MENDOZA, PEDRO GONZALEZ DE Spanish cardinal and statesman, fourth son of Iiiigo Lopez de Mendoza, marquess of Santillana, was born on May 3, 1428, at Guadalajara. The house of Mendoza claimed to descend from the lords of Lladio in Alava, and to have been settled in Old Castile in the I 1 th century. Pedro Gonzalez was an example of the worldly, political and martial prelates of the 15th century. Appointed bishop of Calahorra by John II. in 1452, in his secular capacity as civil and military ruler of the town and its dependent district, he led the levies of Calahorra in the civil wars of Henry IV. He fought for the king at the second battle of Olmedo (Aug. 20, 1467), and was wounded in the arm. During these years he became attached to Dona Mencia de Lemus, a Portu guese lady-in-waiting of the queen. She bore him two sons, Rodrigo, who was once selected to be the husband of Lucrezia Borgia, and Diego, the grandfather of the princess of Eboli. (See PEREZ, ANTONIO.) In 1468 he became bishop of Siguenza.
In 1473 he was created cardinal, promoted to the archbishopric of Seville and named Chancellor of Castile.
During the last years of the reign of Henry IV. Mendoza was the partisan of the Princess Isabella, afterwards queen. He fought for her at the battle of Toro (March 1, 1476), and had a prominent part in placing her on the throne. In 1482 he became archbishop of Toledo. During the conquest of Granada he con tributed largely to the maintenance of the army. On Jan. 2, 1492, he occupied the town in the name of the Catholic sov ereigns. More soldier and statesman than priest, the "Great Cardinal," as he was commonly called, did not neglect his duty as a bishop. He devoted part of his revenue to charity and endowed the college of Santa Cruz at Valladolid. He died at Guadalajara, Jan. I 1495.
See Salazar de Mendoza, Cronica del gran cardinal Don Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza (Toledo, 1625) ; W. H. Prescott, History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella (3 vols., 1838).