In short, Franco restored the House of Bourbon because Franco was a conservative and a traditionalist. Franco saw the King of Spain as a rock of stability against the excesses of the Spanish Republics and believed, incorrectly, that a Bourbon prince raised under his tutelage would continue to enforce and support a traditionalist state.

Francisco Franco was born in 1892 in Galicia to a minor noble family with strong cultural and emotional ties to the Spanish Navy. His father was a senior officer and the last six generations of Franco's family had all served Spain and her vast overseas claims that stretched from the Americas to the Pacific. Yet before Franco was 10, Spain had lost the remnants of her once great empire and her national identity with it.

The 19th century ushered in a period of political and economic chaos for Spain, beginning with the collapse of the Americas and culminating with the Spanish Civil War. During that time, Spain would see eight different kings from three different houses. Amedeo of Savoy, who was elected King of Spain in 1871, eventually abdicated three years later and promptly left the country after declaring to a stunned diplomatic corps that his nation was "ungovernable." After the return of Alfonso XII in 1874, Spain entered a period of relative stability although the loss of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines caused a great deal of anguish in the public, leading to the intermittent popularity of republicanism, anarchism, socialism and, later, communism to the radical left.

By the time Franco obtained his infantry commission in 1910, Spain's domestic stability was shaky due to a long and drawn out colonial war in North Africa and a corrupt and obstinate central government. The domestic crisis further escalated after the end of the First World War and communism soon gripped the left as a solution to Spain's vast unemployment and poverty. The political right countered with a military dictatorship in power in 1923 before collapsing in 1927. By 1931, the King of Spain was forced out of power by the left in a revolution, ushering in the Second Spanish Republic.

Like many conservatives, Franco was shocked at the abdication of the King although he appears to have accepted the political realities of the era. More shocking, perhaps, was the attack on the Catholic Church. The constitution of the Second Spanish Republic was highly anticlerical and the new government quickly moved to nationalize several major industries under their control. After a conservative government won the day in 1933, the radical left revolted leading to violent riots that left thousands dead. This only led to further discontent and radicalization, with the left and the right now comprising two sides: republicans and "nationalists".

While there were many reasonable people on both sides at the start of the Spanish Civil War, extremist elements on the right and the left soon dominated the bitter struggle. At the conclusion of the conflict, Franco appointed himself Caudillo de España and began openly assuming the trappings of a royalist government. Hardly a fascist, Franco openly proclaimed Spain a monarchy in 1947 with himself as regent and it appears that around this time he began searching for a suitable heir. There were two possible candidates for the throne:

• Infante Juan of Spain, Count of Barcelona: Juan was the closest candidate to the throne of Spain as his eldest brother had renounced their rights of succession. Juan was masculine, handsome and showed excellent military prowess as a cadet with the Royal Navy, but he was also too liberal for Franco's tastes.

• Infante Jaime, Duke of Segovia: Jaime was quite possibly the opposite of his brother. Deaf at an early age due to a failed childhood operation, Jaime was strongly encouraged by his father to give up his rights to the throne which he did in 1933. This technically made him ineligible for the throne.

Franco liked neither of them.

Declaring himself regent for life, he played the two brothers against each other in order to ensure their compliance with his regime. Juan's son, Juan Carlos, was eventually appointed by Franco as Prince of Spain in 1969. Franco did, however, keep Jaime's son Alfonso around as a warning: Alfonso eventually married Franco's only daughter, Carmen, in 1972.

By the time of Franco's death in 1975, Juan Carlos already had experience as Spain's head of state, serving as regent whenever Franco left the country. It appears as if Franco counted on a combination of good luck, pressure from Falangists and indoctrination to keep his regime going after his death, but Juan Carlos instead passed several liberal reforms ironically using the absolute power he inherited from Franco. By 1981, Juan Carlos had cemented his position as a liberal monarch and permanently foiled a Falangist coup d'etat.

The Falange was basically a dying organization by the 1970's. The leadership was old, and was dying off. The Young Falangists' Party was seeing ever declining numbers, despite their being the only legal political party. Franco had always been a bit of a Monarchist, and certain parts of Falangist ideology came straight from Carlism, which was, of course the Spanish Monarchist party after the Republic was proclaimed in 1931.

Spanish Fascism is interesting because it was not necessarily a revolutionary movement or an extremist faction by the time Franco stepped in. It was, however, very conservative. Originally, under its founder, Primo de Rivera, Falangism was inspired by National Socialism, but was largely geared towards Agricultural reform (something that the Spanish needed) and was about conserving Spanish traditions of Catholicism in the face of a steadily more godless world. General Franco took over when the Falangist leadership was virtually wiped out by the Republicans in the early days of the War, he essentially used the Falangist name to rally other Conservative forces. He was even denounced by the few remaining Falangists (like Manuel Hedilla) for abandoning the original Falangist ideas.

But all this could be wrong, and it could simply have been that the political climate in Europe was changing and Franco understood how difficult it had been for him to guide Spain through European affairs as a "Fascist" among the Free states of Europe. Having a backwards, Fascist government in the midst of the Western powers gave the Soviet Union a decent propaganda chip during the Cold War, which was reversed when the Spanish Monarchy returned and brought Democracy with it.