An exemplary case is that of Alonso de Ercilla, friend and confident of the Count of Gondomar. Ercilla informs the Count: «Como negocio de vuestra merçed hize la diligencia que vuestra merçed me mandó, y aunque el secretario Paredes no pude saber nada, con el cuydado que puse, vine a entender que el cauallero que va es don Juan de Casteluí, valenciano y grande amigo mío. Yo le fui a hablar, y seruirá a vuestra merçed con la breuedad que verá, porque se lo he pedido de manera y tiene tanta obligación a mi amistad, que será vuestra merçed muy seruido» (Carmen Manso 96). I wish to thank Isaías Lerner for pointing me toward the correspondence of Ercilla.

This theory of benefits, according to Levy Peck, originated in the work of Seneca: «In his book On Benefits, the Stoic philosopher Seneca had described the good society in terms of the exchange of benefits among members of the commonwealth. [...] Neo-Stoic language and thought gained further circulation with the translation of Seneca's works with commentary by Justus Lipsius...» (12-13). According to Karl Blüher, Benedetto Varchi published his edition of De beneficiis in 1554 (419). Gaspar Montiano translated it into Spanish as Espejo de bienechores y agradecidos, Barcelona, 1606, addressing it in particular to «Predicadores y Cortesanos» (419). The relationship (through correspondence) between Lipsius and Spanish humanists at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries is well documented in Alejandro Ramírez.

Lope de Vega, describing a meeting of the Count of Saldaña's Academy, writes to the Duke of Sessa in January, 1612: «... danme mis guantes, que es propina de aquel acto» (Epistolario de Lope de Vega Carpio, III, 89).

See his edition of Don Quijote, IX, 9-19 (Appendix I: «Dedicatorias y mecenas»); see also Rodríguez Marín's Pedro Espinosa, 1578-1650: poeta y filósofo español (182-88). Vicente Gaos's commentary on the Duke of Béjar in his edition of the novel is pertinent (III, 12-17): «... [S]i Cervantes sentía animadversión por el duque de Béjar, donde la expresó no fue en la dedicatoria sino en la composición ahijada a Urganda la Desconocida, que le permitía enmascararse, y en cuyos versos de cabo roto, de efecto cómico, entreveró, al igual que en la dedicatoria, [...] líneas suyas y líneas prestadas, componiendo con ambas un poema satírico» (16-17).

Pablo Villar Amador notes that the dedication to the Duke of Béjar was dated 20 September, 1603. The reason for the delay between the book's dedication and its publication is based on speculation. Rodríguez Marín suggests that Pedro de Espinosa was absent from the Court for a brief period of time, or that perhaps the Duke of Béjar was slow in providing the funds for the book's printing (187-8). Villar Amador ascribes it to the possibility of usual bureaucratic delay (356), to Espinosa's return to Antequera, and / or to the «largo proceso de impresión» (373).

I. A. A. Thompson (I, 200). In a late sixteenth-century document, «Relación de las rentas que tienen los duques, marqueses y condes de España» (B.N. ms. 18731), the Ducal house of Béjar enjoyed an income of 75.000 ducats (fol. 26).

Astrana Marín (V 583) refers to one incident in 1615 when the Duke «acompañó a doña Isabel de Borbón cuando los mutuos matrimonios entre España y Francia». The only news of the Duke of Béjar recorded by Jerónimo Gascón de Torquemada was his death: «Este día [24 December, 1619] llegó nueva a la Corte de que el Duque de Véjar havía muerto en un lugarcillo cerca de Sevilla, andando a caza» (73). It should be noted, however, that by 1615 Lerma's power was not as absolute as it was in the first ten years of the reign.

Cabrera de Córdoba, 428: «Háse encomendado el oficio de Cazador Mayor que tenía el Conde Alba a don Pedro de Zúñiga, primer caballerizo de S. M., entretanto que se provee en propiedad a quien se hubiere de hacer merced; dicen que lo pretenden muchos señores, y entre otros el Duque de Béjar, y el de Peñaranda y Pastrana,...» (428).

I allude to Elias's The Court Society. In recent years, a group of young historians has begun to reevaluate traditional assumptions about the Habsburg court. José Martínez Millán's recent collection of edited essays, La corte de Felipe II, is fundamental. It contains studies by Fernando Bouza («La majestad de Felipe II: Construcción del mito real»), Carlos Javier de Carlos («El poder de los secretarios reales: Francisco de Eraso»), José Martínez Millán («Familia real y grupos políticos: la princesa doña Juana de Austria [1535-1573]», and Santiago Fernández Conti («La nobleza cortesana: don Diego de Cabrera y Bobadilla, tercer conde de Chinchón»). The most recent book on the reign of Philip III is Francesco Benigno's La sombra del rey. However, Antonio Feros's unpublished M.A. thesis, Gobierno de corte y patronazgo real en el reinado de Felipe III (1598-1618), and more importantly, his doctoral dissertation, The King's Favorite, the Duke of Lerma: Power, Wealth and Court Culture in the Reign of Philip III of Spain, 1598-1621, are more useful regarding the Duke of Lerma's privanza and political patronage. (See also Professor Feros's recent article, «Twin Souls: Monarchs and Favorites in early seventeenth-century Spain») I would also like to acknowledge the advice and help of Professor Bernardo García García, who gave me a copy of his important essay, «Política e imagen de un valido: el duque de Lerma (1598-1625)».

The poem is cited by Bouza, «La majestad de Felipe II» (53-4).