Francisco de Mendoza

[1] He was awarded the encomienda (landed estate) of Valdepeñas, one of the commanderies of the Order of Calatrava, of which he had been a knight[Note 2] since age 12, in recognition of his service.

The marriage also brought a long list of lawsuits with it, as Maria had been previously briefly married to Juan Felipe Fernández de Heredia, Count of Fuentes, and from this followed conflicts with the family Colón (relatives of Christopher Columbus) about the unpaid dowry and several disputed aristocratic titles.

Mendoza felt therefore constrained to engage the Toledo attorney Agustín Álvarez, and promised payment of a large sum on the contingency of success.

[1] After his release Mendoza entered in marriage negotiations for the hand of a daughter of the Count of Chinchón, Mencia de la Cerda.

As the bride's brother Luis Jerónimo de Cabrera, 4th Count of Chinchón was a favorite of king Philip, this contributed to Mendoza's rehabilitation, even though the marriage eventually fell through because the lady lost interest.

When Albert was appointed as Governor General of the Spanish Netherlands, as successor of his elder brother Archduke Ernest of Austria in February 1595, Mendoza was charged with the organisation of the journey to Brussels.

[4] Soon after his arrival in the Netherlands, the death of his kinsman Rodrigo Silva, duke of Pastrana, who was master of the horse, gave Mendoza the opportunity of acquiring that office for himself.

Next he marched along the right bank of the Rhine toward the border of the Dutch Republic, taking in short succession the town of Alpen, Germany and the fortress of Broich in the Duchy of Berg.

[6] The Army of Flanders was in this period paralyzed by mutinies and could only look on when Maurice undertook a full-scale invasion of the Spanish Netherlands in the Summer of 1600 on his way to invest Dunkirk, an important naval base for Spain at the time.

Only when he had reached Nieuwpoort, Belgium Archduke Albert, who by now had taken personal command of the Army of Flanders, succeeded in arriving at an accommodation with the Spanish mutineers in Diest and persuading them to return to service.

[7][Note 4] Mendoza was held as a prisoner of war for two years, first in the fortress of Woerden and subsequently in the Binnenhof at The Hague[Note 5] He was eventually exchanged for a large number of Dutch prisoners of war and a large ransom in 1602[8] Immediately after his release Mendoza was employed by the Archduke to block a Dutch invasion toward Maastricht.

Mendoza, at the head of a force that he considered too weak to engage Maurice in the field, retreated to Diest where he awaited reinforcements that Spinola had marched up from Italy.

Having lost the lawsuit about the succession to the Marquisate of Mondejar while he was a prisoner of war, Mendoza was in financial difficulties and forced to accept the charity of his brother Juan for the rest of his life.

In 1606 he was arrested on the pretext of an altercation by one of his servants with a doorman of the count of Villalonga, a secretary of State (and favorite of the king), and locked up in Torrejón de Velasco, but he was released in January 1607.