Guerra de Sucesión - History Lab

Letter signed by Cardinal Alberoni, to the Marquis of Villena, regretting his banishment from Court

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:33:11 +0000

Giulio Alberoni was an Italian cardinal, chief advisor to King Philip V of Spain, who arrived in Spain in 1711, where he developed a political career that ended in 1719 following an expulsion order by King Philip V. In the court context, Alberoni promoted a policy of economic and social reform. His actions, framed after the War of the Spanish Succession, sought to reduce the powers of the Grandes de España, abolished internal customs within the Crown (except for Navarre and the Basque provinces), stimulated trade with America by transferring the Casa de Contratación to Cadiz.

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Philip VI decrees the suppression of the Council of Aragon in 1707

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:33:11 +0000

The War of Succession pitted Philip of Bourbon against Archduke Charles. Philip of Bourbon, faced with the refusal of the councillors of Aragon to eliminate their charters, decreed the suppression of the Council of Aragon. The Council had jurisdiction over the territories belonging to the Crown: Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, Majorca and Sardinia, and its task was to control the fueros and jurisprudence. The aim of the Felipist faction was to centralise the institutions in the Council and Chamber of Castile. Along these lines, he also contributed the Nueva Planta Decrees, which abolished the laws, institutions and privileges of the Crown of Aragon in order to bring them into line with those of Castile.

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First Bourbon Court of Catalonia (1716)

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:33:11 +0000

After the War of the Spanish Succession, the Spanish internal order underwent changes aimed at establishing a centralised administration. The territorial privileges and privileges were left behind in much of the Peninsula and the defeated were removed from administrative responsibilities. The document is a reflection of this fact: on 15 April 1716 the Audiencia de Cataluña (replacing the Junta de Gobierno) was set up. The Council of Castile decided that both the Public Prosecutors and the Regent had to be Castilian, as did many of the Oidores. On the other hand, the Alcalde del Crimen would have to be Catalonian because of the work involved in their field. In total, of the 18 Ministros Togados of the Audiencia, 7 were Catalan, 8 Castilian, 2 Aragonese and 1 unspecified.

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Expulsion of the gypsies from Tortosa in 1716

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:33:11 +0000

Document by which the Marquis of Castelrodrigo, Captain General of Catalonia, informed the Royal Court of the decision to expel the gypsies from the Castellanía de Amposta and Tortosa. This measure was in line with the dynamics of the Principality of Catalonia, which expelled them in 1715.

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Marquis of Rupit as a member of the first Bourbon City Council of Barcelona, 1718

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:33:11 +0000

Philip V granted the title of regent to the Marquis of Rupit: Francisco de Bournonville y Perapertusa. He was a supporter of the Bourbon cause during the War of Succession to the Spanish throne. In addition, the same order granted the title to 23 other aldermen.

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The castle of Alicante and its fortifications in 1709

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:32:25 +0000

When the allied army took control of Alicante in the midst of the War of the Spanish Succession, they found weak and poorly planned fortifications that they had to carry out major works to improve. The priority was to repair the breaches that the British fleet had caused in its previous attack, and so it was.
A year later, when the French recaptured the town in 1708, they returned to work on the city’s defences, while devising a novel tactic to take control of the castle. The strategy was to build a mine to gain access from the base of the hillside to the castle at the top of the rocky mountain.
March 3, 1709 was the day chosen to detonate the mine, causing a huge explosion and killing 54 English soldiers stationed at the castle. Contrary to what the French commanders thought, the explosion made access to the castle even more difficult, as the extensive damage to the hillside continued to prevent upward entry.
It was not until 18 April that the capitulations were signed, with the English garrison leaving the castle with great military honours, which they would receive two days later, after more than a month under siege and managing the little water they had.

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Bastioned fortifications of Alicante, 1708-1709

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:32:25 +0000

During the War of the Spanish Succession, the allied troops carried out important fortification work in Alicante. By applying a bastioned line, they modified the line of defence of Alicante compared to the previous ones of Charles V, which resulted in a too static defence against an attack of a certain size, as the French troops demonstrated when they assaulted the city from the inside without great difficulty. The defences had been designed with a great deal of effort, and rather than a compact bastioned belt, it ended up as a thin wall with no interior ramparts.
One of the first French objectives was to build a new defensive layout that was more in line with the new military tactics of the time. The works, although they were never completed, were aimed at improving the previous irregular layout and dealing with its poor construction, giving Alicante’s fortifications a new defensive appearance. In the documents found, the most immediate repairs after taking the city are listed, including the repair of the walls and bastions, raising the parapets and making them 18 feet thick, once again pointing out the weakness of the previous constructions.
Outside the 16th-century enclosure, a seven-foot-high earthen trench with a bench was proposed to repel any possible landings, which, if the situation overtook them, would be helped by raising the height of the walls to the same level as the bastions and thus prevent the English from finding weak points, as they did when they managed to take the city.

