Francisco Javier de Negrete y Adorno (1763-1827)

Francisco Javier de Negrete y Adorno (also written with the older spelling “Xavier”) was a Spanish nobleman and army officer who rose to the highest territorial commands of the Bourbon monarchy in the years immediately preceding the Peninsular War, and whose prominence in Madrid in 1808 placed him at the center of the crisis that followed the French intervention and the outbreak of the Dos de Mayo uprising. He was the IV conde de Campo de Alange and III marqués de Torre-Manzanal, and later received the title duque de Cotadilla in the political context of the Josephine regime. He was born in Madrid on 9 March 1763 and died in exile in Paris on 3 January 1827.

Negrete belonged to a high-ranking administrative and military family. His parents were Manuel José de Negrete de la Torre (a Major figure of late-Bourbon government and diplomacy) and Agustina de Adorno y Sotomayor, from whom he carried the second surname “Adorno.” In later records and archival authority files he appears as “Negrete Adorno, Francisco Javier de,” reflecting Spanish cataloguing practice for compound surnames and noble lineages. He also held chivalric distinctions, being a caballero of the Order of Santiago and a caballero gran cruz of the Order of Charles III.

His early service occurred in the last phase of Spain’s eighteenth-century imperial and European wars. By 1782 he was serving as an aide-de-camp to Juan Vicente de Güemes, conde de Revillagigedo, and that year he saw active duty during the Great Siege of Gibraltar, one of the principal operations of Spain’s participation in the wider conflict against Britain. His career advanced rapidly in the 1780s; he was promoted to Colonel of the Regimiento de Valencia in 1784.

In the War of the Pyrenees (1793–1795), fought against Revolutionary France, Negrete took part in Spain’s operations in the eastern Pyrenees and in incursions into French territory. In that theatre he served under General Antonio Ricardos and was associated with the opening advance into Roussillon, including the movement on Saint-Laurent-de-Cerdans, which contemporary and later summaries describe as an early point at which Spanish troops crossed onto French soil in that campaign. The details of his exact tactical responsibilities in that action are not consistently presented in brief reference treatments, but his participation in the vanguard operations of Ricardos’ army is a recurring element in modern biographical summaries.

By 1800, in a period when Spain’s naval war with Britain and the shifting alliances of the Revolutionary era put the northern coast under pressure, Negrete served as interim captain general of Galicia. In that capacity he was involved in the defense against the British Ferrol Expedition (1800), an attempt to seize the naval base at Ferrol that ended unsuccessfully for the attackers. His position as the acting territorial commander placed him within the senior apparatus responsible for organizing the response to the landing and the defense of the installations and approaches.

From Galicia he moved through the highest levels of Spanish territorial command. By the time of the crisis of 1808 he was captain general of Castilla la Nueva (New Castile), a post centered on Madrid and its military district. On 2 May 1808, when popular resistance in Madrid erupted against the French presence and the removal of members of the royal family, Negrete was the captain general in place. Reference accounts consistently associate him with the decision to keep Spanish regular troops confined to barracks during the outbreak, a stance that made him a highly controversial figure as the uprising was suppressed by French forces. His authority in the capital’s military district meant that his conduct during those hours and the days around them was interpreted politically, not simply as routine command administration.

In the ensuing struggle for legitimacy between Spanish resistance institutions and those who collaborated with the new French-sponsored monarchy, Negrete was identified with the circle of senior officials and grandees who aligned with the government of José I Bonaparte or were viewed as sympathetic to it. In May 1809 the Junta Central (Supreme Central Junta), which was attempting to coordinate Spanish resistance, issued declarations against leading figures characterized as collaborators; Negrete was among those treated as traitors and outlawed in that political act. Later narratives often group him with other prominent military and administrative leaders who were similarly targeted.

Despite his senior rank, summarized military biographies commonly state that there is no clear record of him taking part in field combat during the Peninsular War itself, in contrast to the active-service record of his earlier decades. His importance in those years lay more in his governmental and territorial appointments, his association with the Josephine administration, and the consequences of that association after the war turned decisively against the French-backed regime.

At some point in the same period he also held the office of virrey de Navarra (Viceroy of Navarre), a title and appointment recorded in Spanish archival authority descriptions. This post further illustrates the level at which he operated—above field commands and within the senior governance of key regions during wartime dislocation. The ducal title associated with him, duque de Cotadilla, is presented in Spanish biographical and genealogical contexts as a distinction conferred under José I, and it appears in family-history treatments alongside his inherited county and marquisate.

Negrete married María Cañosanto de Cepeda y Nonet (also recorded as María del Cañosanto de Cepeda y Nonet), and they had at least two children, María Manuela and José de Negrete Cepeda y Adorno. The family’s later movements reflect the fate of many of the afrancesados after the restoration of Ferdinand VII: exile and prolonged residence in France. Biographical material on his son José, who later became known in literary circles and pursued a military career in the 1830s, states that Francisco Javier went to France and died there in 1827; these accounts also describe the practical problems of maintaining and administering Spanish entailed estates and titles while the head of the family remained outside Spain under the shadow of political retribution.

Negrete’s death took place in Paris on 3 January 1827. His life thus spanned the final decades of the Bourbon ancien régime in Spain, the revolutionary wars, and the Napoleonic rupture, with his most visible moment occurring not on a battlefield but in Madrid at the political-military breaking point of 2 May 1808, when the relationship between Spanish troops, Spanish authorities, and the occupying French forces collapsed into open conflict and competing claims of authority.

Sources

• PARES (Ministerio de Cultura, España): Negrete Adorno, Francisco Javier de (1763-1827)
• Wikipedia (English): Francisco Javier Negrete
• Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes: José de Negrete Cepeda y Adorno, Conde de Campo Alange (1812-1836)
• Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes (Portal): Biografía de José de Negrete y Cepeda, conde de Campo Alange (1812-1836)
• Wikipedia (Spanish): Condado de Campo de Alange