Bedmar

Bedmar, ALFONSO DE CUEVA, MARQUIS DE, born in 1572, won an enduring notoriety on account of his daring and unscrupulous plot for the destruction of Venice, to which city he had been appointed ambassador from the court of Spain in 1607. He first leagued himself secretly with the Duke of Ossuna, viceroy of Naples, and Don Pedro of Toledo, governor of Milan, then purchased the services of a large number of foreign mercenaries, while Ossuna furnished him with a band of privateers, or rather pirates. The day chosen for carrying out his purpose was that on which the doge wedded the Adriatic, when all Venice was intent on beholding the august ceremony. Fortunately, the night before, one of the conspirators betrayed the plot. Several persons were executed; but curiously enough, Bedmar, the arch-delinquent, was only dismissed. The event forms the subject of Otway's Venice Preserved. Bedmar now went to Flanders, where he became president of the council, and in 1622 was made a cardinal by the pope. He then went to Rome, and finally returned to Spain as Bishop of Oviedo, where he died in 1655.