Las culpas del Rey y de su Favorito. El proceso a Alonso Ramírez de Prado (1607-1608)

The huge power achieved by the jurist Alonso Ramírez de Prado in the first eight years (1598-1606) of the reign of Philip III was a direct result of the supremacy of his patron, the Duke of Lerma, over the whole court and the young king. On December 26, 1606, his sudden arrest brought his brilliant career in politics to an end and started a trial, overlooked for a long time by historians in favor of the concurrent one against the Earl of Villalonga, Pedro Franqueza. Through the analysis of the official documentation about the case of Ramírez de Prado, the article aims to illustrate the many reasons of the prosecution and, above all, the arguments of the defence, entrusted to his son, Lorenzo Ramírez de Prado. The verdict of guilty returned at the end of the process seemed to erase any argument of the defence. However, the debate about the responsibilities of the sovereign in relation to the power of his favourites was destined to continue in the following decades.