Note 55 — Chapter IV · THE HERO OF THE CONQUEST.

According to the Testimonio de Hidalguia de Cortés, in Col. Doc. Inéd., iv. 238-9, the names of the mother’s parents were Diego Altamirano and Leonor Sanchez Pizarro, which would reverse her surnames, and make the son a Cortés y Altamirano. But Gomara, De Rebus Gestis Ferdinandi Cortesii, and other authorities, do not accept this form. This important document, however, the Testimonio, establishes the fact that both parents were hidalgos, ‘gozando de los oficios que gozan los hijosdalgo en ... Medellin.’ Some historians strain themselves to make Cortés the scion of a Roman family, or even of a king of Lombardy and Tuscany, whose descendants entered Spain during Gothic rule. Those who have tastes in that direction may consult Siculus, Viris Illust., 141; Anales de Aragon, iii. xiv.; Pizarro y Orellana, Varones Ilvstres, 67. Las Casas, Hist. Ind., iv. 11, who claimed acquaintance with the family, slurs their pretensions to high origin. ‘Ambos hijosdalgo sin raça’ is the qualification in Sandoval, Hist. Carlos V., i. 160. No doubt the parents of Cortés were respectable and amiable people, but to attempt to make of them other than they were is folly. ‘Catharinia namque probitate, pudicitiâ et in conjugem amore, nulli ætatis suae feminae cessit.’ De Rebus Gestis Ferdinandi Cortesii, in Icazbalceta, Col. Doc., i. 310-11. This document refers to Martin Cortés as ‘levis armaturae equitum quinquaginta dux fuerit,’ on which evidence Prescott makes the man a captain when he is only a lieutenant, which yet more clearly appears by Gomara, who states, Hist. Mex., 4, that he was a ‘teniente de vna compañia de Ginetes.’