The Spy and the Viceroy. The Espía Mayor Andrés de Velázquez and the trial against the Duke of Osuna

After the death of Philip III, the new King Philip IV and his favourites launched a moralizing campaign against the corruption and abuses of the previous two decades of the Spanish Monarchy's government. Bound by family and patronage ties to the Sandoval family, the Duke of Osuna was imprisoned and subjected to a long trial. Apart from him, some of his clients, agents and direct servants were also involved in the trial, among them Andrés de Velázquez. His tenure as Espía Mayor gave him great power, thus making the accusations relating to the confidential information that he had passed to the Duke of Osuna, his personal friend, even more serious. Illustrating the functions and duties of the Espía Mayor within the Habsburg Monarchy, and evoking the atmosphere of purificación typical of that period, the intervention aims to illustrate a specific episode that involved an important protagonist of diplomacy and espionage in the European Baroque period.