[1] In England, Gondomar was widely regarded as the leader of a Spanish faction at the English court, a confidant privy to the inner thoughts of King James I, and working to advance the Papist cause.

During the Anglo-Spanish War, Gondomar played a key role in defending the towns of Baiona and Vigo against an English raid led by Sir Francis Drake in 1585.

From that moment he was forced to reconcile both roles, as courtier and corregidor in the capital, and as soldier and Capitan in Galicia:[4] in 1603 he was sent from court to Vigo to oversee the distribution of the treasure brought from America by two galleons which were driven to take refuge there; on his return he was appointed a member of the board of finance.

Although he held both military and administrative employs, his residence was at Valladolid, where he owned the Casa del Sol estate and was already amassing his fine library.

The ambassador's task in the prelude to the Thirty Years' War was to keep James from aiding the Protestant states against Spain and Habsburg Austria, and to avert English attacks on Spanish possessions in the Americas.

Gondomar conceived of his embassy as a sortie in enemy country, and he took for his maxim aventurar la vida y osar morir ("risk your life and dare to die").

His opening challenge was his refusal to strike the colours of Spain at his warships' entry to Portsmouth harbour, in which an appeal to the king averted an exchange of cannon fire.

His handling of the unconditional release of the Catholic agitator Luisa Carvajal y Mendoza further established him in James's eyes as a man of unexpected strength.

The key to Gondomar's success was his relationship with James, whom he brought to admire and like his witty and learned companionship, his candour, within the obvious limits, and his personal integrity.

The tensest late confrontation was over Count Mansfeld's projected movement of troops raised in England to rescue James's son-in-law Frederick V, Elector Palatine, the "Winter King" of Bohemia.

Habsburg Madrid and Brussels were concerned that the French aimed to join Mansfeld's forces and retrieve Artois for France, and the project was let slide.

When Gondomar was allowed to retire and return to Spain, he was named a member of the royal council and governor of one of the king's palaces, and he was appointed to a complimentary mission to Vienna.

The hatred he aroused in England, which was shown by the widespread mockery of an intestinal complaint from which he suffered for years, was a tribute to the zeal with which he served his own master.