José Antonio Primo de Rivera Primo de Rivera dubbed "his true love," teenaged Maria del Pilar Azlor de Aragon y Guillamas, 18th Duchess of Villahermosa (1908–1997). The fourth poem is strikingly short, effective. Falange joined the military uprising against the Republic. During the course of the war the marginal party gained ascendancy partly as a result of its prominent role in the brutal repression that took place behind Nationalist lines. Nevertheless, the party lost autonomy and was made wholly subservient to the will of General Franco in 1937 when he had Primo de Rivera's lieutenant, Manuel Hedilla Larrey, thrown in jail, tried and sentenced to
Miguel Primo de Rivera the wealthy and working classes in Spain at the time. Despite his paternalistic conservatism, Primo de Rivera was enough of a reformer and his policies were radical enough to threaten the interests of the traditional power elite. According to British historian Gerald Brenan, "Spain needed radical reforms and he could only govern by the permission of the two most reactionary forces in the country—the Army and the Church." Primo de Rivera dared not tackle what was seen as Spain's most pressing problem, agrarian reform, because it would have provoked the great landholding elite. Writes historian Richard Herr, "Primo was not