Asensio Nebot

Last updated March 11, 2019

Asensio Nebot, known as "The Friar" and born in Nules, Spain in 1779, was a guerrilla in the Kingdom of Valencia during the Peninsular War. His exploits during the Peninsular War are well documented but, as he worked as a secret agent after the end of the war, there are gaps in what is known about his life from 1815 onwards.

Nules is a town in eastern Spain, in the province of Castellón. Located 18 km to the south of the province's capital, at 13 m over sea level, it has 13,750 inhabitants, living in Nules Town, Nules Beach and Mascarell.

Spain, officially the Kingdom of Spain, is a country mostly located on the Iberian Peninsula in Europe. Its territory also includes two archipelagoes: the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa, and the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea. The African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla make Spain the only European country to have a physical border with an African country (Morocco). Several small islands in the Alboran Sea are also part of Spanish territory. The country's mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with Gibraltar; to the north and northeast by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; and to the west and northwest by Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean.

Guerrilla warfare form of irregular warfare

Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which a small group of combatants, such as paramilitary personnel, armed civilians, or irregulars, use military tactics including ambushes, sabotage, raids, petty warfare, hit-and-run tactics, and mobility to fight a larger and less-mobile traditional military. Guerrilla groups are a type of violent non-state actor.

Peninsular War

Asensio Nebot was born in Nules in 1779. He entered the Monastery of Nuestra Señora del Rosario in Villarreal at a very early age to study to become a Franciscan friar. In 1809 the monastery was closed and Nebot joined the fight against the French after Napoleon's invasion of Spain in the Peninsular War. Nebot fought as a guerrilla and was known as El Fraile or Padre Nebot because of his Franciscan education. He assembled an army of 4,000 men with a cavalry of 500 and a rifle brigade, Tupper’s Rifles, so called because the guns and money had been provided by Peter Charles Tupper, a wealthy British businessman who lived in Valencia. The Friar set up his headquarters at Vistabella del Maestrazgo, an inaccessible village in Castellón. He harassed the French with ambushes and surprise attacks. He stopped their provisions and mail from reaching their destinations, destroyed their supplies and took possession of their horses and weapons.

Vila-real is a city in the province of Castellón, in the Valencian Community, Spain.

The Franciscans are a group of related mendicant religious orders within the Catholic Church, founded in 1209 by Saint Francis of Assisi. These orders include the Order of Friars Minor, the Order of Saint Clare, and the Third Order of Saint Francis. They adhere to the teachings and spiritual disciplines of the founder and of his main associates and followers, such as Clare of Assisi, Anthony of Padua, and Elizabeth of Hungary, among many others.

Napoléon Bonaparte was a French statesman and military leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led several successful campaigns during the French Revolutionary Wars. He was Emperor of the French as Napoleon I from 1804 until 1814 and again briefly in 1815 during the Hundred Days. Napoleon dominated European and global affairs for more than a decade while leading France against a series of coalitions in the Napoleonic Wars. He won most of these wars and the vast majority of his battles, building a large empire that ruled over much of continental Europe before its final collapse in 1815. He is considered one of the greatest commanders in history, and his wars and campaigns are studied at military schools worldwide. Napoleon's political and cultural legacy has endured as one of the most celebrated and controversial leaders in human history.

French forces under Louis-Gabriel Suchet took Valencia in 1812 and many Valencians accepted the occupation without protest. Nebot not only led his men in attacks on the French but also established factories where bullets were cast and weapons and harnesses were repaired, stores for the provisions he collected and workshops where uniforms were made. He was influenced by the Liberal brothers Vicente and Manuel Bertrán de Lis and when the anti-feudal Spanish Constitution of 1812 was approved in Cádiz he made sure that elections were held in all the towns that he controlled and that Liberals were elected. As well as skirmishes, he attacked French garrisons in Castellón, Nules and Artana. He took his prisoners to Vistabella where they were locked in a jail under which there were more than 20 barrels of gunpowder in case there was an attempt to free them. In 1813 there were more than 500 French soldiers in this jail.

Louis-Gabriel Suchet, Duke of Albufera, was a French Marshal of the Empire and one of the most successful commanders of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

Feudalism combination of legal and military customs in medieval Europe

Feudalism was a combination of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour. Although derived from the Latin word feodum or feudum (fief), then in use, the term feudalism and the system it describes were not conceived of as a formal political system by the people living in the Middle Ages. In its classic definition, by François-Louis Ganshof (1944), feudalism describes a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations among the warrior nobility revolving around the three key concepts of lords, vassals and fiefs.

The Political Constitution of the Spanish Monarchy, also known as the Constitution of Cádiz and as La Pepa, was the first Constitution of Spain and one of the earliest constitutions in world history. It was established on 19 March 1812 by the Cortes of Cádiz, the first Spanish legislature. With the notable exception of proclaiming Roman Catholicism as the official and sole legal religion in Spain, the constitution was one of the most liberal of its time: it affirmed national sovereignty, separation of powers, freedom of the press, free enterprise, abolished feudalism, and established a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system. It was one of the first constitutions that allowed universal male suffrage, through a complex indirect electoral system. It was repealed by King Ferdinand VII in 1814 in Valencia, who re-established absolute monarchy.

Mazzuchelli, the Governor of Valencia, offered a reward of 5,000 pesetas for the Friar alive and 4,000 for him dead. Nebot responded by offering two small coins for Mazzuchelli alive and one coin for his head. As well as killing French soldiers, he also executed Spaniards who collaborated with the French occupation. He attacked convoys that were taking Spanish prisoners to France and managed to release a good number of them. From his attacks he collected well over a hundred horses and very many weapons, including a cannon.

