16.5cm (6.5in) x 28cm (11in)
Watercolour on paper. An advance on the Behobia gate of Irun by the Royal Irish battalion of the British Auxiliary Legion, on 17 May 1837, being an eyewitness original work by Captain Thomas Lyde Hornbrook from which a print edition was published in London in 1840. Sheet: 16.5cm (6.5in) x 28cm (11in). Manuscript details to the reverse refers. Framed and glazed.
The capture of Irun was the main victory of the British Legion in the First Carlist War (1833-1840). When King Ferdinand VII of Spain died in 1833 there were two claimants to the throne: his infant daughter Isabella and his brother Don Carlos. In order to secure the repayment of massive loans made to Ferdinand, Britain and France supported Queen Maria Cristina in claim of her daughter Isabella - the Christinos.
Read more
~secrtion 2~
The British government allowed a Legión Británica (or Westminster Legion) to be raised consisting of two cavalry regiments and ten Infantry battalions under Lieutenant-General Sir de Lacy Evans. There were plenty of half pay officers looking for adventure but the rank and file had to be drummed up from the slums and the rural poverty of Ireland. They were supported by artillery and engineer units and a Royal Navy squadron under Lord John Hay.
The artist Thomas Hornbrook was an officer in the Legion’s sappers when it arrived in the Basque Country in the summer of 1836. He was present in March 1837 at Battle of Oriamendi where the Legion and the Christinos suffered a serious defeat allowing the Carlists to tighten their grip on San Sebastian. In the spring of 1837, however, some Carlist forces left northern Spain, to threaten Madrid. Taking advantage of their departure, the Legion went on the offensive and took Hernani, Oiartzun, Irun, (where Hornbrook shot a Carlist in the rush on the gate), and Hondarribia, allowing the San Sebastian Liberals to break the blockade. That said, the Legion’s soldiers endured terrible privations and suffered heavy casualties, while those taken prisoner were usually put to death by the Carlists and sometime tortured to boot.
Thomas Lyde Hornbrook (1807-1855) was the eldest son of Colonel Richards Lyde Hornbrook Royal Marines, (1783-1856), a veteran of the Napoleonic wars and a noted marine artist based in Plymouth. Thomas exhibited in the Royal Academy (1836 and 1844) and around 1833 became marine painter to the Duchess of Kent and her daughter, the future Queen Victoria. Both father and son appear to have served in the British Legion in the First Carlist War. He returned to England, probably together with his father, in August 1840.