Sancho De Leyva/LEIVA

[ingrid De leyva y hapsburg]

What year did he come to uk?

[Peter Stewart]

On 07-Nov-22 8:33 AM, ingrid De leyva y hapsburg wrote:
> What year did he come to uk?

The alleged marriage to an illegitimate daughter of Edward III was an
invention of the 16th-century poet Luis Zapata in his immense epic
"Carlos famoso", which Cervantes satirised as impossible to read. The
minor noble family of Martínez de Leyva wanted a grand back-story, as so
many did, and a fictitious link to English royalty became a welcome part
of it in their case.

Peter Stewart

--
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG antivirus software.
www.avg.com

[Peter Stewart]

On 07-Nov-22 9:50 AM, Peter Stewart wrote:
> On 07-Nov-22 8:33 AM, ingrid De leyva y hapsburg wrote:
>> What year did he come to uk?
>
> The alleged marriage to an illegitimate daughter of Edward III was an
> invention of the 16th-century poet Luis Zapata in his immense epic
> "Carlos famoso", which Cervantes satirised as impossible to read. The
> minor noble family of Martínez de Leyva wanted a grand back-story, as so
> many did, and a fictitious link to English royalty became a welcome part
> of it in their case.

It may not be accurate to say that Zapata invented the marriage - for
all I know he may have picked it up from a biography of Sancho Martínez
de Leyva, known as "Brazo de hierro", that was written in the mid-15th
century by Lorenzo de Ayerbe, master of the order of San Benito. I
haven't seen this and don't know if it is published. The work was
written for Sancho's grandson, and since Sancho himself was illegitimate
it may be that an English connection was fabricated to cover that little
embarrassment with a sensational diversion into royal ancestry.

As for the alleged mother of Edward III's fictitious bastard daughter
"Isabel Milady", there was no such person as "Isabel de Sufolch de la
casa de Notuberlan" available for extra-marital relations in the first
place. Presumably the "house of Northumberland" refers to the Percy
family, but the first earl in that line was created at Richard II's
coronation so there is at least some anachronism at work - there were no
earls of Northumberland in the reign of Edward III. There were earls of
Suffolk, but their surname was Ufford and there is no recorded
Percy/Ufford (or Ufford/Percy) marriage in the 14th century. The only
Isabel of Suffolk at the time was wife successively to John Lestrange
and William de Ufford, and she did not have any children by either of
them - or by anyone else, much less by the king, in a contemporary
source. After being widowed twice she became a nun.

Edward III had several illegitimate offspring born from 1364 onwards. As
noted by Mark Ormrod, "Whatever the possibility of earlier peccadilloes,
there had never been any rumour or suggestion that Edward had previously
sired illegitimate children." Since he died in 1377, he cannot have had
any later daughters who were marriageable in his lifetime. Neither of
his two known illegitimate daughters married anyone from Castile. The
legendary Martínez de Leyva connection is utter trash.