Exhibition on Diego Sarmiento de Acuña at Museo Nacional de Escultura

The peace Diego Sarmiento de Acuña helped broker between Spain and England lasted 20 years, an oasis in centuries of war between the two crowns.

The exhibition “Tiempos de paz y diplomacia. Diego y Constanza, condes de Gondomar” runs at the Museo Nacional de Escultura until Feb. 14, timed to the fourth centenary of Sarmiento’s death.

A Name England Still Uses

In England, some people still call Spaniards “los diegos,” a slur the source material traces largely to Sarmiento himself. King Felipe III made him Count of Gondomar for his role in the peace with England at the start of the 17th century, yet in Spain his work is barely known, according to the exhibition’s curators.

Sarmiento, a native of León who settled in Valladolid, began his public life as a soldier defending the Galician coast from English pirates. He served as the king’s corregidor in Toro and then, from 1602 to 1606, in Valladolid during the brief years it was Spain’s capital, when figures like Francisco de Quevedo and Miguel de Cervantes passed through the city.

Ambassador at James I’s Court

The Duke of Lerma, Felipe III’s valido, named him ambassador to England in 1613 to consolidate peace with King James I. Both monarchs wanted an end to the fighting. Sarmiento won James I’s trust quickly because, in the words of University of Valladolid professor Berta Cano, one of the exhibition’s curators, he was erudite and highly intelligent. That influence earned him intense rejection from Protestants.

The hostility became irreversible when Sarmiento persuaded the king to execute the pirate Walter Raleigh, who had attacked a Spanish port in Guiana in defiance of his own monarch and the existing peace treaty.

Raleigh was England’s great hero of navigation, Cano said, and from then on propaganda against the Spaniard intensified: he was linked to the devil, dubbed “the Spanish Machiavelli,” and portrayed as the evil black knight in the play “La partida de ajedrez.”

The Spanish Match That Failed

Sarmiento and his wife, Constanza de Acuña, also wove the marriage that was meant to seal the peace permanently: Infanta María, a daughter of Felipe III, and Charles, son of James I and future king.

The English prince traveled incognito to Madrid, spent months at court and signed marriage capitulations, but broke his commitment after leaving Spain. The shift of power also mattered: the Count-Duke of Olivares had taken over in Spain and was less interested in peace with England than Lerma had been.

The original Treaty of Peace, kept at the Archivo de Simancas, is displayed in the exhibition alongside Sarmiento’s “Carta del estado del reino de Inglaterra,” a letter to the king describing, among other things, that the English queen privately held Catholic beliefs in a Protestant society that persecuted Catholics, even torturing and killing them.

A Library of 10,000 Volumes

Constanza de Acuña played an essential diplomatic role, especially through her good relationship with the English queen, and it was she who settled the family in Valladolid’s Casa del Sol palace, now one of the museum’s sites.

There the family amassed one of the world’s most important private libraries, with more than 10,000 volumes, most of which are now held at the Royal Palace. Sarmiento is buried in the adjoining church of San Benito el Viejo, about 200 meters from the Villena Palace hosting the exhibition.

The exhibition also highlights Sarmiento’s protection of Catholics living in England, notably the Spanish noble Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza, who founded a House of Catholic Women in the country; English authorities did not know what to do with her because of her noble status, Cano said, and the Count and Countess of Gondomar played an important role in protecting her.

Peace Broke When Charles I Took the Throne

The 20-year peace was brief, but it was an oasis in a convulsive era.

Questions Readers Ask

Why do some English people call Spaniards “los diegos”?

The nickname is traced to Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, whose influence at the court of James I made him a target of English propaganda, including the slur “the Spanish Machiavelli” and a villainous portrayal in the play “La partida de ajedrez.”

How long did the Anglo-Spanish peace last?

It lasted 20 years, ending when Charles I took the English throne after James I’s death, according to the exhibition’s account of the period.

Where can the original peace treaty be seen?

The originals of the Treaty of Peace, conserved at the Archivo de Simancas, are displayed in the Valladolid exhibition alongside Sarmiento’s letter on the state of the kingdom of England.