Hospitaller Revenues, Bourbon Regalism: The Financial Administration of the Grand Priory of Castile and León under an American Parvenu

Abstract After the vicissitudes of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14), the consolidation of the Bourbon Monarchy in early eighteenth‐century Spain allowed Philip V's ministry to implement the so‐called Nueva Planta in his various kingdoms and lordships of the Crown of Aragon, but also in Castile. At the same time, the financial needs of the sovereign and his growing family led to the continuation of secular policies of the mediatization of ecclesiastical properties. An example of this ‘executive’ intervention can be found in the control exercised over the main asset of the Hospitaller Grand Priory in La Mancha. It had been seized in 1703 and handed over in 1716 to the second son of the monarch, the Infante Ferdinand of Bourbon. Following the ‘return’ of Philip V to the throne of Madrid after his abdication and the death of his successor Louis I in 1724, it was to be handed over – by agreement with Rome and Malta – to the Infante Philip of Bourbon. This article examines the dynamics of reform that, from a regalist perspective, were set in motion by one of the main Spanish courtiers, the Panamanian parvenu Fernando Suárez de Figueroa, 1st Marquess of Surco, with the aim of optimising the Priory's finances, meeting the needs of his lord and balancing relations with the Sacra Militia of St John on the eve of its gravest crisis.