Francisco de Sandoval y Rojas, 1st Duke of Lerma

Francisco Gómez de Sandoval-Rojas y Borja, better known as Francisco de Sandoval y Rojas (Tordesillas, 1553-Valladolid, May 17, 1625), was the V Marquis of Denia, Sommelier de Corps, Equerry Mayor and Valid of Felipe III (1598-1621), I Duke of Lerma (1599), I Count of Ampudia (1602) and Cardinal (1618).

Gómez de Sandoval-Rojas was born in Tordesillas and educated at the court of Philip II. His maternal grandfather was Francisco de Borja (San Francisco de Borja) and he belonged to a family with tradition in the position of Adelantado de Castilla since 1412.

He was the most powerful man in the reign of Philip III. He became immensely rich at the cost of knowing how to handle influence peddling, corruption and the sale of public office. To record his power as patron of the Villa Ducal de Lerma in Burgos, he used part of his fortune to enlarge and beautify it, hiring the most outstanding architects and using the best materials. Most of its buildings were designed by his trusted architect, the Discalced Carmelite Fray Alberto de la Madre de Dios, to whom we owe the collegiate church and the convents of La Encarnación, San Blas, Santo Domingo and Santa Teresa, as well as the completion of the ducal palace, which had been projected by Francisco de Mora.

Because of his position as the king's minister, he became the closest and most trusted man to the monarch, even getting him to transfer the Court from Madrid to Valladolid (1601). The duke carried out a masterful real estate operation six months before the transfer, buying properties and investing for his own benefit. It is what is known today as speculation. Some of these properties, such as the so-called Huerta de la Ribera, were sold to the king years later, a few months before the return of the court to Madrid. He also bought a palace from Francisco de los Cobos, a building that he also sold to the king the following year and which was converted into a royal palace.

The return of the court of Felipe III to Madrid in 1606 was also made due to the influence and advice of the Duke of Lerma. Historians think that this return was prepared in advance and that the duke never intended to completely abandon Madrid. It is known from the documents that are preserved that already in 1603 there were certain maneuvers and agreements between the mayor of Madrid and the duke.

Biography

The Duke of Lerma, by Juan Pantoja de la Cruz (about 1600)

Francisco de Sandoval belonged to a family of Spanish nobility. His parents were Francisco Gómez de Sandoval y Zúñiga, Marquis of Denia, and Isabel de Borja y Castro, daughter of the Jesuit saint Francisco de Borja (when he was still the IV Duke of Gandía). His uncle, the Archbishop of Seville, Cristóbal de Rojas y Sandoval, educated him at the Madrid court of Felipe II and managed to introduce him to the position of menino of Prince Carlos, son of Felipe II and his first wife, María Manuela de Portugal.

On the death of his father, Francisco is left as the head and head of his family, with more debts than income. But his rise in his career began very early with a first position as a gentleman of the king's chamber. Later, in 1592, he became a gentleman of the house of Prince Felipe (future Felipe III), being at that moment when the great friendship between the two characters began. Some people from the court of King Felipe II were able to see from the beginning the great influence that the future Duke of Lerma had on the prince and they recommended that the king distance him for a while. This was how the king named him Viceroy of Valencia in 1595, a position he held for two years. Upon his return to Madrid, Prince Felipe himself requested his appointment as head groom.

When Prince Felipe ascended the throne as Felipe III, he wanted to have Francisco de Sandoval as a friend, adviser and man of all confidence, who from then on was the true "king" of Spain. He surrounded himself with a team of people he trusted and distributed the most important positions at court among family members and friends of his. One of these characters was Rodrigo Calderón de Aranda, who was said to be "the valid of the valid". In 1599, Felipe III granted him the title of Duke of Lerma and thus entered the category of Grandee of Spain. His sister, Catalina de Zúñiga (1555-1628), was married to the VI Count of Lemos.

Ducal Palace in Lerma.

In 1601 the court moved to the city of Valladolid; It will be a brief period until 1606, when he again returns to Madrid. This transfer is due to the Duke of Lerma who advised the king to do so. Historians believe that there were two reasons that prompted the duke to achieve this transfer: first, to remove the king from the influence of his aunt, the Empress María de Austria (recluse in the convent of Las Descalzas Reales in Madrid), who did not see with good eyes the work of don Francisco; and the second reason, the important financial benefits that this change implied for him.

The power of the Duke of Lerma was immense: he came to handle the royal seal as Sommelier de Corps, managed to control the kingdom and make all political decisions by himself between 1599 and 1618. The most important incidents of his tenure occurred in 1609 with the signing of the truce with the Netherlands and the expulsion of the Moors. In 1613, the Arganda Mutiny also took place, an anti-seigneurial rebellion in the town of Arganda del Rey motivated by the loss of the privilege of being a royal town to pass to the jurisdiction of the Duke of Lerma. Other crises occurred in a less political and social sphere: the death of his wife in 1603, the fall and trial of Pedro Franqueza and Lorenzo Ramírez de Prado in 1607, the criticism and persecution against Rodrigo Calderón from 1608, the growing division among his relatives and spells, especially after 1613...

