The victory at Villalar proved as decisive as it was complete. Valladolid, the most zealous of all the associated cities, opened its gates immediately to the conquerors, and being treated with great clemency by the regents, Medina del Campo, Segovia, and many other towns, followed its example. This sudden dissolution of a confederacy, formed not upon slight disgusts, or upon trilling motives, into which the whole body of the people had entered, and which had been allowed time to acquire a considerable degree of order and consistence by establishing a regular plan of government, is the strongest proof either of the inability of its leaders, or of some secret discord reigning among its members. Though part of that army by which they had been subdued was obliged, a few days after the battle, to march towards Navarre, in order to check the progress of the French in that kingdom, nothing could prevail on the dejected commons of Castile to take arms again, and to embrace such a favorable opportunity of acquiring those rights and privileges for which they had appeared so zealous.

The city of Toledo alone, animated by Doña Maria Pacheco, Padilla’s widow, who, instead of bewailing her husband with a womanish sorrow, prepared to revenge his death, and to prosecute that cause in defence of which he had suffered, must be excepted. Respect for her sex, or admiration for her courage and abilities, as well as sympathy with her misfortunes, and veneration for the memory of her husband, secured her the same ascendant over the people which he had possessed. The prudence and vigor with which she acted, justified that confidence they placed in her. She wrote to the French general in Navarre, encouraging him to invade Castile by the offer of powerful assistance. She endeavored by her letters and emissaries to revive the spirit and hopes of the other cities. She raised soldiers, and exacted a great sum from the clergy belonging to the cathedral, in order to defray the expense of keeping them on foot. She employed every artifice that could interest or inflame the populace.

For this purpose she ordered crucifixes to be used by her troops instead of colors, as if they had been at war with infidels and enemies of religion; she marched through the streets of Toledo with her son, a young child, clad in deep mourning, seated on a mule, having a standard carried before him, representing the manner of his father’s execution. By all these means she kept the minds of the people in such perpetual agitation as prevented their passions from subsiding, and rendered them insensible of the dangers to which they were exposed, by standing alone in opposition to the royal authority. While the army was employed in Navarre, the regents were unable to attempt the reduction of Toledo by force with and all their endeavors, either to diminish Doña Maria’s credit with the people, or to gain her by large promises and the solicitations of her brother the Marquis de Mondejar, proved ineffectual.

Upon the expulsion of the French out of Navarre, part of the army returned into Castile, and invested Toledo. Even this made no impression on the intrepid and obstinate courage of Doña Maria. She defended the town with vigor, her troops in several sallies beat the royalists, and no progress was made towards reducing the place, until the clergy, whom she had highly offended by invading their property, ceased to support her. As soon as they received information of the death of William de Croy, archbishop of Toledo, whose possession of that see was their chief grievance, and that the emperor had named a Castilian to succeed him, they openly turned against her, and persuaded the people that she had acquired such influence over them by the force of enchantments, that she was assisted by a familiar daemon which attended her in the form of a Negro-maid, and that by its suggestions she regulated every part of her conduct. The credulous multitude, whom their impatience of a long blockade, and despair of obtaining succors either from the cities formerly in confederacy with them, or from the French, rendered desirous of peace, took arms against her, and driving her out of the city, surrendered it to the royalists [October 26]. She retired to the citadel, which she defended with amazing fortitude four months longer; and when reduced to the last extremities, she made her escape in disguise [February 10], and fled to Portugal, where she had many relations.

Upon her flight the citadel surrendered. Tranquility was re-established in Castile; and this bold attempt of the commons, like all unsuccessful insurrections, contributed to confirm and extend the power of the crown, which it was intended to moderate and abridge. The Cortes still continued to make a part of the Castilian constitution, and was summoned to meet whenever the king stood in need of money; but instead of adhering to their ancient and cautious form of examining and redressing public grievances, before they proceeded to grant any supply, the more courtly custom of voting a donative in the first place was introduced, and the sovereign having obtained all that he wanted, never allowed them to enter into any inquiry, or to attempt any reformation injurious to his authority. The privileges which the cities had enjoyed were gradually circumscribed or abolished; their commerce began from this period to decline, and becoming less wealthy and less populous, they lost that power and influence which they had acquired in the Cortes.

While Castile was exposed to the calamities of civil war; the kingdom of Valencia was torn by intestine commotions still more violent. The association which had been formed in the city of Valencia in the year one thousand five hundred and twenty, and which was distinguished by the name of the Germanada, continued to subsist after the emperor’s departure from Spain. The members of it, upon pretext of defending the coasts against the descents of the corsairs of Barbary, and under sanction of that permission which Charles bad rashly granted them, refused to lay down their arms. But as the grievances which the Valencians aimed at re­dressing, proceeded from the arrogance and exactions of the nobility, rather than from any unwarrantable exercise of the royal prerogative, their resentment turned chiefly against the former. As soon as they were allowed the use of arms, and became conscious of their own strength, they grew impatient to take vengeance of their oppressors. They drove the nobles out of most of the cities, plundered their houses, wasted their lands, and assaulted their castles. They then proceeded to elect thirteen per­sons, one from each company of tradesmen established in Valencia, and committed the administration of government to them, under pretext that they would reform the laws, establish one uniform mode of dispensing justice without partiality or regard to the distinction of ranks, and thus restore men to some degree of their original equality.

