The next proceeding of the rebels was distinguished for more boldness, and for something like originality. At the head of the troops furnished by Toledo, Medina del Campo, and other places, and accompanied by two other chiefs, Padilla proceeded to Tordesillas to gain possession of the imbecile Juana. He demanded and obtained an audience, expatiated on the evils which had befallen the kingdom since the death of the Catholic sovereigns, her parents, and said that her son had abandoned the kingdom to its fate; he ended by informing her that he placed the troops of Toledo, Madrid, and Segovia at her disposal. For a moment the queen seemed to have regained the use of her faculties; she replied that she had never before heard of her father’s death; that if she had, she would not have permitted the disorders which prevailed; that she desired the weal of the kingdom, and that on Padilla, in quality of captain-general, she devolved the duty of restoring the public tranquillity. Her rational manner of discourse made the deputies hope that she had been restored to sanity; they did homage to her as their sovereign queen; and in her name the representatives of the confederation were brought from Avila to Tordesillas. By issuing all decrees in her name and by her authority, they hoped to give legitimacy to their own.
But she almost instantly relapsed into her former lethargy, a circumstance, however, which they carefully concealed from the world. Emboldened by the success of their enterprise, and by the number of armed men who daily joined them, they now resolved to subvert the power of regent and council, and even to arrest the members. Padilla arrived with twelve hundred men. The cardinal now prepared to flee; the gates were shut on him; and he was detained as a sort of hostage for the safety of the rebel chiefs. In a few days, however, he assumed a disguise and silently escaped. His first step was to acquaint his master with the events which had happened. On their side, the confederates, with an impudence unparalleled in all history, attempted in the same manner to justify what they had done.
A Spanish Gentlewoman of the Sixteenth Century
Charles V was in a difficult position: the hostility of the Lutherans, the rivalry of Francis I, the disturbances which threatened to afflict Italy, and the preparations of the Grand Turk, rendered it impossible for him to revisit Spain, even though his absence endangered the security of that crown. In this emergency he associated Velasco the constable and Henry the admiral of Castile in the regency with Adrian, and wrote to all the revolted communities calling on them to obey the laws and to restore tranquillity, promising to return the moment his pressing affairs would allow him. To dispose them in his favour he renounced the subsidy which had been voted him at Corunna, and promised that no benefices should be conferred on foreigners. His letters, however, had for some time little effect on the majority of the confederates, who declared that they were dictated by insincerity.
In this critical position of the royal cause, it was fortunate that Aragon, Catalonia, and most of Andalusia stood aloof from the confederation. Aragon, indeed, was subsequently troubled for a moment, through an organised opposition to the viceroyalty of Lanuza; but tranquillity was restored without much difficulty. Seville, Cordova, Xeres, and Granada either returned, without condescending to open, the proposals of that body, or reproached it for its excesses. The rebellious towns no less persevered in their career of violence. It was evident that nothing less than civil war could decide the problem, whether the king or the mob should exercise the government. The constable began to act with vigour, to collect his own vassals, and to summon all who held for the sovereign and the laws to join him; and he borrowed money from Dom Emmanuel, of Portugal, to support his levies. The cardinal too seemed to awake from his imbecile inactivity; and the admiral went from place to place to rouse the sparks of slumbering loyalty. The result showed what might have been accomplished earlier by an active combination of the royalist party; about eight thousand well-armed men soon repaired to Rio Seco. The extent of the preparations and the expostulations of the constables prevailed on Burgos to withdraw from the confederacy. On their side the assembly at Tordesillas vigorously prepared for the struggle, and placed Don Pedro Giron at the head of the rebel forces, among the ranks of which was the bishop of Zamora, with nine hundred men, of whom four hundred were ecclesiastics.
[1520-1521 A.D.]
With eleven thousand men Don Pedro advanced towards Rio Seco, took and pillaged Tordehumos, without any molestation from the royalists, who were waiting for a reinforcement under the count de Haro. On the junction of that nobleman, who was raised to the command, the numbers were about equal; but for some time the royalists were unwilling to begin the attack. Don Pedro fell back to Villapando, and by this imprudent step exposed Tordesillas, which, with the queen, Juana, was invested and stormed by the count. He was already disgusted with the cause he advocated, and he soon abandoned it for that of the king: his place was supplied by Don Juan de Padilla.
While a desultory warfare followed, generally favourable to the royalists, Valencia [the headquarters of the Germania] was the undivided prey of anarchy; deeds were committed which threw into the shade the horrors of Castile and Leon. The thirteen syndics first endeavoured to oppose the entrance of the viceroy: and when this was found impossible, they artfully misrepresented his actions, organised a determined opposition to his authority, overawed the administration of justice, rescued the most notorious criminals from execution, openly attacked his house, and at length expelled him from the city. The consequences, not in the capital only, but in the towns, might have been easily anticipated. All who were hostile to the present order of things were pursued with vindictive rage: they were even sacrificed at the altar, their wives violated, their children put to death before their eyes, the priests themselves dragged from their sanctuary, and the holy sacraments trodden under foot. In short, there was no species of crime left uncommitted.