section_path: Biography/1580 to 1616: Later life and death
section_name: 1580 to 1616: Later life and death
paragraph_text: 1580 to 1616: Later life and death
  
  While Cervantes was in captivity, both Don John and the Duke of Sessa died, depriving him of two potential patrons, while the Spanish economy was in dire straits. This made finding employment difficult; other than a period in 1581 to 1582, when he was employed as an intelligence agent in North Africa, little is known of his movements prior to 1584.
  
  In April of that year, Cervantes visited Esquivias, to help arrange the affairs of his recently deceased friend and minor poet, Pedro Laínez. There he met Catalina de Salazar y Palacios (c. 1566 – 1626), eldest daughter of the widowed Catalina de Palacios; her husband died leaving only debts, but the elder Catalina owned some land of her own. This may be why in December 1584, Cervantes married her daughter, then between 15 and 18 years old. The first use of the name Cervantes Saavedra appears in 1586, on documents related to their marriage.
  
  Shortly before this, his illegitimate daughter Isabel was born in November. Her mother, Ana Franca, was the wife of a Madrid innkeeper; they apparently concealed it from her husband, but Cervantes acknowledged paternity. When Ana Franca died in 1598, he asked his sister Magdalena to take care of his daughter.
  
  In 1587, Cervantes was appointed as a government purchasing agent, Commissary of the Royal Galleons in Seville, obtaining wheat and oil for the doomed Spanish Armada. He became a tax collector in 1592 and was briefly jailed for 'irregularities' in his accounts, but quickly released. Several applications for positions in Spanish America were rejected i.e. to the Council of Indies in 1590, though modern critics note images of the colonies appear in his work.
  
  From 1596 to 1600, he lived primarily in Seville, then returned to Madrid in 1606, where he remained for the rest of his life. In later years, he received some financial support from the Count of Lemos, although he was not included in the retinue Lemos took to Naples when appointed Viceroy in 1608. In July 1613, he joined the Third Order Franciscans, then a common way for Catholics to gain spiritual merit. It is generally accepted Cervantes died on 22 April 1616 (NS; the Gregorian calendar had superseded the Julian in 1582 in Spain and some other countries); the symptoms described, including intense thirst, correspond to diabetes, then untreatable.
  
  In accordance with his will, Cervantes was buried in the Convent of the Barefoot Trinitarians, in central Madrid. His remains went missing when moved during rebuilding work at the convent in 1673, and in 2014, historian Fernando de Prado launched a project to rediscover them.
  
  In January 2015, Francisco Etxeberria, the forensic anthropologist leading the search, reported the discovery of caskets containing bone fragments, and part of a board, with the letters 'M.C.'. Based on evidence of injuries suffered at Lepanto, on 17 March 2015 they were confirmed as belonging to Cervantes along with his wife and others. They were formally reburied at a public ceremony in June 2015.