La trepidante carrera de sir benjamin wright. Comerciante, factor y asentista de felipe IV

Abstract

This paper draws the career of an English merchant settled in Madrid at the beginning of 1630's who, at the middle of the following decade, had become banker of Philip IV. Suddenly interrupted his career due to the bankrupt of October 1647, Benjamin Wright proved to be a tenacious man during the rest his life in Spain. The reconstruction of his businesses has been made on the basis of primary sources from different archives (notably Archivo Histórico de Protocolos Notariales de Madrid and Archivo General de Simancas). These sources have allowed us to appreciate for first time with a certain degree of clarity into the complex world of the Spanish royal finances, the existing differences between the amounts of money Benjamin agreed to lend the king, and the money that was actually transferred to its final destination. Also the differences between the money Benjamin lent and the amounts he actually recovered. Along the paper, Micro-history and Economic and Social History often meet, and this produces a paradigmatic example of ascending social mobility in Seventeenth Century Spain.