Bernardino de Mendoza was born in
Guadalajara, Spain in around 1540, to Alonso Suarez de Mendoza, 3rd Count of
Coruña and Viscount of
Torija, and Juana Jimenez de Cisneros. In 1560, he joined the army of
Philip II and for more than 15 years fought in the
Low Countries under the command of
Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba. During that period, he participated in the Spanish military actions at, among others,
Haarlem,
Mookerheyde, and
Gembloux. In 1576, he was appointed a member of the military
Order of St. James in recognition of those military achievements. In February 1578,
Philip II sent Mendoza as his
ambassador to
London. There, he acted not only as diplomat but also as a spy, using a variety of
secret codes in the reports that he returned to Spain. Mendoza bought a silver cup shaped like an owl made by a German goldsmith in London as a gift for a friend. Mendoza was a careful observer of Elizabeth and her statecraft. He wrote that during an audience in January 1579 Elizabeth lifted her
farthingale to allow him sit close to her and talk privately. When the Portuguese ambassador left London she gave him silver plate and a jewel for his wife. At their leave-taking in person, she took a diamond ring from her finger and gave it to the diplomat. Mendoza reported this to Philip II as an example of her "little witcheries" which would charm her international relations. He advocated that Philip II should give presents of jewels to English ministers and courtiers, in order to win powerful friends. Mendoza suggested that the
Earl of Sussex,
William Cecil,
James Croft,
Christopher Hatton, and others should receive jewels. The
Earl of Leicester, though he seemed an enemy of Spain, should also receive a gift so as not to arouse suspicion. Mendoza was expelled from England in 1584, after his involvement in
Francis Throckmorton's plot against
Elizabeth I was revealed. For the next six years, Bernardino de Mendoza served as Spanish ambassador to the
King of France. As the effective agent of Philip's
interventionist foreign policy, Mendoza acted in concert with the
Catholic League for which he acted as paymaster by funnelling
Habsburg funds to the Guise faction; he encouraged it to try, by popular riots, assassinations, and military campaigns, to undercut any moderate Catholic party that offered a policy of rapprochement with the
Huguenots. Mendoza and his master considered them as nothing more than
heretics who needed to be crushed and rooted out like an infection. His role in backing the extremist Catholic
House of Guise became so public that King
Henry III demanded his recall. In 1591, with the Catholic League in disarray after the assassination of
Henry I, Duke of Guise, he resigned due to ill health. His eyesight had been deteriorating for years, and by the time of his return to Spain, he had become completely blind. His last years were spent in his house in
Madrid. Many of his dispatches to Madrid were first deciphered only in the
Simancas archives by
De Lamar Jensen; they revealed, for the first time, Mendoza's role in organising and co-ordinating the Paris riots led by the Duke of Guise, known as the
Day of the Barricades (12 May 1588), which had been presented as a spontaneous rising of the people and timed to coincide with the sailing of the
Spanish Armada. Among Mendoza's public writings is a famous account of the war in the Low Countries that is entitled
Comentario de lo sucecido en los Paises Bajos desde el año 1567 hasta el de 1577. Bernardino also published a book on the art of warfare, under the title
Theórica y práctica de la guerra and a Spanish translation of the
Politicorum sive civilis doctrinae libri sex, by the Flemish philosopher
Justus Lipsius. ==Notes==