Francisco de Cuellar
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Francisco de Cuéllar (
Valladolid Valladolid () is a Municipalities of Spain, municipality in Spain and the primary seat of government and de facto capital of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Castile and León. It is also the capital of the province o ...
,
Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...
, 1562) was a Spanish sea captain who sailed with the
Spanish Armada The Spanish Armada (a.k.a. the Enterprise of England, es, Grande y Felicísima Armada, links=no, lit=Great and Most Fortunate Navy) was a Spanish fleet that sailed from Lisbon in late May 1588, commanded by the Duke of Medina Sidonia, an aris ...
in 1588 and was wrecked on the coast of Ireland. He gave a remarkable account of his experiences in the fleet and on the run in Ireland.


Life before the Spanish Armada

Cuéllar's place and date of birth are uncertain, but undoubtedly he was of Castilian origin. The surname refers to a village in the province of
Segovia Segovia ( , , ) is a city in the autonomous community of Castile and León, Spain. It is the capital and most populated municipality of the Province of Segovia. Segovia is in the Inner Plateau (''Meseta central''), near the northern slopes of th ...
called
Cuéllar Cuéllar () is a municipality in the Province of Segovia, within the autonomous community of Castile and León, Spain. The municipality had a population of 9,730 inhabitants according to the municipal register of inhabitants (INE) as of 1 Janu ...
, and is a common Castilian family name. According to recent research (''"El capitán Francisco de Cuéllar antes y después de la jornada de Inglaterra"'', by Rafael M. Girón Pascual), there was a captain named Francisco de Cuéllar, perhaps our man, born in the city of
Valladolid Valladolid () is a Municipalities of Spain, municipality in Spain and the primary seat of government and de facto capital of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Castile and León. It is also the capital of the province o ...
, who was baptized on March, twelve, 1562 in the parish of San Miguel. Cuéllar was a member of the army that conquered Portugal in 1581. Following Rafael Giron, he served in the Diego Flores Valdés navy, which sailed to the
Strait of Magellan The Strait of Magellan (), also called the Straits of Magellan, is a navigable sea route in southern Chile separating mainland South America to the north and Tierra del Fuego to the south. The strait is considered the most important natural pass ...
, aboard the frigate Santa Catalina. He was later in Paraiba, Brazil, where he participated in expelling French settlers from the area. After that he served under the Marquis of Santa Cruz in the Azores islands.


Spanish Armada

The Armada suffered heavy losses during an extraordinary season of storms in the autumn of 1588. Cuéllar had been captain of the ''San Pedro'' a galleon of the squadron of Castille, one of the front line squadrons of the Spanish Armada, when the ship left its position in the Armada formation in the North Sea in order to make repairs. He was accused of disobedience and was sentenced to death by hanging by the Major General of the fleet, Francisco Arias de Bobadilla. Cuéllar was sent to the galleon, ''
San Juan de Sicilia The ''San Juan de Sicilia'' was one of the 130 ships that formed the ill-fated Spanish Armada of 1588. The ship was originally known as the ''Brod Martolosi'', before it was seized to form part of the navy. It was one of 10 ships forming the Leva ...
'', for execution of sentence by the Auditor General, Martin de Aranda. Sentence was not executed, and Cuéllar remained on board until the galleon, a member of the Levant squadron, which suffered heavy losses on the return voyage (less than 400 survivors returned out of 4,000 who set sail), anchored in the company of two others on the Irish coast, a mile off Streedagh Strand in modern
County Sligo County Sligo ( , gle, Contae Shligigh) is a county in Ireland. It is located in the Border Region and is part of the province of Connacht. Sligo is the administrative capital and largest town in the county. Sligo County Council is the local ...
. On the fifth day at anchor all three ships were driven onto the beach, where they
broke up A relationship breakup, breakup, or break-up is the termination of a relationship. The act is commonly termed "dumping omeone in slang when it is initiated by one partner. The term is less likely to be applied to a married couple, where a bre ...
. Of the 1,000 men on board, 300 survived. Local inhabitants beat, robbed and stripped those who came ashore. But Cuéllar, having clung to a loose hatch cover, floated to shore unobserved and concealed himself among rushes. He was in poor shape, and was joined by a naked fellow survivor who was dumbstruck and soon died. Cuéllar kept drifting in and out of consciousness; at one point he and his fellow survivor were discovered by two armed men, who covered them with rushes before going to the shore to loot. At another point he saw 200 horsemen riding across the beach. When Cuéllar crawled out he saw 800 corpses littering the sand, with ravens and wild dogs feeding on them. He moved on to the Abbey of Staad, a small church which had been torched by the English after its friars had fled. He saw twelve of his countrymen hanging from nooses tied to iron bars of the windows within the church ruins. A local woman who was driving cattle into hiding in the woods warned him to stay out of the road, and he then met two naked Spanish soldiers, who informed him that English soldiers had killed 100 captive survivors. The Spaniards saw 400 corpses on another beach. When they stopped to bury the bodies of two officers they were confronted by four locals who demanded the remainder of de Cuellar's clothes. Another local ordered them to leave him alone and directed the Spaniards to his own village. They made their way there barefoot in cold weather, through a wood where they met two young men travelling with an old man and a young woman: the young men attacked de Cuéllar, and he received a leg wound from a knife-thrust, before the old man intervened. De Cuéllar was stripped of his clothing, and a gold chain worth 1,000 ducats and 45 gold crowns were taken from him. The young woman ensured his clothes were returned, and took a locket containing relics, which she hung about her neck, before departing. Then a boy came to treat his wounds with a poultice and brought food of milk, butter and oaten bread. Heeding the boy's warning not to approach the village, de Cuéllar limped past and went on his way alone, living off berries and watercress. He was set upon by a group of men who beat him hard and stripped him of his clothes; he covered himself with a skirt of plaited ferns and rushes. He came to a deserted settlement at the edge of a lake, where he was surprised to find three other Spaniards. Having stayed some time at the settlement, the group met a young man who spoke Latin and directed them to the territory of Sir
Brian O'Rourke Sir Brian O'Rourke ( ga, Sir Brian na Múrtha Ó Ruairc; c. 1540 – 1591) was first king and then lord of West Breifne in Ireland from 1566 until his execution in 1591. He reigned during the later stages of the Tudor conquest of Ireland and hi ...
in Leitrim.


