The Wall Ministry was a Spanish government headed by Ricardo Wall which served between 15 May 1754 to 9 October 1763 during the reigns of Ferdinand VI and Charles III.
Ricardo Wall
Wall came to power by thwarting the ambitions of his rival the Marquis of Ensenada. While Ensenada was pro-French and wanted to build an alliance with France to destroy British naval power, the Irish-descended Wall was supposed to be an Anglophile and his government steered Spain towards neutrality and friendly relations with Britain.
When the Seven Years' War broke out, Spain did not join with its traditional ally France but maintained a strict neutrality. However, when Charles III took the throne in 1759 he wanted to pursue a more pro-French policy, while retaining the popular and experienced Wall as Chief Minister. By the end of 1761 Spain was at war with Britain which had, as Wall had predicted, disastrous consequences for the Spanish who suffered a number of embarrassing military defeats to British forces (La Havana and Manila). He stepped down in 1763 following the Treaty of Paris, handing over power to Jerónimo Grimaldi.
Alfonso XIII, also known as El Africano or the African due to his Africanist views, was King of Spain from his birth until 14 April 1931, when the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed. He became a monarch at birth as his father, Alfonso XII, had died the previous year. Alfonso's mother, Maria Christina of Austria, served as regent until he assumed full powers on his sixteenth birthday in 1902.
Ferdinand VI, called the Learned and the Just, was King of Spain from 9 July 1746 until his death in 1759. He was the third ruler of the Spanish Bourbon dynasty. He was the son of King Philip V and Queen Maria Luisa.
Admiral-General Luis Carrero Blanco was a Spanish Navy officer and politician. A long-time confidant and right-hand man of dictator Francisco Franco, Carrero served as Spain's Premier. Upon graduating from the naval academy Carrero Blanco participated in the Rif War, and later the Spanish Civil War, in which he supported the Rebel faction. He became one of the most prominent figures in the Francoist dictatorship's power structure and held throughout his career a number of high-ranking offices such as those of Undersecretary of the Presidency from 1941 to 1967 and Franco's deputy from 1967 to 1973. He also was the main drafter behind the 1947 Law of Succession to the Headship of the State. Franco handpicked him as his successor in the role of head of government, with Carrero thereby taking office in June 1973.
Indalecio Prieto Tuero was a Spanish politician, a minister and one of the leading figures of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) in the years before and during the Second Spanish Republic.
The Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata meaning "River of the Silver", also called the "Viceroyalty of River Plate" in some scholarly writings, in southern South America, was the last to be organized and also the shortest-lived of one of the viceroyalties of the Spanish Empire in the Americas. The name "Provincias del Río de la Plata" was formally adopted in 1810 during the Cortes of Cádiz to designate the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata.
The ideas of the Age of Enlightenment came to Spain in the 18th century with the new Bourbon dynasty, following the death of the last Habsburg monarch, Charles II, in 1700. The period of reform and 'enlightened despotism' under the eighteenth-century Bourbons focused on centralizing and modernizing the Spanish government, and improvement of infrastructure, beginning with the rule of King Charles III and the work of his minister, José Moñino, count of Floridablanca. In the political and economic sphere, the crown implemented a series of changes, collectively known as the Bourbon reforms, which were aimed at making the overseas empire more prosperous to the benefit of Spain.
Pedro Pablo Abarca de Bolea y Jiménez de Urrea, 10th Count of Aranda, was a Spanish statesman and diplomat.
Richard Wall y Devereux was a Spanish military officer, statesman and diplomat who served as Chief Minister of Spain from 1754 to 1763.
Zenón de Somodevilla y Bengoechea, 1st Marquess of Ensenada, commonly known as the Marquess of Ensenada, was a Spanish statesman. He played a key role in crafting and enforcing the Great Gypsy Round-up, officially known as the General Imprisonment of the Gypsies, which was an attempt to exterminate the Roma living in Spain, leading to the death of 12,000 Romani People.
France–Spain relations are bilateral relations between France and Spain, in which both share a long border across the Pyrenees, other than one point which is cut off by Andorra. As two of the most powerful kingdoms of the early modern era, France and Spain fought a 24-year war until the signing of the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659. The treaty was signed on Pheasant Island between the two nations, which has since been a condominium, changing its allegiances each six months.
The Anglo-Spanish War was a military conflict fought between Britain and Spain as part of the Seven Years' War. It lasted from January 1762 until February 1763, when the Treaty of Paris brought it to an end.
Pedro de Alcántara Téllez-Girón y Pacheco, 9th Duke of Osuna, Grandee of Spain, was a Spanish nobleman and military commander during the French Revolutionary Wars.
Manuel García Prieto, 1st Marquis of Alhucemas was a Spanish politician who served as prime minister several times in his life and as the 30th Solicitor General of Spain. He was a member of the Liberal Party. During his last term, he was deposed by Miguel Primo de Rivera.
Manuel de Lapeña y Ruiz del Sotillo was a Spanish Army officer.
The Spanish invasion of Portugal (1762) between 5 May and 24 November, was a military episode in the wider Fantastic War in which Spain and France were defeated by the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance with broad popular resistance. It involved at first the forces of Spain and Portugal until France and Great Britain intervened in the conflict on the side of their respective allies. The war was also strongly marked by guerrilla warfare in the mountainous country, which cut off supplies from Spain, and a hostile peasantry, which enforced a scorched earth policy as the invading armies approached that left the invaders starving and short of military supplies and forced them to retreat with heavy losses, mostly from starvation, disease, and desertion.
The Spanish–Portuguese War between 1762 and 1763 was fought as part of the Seven Years' War. Because no major battles were fought, even though there were numerous movements of troops and heavy losses among the Spanish invaders, the war is known in the Portuguese historiography as the Fantastic War.
The Great Gypsy Round-up, also known as the general imprisonment of the Gypsies, was a raid authorized and organized by the Spanish Monarchy that led to the arrest of most Roma in the region and the genocide of 12,000 Romani people. Although a majority were released after a few months, many others spent several years imprisoned and subject to forced labor. The raid was approved by the King Ferdinand VI of Spain, and organized by the Marquis of Ensenada, and set in motion simultaneously across Spain on 30 July 1749.
Maria of Portugal was a Portuguese royal, daughter of Infante Afonso of Portugal and his wife Violante Manuel.
The Kingdom of Spain entered a new era with the death of Charles II, the last Spanish Habsburg monarch, who died childless in 1700. The War of the Spanish Succession was fought between proponents of a Bourbon prince, Philip of Anjou, and the Austrian Habsburg claimant, Archduke Charles. After the wars were ended with the Peace of Utrecht, Philip V's rule began in 1715, although he had to renounce his place in the succession of the French throne.
Pedro Vélaz de Medrano y Manso de Zúñiga, II Lord of Tabuérniga was the captain general of the Armada de Barlovento and custodian of the Spanish Treasure Fleet, seargent major, governor of the Tercio of Álava, governor of five galleons from Naples, squadron Admiral, General, a sailor and prominent Spanish noble during the reign of Felipe IV.
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