[150] One Mendoza was not willing to abdicate the role of leader. While the family in Guadalajara accepted the inevitability of this changing intellectual leadership with a graciousness verging on indifference, the count of Tendilla in Granada fought against the trend. Conservative by nature and alienated from his Guadalajara cousins by property disputes, Tendilla's family loyalties were directed toward the ancestral reference group rather than to the extended family of his own day. From Tendilla's point of view, the family's political power, its place in society, its heroes all were associated with the Trastámara revolution and with the view of Castilian politics and history laid out by Pedro López de Ayala. Tendilla's adherence to the family's tradition, even at the expense of family unity, was reinforced by his two journeys to Renaissance Italy and by his isolation from the new intellectual centers of Castile. When Tendilla tried to persuade the consejo real to adopt his policies, however, it was not just an academic dispute over intellectual issues. For Tendilla, as royal governor of Spain's largest convert population in a period of political and religious upheaval, every royal decree held life and death implications. Tendilla did not realize until too late that in a society that had come to regard tolerance and moderation as deviance, it was no longer profitable to maintain the Mendoza family tradition.

Iñigo López de Mendoza, second count of Tendilla, was the eldest son and namesake of the first count of Tendilla (d. 1479).⁽¹⁾ He was educated in the household of his paternal grandfather and namesake, the first marquis of Santillana. He received his political and military [151] apprenticeship in the households of his father and his uncle, cardinal Mendoza. His father inherited one of the mayorazgos created by Santillana; but with three sons and two daughters to provide for, he tried to increase his estate by service to the king. He was one of the staunchest supporters of Enrique IV and served as the king's ambassador to Nicholas V in 1454 and to Pius II in 1458. Tendilla, then sixteen years old, and his younger brother, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, accompanied their father to Florence and Mantua on this second embassy. In 1467, the father was rewarded for his services with the title of count of Tendilla, and he was appointed tutor of the king's daughter, Juana, who was taken to live in the Mendoza family residence in Buitrago.

After Enrique disavowed Juana's rights to the throne in 1468, the first Tendilla and his brother, the future cardinal, appealed to the papacy for a restitution of her rights and publicized this appeal by nailing copies of it to the doors of the churches in several important towns. When the appeal failed, the elder Tendilla handed Juana over to her new tutor, Juan Pacheco, and seems to have retired from active public life. Young Tendilla and his brother, Diego Hurtado, then entered the household of their uncle, the cardinal, and formed part of his entourage during the summer of 1472 when he entertained the papal legate, Rodrigo Borgia, and arranged Mendoza support for Isabel as heiress of Enrique. Tendilla and his father stayed out of the early stages of the ensuing succession war, and they are the only Mendoza not mentioned in Isabel's statement of gratitude for the family's support in 1475. Apparently the elder Tendilla remained loyal to Juana, but he also refused to support Juana against his own family and stayed out of the conflict in order to preserve the family's unity.

The second Tendilla inherited his father's title and estates in 1479; and in the next twenty-five years, he more than compensated for the disadvantages of having withheld early support from the winning side. He did this through the Mendoza's traditional route to power and wealth -- outstanding military service in the wars against the Muslims, heavy investment of his private fortune in the diplomatic and administrative service of the crown, and a politically and financially profitable second marriage. In addition, he and Diego Hurtado were favorites of their uncle the cardinal; and through the cardinal's patronage, Diego Hurtado became bishop of Palencia (1473), president of the consejo real (1483-1486), and archbishop of Seville (1485). Diego Hurtado followed in the footsteps of his uncle in more ways than one: he too fathered illegitimate sons, became cardinal of Santa Sabina, and resided at the royal court as protector of the family interests. With such [152] alliances, Tendilla's career was bound to be favored by the Catholic Monarchs; but Tendilla himself was a man of exceptional political and military talents and had all the personal characteristics that modern historians consider typical of the Mendoza at their best -- charm, courage, boundless pride, lively intelligence, sparkling wit, shrewdness, and prudence. Above all, Tendilla displayed a flair for cutting the Gordian knot with a wit and ingenuity that made him a legend even in his own lifetime.

