Diego de Saavedra Fajardo

Diego de Saavedra Fajardo ((1584-05-06)6 May 1584 – 24 August 1648) was a Spanish diplomat and man of letters.

Biography

He was born in Algezares, in what is now the province of Murcia.

After receiving a religious education at Salamanca, he took minor orders, and in 1606 was appointed secretary to Cardinal Gaspar de Borja y Velasco, the Spanish ambassador at Rome.

Although he did not get to receive major orders, he was named canon of Santiago in 1617, which was worth the importunations to him of town hall, since he never attended its position; but he did on the contrary to conclaves who chose the Popes Pope Gregory XV (1621) and Urban VIII (1623). From this date its diplomatic activity did not know rest, because the confidence he had gained of Philip IV of Spain and he was in charge to manage a very important part of his political and diplomatic relations during twenty-five years in Italy, Germany and Switzerland, during the decline of the Spanish political power in Europe.

He was ambassador in Rome (1631) and marched to Bavaria in 1633, territory then at the center of the bloodiest fights of Thirty Years' War. Here, with the position of resident ambassador in the court of Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria, leader of the Holy League, he pursued the union of the pro-Habsburg forces with the German Emperor Ferdinand II and with Catholic powers. In this year, the king Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden died in the battle of Lützen; this settled down a tense calm only interrupted by the murder of the marshal Wallenstein, head of the armies of Ferdinand II, when his alleged treason in favor of Sweden was discovered (no treason on the part of Wallenstein has ever been proven. This is pure speculation) .

In 1634, the battle of Nördlingen took place between the Swedish armies and those of the German empire supported by Spanish troops, the latter being victorious.