Baldomero Espartero , Prince of Vergara Don Joaquín Baldomero Fernández - Espartero y Alvarez de Toro , 1st Prince of Vergara , 1st Duke of la Victoria , 1st Duke of Morella , 1st Count of Luchana , 1st Viscount of Banderas ( 27 February 1793 – 8 January 1879 ) was a Spanish general and political figure . He was associated with the radical ( or progressive ) wing of Spanish liberalism and would become their symbol and champion after taking credit for the victory over the Carlists in 1839 . His noble titles , " Duke of La Victoria " were granted by Isabella II to him as a result . The title Prince of Vergara was granted to him by King Amadeo of Spain in 1870 . Early life . Espartero was born at Granátula de Calatrava , a village of the province of Ciudad Real . He was the ninth child ( two of them were Francisco and Antonia ) of Manuel Antonio Fernández - Espartero y Cañadas , a carter , who wanted to make him a priest , and wife Josefa Vicenta Alvarez de Toro y Molina , but the lad at fifteen enlisted in a battalion of students to fight against the armies of Napoleon . In 1811 Espartero was appointed a lieutenant of engineers in Cádiz , but having failed to pass his examination he entered a line regiment . In 1815 he went to South America as a captain under General Morillo , who had been made commander - in - chief to quell the risings of the colonies on the Spanish Main . For eight years Espartero distinguished himself in the struggle against the colonists . He was several times wounded , and was made major and colonel on the battlefields of Cochabamba and Sapachni . He had to surrender to Sucre at the final Battle of Ayacucho , which put an end to Spanish rule . He returned to Spain , and , like most of his companions in arms , remained under a cloud for some time . He was sent to the garrison town of Logroño , where in La Rioja he married on 13 September 1827 the orphaned daughter of a rich landowner named Ezequiel Martínez de Sicilia y Ruíz de la Cámara ( 1786 – 1812 ) and wife María del Carmen Anacleta Santa Cruz y Oribe ( 1786 – 1816 ) , " Doña " María Jacinta Martínez de Sicilia y Santa Cruz , born there on 16 August 1811 and who eventually survived him , dying in 1878 , without issue . Henceforth Logroño became the home of the most prominent of the Spanish political generals of the 19th century . Carlist War . Espartero became , on the death of King Ferdinand VII in 1833 , one of the most ardent defenders of the rights of his daughter , Isabella II . On the outbreak of the First Carlist War , the government sent him to the front as commandant of the province of Biscay , where he severely defeated the Carlists in many encounters . He was quickly promoted to a divisional command , and then made a lieutenant - general . At times he showed qualities as a " guerrillero " quite equal to those of the Carlists , like Zumalacarregui and Ramón Cabrera , by his daring marches and surprises . When he had to move large forces he was greatly superior to them as an organizer and strategist , and he never disgraced his successes by cruelty or needless severity . Twice he obliged the Carlists to raise the siege of Bilbao before he was appointed commander - in - chief of the northern army on 17 September 1836 . At this time , the tide of war seemed to be setting in favor of the pretender in the Basque provinces and Navarre , even though Don Carlos had lost his ablest lieutenant , the Basque Zumalacarregui . Defeat of the Carlists . His military duties at the head of the principal national army did not prevent Espartero from showing for the first time his political ambition . He displayed such radical and reforming inclinations that he laid the foundations of his popularity among the lower and middle classes , which lasted more than a quarter of a century , during which time the Progressists , Democrats and advanced Liberals always looked to him as a leader and adviser . In November 1836 he again forced the Carlists to raise the siege of Bilbao . His troops included the British legion under Sir de Lacy Evans . This success turned the tide of war against Don Carlos , who vainly attempted a raid towards Madrid , but was defeated in the Battle of Aranzueque . Meanwhile , on 18 June 1837 he was nominated for the first time the 7th Prime Minister of Spain , until 18 August 1837 . Espartero was soon at his heels , and obliged him to hurry northwards , after several defeats . Espartero won the Battle of Ramales on 12 May 1839 , earning him the title of " Duque de la Victoria " . In 1839 Espartero carefully opened up negotiations with Maroto and the principal Carlist chiefs of the Basque provinces . These ended in their accepting his terms under the convention of Vergara , which secured the recognition of their ranks and titles for nearly 1 , 000 Carlist officers . Twenty thousand Carlist volunteers laid down their arms at Vergara ; only the irreconcilables led by Cabrera held out for a while in the central provinces of Spain . Espartero soon , however , in 1840 , stamped out the last embers of the rising , which had lasted seven years . He was styled " El pacificador de España " , was made a grandee of the first class , and received two dukedoms . Political life . It was against this backdrop that Espartero ' s political opponents , the moderates , mobilised support to amend the progressive Constitution of 1837 . In particular , the moderates ' proposal to abolish democratically - elected local councils threatened to destroy the power base of the progressives . This threat was checked by the radical revolution of 1840 , after which the conservatives were sidelined and Espartero became the master of the destiny of Spain . During the last three years of the war , Espartero , who had been elected a deputy , exercised from his distant headquarters such influence over Madrid politics that he twice hastened the fall of the cabinet , and obtained office for his own friends . At the close of the war the queen regent and her ministers attempted to elbow out Espartero and his followers , but a " pronunciamiento " ensued in Madrid and other large towns which culminated in the marshal ' s accepting the post of prime minister . He soon became virtually a dictator , as Queen Christina took offence at his popularity and resigned , leaving the kingdom very soon afterwards . The Cortes Generales met and elected Espartero regent by 179 votes to 103 over Agustín Argüelles , who was appointed guardian of the young queen . Forcing the regent , Maria Cristina , into exile for her conspiracy with the moderates , Espartero himself became regent with the intention of remaining so until the future Queen Isabella II came of age . Espartero ' s popular support enabled him to crush moderate military uprisings across Spain in 1841 . Yet his ruthless execution of dozens of the conspirators , including many popular fellow war heroes like Diego de Leon , as well as his hasty and ungrateful dissolution of the radical " juntas " that had crushed the risings , marked the start of the decline in support for his regency . Rule of Espartero . For two years Espartero ruled Spain , as its 18th Prime Minister from 16 September 1840 to 21 May 1841 , in accordance with his radical and conciliatory dispositions , giving special attention to the reorganization of the administration , taxation and finances , declaring all the estates of the church , congregations and religious orders to be national property , and suppressing the " diezma " , or tenths . He suppressed the Republican risings with as much severity as he did the military " pronunciamientos " of Generals Concha and Diego de León . The latter was shot in Madrid . Espartero crushed with much energy a revolutionary rising in Barcelona , but on his return to Madrid was so coldly welcomed that he perceived that his prestige was on the wane . An economic slump and rumours of a free - trade deal with Britain provoked a popular uprising by workers and the bourgeoisie of Barcelona in 1842 . Espartero ' s ruthless bombardment of the city crushed this revolutionary threat . But a second uprising in 1843 , combined with moderate conspiracies and military uprisings . The rebels declared Queen Isabella of age , and , led by General Ramón María Narváez y Campos , marched upon Madrid . Espartero , deeming resistance useless , embarked at Cadiz on 30 July 1843 for England , and lived quietly apart from politics until 1848 , when a royal decree restored to him all his honors and his seat in the senate . Dubbed public enemy number one by the brutal forces of reaction , headed by the moderate Narváez , Espartero was unable to return to his estates in northern Spain until an amnesty was decreed later in the 1840s . Although Espartero ' s regime ( 1840 – 1843 ) in reality had done little for Spain ' s poor , the anti - radical reaction of the moderates made the former regent a folk hero among many of the workers . Therefore , it was logical that he should become head of the short - lived " progressive Biennium " of 1854 – 1856 , thus becoming the 43rd Prime Minister of Spain on 19 July 1854 . But , as Karl Marx observed , the progressive " caudillo " was a man whose time had passed . The old marshal vainly endeavoured to keep his own Progressists within bounds in the Cortes of 1854 – 1856 and in the great towns , but their excessive demands for reforms and liberties played into the hands of a clerical and reactionary court and of the equally retrograde governing classes . The growing ambition of General O ' Donnell constantly clashed with the views of Espartero , until the latter , in sheer disgust , resigned his premiership and left for Logroño , after warning the queen that a conflict was imminent between O ' Donnell and the Cortes , backed by the Progressist militia . O ' Donnell ' s " pronunciamiento " in 1856 put an end to the Cortes , and the militia was disarmed , after a sharp struggle in the streets of the capital . Spanish political power swung once more back towards the moderates in 1856 . He was the 42nd Grand Cross of the Order of the Tower and Sword . Retirement . After 1856 Espartero resolutely declined to identify himself with active politics , but at every stage in the onward march of Spain towards more liberal and democratic institutions , he was asked to take a leading part . On 14 July 1858 , he resigned as Prime Minister . He refused to allow his name to be brought forward as a candidate when the Cortes of 1868 , after the Revolution , sought for a ruler . Espartero , strangely enough , adopted a laconic phrase when successive governments on their advent to power invariably addressed themselves to the venerable champion of liberal ideas . To all to the Revolution of 1868 , the Constituent Cortes of 1869 , King Amadeus , the Federal Republic of 1873 , the nameless government of Marshal Serrano in 1874 , the Bourbon restoration in 1875 , he simply said : " Cumplase la voluntad nacional " ( " Let the national will be accomplished " ) . King Amadeus made him prince of Vergara . The Restoration raised a statue to him near the gate of the Retiro Park in Madrid . A magnificent statue and fountain was raised in his memory at Logrono . Spaniards of all political stripes , except Carlists and Ultramontane s , paid homage to his memory when he died at his La Rioja residence on 8 January 1879 . His tastes were singularly modest , his manners rather reserved but always kind and considerate of humble folk . He was a typical Spanish soldier - politician but had more of the better traits of the soldier born and bred than of the arts of the statesman . His military instincts did not always make it easy for him to accommodate himself to courtiers and professional politicians . He died without issue and was succeeded in his titles by his niece Eladia Fernández - Espartero y Blanco , 2nd Duchess of la Victoria and 2nd Countess of Luchana , daughter of his brother Francisco Fernández - Espartero y Alvarez de Toro and wife . . . Blanco y . . . , married to Cipriano Segundo Montesino y Duque de Estrada ( Valencia de Alcántara , 26 September 1817 - ? ) , and had issue .