Second stay

In 1601 the Court of Felipe III was established in Valladolid. By the end of August or beginning of September 1604 Cervantes was living in Valladolid with his family, in the main part of a house in the Rastro nuevo de los Carneros.

During this second stay, Cervantes coincided with various other writers including Francisco de Quevedo, Luis de Góngora, Luis Vélez de Guevara and Tomás Gracián Dantisco.

Once he had completed his novel The Ingenious Nobleman Mister Quixote of La Mancha he started the publishing process, with the help of Francisco de Robles, a bookseller from Alcala, who had set up shop in 1601 in the calle de la Librería in Valladolid so that he could present it to the Consejo de Castilla and obtain printing rights for it.

The Ezpeleta case

On the night of 27 June 1605, near Cervantes' house , D. Gaspar de Ezpeleta, a Knight of the Order of Santiago, was gravely injured by an anonymous figure muffled in a cloak, and died two days later.

From the investigation process which followed, it turned out that the Knight had called out for help and was attended to by the neighbours, including Miguel de Cervantes.

In the confusion of the different accounts given at the scene of the crime, the Mayor Villarroel detained several of the witnesses, including the writer. Once the incident had been clarified, Cervantes was released. The documentation about this case made easier the identification of the house where Cervantes had actually lived.Salto de línea