The Duke of Lerma is the last major unknown statesman in modern European history. In this pioneering biography, Patrick Williams brings him dramatically to life and challenges many of the assumptions that historians have made about him and about Spanish history at a time of profound crisis. By placing Lerma firmly at the head of the 'procession of favourites' that marked the European seventeenth century he invites a re-evaluation of the phenomenon of government by favourites in this seminal period of European history. Francisco Gomez de Sandoval, Duke of Lerma (1553-1625), served Philip III...