Born in Navarre, Spain, Don Juan Palafox y Mendoza was the natural son ("a child of transgression") of Jaime de Palafox, the Marquis of Ariaza, of the Aragonese nobility [REF].
In 1626 he was a deputy of the nobility in the Cortes de Monzón, and later a prosecutor at the Council of War and a member of the Council of the Indies, the chief administrative body for administration of the overseas territories of the Spanish Empire [REF].