Cabrera

Cabrera, DON RAMON, Carlist leader, was born at Tortosa, Catalonia, in 1810. Intended for the church, he had already received the minor orders, when the death of Ferdinand in 1833 gave the signal for civil war. Cabrera at once joined the absolutists, or partisans of Don Carlos, and by his energy, daring, and pitiless cruelty—at least after the shooting of his aged mother by Mina (1836) for treasonable correspondence—soon made his name a household word throughout Aragon and Valencia. Defeated and severely wounded at Rancon, he escaped with difficulty into the woods, but soon reappeared at the head of a really formidable force, overthrew the royal army at Buñol and at Burjasot, and though vanquished at Torre-Blanca, he soon after reopened the war with fiery energy, and even for a time threatened Madrid itself. In 1839 Don Carlos created him Count of Morella and governor-general of Aragon, Valencia, and Murcia; but Marotto's treachery obliged him to act solely on the defensive, and in July 1840 he was driven across the French frontier. In 1845 he strongly opposed Don Carlos's abdication of his rights, and in 1848 renewed the struggle for absolutism in Spain; but the adventure proved a miserable failure, and early in 1849 he had to recross the Pyrenees. He afterwards married a wealthy English lady. When Alfonso was proclaimed king of Spain in 1875, Cabrera published a manifesto advising the Carlists to submit to him, as a good son of the church. He died at Wentworth, near Staines, 24th May 1877.