Was Alonso de Estrada a bastard son of king Ferdinand of Castile?
Norberto de Castro y Tosi is shaky in his assertions that Alonso de Estrada was not the bastard son of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Castile. Castro y Tosi based much of his argument on what he perceived as a fact that Alonso was not a descendant of the daughter of certain priest by the name of Sanchez but that Alonso was a descendant of the priest's sister. This argument is totally irrelevant to the true paternity of Alonso de Estrada. Then Castro y Tosi proceeds to tell us that Alonso was a descendant of the Hidalgos based mostly in testimony provided by an expert witness, Mari Hernandez de Hidalgo, who does not even remember the name of Alonso de Estrada's mother (Castro de Tosi 1022).
Castro y Tosi uses the testimony of Mari Hernandez de Hidalgo to ascertain that Alonso de Estrada was a descendant of the Hidalgos. The witness Mari as quoted by Castro y Tosi states that she heard from her parents and aunts that Diego Hernandez de Hidalgo married Maria Gonzalez de Estrada, who was a sister of the priest Diego Sanchez de Estrada. Mari also states that Diego Hernandez de Hidalgo and Maria Gonzalez were the parents of four sons. The eldest son was named Diego Hernandez de Hidalgo and married Maria Gonzalez de Zamora; Diego and Maria Gonzalez de Estrada were the parents of Hernando Hidalgo whose wife's name is not provided, but they are supposed to be the forefathers of the Mazariegos, who also came to Indias, and were kin folks of Alonso de Estrada. For details see Hidalgo family tree designed based on Castro y Tosi's information. Finally, Juan de Estrada who was also a son of Diego and Maria Gonzalez de Estrada was supposedly the father of Alonso de Estrada. The witness does not recall the name of Juan de Estrada' s wife.
Castro y Tosi speculates about choices for Alonso de Estrada's name and Tosi's proposes four possibilities. The first is that if Alonso had been a bastard son of Ferdinand and the first wife of Juan Hidalgo that Alonso would have to use the name of his mother and that was infrequently; (2) that Alonso would have to use another distant name of his mother; (3) that Alonso would have to use the name of the person who raised him; (4) or that Alonso could have taken the name of the town where he was born: Ciudad Real. Then Castro y Tosi concludes categorically, but contradicts himself, that in no case Alonso de Estrada could have used his mother name, albeit Tosi said that infrequently bastards could use their mother name (Castro y Tosi 1025). So even it was infrequent still was a possibility that Estrada could use his mother's name. According to Tosi, Juan de Estrada was the person who raised Alonso de Estrada; thus, it is possible that Alonso being illegitimate he used the name Estrada that belonged to the person who raised him.
Moreover, Castro y Tosi does not show that any of the ancestors of Alonso de Estrada were high ranking members of the aristocracy, rather what we see is that Alonso's both paternal and maternal ancestry stems from low ranking people. Castro y Tosi also accepts some of the facts provided by Francisco Fernandez del Castillo, who had asserted that Alonso had occupied various high posts even before he came to New Spain and that he crowned his career by his royal appointed as royal treasurer and subsequently as temporary governor of New Spain (Fernandez del Castillo, 398-399) . All of that it would have been quite an achievement even for a Spaniard born into a high-ranking aristocratic family. The royal treasurer was perhaps the most important position in New Spain before the creation of a viceroy. After all, the royal treasurer was the ear and eyes of his majesty, the king of Spain. In Estrada's case, the emperor Charles V was his very close relative. Fernandez del Castillo also cites sources from which he extracted his narrative. He cites volume 365 of the Archives of the Inquisition where he found that it was a common knowledge in Ciudad Real and Almagro that Alonso de Estrada was the "result of a little love sin of King Ferdinand" (Fernandez del Castillo 399).
Although it has not been established beyond the shadow of a doubt whether Alonso de Estrada was an illegitimate son of Ferdinand, the king's character also adds weight to the possibility that he too could have been the father of Alonso de Estrada. Ferdinand had four illegitimate children (Prescott 417), not including Alonso de Estrada..
Francisco Fernndez del Castillo, "Alonso de Estrada: Su Familia," in Memorias de la Academia Mexicana de Historia1(1942).
Norberto de Castro y Tosi, "R evista de Indias", Editada por el Instituto Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, 8 (1948).
William H. Prescott, "History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella," ed. John Foster Kirk vol. 3, bk 3 (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1872).
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