Short answers, pulled from the story.
Jorge Manrique entered the world around 1440 into a family of immense political and literary weight. His great-nephew was Iñigo López de Mendoza, known as the marquis of Santillana, and he traced his bloodline back to Pero López de Ayala who served as chancellor of Castile during the late medieval period.
Jorge Manrique died on the 24th of April 1479 during an attempt to capture the castle of Garcimuñoz. He fought actively on the side of Queen Isabel against King Henry IV and his daughter Juana la Beltraneja before this final battle occurred shortly after she secured her crown.
The poem contains forty stanzas each composed of twelve lines mixing eight-syllable and four-syllable lengths together with every third line functioning as a quebrado or half line. This verse form became known as the copla manriqueña because the poem was so widely read and glossed by later generations.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published an English adaptation titled Coplas de Don Jorge Manrique in Boston during 1833. His translation of stanzas one three and sixteen appears alongside other versions in modern collections today despite being criticized for not being faithful to the original Spanish text.