Captured and Ransomed: The Intriguing Tales of Miguel and His Brother

Ah yes, I do remember those sonnets dear sir. Oh your brother was such a fine writer. But as I was saying, what had happened was we were victorious but eventually I was captured by someone else and he was not a nice man. And eventually I was placed in a prison where Christians were held until they could pay a ransom to be let free. Why I was there I have no idea because I’m not a Christian and had no money but whatever. So overlooking this prison was a courtyard and when I looked into that courtyard I saw the beautiful daughter of Amor and would you believe it was my mistress. She was a secret Christian and she sent me many messages saying that once I got out she wished me to take her to a foreign land where she could be free. Oh and she would send me letters and money until eventually I was able to set myself free from the prison and bring some others with me so that we could sail away together. So speaking of serving in the military, being captured, and being ransomed, let’s talk about how Miguel dealt with all that. So a lot of Miguel’s life is shrouded in mystery. We know round about when he was born. We actually have no idea what he looks like. We only have descriptions that he gave of himself. We have one painting that may or may not be of him in actuality and there are a lot of happenstance like vague things said about what he did in his life and where he lived and all this other stuff. But one thing we do know for sure is he did serve in the military and he served in part of it with his brother Rodrigo. And as part of this they were in some pretty big naval battles, some pretty important ones. In one of the most important, Miguel was wounded three times. He got hit two times in the chest and one time in his left arm and his left arm was useless after that. He kind of used this nickname of the one-armed man of that’s the name of the battle. I don’t know how to say it. And he thought it was really cool to have that nickname. But anyway, so at one point he and his brother were captured by privateers. I believe they’re called corsairs, something like this. And what I gather is they are basically pirates. So they were captured by these guys. They were sentenced to this special prison where Christians went to be ransomed. And they were basically, not just them, but everyone there was being held for ransom if that meant that their captors would get more money than they would as selling them as slaves. So eventually his family, I believe, was able to get Rodrigo out, but they couldn’t afford getting Miguel out. So he was kind of stuck there and he kept doing, you know, what you do as a convict and a slave labor person. And he was kind of a slave laborer. And he was kind of a slave laborer. And he kept doing, you know, what you do as a convict and a slave labor person. But then eventually a Christian group, Trinitarians, I believe, this is all based off my extensive Google search. They got together some money, paid off the ransom, and he was freed. And this is, you can see, this mirrors the story within a story that we’re going through now. And it is very interesting that Miguel put his biography in this book. I didn’t really think about that till yesterday’s video, but it’s very interesting how we’re actually learning about Miguel’s life. And I’ll be interested to see if anything more comes out later in the book, that it can be Miguel’s going like, oh, this is just fiction, but could have actually happened to him.