was appointed guardian of the young queen. Forcing the regent, Maria Cristina, into exile for her conspiracy with the moderates, Espartero himself became regent with the intention of remaining so until the future Queen Isabella II became of age. Espartero's popularity enabled him to defeat moderate military rebellions across Spain during 1841. Yet his ruthless execution of dozens of the conspirators, including many popular fellow war heroes like Diego de Leon, as well as his hasty and ungrateful dissolution of the radical juntas that had ended the rebellions, decreased the popularity of his regency (Maria Cristina told him, "I made you a duke, but I could not make you a gentleman."). Rule of Espartero While continuing as regent, Espartero ruled Spain as its 18th Prime Minister for two years from 16 September 1840 to 21 May 1841, in accordance with his radical and conciliatory dispositions, giving special attention to the reorganization of the administration, taxation and finances, declaring all the estates of the church, congregations and religious orders to be national property, and suppressing the diezma, or tithe. He suppressed the Republican rebellions with as much severity as he did the military pronunciamientos of Generals Concha and Diego de León. The latter was shot in Madrid. Espartero defeated a rebellion in Barcelona, but on his return to Madrid was welcomed so weakly that he perceived that his prestige was decreasing. An economic slump and rumours of a free-trade deal with the United Kingdom provoked a popular rebellion by workers and the bourgeoisie of Barcelona in 1842. Espartero's ruthless bombardment of the city ended this revolutionary threat. But a second rebellion in 1843 combined with moderate conspiracies and military uprisings. The rebels declared Queen Isabella of age, and, commanded by General Ramón María Narváez y Campos, marched on Madrid, advancing as far as the city's gates. From this position Narváez issued an ultimatum in a dispatch to Espartero, who, deeming resistance useless, embarked at Cadiz on 30 July 1843 for England, and lived quietly until 1848, when a royal decree restored to him all his honors and his seat in the senate. Dubbed public enemy number one by the moderates, and directed by their leader Narváez, Espartero was unable to return to his estates in northern Spain until an amnesty was decreed later in the 1840s. Although Espartero's regime (1840–1843) in reality had done little for Spain's poor, the anti-radical reaction