Diego de Salinas

Biography Salinas y Rodríguez was born in Madrid. He was the son of Pedro Gómez Salinas and Agustina Rodríguez de Villarroel, aristocrats of the small nobility (from Burgos, by his father's side and Valladolid, by his mother's side). He began in the army as a page of the Constable of Castile, Iñigo Fernández de Velasco. He made a quick career, being promoted to ensign of cavalry and rising to the rank of captain of infantry before the age of 20. He took part in battles in the Netherlands, and was promoted to the rank of captain of cavalry in 1670. Salinas fought in the Franco-Dutch War, and remained in the Netherlands until 1673, when he returned to Spain and was directed to the army of Catalonia. In 1675, he was wounded in combat in the defense of Puigcerdà which was being attacked by the French. In December 1677, he returned to Murcia.

In 1685, Salinas y Rodríguez served as the field marshal of the Spanish infantry in Pamplona, and he requested admission into the Order of Santiago. This request was accepted after a thorough investigation of his ancestry. In Pamplona, he participated in battles of the Nine Years' War against the French in the hills of Alduide, where he managed to expel the invaders. ) landed on the isthmus north of The Rock from the Bay of Gibraltar and after preparing a three-pronged attack plan sent a message asking for surrender.

The capture of the city was apparently facilitated by the lack of a garrison capable of dealing with the Grand Alliance forces, and not for lack of ammunition and artillery pieces in good condition.

After Gibraltar

Some of his contemporaries, however, were critical of the Governor, recalling the episode of the capitulation of Barcelona in 1697. Nevertheless, Philip V seemed not to have taken such opinions into account as Salinas y Rodríguez was appointed Governor of Villaescusa de Haro, in Cuenca, in 1706 where he remained in a kind of voluntary exile until close to his death, when he returned to Madrid. He died in his hometown on 27 November 1720, leaving all his possessions to his sister, Francisca.