The Spanish army had been destroyed, but new forces were established at the municipal and provincial level, who fought against both France and against certain remnants of feudalism that remained in Spain.
At the same time, this legal recognition implied at least the formal end of their status as voluntary organizations armed by distinct local or provincial government entities, merging them officially into a single body.
Much to the displeasure of the king, the Liberal Triennium of 1820–1823 reconstituted the National Militia, which fought against the absolutist uprisings within the peninsula.
The new officers of Maria Christina's army, especially Leopoldo O'Donnell and Baldomero Espartero, who, in 1833, had supported the cause of the three-year-old Queen Isabella II against the claims of the Infante Carlos, Count of Molina, took a strong ascendency over the National Militia, so that with their collaboration the Militia fought in the First Carlist War on the side of Isabella II and received their first standards as recognition of actions performed during this conflict.
The National Militia as such was formally reestablished by a presidential decree of Emilio Castelar during the First Spanish Republic, but once again, and definitively, dissolved by Cánovas del Castillo in 1876.