Francisco de Velasco y Tovar, Conde de Melgar

Francisco Antonio Fernández de Velasco y Tovar (1646 in Madrid – 1716), count of Melgar, was a Spanish noble and Viceroy of Catalonia.

Biography

He was the illegitimate son of Bernardino Fernández de Velasco, 6th Duke of Frías.
In his youth, he fought in Portugal, Flanders and in 1674 in Catalonia against the French. He was appointed military Governor of Ceuta and Cádiz, and in 1696 became Viceroy of Catalonia. Here he was confronted in 1697 with an invasion of French troops commanded by Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme which besieged and took Barcelona on 10 August. Velasco y Tovar was relieved of his post and replaced by Diego Hurtado de Mendoza y Sandoval, Conde de la Corzana.

After the outbreak of the War of Spanish Succession, as a loyal supporter of the central government and the new King Philip V of Spain, he was again appointed Viceroy of Catalonia in 1703 instead of Prince George of Hesse-Darmstadt, who was too pro-Catalan and pro-Habsburg. He suppressed with an iron hand all opposition against the central government and was able to repulse an attempted landing by British and Catalan forces in 1704. But in 1705, he was unable to withstand a second attack on the city, as a consequence of which Barcelona and the whole of Catalonia went over to the camp of Charles of Habsburg, the Austrian pretender to the vacant Spanish Crown.

He went to live in Malaga and participated in the failed Siege of Barcelona (1706).