NAVARRE (Peter), an officer of eminence in the 16th century, and particularly celebrated for his dexterity in the directing and springing of mines. He
N° 237.
was a native of Biscay, and of low extraction. According to Paul Jove, who affirms that he had an account of the matter from his own mouth, he was first a sailor; but being disgusted with that employment, he sought his fortune in Italy, when poverty compelled him to become footman to the cardinal of Arragon. He afterwards enlisted himself a soldier in the Florentine army; and having served there for some time, went to sea again, and distinguished himself by his courage. The reputation of his valour having reached the ears of Gonfalo de Cordone, this general employed him in the war against Naples, and raised him to the rank of a captain. Having contributed greatly to the taking of that city by very opportunely springing a mine, the emperor rewarded him for this signal service with the earldom of Alveto, situated in that kingdom, and gave him the title of count of Navarre. Having the command of a naval expedition against the Moors in Africa, he was at first very successful, and took possession of Oran, Tripoli, and some other places; but being afterwards shipwrecked on the island of Gerbes, the great heats and the Moorish cavalry destroyed a part of his army. Our hero was equally unfortunate in Italy: He was made prisoner at the famous battle of Ravenna, in 1512, and languished in France for the space of two years. When finding that the king of Spain, who had been prejudiced against him by his courtiers, would do nothing towards his ransom, he went into the service of Francis I. who gave him the command of twenty companies of infantry, consisting of Gascons, Biscayans, and the inhabitants of the Pyrene mountains. He distinguished himself in several successful expeditions, until the year 1522, when having been sent to the relief of the Genoese, he was taken by the Imperialists. They conducted him to Naples, where he remained a prisoner for three years in the castle of Ouf. From this confinement he was released by the treaty of Madrid, and afterwards fought at the siege of Naples under Laulic in 1528; but being again made prisoner at the unfortunate retreat from Averfa, he was conducted a second time to the castle of Ouf. Here the prince of Orange having, by order of the emperor, caused several persons of the Angewine faction to be beheaded, our hero would undoubtedly have suffered the same fate, if the governor, seeing his distressed situation, and feeling for the misfortunes of so great a man, had not saved him the shame of this last punishment by allowing him to die a natural death. Others pretend that he was strangled in his bed, having arrived at a very advanced age. Paul Jove and Philip Thomafini have written his life. This last informs us, that he was of a tall size, had a swarthy countenance, black eyes, beard, and hair. A duke of Sessa, in the last century, being desirous to honour his memory and that of the marshal de Lautree, caused a monument to be erected to each of them in the church of Sainte-Marie-le-Neuve at Naples, where they had been interred without any funeral honours.