Among other rights which they claimed were the ancient _fueros_—charters or privileges—by which, in consideration of valiant services in the past, they were exempt from most taxes, from enforced military service, etc., and they recognised the ruler of the country not as king or queen, but merely as lord. It was given out by the Carlists that these _fueros_ were to be taken from them by the “liberals,” or adherents to the queen regent, and that only by assisting the really legitimate sovereign (Don Carlos, of course) could they still continue to enjoy their ancient immunities. So they flocked to the Carlist standard, and opposed to them and their associates were the _Christinos_, or supporters of the queen regent Christina. For seven years they fought, victory first with one side, then with the other. At one time the queen regent and her court were on the point of fleeing the country; the Carlist guerrillas were at the gates of Madrid; but by the persistence of General Espartero, commander of the Christinos, in May, 1840, the last of the pretender’s forces were driven over the frontier. Terrible excesses were committed on both sides; the Carlists, particularly, under the savage Cabrera and Zumalacarregui, showed what the Spaniard is capable of when his evil passions are aroused. “Those days that I do not shed blood,” said the cruel Cabrera, “I do not have a good digestion!” He punished with death the giving of a drink of water to a wounded enemy, and he butchered in cold blood numerous innocent women, children, and aged men. A Christino garrison once surrendered to him on the stipulation that their lives and their clothes should be spared to them. He performed his part by stripping them of their clothing and setting his men to chasing and shooting them until the last one fell! And these conflicts were between men of the same nationality, sometimes of the same township and canton; thus showing to what a state of moral degradation these people had arrived.