806 



ESPARTERO, JOAQUIN BALDOMERO. 



ESPRONCEDA, JOSfi DE. 



806 



admission, and there studied engineering, fortification, and military 

 tactics generally. In 1814 he was promoted to a sub-lieutenancy iu 

 the infantry regiment of the province of Soria, and at the termination 

 of the peninsular war remained with his regiment in garrison at 

 Madrid. 



In February 1815 Espartero joined the expedition under General 

 Morillo which was sent out to defend the Spanish provinces in South 

 America against the insurrectionists, of whom Bolivar was the principal 

 leader. The regiment of Estremadura, to which E.-<partero was 

 attached, was destined for Lima, where it arrived in September 1815. 

 After the first campaign in Peru, Espartero was made captain of a 

 regiment ; and having been successful, as he himself states, in seventeen 

 consecutive actions, was appointed to the command of a battalion, 

 January 10, 1817. In 1820 and 1822 he was raised to the rank of 

 colonel and brigadier, and was named chief of the general staff (estado 

 mayor). In 1824 he was sent by the viceroy Laserna with special 

 despatches to the king, and landed in Spain in October. After a short 

 stay he set sail on his return to South America. The passage was 

 long and stormy ; and in the meantime the victory of Ayacucho had 

 been gained by Bolivar, December 9, 1824, with irreparable loss to the 

 royalwts ; and all the Spanish generals had set sail on their return to 

 the Peninsula. Espartero landed at Quilca in May IS 25, where, instead 

 of meet ,ug with his old companions in arms, he was seized by Bolivar's 

 troop*, thrown into prison at Arequipa, and was treated with such 

 cruelty that his health gave way, and he was transferred to the hospital. 

 At the end of July be made his escape to Quilca, where he waa taken 

 on board a French ship, and landed in Spain at the end of November 

 1825. 



After his return to Spain, Espartero was again attached to the 

 regiment of Soria, and while in quarters at Logroiio became acquainted 

 with the daughter of a rich proprietor, Dona Jacinta Sicilia, and married 

 her iu September 1827. lie remained in quarters at Logroiio, Pam- 

 plona, and Barcelona till November 1832, when he was sent with his 

 regiment to the Balearic Islands. He was stationed at Palma, in Ma- 

 jorca, and continued there till the civil war broke out in the Basque 

 Provinces, in 1833, when he solicited and obtained permission to pro- 

 ceed there with his regiment, in order to act with the queen's troops 

 against those of Don Carlos. He was then colonel of the infantry 

 rrgimnt of Soria. On the 1st of January 1834 he was named Coman- 

 daute-Geueral of the province of Biscaya, and soon afterwards waa 

 raised to the dignity of Field-Marshal. On the 20th of June 1835 be 

 was appointed Lieutenant-General of the National Armies, and on the 

 17th of September in the same year waa nnmed General-in-Chi-f of the 

 Army of the North. He co-operated with General Evans iu the relief 

 of Bilbao and other operations in 1836, and with a body of about 

 7000 men routed the expeditionary army of Gomez, which had 

 advanced with great rapidity towards Madrid. In 1837 he advanced 

 from the Ebro against the Pretender's army in Castile, which he routed 

 near Aranda de Douro, and interposing between the two columns into 

 which it had separated, drove part of them into the mountains and the 

 rest across the Ebro into the Basque Provinces. When the army of 

 Don Carlos advanced towards Madrid, iu 1837, he forced it to retreat, 

 September 12, and drove it back over the Ebro. For seizing the 

 position of Luchana, and by this operation raising the siege of Bilbao, 

 he was created Conde de Luchana. lie was active in 1838, but in 1839 

 the north' ru provinces, where the rebellion had originated, became 

 tired of the war, and the army of Don Carlos, unpaid, ill fed, and 

 badly clothed, were themselves disposed to join the queen's party. 

 On the 1st of June 1839, Enpartero was created a Grandee of the first 

 class, with the title of Duque de la Victoria y de Morella ; and on the 

 31st of August a convention was signed at Vergara between the Duque 

 de la Victoria and Don Rafael Maroto, lieutenant-general of the 

 armies of Don Carlos, by which twenty-four battalions of veteran 

 troops laid down their arms, and acknowledged the supremacy of the 

 queen " thus," says General Sir De Lacy Evans, "consummating an 

 act of forgiveness, reconciliation, and peace, in a cordial spirit, and 

 under conditions completely honourable to both parties ; and which 

 afforded one of the most gratifying and remarkable instances of good 

 MOM and good feeling on the part of previously conflicting armies and 

 opposing partisans to be found in the records of any nation." Don 

 Carlos immediately fled into France, and the few troops that remained 

 faithful to him were disbanded and dispersed. 



