n embroiled in wars with France, Portugal or England, but it was the War of Independence which most affected the Valencian territories and the capital city. The repercussions of the French Revolution were still being felt when Napoleon's armies invaded the Iberian Peninsula, against which the Valencian people rose in arms on 23 May 1808, aroused by such characters as Vicent Doménech el Palleter. The mutineers seized the Citadel, a Supreme Junta government took over, and on 26–28 June the First Battle of Valencia occurred when Napolean's Marshal Monceyattacked the city with a column of 9,000 French imperial troops; he failed to take the city in two assaults and retreated to Madrid. Marshal Suchet began a long siege of the city in October 1811, and after an intense bombardment forced its surrender on 8 January 1812. After the capitulation, the French instituted some reforms in Valencia, which became the capital of Spain when the Bonapartist pretender to the throne, José I (Joseph Bonaparte, Napolean's elder brother), moved the Court there in the summer of 1812. The disaster of the Battle of Vitoria on 21 June 1813 obliged Suchet to quit Valencia and the French troops withdrew in July.
During the Napoleonic invasion, the Valencians had sent their representatives to the Cortes of Cadiz, where a liberal, anti-seigneurialnational constitution was drafted. Ferdinand VII became king after the victorious end of the Peninsular War, by which Spain was freed from the Napoleonic domination. When he returned on 24 March 1814 from exile in France, he was requested by the Cortes to respect the liberal Constitution of 1812, which seriously limited the royal powers. Ferdinand refused and went to Valencia instead of Madrid. Here, on April 17, General Elio invited the King to reclaim his absolute rights and put his troops at the King's disposition. The king abolished the Constitution of 1812; this act was followed by the dissolution of the two chambers of the Spanish
