3-098-950 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Imprisonment of Don Fernando de Valenzuela, (sketch), 1866. Fernando de Valenzuela y Enciso (1636-1692), 1st Marquis of Villasierra, was a Spanish politician and nobleman, favourite of the regent queen Mariana of Austria. Valenzuela's rise had been too rapid for him to be considered an equal among the other grandees, and they decided to express their discontent openly. In 1676, a public manifesto began circulating, signed by twenty-four grandees and titled nobles demanding the imprisonment of Valenzuela. A summary trial was immediately initiated to determine de Valenzuela's crimes; he was found guilty of malfeasance and selling public offices, in addition to being accused of having stolen some one hundred million reales. A full inventory of his assets was taken, and although the accusations speculated enormous embezzlement, only about ten million were discovered. His pleas of innocence did little to quell the public anger, which from the outset of the trial demanded the confiscation of his property and the death penalty. However, the ecclesiastical court was able to invoke in his favour the right of asylum, which had been completely violated by his detention in the monastery of El Escorial, leaving only the irrevocable option of exile to the Philippines for about ten years.