The mother of the Queen of Spain had been appointed Queen 

 Regent during the minority of her daughter, but in consequence of 

 her giving her assent to a law which interfered with the freedom of 

 deliberation in the ayuntamientos, or town councils, an insurrection 

 broke out, which obliged her on the 12th of October 1840 to resign 

 her office of lieina Gobernadora, and retire to France. By a decision of 

 the Cortes, May 8, 1841, Espartero was appointed regent of the king- 

 dom during the remainder of the minority of the queen. He performed 

 the duties of this office till 1843, when a conspiracy and combination 

 of parties obliged him to leave Madrid, and on the 30th of July he 

 was taken on board an English ship of war in the Bay of Cadiz, 

 whence he soon afterwards set sail for England, and fixed his resi- 

 dence in London, where he waa treated with the respect to which his 

 services in the cause of constitutional government so well entitled 

 him. The Queen of Spain, by a decree of the Cortes, w*s declared 

 to have reached her majority on the 8th of November 1843, though 



by the terms of the constitution the date was fixed for October 10th 

 1844. Espartero resided in London till December 29th 1847, when 

 he set sail on his return to Spain. He afterwards lived in retirement 

 at Logrono. Meantime Narvaez had succeeded Espartero as the head 

 of the government ; Queen Christina had returned to Madrid ; Munoz 

 her husband had been created Duke of Rianzares ; aud despotism 

 continued in favour with the court aud government till the Spanish 

 people again revolted, and Espartero having been recalled to power, 

 on the 17th of July 1854 the Queen Mother was obliged to quit the 

 kingdom. The Duque de la Victoria continued to be the head of the 

 government till the 14th of July 1856, when, in consequence of a 

 ministerial difficulty, which appears to have been artfully prepared 

 and provided for by O'Donnell, now leader of the absolutist party, 

 Espartero thought fit to tender his resignation. It was accepted by 

 the queen ; she appointed O'Donuell as his successor, and the liberal 

 government ceased to exist. The nomination of O'Donnell as prime 

 minister was rejected by the Cortes, consisting of 93 assembled 

 members, with only one dissenting vote. Au insurrection broke out 

 in Madrid, which, after some fighting, was overcome j similar' risings 

 in Barcelona, San Sebastian, and elsewhere, were speedily suppressed. 

 The whole kingdom however was declared in a state of siege. Sara- 

 gossa alone seems to be preparing for serious resistance. Espartero is 

 supposed to be under surveillance, if not in custody ; but up to the 

 present time (July 24, 1856) his actual state is unknown, at least out 

 of Spain. 



(Eipartero. Hiitoria de tu Vida Afilitar y Politico, y de log grandes 

 Sucesoa Contemporaneos. Eicrita, bajo la Direction de D. Joes' Set/undo 

 Flora, 4 vols. 8vo, Madrid, 2nd ed., 1844.) 



ESPRONCEDA, JOSE DE, a Spanish poet of great popularity and 

 reputation, was born on the high road near Alrneudralejo iu Estrema- 

 dura, during a march of the campaign of 1810. His father was 

 colonel of the regiment of Bourbon which distinguished itself at the 

 battle of Talavera, and at the age of five, as soon as the child was old 

 enough to mount on horseback, he was entered as a cadet of the 

 regiment. At the conclusion of the war he was sent to school at 

 Madrid, and when at the college of St. Matthew became a favourite 

 pupil of Alberto Liata, the poet and lecturer on literature, who, 

 discovering his talents, encouraged him to compose and corrected his 

 verses. Politics however divided the youth's attention with poetry, 

 and before the age of fifteen he was in prison as a conspirator, as one 

 of the society of ' Numantines,' a secret combination against the 

 despotic rule of the minister Calomarde [CALOMAUDK], On account 

 of his tender age he was allowe 1 to escape with only four months' 

 imprisonment and a short ' reclusion ' in a convent, aud it was while 

 in the convent at Guadalajara that he commenced an epic poem on 

 the favourite subject of the Spanish writers, ' Pelayo,' the hero of the 

 epic, which a few years later liuiz de la Vega composed when a refugee 

 in England. On leaving the convent Esprouccda made himself 

 again so troublesome, that at the age of seventeen he WAS obliged to 

 banish himself to Lisbon. When there he was shut up by Don 

 Miguel in the castle of St. George, and one day with several of the 

 other Spanish refugees put on board a ship and sent to England. In 

 the castle of St. George he had became enamoured of a girl of sixteen, 

 the daughter of a fellow-prisoner, a Spanish military officer of nink, 

 and his absence from Portugal was felt as irksome, till one day on 

 witnessing the arrival of a ship in the Thames, he unexpectedly saw 

 her disembark. His residence in England he afterwards looked back 

 upon as the happiest period of his life. He made himself acquainted 

 with the language and studied Shakspere, Milton, aud Byron, espe- 

 cially the last of the three, whom he took in many respects as his 

 model. One of his poems which has been much admired, an ' Ode 

 to Spain on its fallen condition,' is dated from London in 1829. A 

 darkneu rests on the conclusion of his love affair, and towards the 

 end of 1829 he was in Paris, where in the following year he fought 

 bravely at the barricades. The success of the revolution of 1830 

 naturally led the Spanish refugees to try their fortune on their native 

 soil, but the expedition of Pablo de Chapalangarra, iu which 

 Espronceda took a part, only gave him an opportunity of displaying 

 his signal courage and of writing a poem on the death of the leader. 

 The change which the exiles had been unable in the least to accelerate, 

 was effected as if by magic by the death of Ferdinand ; and Espronceda, 

 who returned to Madrid aud entered the regiment of body-guards of 

 the queen, seemed for a short time at the commencement of a career 

 of good fortune. A song which he wrote for a banquet of the regiment 

 soon altered his prospects it contained some offensive political allu- 

 sions, which not only led to his dismissal by the ministry, but his 

 banishment to Cuellar, where he occupied himself by writing ' Saucho 

 Saldaiia 5 el Caste.llano de Cuellar,' an historical novel in the style of 

 Walter Scott. On the promulgation of the ' Estatuto Real," the con- 

 stitutional charter of modern Spain, he returned to Madrid, and took 

 part in the newspaper ' El Siglo,' or ' The Age.' At this time his 

 political sentiments were not only of a republican but a socialist 

 character, and he was so ready to carry them into action, that twice 

 in the years 1835 and 1836 he was engaged iu defending barricades in 

 the streets of Madrid. His friends, who continued so to the lust, 

 make it no secret that at the same time his private life was one of 

 disorder and excess. At length in 1840, after some years of struggle, 

 varied with occasional nights from the reach of the authorities, he 



