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The anecdotes which have been related of the energetic carving-out of their own fortunes by Constantine, Wolsey, and Richelieu, find also their parallel in the early career of Ximenes. The son of noble parents, but without wealth or patronage, he had nothing but his talents and the energy of his character to carry him successfully through life. He began as a student at Salamanca; but finding that sphere too limited for his ambition, he undertook a journey to Rome, where he soon distinguished himself as an advocate, but preferring the church, took holy orders.

Sixtus IV had bestowed upon him the reversionary grant of the first benefice which should fall vacant in Spain. This proved to be Uceda; and, on the demise of the incumbent, he produced his letters, and took possession with such promptitude and despatch that he baffled the Archbishop of Toledo, who considered the benefice to be in his gift, and had promised it to one of his dependents.

Like Richelieu he took the field in person, and in spite of the jealousy of the King, the dissensions of the generals, and the mutiny of the soldiers, he succeeded in taking the town of Oran on the coast of Barbary; the first success of any moment which the Spanish army could boast in a campaign of four years’ duration.