Manuel Pavia y Lacy, 1st Marquis de Novaliches

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Manuel Pavia y Lacy, 1st Marquis de Novaliches (July 6, 1814 in Granada-October 22, 1896 in Madrid), Spanish marshal, was born at Granada on the 6th of July 1814. He was the son of Colonel Pavia, and after a few years at the Jesuit school of Valencia he entered the Royal Artillery Academy at Segovia. In 1833 he became a lieutenant in the guards of Queen Isabella II, and during the Carlist War from 1833 to 1840 he became general of division in the latter year at the early age of twenty-six. The Moderate party made him war minister in 1847, and sent him to Catalonia, where his efforts to put down a Carlist rising were not attended with success. He had been made a senator in 1845, and marquis in 1848.

He was sent out to Manila in 1852 as captain-general of the Philippine Islands. In April 1854 he crushed with much sternness a formidable insurrection and carried out many useful reforms. On his return to Spain he married the Countess of Santa Isabel, and commanded the reserves in the Peninsula during the war with Morocco. He refused the war portfolio twice offered him by Marshals O'Donnell and Narvaez and undertook to form a cabinet of Moderates in 1864 that lived but a few days. He volunteered to crush the insurrection in Madrid on the 22nd of June 1866, and when the revolution broke out in September 1868 accepted the command of Queen Isabella's troops. He was defeated by Marshal Serrano at the bridge of Alcolea on the 28th of September 1868, and was so badly wounded in the face that he was disfigured for life. He kept apart during the revolution and went to meet King Alfonso XII of Spain when he landed at Valencia in January 1875. The Restoration made the Marquis de Novaliches a senator, and the new king gave him the Golden Fleece. He died in Madrid on the 22nd of October 1896.