Queen Margarita, wife of Felipe III, was not in favor of the abuses and influence of the Duke of Lerma, and around her she had many dissatisfied advisors as well. There was an investigation of finances (view process) that gradually discovered the network of corruption and irregularities. They began to fall guilty and involved, among others the duke's favorite, Rodrigo Calderón de Aranda, who was executed in the Plaza Mayor in Madrid in 1621. Pressure was unleashed against the regime, and before the events, the duke applied a stratagem that will save his life: he requests from Rome the cardinal's hat that is granted to him in 1618 as cardinal presbyter of San Sixto, at the same time that the king gives him permission to retire to his properties in the city of Lerma. When Felipe III was about to die, he forgave many inmates who went to visit him, and with that intention he tried to get closer to the Duke, which he failed to do because the Count of Olivares, the future favorite of Felipe IV's son, ordered him to be detained on the road. Felipe III died and the Count of Olivares ordered him to reside in Tordesillas, but he did not obey and appealed to the Pope. Gregory XV and the sacred college of cardinals defended him, considering his banishment an attack on ecclesiastical freedom and the prestige of the cardinalate. Under the reign of Felipe IV, which began in 1621, the Duke of Lerma was stripped of part of his wealth. The cardinal was sentenced on August 3, 1624 to return to the kingdom more than a million ducats. Lerma died in 1625 in Valladolid, retired from public life.

When he was granted the cardinalate, a coplilla ran through Madrid that said: "In order not to die by hanging, / the greatest thief in Spain / dressed in red."

However, this version, which gained popular support at the time, and which would place the Duke of Lerma as corrupt, is completely disputed by historians such as Hermida Balado, Germán Vázquez or Mónica Martínez García, who place the Duke as the victim of a conspiracy, orchestrated by Gaspar de Guzmán y Pimentel, count-duke of Olivares, by Luis de Aliaga, an Aragonese Dominican named confessor to the king under the influence of Lerma, and by his own son, the Duke of Uceda, eager to replace his father in the privanza and, at the same time, to prevent Galicia from getting the vote in Cortes, a fight led by Pedro Fernández de Castro y Andrade, president of the Council of Italy at the time of the fall of Lerma and his main protégé; the Castro presented his resignation to the fall of Lerma, in the belief of being under a court conspiracy. ^{[citation needed ]}

Marriage and offspring

Catalina de la Cerda, wife of the Duke of Lerma.

He married Catalina de la Cerda (1551-July 2, 1603), daughter of the IV Duke of Medinaceli. Five children were born to this union:

• Cristóbal Gómez de Sandoval y de la Cerda (1577-1624), I Duque de Uceda, who succeeded his father as the validation of King Philip III.
• Juana de Sandoval, married to the VIII Duke of Medina Sidonia; of this union was born Luisa de Guzmán, who became the queen of Portugal for his marriage to the rebel VIII Duke of Braganza, which makes her and her father the ancestors of the Portuguese dynasty of Braganza and several other European royal houses.
• Diego Gómez de Sandoval y de la Cerda, married to Luisa de Mendoza, daughter of Ana de Mendoza de la Vega y Luna, and in second nupcias with Mariana Fernández de Córdoba and Castilla, of this union was born the V Duke of Lerma.
• Catalina de la Cerda Sándoval y Zúñiga, married to Pedro Fernández de Castro and Andrade VII Count of Lemos, without descendence.
• Francisca de Sandoval and Rojas, married in first nupcias with Diego López de Zúñiga Avellaneda and in second with Lope de Avellaneda.

Titles and commands

Titles

• V Marquis de Denia.
• IV count, and then I duke of Lerma (1599).
• I count of Ampudia (1602).

Orders

Order of Santiago

• Gentlemen.
• Merida and Hornachos dealer.
• Thirteen.
• Comendador Mayor de Castilla.

Jobs

• People of the House of Philip II
• Virrey and Captain General of the Kingdom and Costas of Valencia.
• Sumiller de Corps de Felipe III.
• Major Knight of Philip III. (And formerly this prince of Asturias)
• State Counselor.
• War Counsellor.
• Alcaide del Castillo de Burgos de la Casa real y forest del Abrojo, de la casa real y forest de la Quemada y de la Huerta del Rey.

In literature and the arts

It is curious that the Duke of Lerma had an impact as a literary character equal to or even less than his own secretary, Rodrigo Calderón, to whom Quevedo, Góngora, Villamediana and many other anonymous poets dedicated sonnets and ballads for having confronted with greatness and gallantry his own execution, something that the Duke and most of his partners had avoided as best they could.

On the contrary, the courtly poets dedicated more cultured compositions and great commitment to the great favourite, praising pacifism above all, the pax hispanica of his foreign policy. The Spanish Conceptist poet Francisco de Quevedo composed an ode or Pindaric song for him, the "Praise to the Duke of Lerma, Don Francisco" (1607-1609), no. 237 of the Blecua edition, a daring attempt to transfer the Greek genre to Spanish literature, when he was on the brink of his thirties, comparing him to the Roman hero Marco Curcio. Quevedo supported the character until he became disillusioned in 1615, and then began to denigrate him. On the other hand, even his enemy, the culterano poet from Córdoba Luis de Góngora (1561-1627) thrived under the power of the favourite, at whose court he presented with success of his Soledades (1613). In addition, he corresponded to his protector and patron, composing the eighth real ones of the Panegyric to the Duke of Lerma in 1617, even though the poem remained unfinished; in that same year he obtained the coveted position of royal chaplain.

The Russian Romantic nobleman, painter and writer Mikhail Lermontov developed the theory as a teenager that his last name came from the Duke of Lerma. These fantasies were reflected in the imaginary portrait of his favorite, as well as in his drama Испанцы / Los españoles (1830), which he composed when he was only sixteen. On the other hand, The Great Favourite, or the Duke of Lerma / El gran favorito, o El duque de Lerma is a tragedy written by Sir Robert Howard (1626-1698) that is based on the life of Don Francisco is considered the playwright's masterpiece, as well as a step forward in the development of the heroic drama of the Restoration era. It paints the main character as an amoral and Machiavellian valid, willing to do anything out of ambition. The piece premiered on February 20, 1668. Teo Palacios wrote about the character in the historical novel El trono de barro: Jaque al duque de Lerma (2019).