Calle Clara del Rey

On 2 May 1808 Madrid rose against Napoleon’s troops, and one focus of the resistance was the Monteleón artillery park, where captains Daoíz and Velarde handed out weapons to the neighbourhood. Among those who came was Clara del Rey, a woman of the people who, tradition holds, arrived with her husband and children and helped by carrying ammunition and tending to the gunners. She died there, struck by French fire during the assault. The chronicles disagree on her age and on the exact manner of her death, but they agree on the essentials: she fell defending Monteleón alongside other Madrileños. The Prosperidad street grid took up her name much later, when this Chamartín neighbourhood still had the air of open country.