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It was a consolation to us to learn that it was an advantage to be Irish somewhere under the sun. The King of Spain is but Lord of Biscay, and has to swear under the oak-tree of Guernica to respect the fueros or customs of the province. Don Carlos had so done; he was in Spain, it was true, but where he was at the moment the Cura was unable to say; his court was perambulatory.

In all these links of the immense strategical chain which protected Castile from her enemies, the monarchs were cunning enough to erect sees and appoint warrior-bishops. They even donated the new fortress-cities with special privileges or fueros, in virtue of which settlers came from all parts of the country to inhabit and constitute the new municipality.

The town grew apace, thanks to the remarkable fueros granted to the citizens, who lived as in a republic of their own making an almost unique case of self-government to be recorded in the middle ages. The principal parish church was raised to a suffragan of Osma in the twelfth century.

Spain was the classic land of participation of all classes in government through the cortes; almost as old as the monarchy were the fueros, or franchises and charters; protected by these fueros, the cities and towns had become numerous, powerful, and almost self-governing; and even rural communities had in many cases a complicated and semi-independent system of control of their own affairs.

The Cura of Vera Fueros of the Basques Carlist Discipline Fate of the San Margarita The Squadron of Vigilance How a Capture was Effected The Sea-Rovers in the Dungeon Visit to the Prisoners San Sebastian A Dead Season The Defences of a Threatened City Souvenirs of War The Miqueletes In a Fix A German Doctor's Warning.

I was scarcely in the prison of the Holy Office before the dread cry of Contrafueros! was ringing through the streets of Saragossa, summoning the citizens to arm and come forth in defence of their inviolable rights. They stormed the palace of the Grand Justiciary, demanded that he should defend the fueros, to whose guardianship he had been elected.

An act was then drawn up by the clerk, signed by the mayor and the sheriff, testifying that the "waters of the Zadorria flowed into the Ebro." To-day the waters still flow into the Ebro, but the procession does not take place, and the city's fueros are no more. In the reign of Isabel the Catholic, the Church of St.

They were not national; they were caused by the ambitions of rulers and noblemen, and fought out by the inhabitants of Navarra and the Basque Provinces who upheld their fueros, by paid soldiery, and by aldeanos whose houses and families were threatened. New Spain was born a few years ago, but so far she has given no proof of vitality.

They were as fond of their fueros as any Carlist in the crowd, but they stood up for Madrid less that they cared for the policy or personages of the central government, than that they had a deep-seated hereditary hatred of their neighbours of the rural districts. At heart they were in favour of a restoration of the throne, and on that throne they would fain seat the young Prince of the Asturias.

Until the final overthrow of the Carlists by Alfonso XII., the Basque Provinces, amongst their most cherished fueros, were exempted from the hated conscription; but the victorious King made short work of that and of all other special rights and privileges which, in truth, had been abused and now all the country is subject to conscription.