Catalonia Declares The War: The Siege of Barcelona
After the Peace of Utrecht (1713) he participated in the Parlament in which Catalonia proclaimed the continuation of the war in defense of their constitutions the on 6 July 1713. While Barcelona was besieged by Bourbon troops, he was proclaimed "Conseller en Cap" (mayor) of Barcelona on November 30, 1713, and by virtue of their functions he was also colonel of the regiment of the milícia citizen, governor of Barcelona and the fortress of Montjuïc, as well as member of the Veinticuatrena Board of Government.
On February 26, 1714, Rafael Casanova became the highest military and political authority in Catalonia, when the Generalitat of Catalonia gave him all the military powers and also was named President of the ninth Board of war. It ruled the city until he was wounded in combat when commanding a counterattack of the Barcelona milícia at the San Peter front on the last day of siege, September 11, 1714. Having capitulated the city, the institutions of self-government of Catalonia were abolished and Rafael Casanova was cleared of its political and military positions. After the defeat their assets were seized, being amnestied years later to return to practice as a lawyer in Barcelona until shortly before his death. He maintained contact with several that had been leaders of the city during the siege, as well as with the exiles in the Austrian Empire, and is credited with the authorship of a public manifesto addressed to king George II of Great Britain remembering the alliance between Catalonia and England which was published on 1736, the twenty-second year of our slavery. Rafel Casanova died on 1743 and two years after, the English historian Tindal wrote in 1745:
The Catalans, thus abandoned and given up to their enemies, contrary to faith and honour, were not however, wanting to their own defence; but appealing to Heaven, and hanging up at the High Altar the Queen’s solemn declaration to protect them, underwent the utmost miseries of a siege; during which multitudes perished by famine and the sword, many were afterward executed, and many persons of figure were dispersed about the Spanish Dominions and dungeons. —Nicolas Tindal; History of England (1745)Read more about this topic: Rafael Casanova
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