On 10 Sept. 1809 Marshal Beresford gave Madden a Portuguese cavalry brigade. Five months later Lord Wellington inspected the brigade, and expressed the highest approval of its discipline and good order, to which it had been brought in the face of difficulties of every kind. In August 1810 Madden's brigade was sent into Spain, to be attached to the Spanish army of Estramadura, commanded by the Marquis de la Romana. Wellington, who thought highly of Madden, recommended him to Romana as ‘un officier Anglais de beaucoup de talent’ (Gurwood, v. 220). Madden's brigade remained with the Spaniards, under Romana and his successor, Mendizabel, throughout the French siege of Badajoz until its surrender to the French in March 1811 (see Napier, revised ed. vols. iii. iv.) At Fuente de Cantos, 15 Sept. 1810, he saved the Spanish army—which, hard pressed by the French, was retreating in disorder, and like to disperse in flight—by most gallantly charging with his brigade a superior force of French hussars (ib. iii. 17). At Gebora, on the San Engracio heights, on 19 Feb. 1811, when the Spanish army was routed, and Madden's Portuguese, following the dastardly example of the Spaniards, ran away (ib. iii. 97–8), he was allowed on all sides to have done all that man could do. His brigade was with Beresford's army before Badajoz, but a small portion only were engaged at Albuera, the rest being on detached duty with Madden, who was unaware of the likelihood of a battle; it was subsequently with the allied cavalry under General William Lumley [q. v.], and with Wellington's army until the latter raised the second siege of Badajoz and retired behind the Caya. During the latter part of these operations Madden's command was augmented by two more regiments, raising the Portuguese cavalry under him to the strength of a division. When Wellington's army went into cantonments for the winter, the Portuguese cavalry was sent to Oporto, where it remained during the rest of the year. Early in 1812 it was ordered to Golegao, near Lisbon. The difficulty of procuring remounts decided Beresford to reduce the number of regiments, and to give up the idea of employing the Portuguese cavalry in brigades for a time. Madden thus found his occupation gone, and returned home in the early summer of 1812. In the meantime he had been reinstated in his rank in the British service, ‘at the special request of the Prince Regent and the government of Portugal, in recompense for his services in the army of that country’ (Lond. Gaz. 3 March 1812). In the ‘Annual Army List’ of 1813 his name reappears as lieutenant-colonel, late 12th dragoons, with seniority from 4 July 1805.
Madden went back to Portugal in August 1812, and was appointed to command the 7th brigade of Portuguese infantry, which passed the winter of 1812–13 in villages about the Estrella mountains, and by arduous forced marches joined Wellington at Vittoria the morning after the great victory of 21 June 1813. Madden commanded the brigade, which was attached to the sixth British division, in the operations in the Pyrenees during the blockade of Pampeluna, including the affairs at St. Estevan and Sauroren. He attained the rank of marechal de campo, or major-general, in the Portuguese service, on 4 June 1813, but to avoid difficulties as to precedence, the promotion appears not to have been announced until after the arrival from home of the 4 June birthday ‘Gazette,’ by which he was promoted colonel in the British army. Notwithstanding the high character of his services with the Portuguese army—he had been third in seniority among the English officers, and had commanded a cavalry division—the precedence given by his Portuguese rank was regarded as unfair to the English colonels of equal standing, and he was directed to resign his brigade to the next senior officer, Sir John Douglas. After witnessing the assault on San Sebastian as a spectator, he repaired to Lisbon to await orders, and remained unemployed until the peace, when he returned home. He became a major-general in the British army 12 Aug. 1819.
Madden was made C.B. 4 June 1815, a knight commander of the Tower and Sword in Portugal 19 Dec. 1815, and a knight bachelor 5 July 1816. He had, besides the papal medal, the Turkish order of the Crescent, the general officers' gold medal for the Pyrenees, and the Portuguese ‘Guerra Peninsular’ cross, decreed 1 July 1816, and given some years later to all officers effective in the six campaigns 1809–16 (see Naval and Mil. Gaz. 27 April 1844, p. 261). Madden died unmarried, on 8 Dec. 1828, at the age of fifty-seven, at Portsmouth, at the house of his brother, Captain William John Madden, half-pay royal marines, who was father of Sir Frederic Madden [q. v.] He was buried with military honours in Portsmouth Royal Garrison Church, where is a tablet to his memory.
Madden's portrait was painted in 1817 by Miss Geddes, afterwards Mrs. Margaret Sarah Carpenter [q. v.], and copied in oils by Samuel Cousins, R.A.
