Juan de Garay Otáñez y Rada
Juan de Garay | |
|---|---|
| Born | 14 July 1586 Madrid |
| Died | 15 April 1650 Gelsa, Aragón |
| Rank | General |
| Battles / wars |
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Juan de Garay Otáñez y Rada, 1st Marquis of Villarrubia de Langre (1586–1650), was a Spanish military officer.
Orphaned at the age of three, Garay was brought up in the household of the Duke of Feria. At the age of 14, he enlisted as a page/armour-bearer and went to Italy. Despite being a protege of the Duke, who would soon after become the Viceroy of Sicily, his military career was slow and, finally, in 1623, as a captain of the tercio raised by Pedro Henriquez de Acevedo, Count of Fuentes, he went to Flanders, where he spent eleven years, seeing action at the sieges of Breda (1624–1645) and 's-Hertogenbosch (1629), at the Capture of Maastricht (1632) and at Stevenswert (1632).[1]
In 1635 he was sent to Italy and given command of the tercio in the valley of Valtellina, which had been invaded by French troops. There, he saw action at Morbegno (13 October), and at the Battle of Tornavento. Shortly thereafter, he was given command of the Lombardy Tercio, the oldest tercio in the Spanish army, when its commander, Martín de Aragón, was promoted to Captain general of Artillery.[2]
In 1640, asked to review the fortifications at San Sebastián, Garay proposed several major improvements and the following year he proposed the construction of a citadel connecting La Mota castle, on Mount Urgull, to the town, proposal which was finally rejected.[3]
In 1641, King Philip IV appointed him maestre de campo general and governor of Arms of Extremadura, commissioning him to assess the state of the fortifications in Navarre and Guipúzcoa. On his arrival at Badajoz, he was sidelined by the Captain general, Manuel de Acevedo y Zúñiga, Count of Monterrey, and also had conflicts with other military commanders, such as the 1st Marquis of Rivas, José Ramírez de Saavedra y Ulloa, and the Count of Torrejón, leading him to resign in March 1644.[1]
In July 1645 he was appointed Captain general of Guipúzcoa and general lieutenant to the Viceroy of Navarre, Duarte Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 7th count of Oropesa.[1]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c (in Spanish) Sánchez Martín, Juan Luis. "Juan de Garay Otáñez y Rada". Diccionario Biográfico electrónico. Real Academia de la Historia. Retrieved 26 December 2024.
- ^ (in Spanish) Sánchez Martín, Juan Luis. "Martín de Aragón y Tafalla". Diccionario Biográfico electrónico. Real Academia de la Historia. Retrieved 26 December 2024.
- ^ (in Spanish) Echarri Iribarren, V. (2008). "Territorio y sistemas defensivos de frontera: El proyecto de Isidro Próspero Verboom para las fortificaciones de San Sebastián en 1726". Studia Historica: Historia Moderna, 40(1), 361–403. Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca. Retrieved 26 December 2024.