Everything about Pedro Gonz Lez De Mendoza totally explained
Pedro González de Mendoza (
May 3,
1428 –
January 11,
1495) was a
Spanish cardinal and
statesman.
Biography
He was born at
Guadalajara in New Castile, the chief lordship of his family. He was the fourth son of
Íñigo López de Mendoza, marqués de Santillana, and duke of Infantado.
The house of Mendoza claimed to descend from the lords of Llodio in Alava, and to have been settled in Old Castile, in the
11th century. According to highly reliable
Lope de Barrientos they were of Jewish
converso descent and came from the same stock as another great aristocratic family of converso descent, Ayala. One chief of the house had been greatly distinguished at the
battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in
1212. Another had been Admiral of Castile in the reign of
Alphonso the Wise.
Pedro of Castile had endowed them with the lordships of Hita and Buitrago. The greatness of the Mendozas was completed by Pedro Gonzalez, who sacrificed his life to save
King John I at the
battle of Aljubarrota in
1385. The cardinal's father, the marquis of Santillana-- to use the title he bore for the greater part of his life--was a
poet, and was conspicuous during the troubled reign of
John II.
Loyalty to the Crown was the traditional and prevailing policy of the family. Mendoza, the future cardinal, was sent into the Church mainly because he was a younger son and that he might be handsomely provided for. He had no vocation, and was an example of the worldly, political and martial prelates of the
15th century. In
1452 at the age of twenty-four, he was chosen by the king John II to be
bishop of Calahorra, but didn't receive the pope's bull till 1454. As bishop of Calahorra he was also señor, or civil and military ruler, of the town and its dependent district. In his secular capacity he led the levies of Calahorra in the civil wars of the reign of
Henry IV. He fought for the king at the second battle of Olmedo on
August 20,
1467, and was wounded in the arm.
During these years he became attached to Doña Mencia de Lemus, a Portuguese lady-in-waiting of the queen. She bore him two sons, Rodrigo, who was once selected to be the husband of
Lucrezia Borgia, and Diego, who was the grandfather of the
princess of Eboli of the reign of
Philip II (see
Antonio Perez) By Inés de Tovar, a lady of a
Valladolid family, he'd a third son (Juan Hurtado de Mendoza y Tovar) who afterwards emigrated to France.
In
1468 Pedro became bishop of
Sigüenza. In 1473 he was created cardinal, was promoted to the archbishopric of Seville and named chancellor of Castile. During the last years of the reign of King Henry IV. he was the partisan of the
Princess Isabella, afterwards queen. He fought for her at the
battle of Toro on
March 1,
1476; had a prominent part in placing her on the throne; and served her indefatigably in her efforts to suppress the disorderly nobles of Castile. In 1482 he became archbishop of
Toledo.
During the conquest of
Granada he contributed largely to the maintenance of the army. On
January 2,
1492 he occupied the town in the name of the
Catholic sovereigns. Though his life was worldly, and though he was more soldier and statesman than priest, the "Great Cardinal," as he was commonly called, didn't neglect his duty as a bishop. He used his influence with the queen and also at Rome to arrange a settlement of the disputes between the Spanish sovereigns and the papacy. He was an advocate of
Christopher Columbus.
Though he maintained a splendid household as archbishop of Toledo, and, provided handsomely for his children, he devoted part of his revenue to charity, and with part he endowed the college of Santa Cruz at Valladolid. His health broke down at the close of 1493. Queen Isabella visited and nursed him on his deathbed in Guadalajara. It is said that he recommended her to choose as his successor the
Franciscan Jimenez de Cisneros, a man who had no likeness to himself save in political faculty and devotion to the authority of the Crown.
Sources
The life of the cardinal, by Salazar de Mendoza,
Cronica del gran cardinal Don Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza (Toledo, 1625), is discursive and garrulous but valuable. See also
Prescott,
History of Ferdinand and Isabella.
Footnotes
Further Information
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