Clashing with the National Party over the distribution of spoils, and only obtaining relatively minor positions in the administration of Bucharest, Filipescu eventually joined a clique of boyars that cooperated closely with the Russian Empire.

The owner of lucrative estates and an inn in the Bucegi Mountains, he was also a philanthropist, and served for decades on the Wallachian school board alongside his protégé Petrache Poenaru.

Although perceived as a committed Russophile, Alecu was a pragmatic conservative who continued seeking alternatives to Russian control, also envisaging a political unification of the Danubian Principalities.

He mounted the opposition to Alexandru II Ghica, reluctantly siding with Gheorghe Bibescu and Barbu Dimitrie Știrbei, before running against them in the 1842 election for the Wallachian throne.

Serving Prince Știrbei as adviser on agrarian matters, he died three years before Wallachia's incorporation into the United Principalities, whose administration co-opted his son.

[5] In addition to land of this category, Alecu inherited a number of estates in Prahova County, including parcels of the Bucegi Mountains: Jepii, Sorica and Vârful lui Găvan.

[12] By 1816, he was in contact with Greek immigrant circles, and reportedly joined the secret society known as Filiki Eteria, which wanted to have the Balkans, Wallachia included, removed from the Ottoman Empire.

Filipescu agreed on principle that "it would be possible and rather good that we remove this country of ours from the yoke of [Phanariote] tyrants";[24] still, he adamantly refused to be involved beyond this statement, feeling himself betrayed by the National Party.

[28] As he advanced on Bucharest in February 1821, Vladimirescu took a stand against those boyars he viewed as accomplices of the Phanariotes, and publicly announced that he wanted Iordache Filipescu and others beheaded.

[30] With most notabilities, including his two brothers,[31] fleeing into the Principality of Transylvania, Alecu Filipescu stayed behind in Bucharest, alongside Bishop Ilarion Gheorghiadis, Nae Golescu, and Mihalache Manu.

[32] Taking control of the treasury by March 14, Filipescu began supplying the Eterist troops already present in Bucharest with salaries, lodgings, and horse fodder.

[33] Some four days later, he and Grigore Băleanu signed a letter of supplication to Russian Emperor, Alexander Pavlovich, asking for Russia to intervene militarily in defense of Wallachia's "privileges and rights".

[34] The first two meetings between the rebel and the Vornic, at Cotroceni, were tense: on March 20, Vladimirescu informed him that he could not discern any Russian support for Wallachia's government and asked that the boyars surrender Bucharest.

[38] In March, Filipescu, Metropolitan Dionisie, and Gheorghiadis signed their names to a pledge of allegiance, effectively recognizing Vladimirescu as head of state, while preserving an administrative role for the Boyars' Divan.

[39] By March 27, Vladimirescu and Vulpea were working on assigning administrative offices to their backers—the former recommended Dumitrache Drugănescu as Ispravnic in the northern Wallachian city of Târgoviște; the Vornic was also asked to supply the rebel troops with munitions.

Faced with this peril, and possibly influenced by Vulpea (who feared that antagonizing the Ottomans would destroy all remaining Wallachian autonomy),[42] Vladimirescu sought to relieve himself of his alliance to the Eteria.

[44] Trying to consolidate his hold on Wallachia, and contemplating dug-in resistance, Vladimirescu asked Vulpea to contribute: from April 5, he was to make sure that the villagers of Dâmbovița County were relieved of their corvée, and that the Romani slaves would benefit from a tax relief.

[48] However, in the notebooks kept by Ivan Liprandi, Filipescu and Gheorghiadis appear as a double-dealers who influenced Vladimirescu and the "intellectually frail" Metropolitan to take decisions that favored the Divan.

[50] Financially insecure, they asked for loans from the Transylvanian Saxons, and eventually appealed to Grigore IV Ghica, the new Prince of Wallachia, to sponsor their return to Bucharest.

[51] During this post-Phanariote reign, alongside the prince's brothers (Mihalache, Alexandru and Costache), Vulpea joined a literary society for the promotion of Romanian culture—founded and led by Dinicu Golescu.

[52] In late 1826, following the Akkerman Convention, through which Russia imposed reforms of Wallachia, Prince Ghica selected Vulpea, Ioan Câmpineanu, Alexandru Vilara, and other members of Golescu's society, to serve on his personal committee for modernization.

[69] In June 1828, Filipescu obtained a state scholarship for the aspiring engineer Petrache Poenaru to study at the Paris Conservatory of Arts and Crafts, later appointing him to teach at Saint Sava.

[76] Meanwhile, however, Vulpea continued his marginal contribution to the nationalist project when, as Logothete, he donated "a years' worth" of estates' socage to Câmpineanu's Philharmonic Society,[77] and allegedly wanted to have Wallachia ruled by a foreign prince, as a guarantee against Russian and Ottoman interference.

[78] He also continued to have fights with the other boyars, especially so in 1835, when he asked treasurers Câmpineanu and Iancu Filipescu-Buzatu for a refund of his alleged expenses and damages incurred in 1821, which he claimed ran at 287,000 thaler.

The liberal boyar Alexandru G. Golescu contended that theirs was an absurd position: "I could not understand how these people with some common sense, all of whom detest the Russian government, but at the same time caress it, could produce such an imprudent and base action".

[92] Mistrusted as a Muscal, aging, and visibly suffering from hernia, he was credited with few chances, and was aware of it; however, he reportedly informed Lăcusteanu that he was only in the race to prevent either of the "Oltenian" brothers, Bibescu and Știrbei, from winning the throne.

As noted by Poenaru, Vulpea's own accumulation of offices was harming Wallachian education: the Assembly's judgments caused resentment among the lesser boyars, who took revenge by sabotaging efforts to create new schools.

As the revolutionary government fell and Cantacuzino, as Caimacam, inaugurated a conservative regime, he was reappointed to the school board alongside Poenaru, Băleanu, and, from 1851, Apostol Arsache and Ion Emanuel Florescu.

[117] When Știrbei was replaced with Alexandru Ghica, who returned as Caimacam, Filipescu Jr served as President of the Bucharest Assembly Commission from 1856,[108] also taking over for his father on the school board.

[127] Chirița in the Provinces, an 1852 comedy by Ghica's Moldavian friend Vasile Alecsandri, includes a likely reference to Vulpea's gambling debts and his being publicly ridiculed over them.