The nobles were obliged to take arms in sell-defence. Hostilities began, and were carried on with all the rancor with which resentment at oppression inspired the one party, and the idea of insulted dignity animated the other. As no person of honorable birth, or of liberal education, joined the Germanada, the councils as well as troops of the confederacy were conducted by low mechanics, who acquired the confidence of an enraged multitude chiefly by the fierceness of their zeal and the extravagance of their proceedings. Among such men, the laws introduced in civilized nations, in order to restrain or moderate the violence of war, were unknown or despised; and they run into the wildest excesses of cruelty and outrage.

The emperor, occupied with suppressing the insurrection in Castile, which more immediately threatened the subversion of his power and prerogative, was unable to give much attention to the tumults in Valencia, and left the nobility of that kingdom to fight their own battles. His viceroy, the Conde de Melito, had the supreme command of the forces which the nobles raised among the vassals. The Germanada carried on the war during the years one thousand five hundred and twenty and twenty-one with a more persevering courage than could have been expected from a body so tumultuary, under the conduct of such leaders. They defeated the nobility in several actions, which, though not considerable, were extremely sharp. They repulsed them in their attempts to reduce different towns. But the nobles by their superior skill in war, and at the head of troops more accustomed to service, gained the advantage in most of the reencounters. At length they were joined by a body of Castilian cavalry, which the regents despatched towards Valencia, soon after their victory over Padilla at Villalar, and by their assistance the Valencian nobles acquired such superiority that they entirely broke and ruined the Germanada. The leaders of the party were put to death almost without any formality of legal trial, and suffered such cruel punishments as the sense of recent injuries prompted their adversaries to inflict. The government of Valencia was re-established in its ancient form.

In Aragon, violent symptoms of the same spirit of disaffection and sedition which reigned in the other kingdoms of Spain, began to appear, but by the prudent conduct of the viceroy, Don John de Lanusa, they were so far composed, as to prevent their breaking out into any open insurrection. But in the island of Majorca, annexed to the crown of Aragon, the same causes which had excited the commotion in Valencia, produced effects no less violent. The people, impatient of the hardships which they had endured under the rigid jurisdiction of the nobility, took arms in a tumultuary manner [March 19, 1521]; deposed their viceroy; drove him out of the island; and massacred every gentleman who was so unfortunate as to fall into their hands. The obstinacy with which the people of Majorca persisted in their rebellion, was equal to the rage with which they began it. Many and vigorous efforts were requisite in order to reduce them to obedience; and tranquility was re-established in every part of Spain, before the Majorcans could be brought to submit to their sovereign.

While the spirit of disaffection was so general among the Spaniards, and so many causes concurred in precipitating them into such violent measures, in order to obtain the redress of their grievances, it may appear strange, that the malcontents in the different kingdoms should have carried on their operations without any mutual concert, or even any intercourse with each other. By uniting their councils and arms, they might have acted both with greater force and with more effect. The appearance of a national confederacy would have rendered it no less respectable among the people than formidable to the crown; and the emperor, unable to resist such a combination, must have complied with any terms which the members of it should have thought fit to prescribe. Many things, however, prevented the Spaniards from forming themselves into one body, and pursuing common measures. The people of the different kingdoms in Spain, though they were become the subjects of the same sovereign, retained, in all force, their national antipathy to each other. The remembrance of their ancient rivalship and hostilities was still lively, and the sense of reciprocal injuries so strong, as to prevent them from acting with confidence and concert. Each nation chose rather to depend on its own efforts, and to maintain the struggle alone, than to implore the aid of neighbors whom they distrusted and hated. At the same time the forms of government in the several kingdoms of Spain were so different, and the grievances of which they complained, as well as the alterations and amendments in policy which they attempted to introduce, so various, that it was not easy to bring them to unite in any common plan. To this disunion Charles was indebted for the preservation of his Spanish crowns; and while each of the kingdoms followed separate measures, they were all obliged at last to conform to the will of their sovereign.

The arrival of the emperor in Spain filled his subjects who had been in arms against him with deep apprehensions, from which he soon delivered them by an act of clemency no less prudent than generous. After a rebellion so general, scarcely twenty persons, among  so many criminals obnoxious to the law, had been punished capitally in Castile. Though strongly solicited by his council, Charles refused to shed any more blood by the hands of the executioner; and published a general pardon [October 28], extending to all crimes committed since the commencement of the insurrections, from which only fourscore persons were excepted. Even these he seems to have named, rather with an intention to intimidate others, than from any inclination to seize them; for when an officious courtier offered to inform him where one of the most considerable among them was concealed, he avoided it by a good-natured pleasantry; “Go”, says he, “I have now no reason to be afraid of that man, but he has some cause to keep at a distance from me, and you would be better employed in telling him that I am here, than in acquainting me with the place of his retreat”. By this appearance of magnanimity, as well as by his care to avoid everything which had disgusted the Castilians during his former residence among them; by his address in assuming their manners, in speaking their language, and in complying with all their humors and customs, he acquired an ascendant over them which hardly any of their native monarchs had ever attained, and brought them to support him in all his enterprises with a zeal and valor to which he owed more of his success and grandeur.