The Life of Cervantes

by Albert Frederick Calvert

We may be sure that some such reflections filled the mind of Miguel de Cervantes when he rejoined his old regiment, now known, from its exploits in the Low Countries, as the tercio de Flandes, and marched under his old commander, Lope de Figueroa, to the subjugation of Portugal. He was serving God in the first place, and his King in the next, believing that at the worst he would find fortune and happiness in “a good, honourable death.” His lifetime rival and disparager, “that prodigy of Nature,” Lope de Vega, has told us that he carried a musket in the same campaign; but it is unlikely that he was animated by the same honourable philosophy.

The conquest of Portugal was a simple undertaking, the land forces of Don Antonio making but a feeble show of resistance; but with the aid of France, the illegitimate son of Luis, the brother of Joam III., made a more formidable opponent on the seas. His fleet, which had its base in the Azores, was joined by some sixty French ships, under Philippo Strozzi, and six English privateers, and this flotilla gave battle to the Spanish squadron, commanded by the Marquess of Santa Cruz, off Terceira, in the Summer of 1582. Cervantes was serving on the flagship San Mateo, which was opposed to three of the enemy’s vessels, and again our hero failed to obtain advancement, or achieve a good, honourable death. The engagement ended in a signal victory for the Spaniards, but it benefited Cervantes not at all, and he left his regiment (probably in the late Autumn of 1582) as poor and unfavoured as he had rejoined it. Many years afterwards, in May, 1590, in his petition addressed to Philip II., praying for one of the offices then vacant in America, as a compensation for his sufferings, and in acknowledgment of his services on behalf of the King, he recapitulates his engagements at Lepanto and Tunis, alludes to his period of captivity, and refers to his campaign “in the Kingdom of Portugal and in the Terceiras with the Marquess of Santa Cruz.”

This Portuguese campaign is interesting, so far as Cervantes is concerned, as recording the only instance of a liason that is known in his career. Most of his biographers have either glossed over the fact, or declined to believe it, but it is a matter that calls for neither apology nor incredulity. We know that he entertained a very favourable opinion of the Portuguese, and was loud in his appreciation of the beauty and amiability of the Portuguese ladies. The identity of the fair, frail one who won his good will is wrapped in mystery; but the memory of this affaire must have been with him when he wrote, nearly a quarter of a century later, “the passion of love is to be vanquished by flight alone, and that we must not pretend to grapple with so powerful an adversary since, though the force be human, Divine succours are necessary to subdue it.” The fruit of this amour was a daughter, called Doña Isabel de Saavedra, who became his life companion, and who, after his death, entered the convent of the barefooted Trinitarian nuns at Madrid.

All sorts of conjectures as to the identity of the lady have been made; but, as Mr. Kelly, with his characteristic common-sense declares, “nothing whatever is known of her; nothing at this day is likely to be discovered about her; and the whole question might be passed over were it not for the curiosos impertinentes, the literary ghouls who manifest their interest in high literature by leaving Don Quixote unread, and striving to discover the name of Cervantes’ mistress.”

But Mr. Kelly, in this part, as in one or two other instances in his scholarly Life of Cervantes, is inclined to claim less for his hero than he is entitled to. He says here that, “so far as Cervantes himself is concerned in this matter, his biographer must be content to admit that his subject was no saint, but an impetuous man of genius, with quite as full a share of frailty as though he had been a peer.” Yet a study of the career of Cervantes discloses him, if not a saint, at least a man of less frailty than the majority of the world’s great ones; and to suppose him habitually frail because one indiscretion can be attributed to him, seems scarcely generous. Again, in dealing with that period of Cervantes’ life in Valladolid, after the publication of Don Quixote, Mr. Kelly says, “He probably had a little money at this time, and, though it would seem that he spent some of it in very undesirable ways, it may be hoped that

STATUE OF CERVANTES AT MADRID.

the woman of the family no longer needed to take in the sewing from the Marques de Villafranca”; and, in another place, he refers to the “supererogatory folly” which misled him in Valladolid. He bases this supposition on the evidence on a MS., entitled, Memorias de Valladolid, now in the British Museum, in which the name of Cervantes is put into the mouth of a woman in a gambling house. As the author was not the only bearer of the name of Cervantes in Spain in that day, and as none of his candid friends refer to his vices or immoralities, either in prose or verse, one might, I think, regard this piece of evidence with more than usual suspicion. Mr. Watts dismisses the charge as unworthy of any credence, and most Cervantists will, doubtless, treat the imputation in the same fashion.

Between his retirement from the Army and the publication of the first, and only published part, of the Galatea, Cervantes, on the evidence of his petition to the King, conveyed letters and advices from Mostagan, a Spanish possession on the Coast of Barbary, to Philip, and was sent by His Majesty to Oran, where he was employed in affairs of the fleet, under the orders of Antonio de Guevara. But the nature and duration of his employment are matters of conjecture, and we must turn to 1584 for the next authentic details of his career. In that year our author married a wife, and published the Galatea.