Historia de Barcelona

Etiqueta: James Stanhope

  • Peterborough toma Montjuic; muere su compañero, Jorge de Darmstadt, un nuevo Cristo

    The English and Dutch generals serving under him were all of opinion that the attempt amounted to madness; but he persisted; and, throwing off all the trammels of routine and military pedantry, he carried on the siege in a way that confirmed all the old generals in their notion that the man was mad. They said that it was impossible such wild and irregular plans could succeed; but they succeeded nevertheless.

    It was, for example, against all rule and precedent to attack the castle before taking the town; but Peterborough saw that, if he could only take the strong castle of Montjuich, which commanded the town, first, the town itself must soon fall: he perceived at once that the arduous part of the undertaking was the capture of the castle; and, therefore, he resolved to begin with it while his men were fresh and vigorous, and free from those casualties and miseries which inevitably attend protracted sieges.

    Accordingly, he took a near view of the castle in person, discovered enough to convince him that the garrison in it was neither strong nor vigilant; and then, pretending to give up his enterprise, he reembarked some of his troops, in order to make the Spaniards believe he was on the point of sailing away. Communicating his real design to none but the Prince of Hesse Darmstadt, Peterborough, on the night of the 3d of September, suddenly put about 1400 men under arms, and sent them by two different byroads to fall upon the castle.

    The first body, consisting of 800 men he led in person, having the Prince of Hesse Darmstadt with him, who had volunteered to partake in the hazard. «The second body,» says Burnet, «were led by General Stanhope, from whom I had this account.»

    About daybreak Peterborough fell upon the defenses of the castle, and, with no artillery with him except a few small field-pieces and mortars, he established himself on the outworks; but the Prince of Hesse Darmstadt received a shot in his body, fell, and, expired soon after; Stanhope, owing to some of his men mistaking their way, did not come up for some time; and the Spanish governor made a fierce sally from the body of the castle, hoping to sweep the assailants down the hill before him. But Peterborough and his brave men kept their ground: the Spaniard, thinking them more numerous than they were, wheeled round without coming to blows, and ran back within the castle.

    Then Stanhope’s men came up, and Peterborough threw a few bombs into the castle. One of these bombs fell into the powder magazine, blew it up, and caused the death of the governor and some of the best officers, and thereupon the rest surrendered without delay.

  • Peterborough toma Barcelona para Carlos y rescata a una guapa de la multitud

    Then Peterborough directed his attention to the town below, reached the walls, and induced the governor, Velasco, to agree to surrender within four days, if not relieved. Relief was out of the question; and within the town the Austrian partisans were numerous and daring: bands of Miquelets, a sort of lawless association of Catalans, threatened to throw open the gates, and subject the whole city to fire, sword, and plunder; so that even before the time mentioned, Velasco was forced to capitulate, and to entreat the enemy to enter, and secure him and the respectable inhabitants from the fury of the Miquelets and the rabble of the town. Peterborough, like a preux chevalier, rode into Barcelona instantly with only a few attendants, and rescued from the rabble a beautiful lady, who proved to be the Duchess of Popoli, the wife of a grandee of Spain, who derived his title from a town in the Abruzzi. and who possessed, or, rather, had possessed, immense estates in the Neapolitan kingdom. He restored the fair lady to her lord: and, riding through a loose, mad fire of guns and pistols, and making use of persuasions and of the flat of his sword, he at last succeeded in reducing that rabble rout to order, and saved the lives of the governor and his officers.1 «The Spaniards,» says Voltaire, «were confounded at the sight of so much magnanimity in the English, whom the populace had taken for pitiless barbarians, because they were heretics.» Immediately after this remarkable achievement, the whole of Catalonia and every fortified place in it, with the exception of Rosas, submitted to Charles. But Peterborough was not the man to sleep under his laurels ; he flew in search of fresh exploits, and led his troops over the ground as fast as Spanish cabinet couriers traveled.

    1 » The Earl of Peterborough, with Stanhope and other officers, rode about the streets to stop this fury, and to prevail with the people to maintain their articles of capitulation religiously; and in doing this, Stanhope said to me, they ran a greater hazard, from the shooting and fire that was flying about in that disorder, than they had done during the whole siege.»—Burnet.

  • Ahorcado y descuartizado un espía del duque de Orleans

    Yesterday’s Dutch post advises, from Genoa, that the duke de Telesa’s secretary was lately hanged and quartered at Barcelona, for corresponding with the duke of Orleans, who gave him a daily pension of 25 pistolls.

    That general Stanhope was sail’d from Barcelona, with 2 men of war, for Port Mahone, to conferr with admiral Bing, and giving directions for strengthening the the fortifications of that town and harbour.