However, the ship's name had a more specific historical meaning, honoring the Dos de Mayo (Second of May) Uprising in Madrid against occupying forces of the First French Empire on 2–3 May 1808.

Designed by the Spanish Navy engineer Juan Garcia Lomas,[1] she was laid down at the Arsenal de la Carraca in San Fernando, Spain, on 3 November 1860 as a wooden-hulled screw frigate of mixed construction with iron beams , booms, and diagonals and steam propulsion.

After a transatlantic crossing, she arrived at Montevideo, Uruguay, where she rendezvoused with the Spanish Navy screw frigates Reina Blanca and Berenguela.

[3] Villa de Madrid became the flagship of the squadron's commander, Vicealmirante (Vice Admiral) José Manuel Pareja, whose predecessor Luis Hernández-Pinzón Álvarez had seized the Chincha Islands from Peru in April 1864.

On 27 January 1865 a Peruvian government representative, Manuel Ignacio de Vivanco, and Pareja signed the Preliminary Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Peru and Spain, known informally as the Vivanco–Pareja Treaty, aboard Villa de Madrid in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to settle claims between the two countries that instead sparked the outbreak of the Peruvian Civil War of 1865.

In February 1866, Méndez Núñez sent Villa de Madrid, still under Sánchez's command, and Reina Blanca south to destroy the combined Chilean-Peruvian squadron.

In the resulting Battle of Abtao, the Spanish ships were reluctant to close with the allied squadron because of a fear of running aground in shallow water.

[7] Facing no opposition, Reina Blanca, Villa de Madrid, the screw frigate Resolución, and the screw corvette Vencedora conducted a three-hour bombardment of Valparaíso while Berenguela and the sidewheel paddle steamer Paquete de Maule stood by offshore to guard against any attempt at escape by Chilean merchant ships.

[10] Several days of negotiations began on 26 April, during which Méndez Núñez granted neutral countries a four-day delay in his attack to give them time to salvage their interests in Callao.

[10] The Spanish ships used the delay to prepare for the attack: The frigates all lowered their topmasts and main yards and altered their rigging to reduce the likelihood of damage to their masts, set up on-board field hospitals, and painted over the white stripes on their hulls with black paint to reduce the ships' visibility and give Peruvian gunners less of an aiming point.

[10] Villa de Madrid was hit five times,[10] including by a 450-pound (204 kg) projectile that according to one source killed 14 men and wounded 13[1] and according to another inflicted a total of 35 casualties.

[7][10] The most significant combat action of Villa Madrid′s career, the Battle of Callao coincidentally took place on the 58th anniversary of the Madrid uprising for which she was named.

[1] Mendez Núñez viewed an eastward passsage around Cape Horn in winter as too dangerous for his damaged ships, so he decided to steam west across the Pacific Ocean.

[6][14][15][16][17] Villa de Madrid passed around the Cape of Good Hope under sail in winter without warm clothing or fresh food, and scurvy broke out among her crew.

Villa de Madrid steamed to the Papal States and anchored at Civitavecchia to provide transportation for Pope Pius IX in case he needed to evacuate Rome, but Garibaldi's defeat at the Battle of Mentana on 3 November 1867 made this unnecessary, and Villa de Madrid returned to Spain at the end of 1867, arriving at Cartagena.

Villa de Madrid arrived at Cádiz at the end of August 1868 for alterations to her armament, plans calling for her to undergo modifications that would give her twenty 200-millimetre (7.9 in) smoothbore and ten 160-millimetre (6.3 in) rifled guns.

On either 23[1] or 25 September 1868, Villa de Madrid, with General Juan Prim aboard, and the armored frigate Zaragoza got underway from Cádiz for a cruise along the coast of Spain and North Africa to incite rebellion, during which they visited Algeciras, Ceuta, Malaga, Cartagena, Valencia, and Barcelona.

Still part of the Mediterranean Squadron and under Butler's command, Villa de Madrid departed Cartagena in March 1871 for a diplomatic visit to Tangier in company with the armored frigate Arapiles to convey Spanish government demands to Sultan Muhammad IV of Morocco.

[1] When the Cantonal rebellion began in July 1873, fighting broke out in the Province of Cádiz between centralists who supported the First Spanish Republic's central government and cantonalists, centering around control of the Arsenal de La Carraca in San Fernando.

[1] On 30 July 1873, the cantonalists achieved one of their greatest successes when they persuaded part of the crew of Villa de Madrid to take control of the ship, which arrived in Cádiz from Barcelona flying the red flag of the Canton of Cartagena.

[1] Sixty members of her crew joined 200 men from the naval gunnery and boatswains schools in a triumphant parade through the streets of Cádiz.

Her engine was broken, so when the First Spanish Republic's central government attempted to regain control of Cádiz she played only a passive role in the defense of the Arsenal de La Carraca against the centralist squadron of Contraamlirante (Counteradmiral) Miguel Lobo y Malagamba.

[1] A 600-kilogram (1,323 lb) anchor preserved as a monument on the edge of a pond in the Parque del Buen Retiro in Madrid bears a bronze commemorative plaque which reads "Homenaje a la mar.