1847 he was ordered to lead an expedition to Portugal to help uphold the reign of Queen Maria II of Portugal, under the terms of the Quadruple Alliance. On 30 June 1847 he defeated the Septembrist forces led by Francisco Xavier da Silva Pereira, first Count of Antas, and restored by force the authority of the monarchy in Oporto. For this he received honours in both Spain and Portugal, in particular becoming Marqués (marquis) del Duero and receiving the title of Grandee of the first class. As captain-general of Catalonia, in 1849 he put down the revolt of the matiners (Catalan) or madrugadores (Spanish) during the Second Carlist War. He worked with General Leopoldo O'Donnell during the bienio progresista (1854–56), when in addition to his post of captain-general of Catalonia, he served as deputy to the Cortes and chairman of the Junta Consultiva de Guerra (advisory war council). He was captain-general of the Two Castiles during the Unión Liberal government, and in the 1860s he was Speaker of the Senate through five consecutive terms. In 1872 the Third Carlist War broke out: and despite his age, on the request of General Serrano, Gutiérrez de la Concha returned to both military and political activity, and became one of the strongest supporters of Alfonso XII of Spain. On the grounds of his great ability and military prestige he was considered the leading 19th-century Spanish strategist. This led the republican government in 1874 to give him command of the Third Corps of the Army of the North, a unit that was essential to the defence of the régime. For three months he was responsible for the northern front opposing the Carlists, and won important victories including the relief of Bilbao, in May. During preparations for the attack on Estella, the symbolic Carlist capital, he was fatally wounded when struck by a bullet at Monte Muro, near the village of Abárzuza, on the afternoon of 27 June 1874. With victory over the Carlists now imminent, Manuel Gutiérrez de la Concha would probably have been chosen to proclaim the restoration of the Bourbons to the Spanish throne, with the support of Antonio Cánovas del Castillo. In the event it was one of his subordinates, General Martínez Campos, who was to proclaim this a few months later at Sagunto. Manuel Gutiérrez de la Concha wrote Táctica de las tres armas (Tactics of the Three Forces) (1862),