O'Rourke's country

In O'Rourke's country they found greater safety, at "a village belonging to better people, Christian and kindly", where 70 Spaniards were enjoying refuge. Dressed in lice-infested cloak and trousers, Cuéllar set off northward in a party to meet with a Spanish ship at anchor for repairs, but was disappointed to hear the ship had already sailed. He returned to O'Rourke's country, where he was entertained by the lord's wife, who he described as "very beautiful in the extreme, and she showed me much kindness". She took a shine to the Spaniard's ability for telling fortunes: ″One day we were sitting in the sun with some of her female friends and relatives, and they asked me about Spanish matters and of other parts, and in the end it came to be suggested that I should examine their hands and tell them their fortunes. Giving thanks to God that it had not gone even worse with me than to be gipsy among the savages, I began to look at the hands of each, and to say to them a hundred thousand absurdities, which pleased them so much that there was no other Spaniard better than I, or that was in greater favour with them. By night and by day men and women persecuted me to tell them their fortunes, so that I saw myself (continually) in such a large crowd that I was forced to beg permission of my master to go from his castle". Cuéllar observed the society, noting that the people lived in a savage manner but that they were friendly and followed the usages of the church. The people constantly engaged in nightly raids and were harried by English garrisons. He reckoned that, were it not for their hospitality, he and his fellows would not have lived: "As to ourselves, these savages liked us well because they knew we came against (to oppose) the heretics, and were such great enemies of theirs; and if it had not been for those who guarded us as their own persons, not one of us would have been left alive. We had goodwill to them for this, although they were the first to rob us and strip to the skin those who came alive to land". He concluded: "In this country there is neither justice or right, and everybody does what he likes" (Kilfeather, p. 83).


Siege at Rosclogher

In November 1588 Cuéllar moved on to the territory of the MacClancy with 8 other Spaniards, staying at one of the lord's castles, probably at Rosclogher, on the south of Loch Melvin. News arrived that the English had sent 1,700 troops to MacClancy's country. In response, the lord opted to take to the mountains while the Spaniards resolved to defend the castle. They had 18 firearms (muskets and arquebuses) and considered the castle impregnable because of its location in bogland, which precluded the use of artillery. The English arrived under the command of the brother of Richard Bingham, governor of Connacht, and the siege lasted 17 days. During that time they were unable to cross the boggy terrain and, having had their offer of safe passage to Spain turned down, they hanged two Spaniards in full view of the castle so as to terrorise the defenders. A storm closed in with heavy snow, and the English were forced to raise the siege and march off. MacClancy returned and bestowed gifts on the defenders, including an offer to Cuéllar of the hand of his sister in marriage, which was declined. Against the chieftain's advice, the Spaniards secretly departed his country ten days before Christmas, bound for the north. They sought out the bishop of Derry, Redmond O'Gallagher, and found he had twelve other Spaniards in his care, whom he intended to assist in a crossing to Scotland.


