CARTAGENA, Colombia — The strange events that unfolded here in recent days involved, in one way or another, Prince Charles of England; George Washington’s older brother Lawrence; the British admiral after whom Mount Vernon was named; a one-eyed, one-legged Spanish seaman who has been dead for 273 years; and an angry animal rights activist with a hammer.

It all started innocently enough.

On Oct. 31, during a visit here, the prince, attired in a tan tropical suit, and his wife Camilla, in pearls and sunglasses, unveiled a plaque commemorating the thousands of Englishmen and American colonists who died during a disastrous attack on this walled port city in 1741.

In the Battle of Cartagena, a large British force, joined by troops from the American colonies, including the elder Washington, was repulsed by a much smaller contingent — led by the wily, mutilated Spanish naval commander, Blas de Lezo.

For Prince Charles’s visit last month, a black granite plaque hailing “the valor and suffering of all those who died in combat whilst seeking to take the city” was placed at the colonial fort where British troops were repulsed nearly three centuries ago. The remembrance appeared just paces from a statue of the peg-legged de Lezo, which depicts him wielding a sword with his left hand and glaring with his one good eye, as if in the heat of battle. (The statue inaccurately portrays him as also missing his right arm.)