The December 4-5 Sotheby’s sale of the H.P. Kraus inventory, included three documents in royal secretarial hands by which Philip II confers on Don Alonso Pérez de Guzmán el Bueno, 7th Duke of Medina Sidonia, the overall command of the Spanish Armada as Captain-General of the Ocean Sea. Key documents in the history of both England and Spain, they sold at $19,000 (£11,020).
Moors banned, Armada planned
THE SPIRO collection, sold by Christie’s on December 3 included a few letters and documents of Spanish monarchs and a proclamation of July 1501, signed by both Ferdinand V and Isabella, that banned all unconverted Moors from Granada – the last step prior to the final expulsion of the Moors from Spain – was sold for £42,000.
