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Updated: June 22, 2025
As regards the celebrated fueros given by the last named monarch to the inhabitants of the city, a curious custom was in vogue in the city until a few years ago, when the Basque Provinces finally lost the privileges they had fought for during centuries.
A shadow of the Fueros of Catalonia, Valencia, and Aragon still remained, but she had sapped the foundation on which they rested by the establishment of the Holy Office. Charles V. was sufficiently powerful to disregard such humble instrumentalities in carrying out any purpose he deemed to be of advantage to his states.
And to that the king must solemnly bind himself by oath, whose violation would raise in revolt against him the very cobbles of the streets. No king of Spain had ever yet been found to dare violate the constitution and the fueros of Aragon, the independence of their cortes, or parliament, composed of the four orders of the State.
He certainly earned the peseta I gave him, but he would have done far more for it if we had suffered him to take us up another flight of stairs; and he followed us in our descent with bows and adieux that ought to have left no doubt in our minds of the persistence of the Basque fueros.
He had therefore adopted the policy of attacking the fueros, the extraordinary privileges of the two classes of priests and soldiers, which had become part of the constitution under the first viceroys, and which not even the war of independence, and the adoption of republican forms, ever did away with. Neither class is amenable to the civil tribunals for debt or for any offences.
The fueros were abolished by the Cortes in 1841 and but partially restored in 1844, so that in inscribing them as one of the watchwords on their banner, the Basques were fighting for something more solid than glory. They cling to their rights as Britons do to Magna Charta, only with this difference they have a clearer conception of what they are.
He clings tenaciously to his unintelligible language, and is quite certain that he is superior to the whole human race. The fueros, or special rights, already spoken of, for which the Basques have fought so passionately for five hundred years, might possibly have been theirs for some time longer if they had not unwisely thrown in their lot with the Carlist Pretender.
It was only after Alfonso XII. had stamped out the last Carlist war that the ancient fueros, or special rights, of the Basque Provinces became a thing of the past, and their people liable to conscription, on a par with all the other parts of Spain.
Several hundred cities, towns, and rural communities in Spain held fueros granted to them by the king, a great noble, or some ecclesiastical body. These charters in many cases dated from the eleventh or twelfth century and conceded the most extensive rights and privileges.
"If I am not mistaken," said I, "that's not a Spanish air you have just been singing. It's like the zorzicos I've heard in the Provinces,* and the words must be in the Basque language." * The privileged Provinces, Alava, Biscay, Guipuzcoa, and a part of Navarre, which all enjoy special fueros. The Basque language is spoken in these countries. "Yes," said Don Jose, with a gloomy look.
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