It is 80 years since the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, a conflict which, according to George Orwell, provided “a richer crop of lies than any event since the Great War of 1914-18”. Much has indeed been written on the war by historians, writers and poets, but there has been little, if any, mention of the part that the Royal English College at Valladolid played in the conflict.
In the early 1930s, with political instability and anti-clerical feeling rife in Spain, the college was in the thick of things. There were several attempts to burn it down. From the onset, Valladolid was under Nationalist control and it managed to escape many of the atrocities committed in areas controlled by the Republican government. It was reported, for example, that in Asturias, a Republican controlled area, clerics were crucified on church doors and hung up on hooks in butchers’ shops under signs reading “Aquí se vende carne de cura” (“Priest meat for sale”). It is estimated that more than 7,000 priests, monks and nuns died in the conflict.
