Parliament on 10 May. Thus began the six years (1814–1820) of absolutist rule, but the constitution was reinstated during the Trienio Liberal, a period of three years of liberal government in Spain from 1820–1823. A fervent follower of the absolutist cause, Elío had played an important role in the repression of the supporters of the Constitution of 1812. For this, he was arrested in 1820 and executed in 1822 by garroting. Conflict between the absolutists and the liberals continued, and in the period of conservative rule called the Ominous Decade (1823–1833) which followed the Trienio Liberal there was ruthless repression by government forces and the Catholic Inquisition. The last victim of the Inquisition was Gaietà Ripoli, a teacher accused of being a deist and a Mason who was hanged in Valencia in 1824.
Baldomero Espartero became, on the death of King Ferdinand VII in 1833, one of the most ardent defenders of the hereditary rights of his daughter, Isabella II. On the outbreak of the First Carlist War, the government sent him to the front, where he severely defeated the Carlists in many encounters. He was associated with the radical, or progressive, wing of Spanish liberalism and would become its symbol and champion after taking credit for the victory over the Carlists in 1839. During the regency of Maria Cristina, Espartero ruled Spain for two years as its 18th Prime Minister from 16 September 1840 to 21 May 1841. Under his progressive government the old regime was tenuously reconciled to his liberal policies. During this period of upheaval in the provinces he declared all the estates of the Church, its congregations and its religious orders to be national property, although in Valencia most of it was subsequently acquired by the local bourgeoisie. City life in Valencia carried on in a revolutionary climate, with frequent clashes between liberals and republicans and the constant threat of reprisals by the Carlist troops of General Cabrera
