SCHOOL

Clara del Rey (1765–1808) was a Madrid heroine who lost her life during the events of May 2, 1808, at the Monteleón Artillery Park. She had been born on August 11, 1765, in Villalón de Campos (Valladolid), the daughter of Manuel del Rey and Teresa Calvo.

She spent her time encouraging and helping the defenders alongside her husband and three children. It appears she died from cannonball shrapnel that struck her in the forehead. Clara del Rey is listed among the victims of May 2 identified in the Madrid Municipal Archive, which records that she «left behind two unmarried children,» suggesting that her husband and one of her sons also died at the Monteleón Artillery Park.

She was buried in the Buena Dicha cemetery, located at the hospital of the same name, which no longer exists and once stood near Madrid’s Gran Vía, between Calle Libreros and Calle Silva. A commemorative plaque to Clara del Rey can be found on the façade of the Buena Dicha church (Calle Silva, 25).

History has been unfair to her. While Manuela Malasaña gets the fame — an innocent victim of her trade as a seamstress, carrying a pair of scissors that the invaders mistook for weapons — everything suggests that Clara del Rey was the only woman who lost her life fighting in the defense of the Monteleón Artillery Park.