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Bernardino de Mendoza (c. 1540 – 3 August 1604) was a Spanish military commander, diplomat, and writer on military history and politics. He servedPhilip II asambassador toLondon and as a spy, from which he was expelled for his involvement in theBabington plot againstElizabeth I. During theWar of the Three Henrys, he coordinated with theCatholic League andHenry, Duke of Guise against theHuguenots.
Bernardino de Mendoza was born inGuadalajara, Spain in around 1540, to Alonso Suarez de Mendoza, 3rd Count ofCoruña and Viscount ofTorija, and Juana Jimenez de Cisneros.
In 1560, he joined the army ofPhilip II and for more than 15 years fought in theLow Countries under the command ofFernando Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba. During that period, he participated in the Spanish military actions at, among others,Haarlem,Mookerheyde, andGembloux. In 1576, he was appointed a member of the militaryOrder of St. James in recognition of those military achievements.
In 1578,Philip II sent Mendoza as hisambassador toLondon. There, he acted not only as diplomat but also as a spy, using a variety ofsecret codes in the reports that he returned to Spain. He was expelled from England in 1584, after his involvement inFrancis Throckmorton's plot againstElizabeth I was revealed.
For the next six years, Bernardino de Mendoza served as Spanish ambassador to theKing of France. As the effective agent of Philip'sinterventionist foreign policy, Mendoza acted in concert with theCatholic League for which he acted as paymaster by funnellingHabsburg 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 theHuguenots. Mendoza and his master considered them as nothing more thanheretics who needed to be crushed and rooted out like an infection.[1] His role in backing the extremist CatholicHouse of Guise became so public that KingHenry III demanded his recall.
In 1591, with the Catholic League in disarray after the assassination ofHenry I, Duke of Guise, he resigned due to ill health.[2] 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 inMadrid.
Many of his dispatches to Madrid were first deciphered only in theSimancas archives byDe Lamar Jensen;[3] 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 theDay 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 theSpanish Armada. Among Mendoza's public writings is a famous account of the war in the Low Countries that is entitledComentario 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 titleTheórica y práctica de la guerra and a Spanish translation of thePoliticorum sive civilis doctrinae libri sex, by the Flemish philosopherJustus Lipsius.