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Proposals by the military engineer Antonio Montaigut for the castle of Alicante, 1724

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:32:25 +0000

The explosion of the mine carried out by the French general D’Asfeld during the War of Succession in 1709 showed the weaknesses of one of the most solid fortresses of the Spanish Levante: the castle of Alicante. One of those in charge of drawing up proposals for its reconstruction and consolidation was the military engineer Antonio Montaigut.
Since ancient times, Alicante has been a key strategic point for controlling the Levantine coast. Surrounded by the capes of La Huerta and Santa Pola, it was governed from the top of the Alicante hill and its castle of Santa Bárbara. As mentioned above, one of those in charge of improving its defences was Antonio Montaigut, who worked on a previous project by Jorge Próspero de Verboom.
By the mid-1720s, Valencia and Murcia already had Montaigut as their chief engineer. His task was to carry out the defensive projects and inform the general state engineer about the steps to be taken: to complete the works proposed by Verboom in the city of Alicante, but also to work on the castle, which had been orphaned of work since the previous projects. As shown in the appeal, the most important thing was to replace the batteries with a new reinforced bastion and to protect the way up to the castle, where the Cavalry Corps and the soldiers, until now located in houses due to the absence of barracks, would be housed.

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Distribution of foreign textiles through the port of Bilbao between 1710-1714

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:32:12 +0000

The resource deals with the distribution of foreign fabrics imported from the port of Bilbao during 1710 and 1714, the years in which the War of the Spanish Succession took place. Fabrics destined for Madrid and Toledo paid customs duties in Valmaseda, Orduña, while those bound for the Cantabrian mountain range did so in Vitoria. Taxes were directly proportional to the quality of the fabric: the higher the quality, the higher the tax. From the port of Bilbao they were distributed to wide areas of the peninsular monarchy: the Upper Ebro Valley, the Duero Valley, the Iberian System, Logroño, Soria and Toledo as its extreme points. Where did most of the textiles come from? In the years prior to the war, Holland and England were the two largest exporters (90% of the linen came from Holland). The Royal Order of 3 December 1710 prohibited the importation of Dutch fabrics, thus favouring the British. In the distribution network, Madrid, Toledo, Segovia and Valladolid were the provinces with the highest import ratio, followed by Ávila, Burgos, Palencia, Soria and Logroño. The authors warn us that, due to the war situation, the distribution could have altered with respect to previous years. The Royal Treasury tried to reduce some costs by suspending the payment of pensions, subsidies and other benefits, or by delaying the payment of bureaucratic salaries; this meant that certain privileged groups saw their incomes reduced. At the same time, in Castilian territory, the tax burden on the population was increased. The high taxes and reduced purchasing power led to a lower demand for foreign fabrics.

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Cardinal Belluga y Moncada

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:30:19 +0000

The 18th century was one of the most transcendental periods in the history of the Kingdom of Murcia. The Enlightenment, the beginning of the industrial revolution in certain countries and the splendid demographic growth together with monarchical absolutism and political centralism are just some of the most important events of the century. For Spain, one of the most important situations was the War of Succession to the Spanish crown (1701-1714), which began after the death of Charles II “the Bewitched” (the last of the Habsburgs) and the establishment of the Bourbon monarchy with the proclamation of Philip V. The fact that the then bishop of the Diocese of Cartagena, D. Luis Belluga y Moncada (1616) was the bishop of the Diocese of Cartagena. Luis Belluga y Moncada (1662-1743) supported the cause of the Bourbons clearly conditioned the immediate future of the Kingdom of Murcia, as it became a frontier zone against the supporters of the House of Habsburg and the scene of battles such as the so-called Huerto de las Bombas or the one in which the miracle of the Virgen de las Lágrimas (Monteagudo) took place. Appointed cardinal of the Church in 1719, he was responsible for his notable work in the social field with the creation of the Pious Foundations and other initiatives such as the College of San Leandro and the Casa de la Misericordia (House of Mercy). Likewise, his good relations with the monarchy did not prevent him from becoming a champion of the rights of the Church in the face of the royalist trend.

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