In the 1930s in Cantabria he gained some local recognition as a poet, while in the early Francoist era he was moderately known nationwide as the author of novels and historiographic accounts; he published some 35 volumes in total.

[7] The newly-wed couple indeed settled in Santander;[8] after Romero Magro got his credentials confirmed by the local authorities in 1897,[9] he started practicing and then opened his own dentist's office.

[22] In 1931[23] Romero married María Rosa Arche Aguirre (died after 1974)[24] from La Cavada[25] in Riotuerto county near Santander, daughter to a local modest landowner.

Wartime events triggered collections marked by religious and patriotic flavor, En el nombre del Padre (1936) and Cancionero carlista (1938); the last one proved his most popular poetic volume and came out in 3 editions.

In 1938 he published his first and best-known novel, La promesa del tulipán; its protagonist is a sybarite who undergoes evolution before he volunteers to requeté and finds reward, also in matters of the heart.

Almas distantes (1949) featured two artists facing quasi-apocalyptical disaster embodied in the great fire of Santander,[46] while Como hermanos (1951) again exploited the wartime past.

El príncipe requeté (1965), was in fact a veiled documentary account dwelling on Civil War deeds of the Carlist prince, Gaetano Borbón-Parma; in order not to challenge the Francoist censorship, the author formatted the work as literary fiction.

Heroes de romance,[50] 25 hombres en fila (both 1952)[51] and Era un monje perfecto (1954) are attempts in psychology and contain short individual portraits of persons related to Carlism or religion.

[54] Romero's press career commenced in the 1920s, when his single poems appeared first in local Cantabrian dailies and then in the nationwide Integrist newspaper El Siglo Futuro.

[55] His most challenging task, however, commenced in 1932, when with a group of friends[56] he decided to launch a high-level Traditionalist review, “más formativa que informativa, mejor dogmática que gráfica”.

[62] Romero remained its editor-in-chief until the end and maintained a very ambitious profile of Tradición; he contributed almost every second issue, steered clear of heated ideological or political questions and focused on literature, history of Traditionalism or exaltation of the Carlist dynasty.

[64] During early Francoism his name ceased to appear in the press; some authors claim he was member of the editorial board or even the co-manager of the Catholic daily Ya,[65] but this information is not confirmed elsewhere.

In case of the latter, an ambitious Zaragoza-based strongly left-leaning doctrinal monthly, sort of Tradición à rebours, he even entered the editorial board in the early 1970s.

When in the fall of 1931 the Alfonsist and Carlist representatives held secret talks about would-be rebellion against the republican regime, one of the meetings was staged in Romero's Santander home, though there is no information on his specific role.

[84] His newly born son was named Carlos in honor of the Carlist king;[85] Romero came to know him personally when the octogenarian started to spend winters in southern France, near the Spanish frontier.

[86] It is not clear whether Romero took part in internal debates related to the party strategy, though his articles demonstrated a penchant for “Catholic unity”[87] and at times contained barely veiled insurgent anti-republican tone.

[93] Though Romero was not member of Carlist wartime executive or any of its affiliated institutions, in early October 1936 he accompanied top party leaders who travelled from Spain via France and Switzerland to attend the funeral of Don Alfonso Carlos in Vienna.

[94] His written account of the journey, which was also an attempt to idolize Fal Conde,[95] was later the same year published by the Carlist Delegación de Prensa y Propaganda;[96] fairly popular, it was re-issued in the second edition of 1938.

Also in 1938 and already with approval of the Francoist censorship he published the poetic volume Cancionero carlista[105] and his best-known novel, La promesa del tulipán; both celebrated the Carlist wartime military effort.

[106] There is no information on Romero's engagement in Carlist structures during early Francoism[107] and even his literary production – save Héroes de romance (1952), dedicated to requetés – evolved mostly around religious topics or episodes from distant past.

However, he maintained links with numerous personalities, including Don Javier, and was gradually getting involved in efforts to install his son, prince Carlos Hugo, in Spain.

Romero viewed him in rather sympathetic terms, as “muy sonriente y cariñoso como es norma en los Borbón Parma”,[108] even though he was somewhat skeptical about the mediatic strategy adopted by young entourage of the prince.

He also nurtured increasing doubts about what he viewed as the clumsy huguista tactics versus Franco; in 1964 he complained that it produced loss of some opportunities and previous gains.

In case of novels they praised “ease of narration” which maintains “velocidad y ligereza de torrente” though noted some simplistic psychological construction of the protagonists.

[138] However, there were exceptions: Roman Oyarzún destroyed his Boinas Rojas en Austria as the piece which referred the tragic episode in “unforgivable light tone” and presented invented fiction as facts.

[139] In the early 1960s Romero started to appear as sort of Cantabrian literary authority, especially in journalism,[140] and received first local homages;[141] they were even more pronounced by the end of the decade.