At Barcelona objection was again taken to swearing the oath of allegiance to Charles during his mother’s lifetime. Only after ten months were bribery and flattery able to break down opposition and elicit a moderate grant. Charles was preparing to meet the Parliament of Valencia (January, 1520), when news was brought of his election as King of the Romans in succession to his grandfather Maximilian. The report that the King was about to quit Spain roused the indignation against him to the highest pitch. The Castilian cities were jealous of the time he had spent in Aragon and Catalonia, haggling to obtain small supplies, while loyal Castile, which had voted an extra sum, was neglected. There was now reason to fear that Spain would sink to the level of a mere province of the Empire. Already in November, Toledo had sent a circular letter to the cities possessing votes in the Cortes, urging them to combine in order to prevent the departure of the King, the export of gold, and government by foreigners. Some made no reply; others, like Salamanca, joined eagerly in the protest. A commission was appointed to lay before Charles the demands of the kingdom, whereupon he sent to Toledo a new and more energetic corregidor to check the spirit of mutiny. Wishing to obtain money and at the same time to tranquillise the public mind by explanations and promises, he summoned Parliament to meet him at Santiago de Compostela (February, 1520). As he hurried northward, he was overtaken at Valladolid by the commissioners from Toledo and Salamanca, who insisted, in spite of his orders, on fulfilling their charge. He bade them follow the Court until he could find time to attend to them. A report that Queen Juana was to be carried out of the country provoked a riot and a rash attempt to check the King’s departure from Valladolid. The cruelty with which these excesses were avenged still further irritated the people. At Villalpando the promised audience was granted to the commissioners of the cities; but Charles was in no mood for yielding. He harshly bade them await the meeting of Parliament to lay their wishes before him. Meanwhile the Court party was doing its utmost to secure submissive deputies. A royal decree directed that an unlimited commission should be given to the proctors according to a prescribed form. Toledo refused to comply; her proctors were instructed merely to hear and report on the proposals of the King. Other cities, while granting a commission in the prescribed form, limited it by secret instructions to resist all demands for money.
It was amid the gloomiest forebodings that the Cortes met at Santiago (March, 1520). The selection of a place so far removed from the centre of Spain was suspicious; even if promises were wrung from the departing King, their fulfilment was unlikely: at such a distance from their electors deputies might easily be bribed or intimidated. The chief cause of complaint, however, was the demand for further supply, while the grant of 1518 had still a year to run. An attempt was made to soothe irritation by the appointment of a Spanish president; and a conciliatory speech from the throne was read by the Bishop of Badajoz in the presence of Charles himself. Toledo was unrepresented, having refused to grant the prescribed commission; the deputies of Salamanca were excluded for refusing to take the oath before petitions had been heard. The nobles, disgusted at their exclusion from the royal favour, had quitted the Court. Charles hurried on to Corunna, in order to be able to embark at a moment’s notice and reach England (April). The remaining deputies followed, and were cajoled and threatened until, by a narrow majority, they voted a supply of 300 millions of maravedis. They petitioned for a Spanish regent; for the speedy return of the King; for the better administration of justice; against the nomination of deputies by the Crown, and the exaction of unlimited commissions; that the Cortes should meet every three years; that the summons should contain a list of the matters to be discussed; and that deputies should be compelled to render an account to their electors within a stated time. Most of these petitions were refused, or left unanswered; the Cortes were dismissed; and in May Charles set sail, leaving nobles and people equally discontented. Adrian of Utrecht was appointed by him regent in his absence.
The return of the deputies from Corunna was the signal for rioting in many cities. Some who had voted supply contrary to instructions were murdered by the mob. Led by Toledo, the cities, from Leon to Murcia and from Burgos to Jaen, formed a league under the name of the Santa Comunidad, and expelled their corregidores to the cry of “Long live the King; down with the bad ministers!” Avila was chosen on account of its central position as the meeting-place of their Junta (July, 1520), which included nobles and ecclesiastics as well as commons. It began by declaring itself independent of the Regent and Council, and organising the levies of the cities under the command of Juan de Padilla, a nobleman of Toledo. Adrian’s attempts to check the revolt were feeble and unsuccessful. A small body of troops, sent with Ronquillo, a judge of notorious severity, to punish Segovia, where the outbreak had been specially violent, was easily beaten off. An attempt made by Fonse’ca, one of the royal captains, to seize the artillery which Ximenes had kept in readiness at Medina del Campo, not only failed, but resulted in the destruction by fire of the town, one of the richest in Spain. Adrian was obliged to disband Fonseca’s army and disavow his action. A more serious blow to the royal cause followed. Padilla seized Tordesillas, and with it the person of Queen Juana (August 29). The Santa Junta now removed to Tordesillas, and proclaimed that the Queen was sane and approved its actions. Valladolid, the seat of the regency, was captured; some members of the royal Council were imprisoned; others, among them Adrian himself, fled (October 18). The Great Seal of the kingdom and the State papers fell into the hands of the rebels. Led by Adrian, who despaired from the first, the friends of Charles in Spain wrote to him that all was lost, unless he returned at once and came to terms with the Comuneros. But Charles never yielded. His cause was aided more by the incapacity of its opponents than by the energy of the royalists. Instead of setting up a government in the place of that which it had overthrown, the Junta continued to declare its loyalty; unable to conceive any authority other than that of the monarchy, it wasted its time in trying to persuade the imbecile Queen to confirm its acts. Juana had received its members, when they broke into Tordesillas, with some show of favour; but her steady refusal to sign documents was not to be shaken. The main theory of the revolution-that the Queen was sane, and that her faithful commons were to deliver her and shake off the hated yoke of the foreigner-had broken down. Juana’s obstinacy acted as a physical obstacle. Disheartened and irresolute, the Junta betook itself to the only other source of legitimate authority, and sent a deputation to Flanders to assure the King of its loyalty and beg confirmation of its acts. At the same time it forwarded a long list of petitions. These included Charles1 return to Spain and marriage; the reform of the Court on the model of Ferdinand and Isabel’s; the reduction of taxes to the standard of 1494; the better administration of justice; together with demands that corregidores should not be appointed without a request on the part of the municipality concerned, and then only for two years; that municipalities should elect their proctors without interference; that the commission of the proctors should not be prescribed, and that death should be the penalty for accepting bribes; that the Cortes should meet every three years, and that the three Orders should be represented; that nobles should be excluded from municipal and financial offices, and from the exclusive use of waste and common lands; that such lands as they had seized should be restored within six months; that Isabel’s will and Charles’ own oath forbidding the alienation of any part of the royal patrimony should be observed, so as to obviate the necessity for extraordinary taxation. These petitions never reached Charles, for the messengers’ hearts failed them, and they turned back; but they show that the Junta utterly misunderstood its position and the character of the King. The last two clauses mark a change of spirit; they are directed against the nobles, some of whom had acquiesced in or favoured the insurrection. So soon as their usurped privileges were threatened, they began to rally round the throne. This tendency was furthered by a masterly stroke of policy. Urged by Adrian’s despairing appeals for help, Charles nominated two Spanish grandees, the Constable and the Admiral of Castile, to share the regency: he bade them temporise and dissimulate, call Cortes in his name if advisable, but sanction no curtailment of the royal authority. The Constable raised an army in the north under the command of his son, the Count of Haro; and, aided by Zumel, who a