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Updated: June 2, 2025
Gonsalvo remembered the last words of the devoted Mendoza, and bestowed a pension on his widow and marriage portions on his daughters.* * The account of this nocturnal affair is from Peter Martyr, lib. 4, Epist. 90, and Pulgar, Hazanas del Gran Capitan, page 188, as cited by Alcantara, Hist. Granada, tom. 4, cap. 18.
This time it was the prisoner who did the honours of the table, and Cæsar was particularly charming and courteous in manner. The governor seized the opportunity of putting some questions as to his capture, and inquired, with the pride of a Castilian noble, who set honour above all, what was the exact truth as to the way in which Gonsalvo de Cordova and Ferdinand had broken their faith with him.
The date of his birth carries us back towards the middle of the fifteenth century, before the times of Ferdinand and Isabella. He was of obscure parentage, and born, as it is said, at Arevalo. For forty years he served in the Italian wars, under the most illustrious captains of the day, Gonsalvo de Cordova, Navarro, and the Colonnas.
In 1503 a treaty was negotiated by Ferdinand's son-in-law, the Archduke Philip. Gonsalvo, however, not recognising instructions received from Philip, gave battle to the French at Cerignola, and won a brilliant victory. A few days earlier another victory had been won by a second column; and Gonsalvo marched on Naples, which welcomed him. The two French fortresses commanding it were reduced.
Don Giuffrè accompanied him. Cardinals Francesco Remolini of Sorrento and Ludovico Borgia had preceded him to Naples to escape a prosecution with which they were threatened. There Gonsalvo broke the safe-conduct which he had given Cæsar. May 27th he seized him in the name of King Ferdinand and confined him in the castle of Ischia.
The count of Aremberg, governor of this province, assisted by the Spanish troops under Gonsalvo de Bracamonte, quickly opposed the invaders. They met on the 24th of May near the abbey of Heiligerlee, which gave its name to the battle; and after a short contest the royalists were defeated with great loss.
Though not of large frame, he was esteemed the best swordsman, next only to Hernando del Pulgar and Gonsalvo de Cordova, in the army; practised alike in the heavy assault of the Christian warfare, and the rapid and dexterous exercise of the Moorish cavalry.
They were at length driven from their vantage-ground, and pursued by Alonso de Aguilar and his brother Gonsalvo to the very suburbs of the city, leaving many of their bravest men upon the field. Such was one of innumerable rough encounters daily taking place, in which many brave cavaliers were slain without apparent benefit to either party.
The French occupied higher ground and were much more comfortably situated. But Gonsalvo refused to move. He was playing his old waiting game, knowing that the French dared not attack his intrenched camp, and that time would work steadily in his favor.
The barbarous soldiers of Gaston de Foix, of Frundsberg, and of Gonsalvo, were the unconscious bearers of the seeds of the ages of Elizabeth, of Louis XIV., and of Goethe. These stupid and rapacious ruffians, while they wantonly destroyed the works of Italian civilization, rendered possible the existence of a Montaigne, a Shakespeare, and a Cervantes.
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