Francisco Antonio de Agurto

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Francisco Antonio de Agurto, engraving by Richard Collin (1626–1687)

Francisco Antonio de Agurto y Salcedo (* 1640 in Vitoria , † November 2, 1702 in Saragossa ) was a Spanish nobleman, viceroy and governor of Basque origin .

Life

Francisco Antonio de Agurto was a younger son of Antonio de Agurta y Álava and Catalina de Salcedo Medrano. He was appointed 1st Marquis de Gastañaga on February 26, 1676.

From 1685 to 1692 he was governor of the Habsburg Netherlands , after Carlos de Gurrea , Duke of Villahermosa had refused to take over the task a second time after 1675-1680. In 1687 he began building a new royal St. Joseph's Chapel in Waterloo as an attempt to put himself in a favorable light at court.

He led the Spanish troops in the Battle of Fleurus (1690) and unsuccessfully defended Mons against the French, which caused the indignation of the English King William III. excited, whose demand for the replacement of the Marqués de Gastañaga by the Spanish King Charles II was met. His successor was - at the suggestion of England - the Elector Max Emanuel of Bavaria .

When the subsequent investigation found that he was not responsible for the loss of Mons, the king appointed him Viceroy of Catalonia in 1694 , where he had to deal with a French invasion during the War of the Great Alliance (1688-1697). In 1696 he was dismissed as viceroy. After the death of the last Habsburg king (1700) and the change to the Bourbon dynasty, he became a colonel in the guard cavalry regiment of the new King Philip V , a position he held until his death in 1702.

Francisco Antonio de Agurto remained unmarried. The title of Marqués de Gastañaga went to his brother Iñigo Eugenio (1648-1715).

literature

Louis Prosper Gachard , Agurto, Don Francisco-Antonio de , in: Biographie Nationale de Belgique , Volume 1 ( wikisource )

Remarks


predecessor Office successor
Otto de Grana Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands
1685–1692 		Max Emanuel of Bavaria
Juan Manuel Fernández Pacheco Viceroy of Catalonia
1688–1690 		Francisco de Velasco y Tovar, Conde de Melgar
personal data
SURNAME Agurto, Francisco Antonio de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Marqués de Gastañaga
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, Viceroy of Catalonia
DATE OF BIRTH 1640
PLACE OF BIRTH Vitoria
DATE OF DEATH November 2, 1702
Place of death Zaragoza