Dictionary.net

A Spanish novelist and poet; born at Madrid, Nov. 5, 1807; died there, Jan. 22, 1878. After political and military ups and downs and being twice exiled, he became Under-Secretary of State, and afterward ambassador variously. He wrote the historical novels "The Count de Candespina", "Neither King nor Pawn", and "The Patriarch of the Valley"; the epics "The Bust in Black Cloak" and "Hernan Cortes at Cholula"; several dramas, the most successful of which was "Hernan Cortes's Debaucheries"; and many historical works, among them a "Constitutional History of England".