Escape

After six days, Cuellar and 17 others set sail for Scotland in a
pinnace Pinnace may refer to: * Pinnace (ship's boat), a small vessel used as a tender to larger vessels among other things * Full-rigged pinnace The full-rigged pinnace was the larger of two types of vessel called a pinnace in use from the sixteenth c ...
. Two days later they reached the
Hebrides The Hebrides (; gd, Innse Gall, ; non, Suðreyjar, "southern isles") are an archipelago off the west coast of the Scottish mainland. The islands fall into two main groups, based on their proximity to the mainland: the Inner and Outer Hebrid ...
, and soon after landed on the mainland. Cuéllar had heard the Scottish king "protected all the Spaniards who reached his kingdom, clothed them, and gave them passages to Spain". However, following his six-month ordeal within the kingdom, he concluded "the King of Scotland is nobody: nor does he possess the authority or position of a king: and he does not move a step, nor eat a mouthful, that is not by order of the Queen (
Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen". El ...
)". The
Duke of Parma The Duke of Parma and Piacenza () was the ruler of the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza, a historical state of Northern Italy, which existed between 1545 and 1802, and again from 1814 to 1859. The Duke of Parma was also Duke of Piacenza, except ...
's efforts eventually procured him passage to
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in the
Low Countries The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...
. However, the Dutch were waiting on the coast to cut off the return of Armada survivors, and Cuéllar was shipwrecked in a firefight in which many of the survivors were drowned or killed after capture. Once again he found himself clinging to flotsam as he came ashore in Flanders, where he entered the city of
Dunkirk Dunkirk (french: Dunkerque ; vls, label=French Flemish, Duunkerke; nl, Duinkerke(n) ; , ;) is a commune in the department of Nord in northern France.treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...
in 1590; the charges against him included succouring survivors of the Armada. MacClancy was captured by Bingham's brother in 1590 and beheaded.


Later life

After Cuéllar served in the army of Philip II under
Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma Alexander Farnese ( it, Alessandro Farnese, es, Alejandro Farnesio; 27 August 1545 – 3 December 1592) was an Italian noble and condottiero and later a general of the Spanish army, who was Duke of Parma, Piacenza and Castro from 1586 to 1592 ...
, Count Fuentes and
Count Mansfeld Peter Ernst, Graf von Mansfeld (german: Peter Ernst Graf von Mansfeld; c. 158029 November 1626), or simply Ernst von Mansfeld, was a German military commander who, despite being a Catholic, fought for the Protestants during the early years of the ...
. Between 1589 and 1598 he served variously in the Siege of París, the enterprises of
Laon Laon () is a city in the Aisne department in Hauts-de-France in northern France. History Early history The holy district of Laon, which rises a hundred metres above the otherwise flat Picardy plain, has always held strategic importance. In ...
,
Corbie Corbie (; nl, Korbei) is a commune of the Somme department in Hauts-de-France in northern France. Geography The small town is situated up river from Amiens, in the département of Somme and is the main town of the canton of Corbie. It lies ...
, Capela, Châtelet,
Doullens Doullens (; pcd, Dourlin; former nl, Dorland) is a commune in the Somme department, Hauts-de-France, France. Its inhabitants are called ''Doullennais'' and ''Doullennaises''. Geography Doullens is situated on the N25 road, in the northern ...
,
Cambrai Cambrai (, ; pcd, Kimbré; nl, Kamerijk), formerly Cambray and historically in English Camerick or Camericke, is a city in the Nord (French department), Nord Departments of France, department and in the Hauts-de-France Regions of France, regio ...
,
Calais Calais ( , , traditionally , ) is a port city in the Pas-de-Calais department, of which it is a subprefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's prefecture is its third-largest city of Arras. Th ...
, and
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, and in the siege of Hults. In 1599 and 1600 he served under
Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy Charles Emmanuel I ( it, Carlo Emanuele di Savoia; 12 January 1562 – 26 July 1630), known as the Great, was the Duke of Savoy from 1580 to 1630. He was nicknamed (, in context "the Hot-Headed") for his rashness and military aggression. Being ...
in the war of Piemonte. In 1600 he was in Naples with viceroy Lemos. In 1601 he was commissioned to return to America. He was a pattern of infantry captain in a galleon to islas de Barlovento (Windward Islands), but did not sail in don Luis Fernández de Córdova's navy until 1602. It was Cuéllar's last military service. He lived in Madrid from 1603 to 1606, hoping for new commissions in America. Nothing is known about Cuellar's death or whether he had any children.


References

*T.P. Kilfeather ''Ireland: Graveyard of the Spanish Armada'' (Anvil Books, 1967)
Online version of Cuellar's account
* ttps://ugr.academia.edu/RafaelMGir%C3%B3nPascual/Papers/1737596 El capitán Francisco de Cuéllar antes y después de la jornada de Inglaterra by Rafael M. Girón Pascual {{DEFAULTSORT:Cuellar, Francisco De People of Elizabethan Ireland Spanish naval officers 16th-century Spanish people Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown