He undertook his earliest studies in the [Latin] grammar school of his hometown, developing a notable facility for getting to know people and an inexhaustible capacity for work, which would later be confirmed.

To get his acquaintance with the King started on the right foot, he translated from the Italian Giovanni Tommaso Minadoi's Historia della guerra fra turchi et persiani.

After a decade of widowerhood, he married secondly a woman from Cuéllar, María de Torres Hinestrosa, a descendant on one side of the Lords of Henestrosa, and on the other, via an illegitimate child, of King Alfonso IX of León.

During the years after the death of his first wife, Herrera dedicated himself to strengthening his position at Court, investing in real estate in Madrid, and of course, writing constantly, until he secured the post of Chief Chronicler of the Americas in 1596, and of Castile in 1598, with an attractive salary.

In 1607 he returned to Madrid, living in a house on the Puerta del Sol and devoted to his literary tasks, where he enjoyed a comfortable and stately lifestyle.

[2] He ordered in his will that his body be buried "in the parish church of Santa Marina in the town of Cuéllar, at the altar there with the arch in the main chapel on the epistle side, to which end it will be prepared by order and will of my heir, placing upon it a sign in Castilian roman letters which will be found among my papers and, conforming to what is found written in Latin, will be placed on my grave",[6] and his terms were fulfilled.

Familiaris Nauarr, et Valenti, a Secretis Regiæ Familiæ Domesticus, vixit cum nobili vxo D. M. de Torres an[nis 38] [a] laborib, felix , pmijs n suppar.

Antonio Herrera Tordesillas, chronicler of the kings Philip II and III of Castile and the Americas, Familiar of the General Inquisition, Secretary of those of Navarre and Valencia, Servant of the Royal Household.

In spite of its being considered an independent work, as that is how it was published, it serves as the introduction to his Décadas, establishing a pattern often imitated by twentieth century writers:[8] he treats the geographical matters in the strictest sense of the word, such that it serves as a helpful tool for understanding the history he would publish subsequently, describing the locations of significant places and the lay of the land as the setting in which the history played out.

The Décadas are considered a work not subject to influence, since the author did not live through the experiences he describes, attempting to acquaint the reader with them through the chronicles of his predecessors in his post and other learned men of letters, and through all the official documents which, due to his position, he had within reach, coming from books of the Cámara de Castilla and the papers from the archive of the Council of the Indies, so that it was the first history of the Americas which used all the available historical sources and so was the first general history of the Americas.

The only person who made an attempt, without much success, was another chronicler, Pedro Fernández del Pulgar, who, despite his good will and tenacity, yielded a disappointing result, such that his manuscript remains unpublished to this day.

The first part covers the years from 1559 to 1574 (although it begins with the marriage of Philip II, before his accession, to Mary I of England in 1554) and was published in Madrid in 1601 and in Valladolid in 1606, after which an improved second edition appeared.

In it the author relates the "tumult, rebellions, acts of sedition and treason, uprisings, wars between peoples, captures of cities and castles, sackings, fires, truces, accords, broken treaties, massacres, deaths of princes, and other events from 1554 to 1598."

Further works of Herrera are known to us, some of them no longer extant but whose existence is recorded: Herrera also undertook translations, including the following: About fifteen of his manuscripts are collected in the Biblioteca Nacional de España, including a draft of the Crónica de los Turcos, an essay inspired by the death of the queen of France and other writings on French history, writings on the history of Portugal, 23 essays on the laws and customs of the Canary Islands, and various letters, encomiums, and treatises.