circumstances, they had a right to expect, he contended, that great Britain should herself take the necessary measures for terminating a situation, which threatened to disturb the tranquillity of neighbouring States.[335]