It played a prominent role in the "White Terror" unleashed in the territory controlled by the Regency, forcing the Duke of Angoulême to intervene and issue the Ordinance of Andújar in August 1823.

When Ferdinand VII regained his "freedom" on 1 October 1823 and restored the absolute monarchy for the second time, he did not disband the Royalist Volunteer Corps and continued to use it as an instrument of repression.

[3] The Corps was officially disbanded in 1833, following the death of Ferdinand VII, and many of its members joined the forces of the Infante Carlos María Isidro during the First Carlist War.

At the same time, in the town of Ezcaray in La Rioja, a royal volunteer corps was formed, based on the model of the Liberal National Militia, which grew to three companies.

As for the requirements for candidates for leadership positions (the city councils would submit a shortlist to the captains general, who would appoint them), they had to "own significant real estate... or possess a noble lineage inherited from their ancestors and maintained with dignity".

[13] As the historian Josep Fontana notes, "the status of volunteer offered its mostly humble members social incentives, a source of income that allowed unemployed day labourers to survive, and a preferential option for local jobs".

[14] This view is shared by Emilio La Parra, who notes that "belonging to this corps meant loyalty to the absolute regime and, for many, the hope of securing employment, which facilitated the rapid growth of its membership".

[2] According to Fontana, this growth was also fuelled by a "populist dream that led [the realists] to look back at the recovery of an idyllic past that never existed", as was the case for many peasants and artisans.

This is evidenced by a document on the Realist Volunteers in Cifuentes (Guadalajara), which states that they "wanted to live at the expense of the rich, whom they insulted and threatened, calling them negros", meaning liberals.

A police report from 1825 confirmed that "there is a general emigration to France of all the landowners and wealthy people of the Basque provinces, because they cannot bear the insults, harassment and abuse of the Realist volunteers and the lower classes of the city".

As the historian Juan Francisco Fuentes has pointed out, "a large part of the political and social violence during the Ominous Decade must be attributed to the often uncontrollable actions of the Realist Volunteers".

[19] The involvement of the Realist Volunteers in the War of the Aggrieved (1827) and their uncontrolled actions gradually led the Crown and the local institutions to distrust them and to consider disbanding them, especially when they sided with Don Carlos in the succession dispute at the end of the reign of Ferdinand VII.