Lima Colonial Records

Don Melchor de Liñan y Cisneros was born in the year 1629 in Tordelaguna; (he was) the son of Don Franciso de Liñan y Cisneros and Doña Isabel Gonzáles. Educated at the University of Alcalá de Henares, he left there to become the priest of the parish of Santa Maria de Buitrago; from there he went to the parish of Tordelaguna, his native village, and thence to the parish of San Salvador in Madrid where he remained for four years, exercising the duties of a censor of the Supreme Council of the Inquisition until the year 1664 in which he was recommended by the king, Don Phillip IV, to the bishopric of Santa Maria. Three years later he was promoted to the episcopal see of Popoyán. He occupied this position until 1671 when he was elevated to the archdiocese of Charcas, being named at the same time Governor and Captain General of the new kingdom of Granada and President of the Royal Supreme Court of Santa Fe. The eleventh of December, 1676, he was promoted to the archbishopric of Lima. In 1678 he was named Viceroy, Governor and Captain General of Peru, replacing the Count de Castelet. His government ended the twenty-second of November, 1681.

Don Luis Jérónimo Fernández de Cabrera, Bobadilla, Cerda y Mendoza, IV Count de Chinchón, Señor de Valdemoro y Casarubios hereditary Alcaide, guarda mayor and Royal Alfárez del Alcázar de Segovia, Comendador del campo de Criptana in the Order of Santiago, General Treasurer of the crown of Aragón, Gentlemen of the Chamber of his majesty and of his royal and Supreme Council, of Aragón, of Italy and of war, was born in Madrid in the year 1689. His parents were Don Diego Fernández de Cabrera, III Count de Chinchón, and Doña Inés Pacheco y Cabrera, daughter of the Marquis and Marchioness de Villena, the duke and duchess of Escalona. Her grandparents were Don Pedro Fernández de Cabrera, Count of Chinchón and Doña Mencía de la Cerda y Mendoza, daughter of the Count and Countess of Melito and her great-grandparents were Don Hernando de Cabrera y Bobadilla, the second son of the first Marquis and Marchioness de Moya, who was created by the Emperor Charles V the Count de Chinchón in 1517, and Doña Teresa de la Cueva, the second daughter of the duke and duchess de Alburquerque. He married on the eleventh of August, 1621, Doña Ana de Osorio, daughter of Don Pedro Alvárez de Osorio, VIII Marquis de Astorga and Doña Blanca Manrique y Aragón, widow of Don Luis de Velasco, II Marquis de Salinas, grandson of the Knight of the same, who was twice Viceroy of New Spain (México) and IX Viceroy of Peru.

He was named Viceroy of Peru in the year 1628. Among the most important and transcendental events which distinguish the government of the Count de Chinchón was the discovery of the febrifuge bark, commonly called quinine or Peruvian bark, and scientifically "Chinchona," in memory of the Countess of Chinchón, who was the first person to whom it was given in Lima and who propagated later the knowledge of it through Europe. The eighteenth of December, 1639, he turned over the governorship to his successor Don Pedor de Toledo y Leyva, Marquis de Mancera.

Don Melchor de Navarra y Racaful (sic), Duke de la Palata in the kingdom of Napales, Knight of the Order of Alcántara and descendant of the Kings of Aragón and Navarra and of the courts of Barcelona and Flanders, was the successor designated by King Charles II to replace Archbishop Liñan y Cisneros.

He had been educated in the higher college of San Salvador de Oviedo at the University of Salamanca. His first employment was that of Advisor of the Governor General of the crown of Aragón, from which position he passed to that of counselor of the Consejos of Naples, of Italy, of State and of War, being finally vice-keeper of the seal of the Kingdom of Aragón and president of the Consejoreal of this kingdom. He was married to Doña Francisca Tovalto y Aragón, the princess de Massa and Marchioness Tolva; also in the kingdoms of Naples. She accompanied him to Lima as well as her mother, the dowager princess de Massa. During his governorship he founded the Royal Mint of Lima, which had been ordered established years before, the establishment of which had been delayed on account of the opposition of the mint of Potosi. He executed the pirate Charles Clarke, (who had been ) Incarcerated in Lima since 1670.