Mendoza, the name of an illustrious family that throughout Spanish history distinguished itself wherever distinction was to be won, in war, statesmanship, diplomacy, the church, and literature. A descent from the Cid has been claimed for it; but it was of Basque origin, and its progenitors the lords of Biscay some generations before the Cid's time. Of its more notable members the first is Inigo Lopez de Mendoza, created Marquis of Santillana by John II. of Castile in 1445 for his services on the field of Olmedo and elsewhere. Besides being a gallant soldier, he was a wise statesman and a sturdy patriot, and in himself a proof of the truth of his own saying, that 'the lance never blunted the pen, nor the pen the lance,' for among the poets he stood next to Juan de Mena, and his exquisite little song of the 'Vaquera de la Finojosa' has secured a place for him in every Spanish anthology. He served literature, moreover, by leaving an excellent account of the Provençal, Catalan, and Valencian poets, and he has a further claim to remembrance as the first of folklorists and the first collector of popular proverbs 'such as the old women repeat over the fire.' The most famous of his six sons was Pedro, Archbishop of Toledo, commonly called 'The Grand Cardinal,' who was for many years the trusted prime-minister of Ferdinand and Isabella, a man whose integrity and nobleness of character, no less than his commanding abilities, make him a prominent figure in an age by no means poor in great men.
The best known of the name is the marquis's great-grandson, DIEGO HURTADO DE MENDOZA (1503-75), the strong-handed lieutenant to whom Charles V. entrusted the conduct of his Italian policy and the representation of his views at the Council of Trent. He inherited a full measure of his great-grandfather's gifts as a statesman and as a man of letters. Almost as much as his kinsman Garcilaso de la Vega and Juan Boscan he was instrumental in grafting Italian poetry on the Spanish stem, but as a poet he was more national than either of his allies. His largest work is his War of Granada, a history of the revolt of the Moriscoes in 1568-70 against the oppression of Philip II. It is constructed on Latin models, but a masterpiece of Spanish prose, marked throughout by rare narrative power, and by a generous spirit towards the miserable Moriscoes which is rarer still. Greater glory yet would surround his name if his right to the little tale of Lazarillo de Tormes could be proved, but his title, it must be confessed, is not quite clearly made out. We have, it is true, the positive assertion of the Flemish scholar André in his catalogue of Spanish authors (1607), and we must suppose he had evidence that satisfied him, but what it was we know not. Beyond this there is nothing but the consensus of opinion in Spain, the fact that there is no other claimant (for inexorable dates dispose of Ortega's claim), and a certain amount of circumstantial evidence, which, however, partly rests upon the probable but not yet proved existence of a first edition printed at Antwerp in 1553. The silence of Mendoza's family and early editors is, however, no argument against his authorship, but rather the contrary. That they should have been chary of claiming for him a book full of Reformation ideas is not strange, but it is strange that they should not have denied, if they could, his reported connection with it.