Note 143 — Chapter V

I have three biographies of the duke of Alva, which give a view of his whole career. The most important is one in Latin, by a Spanish Jesuit named Ossorio, and entitled Ferdinandi Toletani Albæ Ducis Vita et Res Gestæ (Salmanticiæ, 1669). The author wrote nearly a century after the time of his hero. But as he seems to have had access to the best sources of information, his narrative may be said to rest on a good foundation. He writes in a sensible and business-like manner, more often found among the Jesuits than among the members of the other orders. It is not surprising that the harsher features of the portrait should be smoothed down under the friendly hand of the Jesuit commemorating the deeds of the great champion of Catholicism.

A French life of the duke, printed some thirty years later, is only a translation of the preceding, Histoire de Ferdinand-Alvarez de Toledo, Duc d'Albe (Paris, 1699). A work of more pretension is entitled Resultas de la Vida de Fernando Alvarez tercero Duque de Alva, escrita por Don Juan Antonio de Vera y Figueroa, Conde de la Roca (1643). It belongs, apparently, to a class of works not uncommon in Spain, in which vague and uncertain statements take the place of simple narrative, and the writer covers up his stilted panegyric with the solemn garb of moral philosophy.