Collaborationism is cooperation with the enemy against one's country in wartime.

A cannon is a type of gun classified as artillery that launches a projectile using propellant. In the past, gunpowder was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder in the 19th century. Cannon vary in caliber, range, mobility, rate of fire, angle of fire, and firepower; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees, depending on their intended use on the battlefield. The word cannon is derived from several languages, in which the original definition can usually be translated as tube, cane, or reed. In the modern era, the term cannon has fallen into decline, replaced by guns or artillery if not a more specific term such as mortar or howitzer, except for high calibre automatic weapons firing bigger rounds than machine guns, called autocannons.

As his troops had not been able to capture Nebot, Suchet offered three criminals who had been condemned to death their liberty, 5,000 pesetas and employment if they would infiltrate Nebot’s guerillas and then murder him. Tupper tried to warn the Friar but the three criminals confessed as soon as they reached Nebot and joined his brigade.

The peseta was the currency of Spain between 1868 and 2002. Along with the French franc, it was also a de facto currency used in Andorra.

On 18 May 1813 Nebot took Morella but had to abandon it when the French army approached. On 14 July, Nebot entered Vinaròs and set up his headquarters at Benicarló. On 20 July he attacked Morella again with 3,000 men, breached the city walls and forced the French to take refuge in the castle. They finally surrendered on 21 October. In December, according to some historians, he attacked the French garrison in Denia and forced them to surrender.

Morella is an ancient walled city located on a hill-top in the province of Castellón, Valencian Community, Spain. The town is the capital and administrative centre of the comarca of Els Ports, in the historic Maestrat (Maestrazgo) region.

Vinaròs Municipality in Valencian Community, Spain

Vinaròs is a city located in eastern Spain and the capital of the Baix Maestrat. It's in the province of Castellón, so it's part of the Valencian Community. Vinaròs is a fishing harbour and tourist destination.

Benicarló Municipality in Valencian Community, Spain

Benicarló is a city and municipality in the north of the province of Castelló, part of the Valencian Community, in the Mediterranean Coast between the cities of Vinaròs and Peníscola, not too far south from the Ebre River.

Restoration of King Ferdinand VII and popular revolt

Following the signing of the Treaty of Valençay, King Ferdinand VII returned to Spain in March 1814, resuming the throne that Napoleon had forced him to abdicate in 1808. Ferdinand rejected the liberal Constitution of 1812 that had been implemented in his absence and began a ferocious campaign of repression to restore the absolute monarchy, which was led by General Francisco Javier de Elío.

Nebot worked for the Bertrán de Lis brothers, conspiring against the King and organizing revolts against the monarchy. He also went around Valencia inciting the peasants to revolt against their feudal lords. In January he took part in an attempt to assassinate Elío. Four men were arrested and executed and Nebot and Manuel Bertrán de Lis had to flee to Gibraltar. Later that year Vicente Bertrán de Lis sent Nebot to London to buy 2,000 rifles for the Bertrán de Lis group for a planned uprising. There was another attempt to kill Elío in January 1819; twenty-two men, including one of the sons of Vicente Bertrán de Lis, were arrested and executed.

In 1820 the brothers sent Nebot to Cádiz to ask for men, weapons and ships to proclaim the Constitution of 1812 in Valencia. The organizers of Rafael del Riego’s anti-monarchical uprising were in Cádiz at this time. Nebot was promoted to Brigadier and gave him the men and ships he requested. He set sail for Valencia but there was a violent storm and his ships were separated and forced ashore further south. By the time Nesbot's forces reached Valencia, Ferdinand VII had already accepted the Constitution, ushering in the Trienio Liberal government. In 1822 Nebot joined the supporters of the new Liberal government and was involved in street fighting against the Spanish Royal Guard. On 4 September 1822 he was in Valencia to witness the execution of Elío. In 1822 and 1823 he and the brothers were fighting against the Royalist troops in Valencia.

Life abroad

In 1824 Ferdinand asked the French for help to restore an absolute monarchy and an army of French and Belgian volunteers, the Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis, invaded Spain. The Liberals were defeated and many of them fled abroad, including Nebot who settled in London. In 1825 he went on a secret mission to Ireland on behalf of Lord William Bentinck and he may have visited Ireland again after this. Historian Charles M. Wilson assumes that Nebot took part in a failed attempt to enter Spain through Portugal in 1827 and was involved in the July Revolution in Paris in July 1830 and in the planned invasion of northern Spain across the Pyrenees in October 1830. In January 1831 Nebot wrote to the Spanish ambassador in London, Francisco Cea Bermúdez, asking for permission to return to Spain. The Spanish government replied to Cea Bermúdez’s letter saying that they did not trust Nebot but would allow him to return if he agreed to act as an anti-Liberal spy. Nebot reportedly never returned to Spain.

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References

Manuel Ardit Lucas - Revolución liberal y revuelta campesina. Un ensayo sobre la desintegración del régimen feudal en el País Valenciano (1793-1840) Editorial Ariel, Valencia 1977. ISBN 84-344-6511-6
Vicent Felip Sempere - Recull per a una història de Nules Caixa Rural de Sant Josep de Nules, Nules 2000 2 vols. ISBN Vol 1 84-931580-1-1, pp. 169–171.
Fernando Martínez Laínez – Como lobos hambrientos. Los guerrilleros en la Guerra de la Independencia (1808-1814) Algaba Ediciones, Madrid 2007 ISBN 978-8-49610-790-8, pp. 442–448.
Charles M. Wilson – Liberty or Death! The Life and Times of Asensio Nebot – Franciscan Friar, Guerrilla Leader, Secret Agent, Conspirator and Exile Trafford Publishing, Canada 2008. ISBN 978-1-4251-5852-1.

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