Gaspar de Guzm%C3%A1n, Count Duke of Olivares

Don Gaspar de Guzmn y Pimentel Ribera y Velasco de Tovar, Count of Olivares and Duke of San Lcar la Mayor, Grandee of Spain , was a Spanish royal favourite of Philip IV and minister. As prime minister from 1621 to 1643, he overexerted Spain in foreign affairs and unsuccessfully attempted domestic reform. His policies of committing Spain to recapture Holland led to his major involvement in the Thirty Years War and his attempts to centralise power and increase wartime taxation led to revolts in Catalonia and in Portugal, which brought about his downfall.

Olivares was born in Rome in 1587, where his father, Enrique de Guzmn, 2nd Count of Olivares, from one of Spains oldest noble families, was the Spanish ambassador. His mother died young, and his father brought him up under a strict parental regime. He returned to Spain in 1599, and became student rector at Salamanca University. By background, he was both a man of letters and well trained in arms. During the reign of King Philip III he was appointed to a post in the household of the heir apparent, Philip, by his maternal uncle Don Baltasar de Ziga, a key foreign policy advisor to Phillip III, who himself had already established a significant influence over the young prince. Olivares in turn rapidly became the young princes most trusted advisor.

Source: Wikipedia