Page "Kingdom of Navarre" Paragraph 70

As the Kingdom of Navarre was originally organized, it was divided into merindades, districts governed by a merino (" mayorino "), the representative of the king.

They were the " Ultrapuertos " ( French Navarre ), Pamplona, Estella, Tudela and Sangüesa.

In 1407 the merindad of Olite was added.

The Cortes of Navarre began as the king's council of churchmen and nobles, but in the course of the 14th century the burgesses were added.

Their presence was due to the fact that the king had need of their co-operation to raise money by grants and aids, a development that was being paralleled in England.

The Cortes henceforth consisted of the churchmen, the nobles and the representatives of twenty-seven ( later thirty-eight ) " good towns " — towns which were free of a feudal lord, and, therefore, held directly of the king.

The independence of the burgesses was better secured in Navarre than in other parliaments of Spain by the constitutional rule which required the consent of a majority of each order to every act of the Cortes.

Thus the burgesses could not be outvoted by the nobles and the Church, as they could be elsewhere.

Even in the 18th century the Navarrese successfully resisted Bourbon attempts to establish custom houses on the French frontier, dividing French from Spanish Navarre.

Yet the Navarrese were loyal to their Spanish sovereigns, and no part of the country offered a more determined or more skilful resistance to Napoleon.