Don Jaime José Ignacio Velaz de Medrano y Barros (Santa Eulalia de Gorgullos, Tordoia, February 6, 1693 – Pinto, December 1753) III Marquis of Tabuerniga. He is the son of Jaime Velaz de Medrano y Hurtado de Mendoza, II Marquis de Tabuerniga and Francisca de Barros y Guillamas. Don Jaime José Ignacio Velaz de Medrano was an important soldier, noble courtier, and prominent conspirator during the reign of Philip V and Isabel de Farnesio. He married Petronila de Bracamonte y Villalón, the daughter of the Marquis of Fuente el Sol.
Birth and Ancestry
Jaime Velaz de Medrano was baptized on February 6, 1693 in the parish of Santa Eulalia de Gorgullos de Tordoya, in the region of Ordes, in the kingdom of Galicia. His parents were Jaime Velaz de Medrano Hurtado de Mendoza, II Marquis of Tabuérniga, who belonged to a family of Navarrese high nobility, and Francisca de Barros y Guillamas who belonged to a family of Coruña nobility as they were lords of the Temple and Grajal.
Among the direct ancestors of Velaz de Medrano, his grandfather, 1st Marquis of Tabuérniga, Antonio Velaz de Medrano y Altamirano (Labastida, 1637 - Spa, 1683) a prominent soldier in the reign of Carlos II, Knight of the Order of Santiago, Sergeant General of Battle, he held the position of governor of Nieuwpoort in West Flanders and who in 1680 carried out a curious diplomatic initiative when negotiating with the United Provinces of the Netherlands to crown himself prince of the island of Tobago, and had served as a soldier in Naples and Sicily and would later become magistrate in the towns of Malaga (1609-12) and Cuenca-Huete (1612-14); and his great-grandfather, Don Pedro Velaz de Medrano (Santo Domingo de la Calzada, 28th of July, 1603 - Coímbra, c. 1659), Lord of Tabuerniga, Knight of the Order of Santiago and page of King Philip III. He was a prominent sailor and soldier in the reign of Philip IV who fought in the Battle of the Dunes in 1639 and was Captain General of the Armada de Barlovento and custodian of the New Spain Fleet, but who betrayed the crown in 1648, going to France, for whose King made several corsair raids in the Caribbean.
Jaime Velaz de Medrano was raised until he was five years old in La Coruña, in the house of his maternal grandparents. From this age, he was claimed by his father and came to reside at court with him. When he was not yet seven, his mother died in a drowning accident in the Jarama River. He then went on to live with his uncle, Antonio, with whom he lived until he joined the army.
The conspiracy of the Marquis de Tabuérniga
Don Jaime Velaz de Medrano led a court intrigue against King Philip V and Elisabeth Farnese. This court intrigue, in the words of historian Pedro Luis Lorenzo Cadarso was a whole series of conflicts that "pitted different sectors of the ruling group, understood both in the political and economic dimension, among themselves or against the superior authority". The Marquis Don Jaime Velaz de Medrano was a lieutenant of the Spanish Guards. Medrano's membership in this corps ratified that he possessed noble blood in his veins (it was a sine qua non requirement to go through the preceptive process of blood cleansing to prove it). Membership in the Spanish Guard gave the Marquis access to the circles of courtly power.
Background
When the conspiracy of Tabuérniga took place, he found himself in one of the most convulsive periods of the Spanish 18th century in terms of conspiracies: the years of the "banishment" of the Court to Seville due to the unstable health of the monarch Philip V. In this period of time and in the years immediately following, a multitude of intrigues In this period of time and in the years immediately following, a multitude of intrigues will take place around the figures of the kings, of an abulic Felipe V who is about to abdicate (for the second time) to Isabel de Farnesio, obsessed with controlling her husband and avoiding a new exile to La Granja de San Ildefonso. Her room will be the meeting point for those dissatisfied with the political situation of the moment, the perfect breeding ground for the most reckless to bet on a coup d'état to change the political course of the monarchy. It was in this altered atmosphere that Don Jaime's attempt was forged.