In 1480, Tendilla married Francisca Pacheco, a daughter of Juan Pacheco, his father's rival as tutor to the princess Juana. This marriage culminated a series of moves taken by the Mendoza in 1478-1480 to prevent the destruction of the Pacheco by Isabel in the succession war. By this marriage, the Mendoza allied themselves with their traditional rivals in order to preserve that balance of powers within the kingdom typical of the Enriquista political structure; and Tendilla allied himself with a family already powerful in Andaluda and active proponents of war against Granada.

Tendilla took an active leadership in all phases of the conquest of Granada; and the chronicles of the conquest, especially Pulgar's, are peppered with references to his military feats.⁽²⁾ In 1484-1485, Fernando appointed Tendilla alcaide of the city of Alhama, newly conquered from the Muslims, and because of its exposed position deep in Muslim territory, dependent upon an extended supply line and extremely vulnerable to siege. Tendilla's defense of Alhama is the first of his legendary deeds, recorded in detail by Pulgar, who received his information directly from Tendilla.⁽³⁾ The winter of 1484-1485 was exceptionally wet; and after several weeks of rain, an old section of the city wall collapsed. Tendilla kept this secret from the Muslim patrols by having lengths of cloth painted to resemble the fallen portion of the wall and draping them over the opening while the section was rebuilt from within. A few weeks later, the garrison began to threaten desertion because the supply train with their wages was months overdue and the merchants of the city were refusing to extend further credit. Tendilla improvised a form of currency consisting of slips of leather with a specific amount of money and Tendilla's signature written on them, decreed that they were to be accepted at face value by the merchants, and promised to redeem them at full value when the siege was over. His ingenious use of the painted cloth and the leather currency were both modeled on the example of Frederick II at the siege of Faenza in 1240.⁽⁴⁾

In 1485, Fernando relieved Tendilla as alcaide of Alhama in order to appoint him ambassador to Innocent VIII.⁽⁵⁾ Tendilla's instructions were [153] to achieve several formidable goals: a treaty of peace between the pope and the king of Naples; renewal of the favorable bull of crusade of 1482 on a permanent basis; a papal license granting the patronage of all ecclesiastical offices in the cathedrals of the kingdom of Granada to the Castilian crown; and confirmation of a Bull of 1474 prohibiting the appointment of foreigners to Spanish benefices. Pulgar, always favorable to the Mendoza, claims that Tendilla was chosen for this important embassy because he was fluent in Latin and a prudent negotiator.⁽⁶⁾ It is also likely that he was chosen because he already knew the powerful papal chancellor, Rodrigo Borgia; because the Mendoza and Borgia had already proved that they could work together against a hostile pope to the benefit of Fernando and Isabel; and because Tendilla's uncle, the cardinal, wanted a member of his family invested with adequate powers to approach the pope successfully with a request for the legitimation of the cardinal's sons.

In order to avoid prejudicing the Neapolitan issue, Tendilla was instructed to remain in a neutral city -- Florence -- until the peace treaty was achieved, and then to report to Rome. He left Spain in March 1486; arrived in Florence in June; struck up a friendship with Lorenzo d'Medici, for whom he arranged a marriage between Lorenzo's daughter and the pope's nephew;⁽⁷⁾ made a secret trip to Rome to speed the negotiations; achieved a satisfactory treaty between Innocent VIII and Ferrante of Naples on 12 August 1486; and entered Rome officially in September 1486. In Rome, he "defended the honor of the Castilian crown" by insisting on his precedence over all other ambassadors, even using force to displace the French ambassador from the seat of honor at a papal mass, and he added to his own legend by performing two feats of ostentatious consumption. The pope was offended by Tendilla's sumptuous and frequent banquets, so he prohibited the Romans from selling charcoal or firewood to the Spanish ambassador in order to prevent him from cooking. Tendilla solved this problem by buying a few houses, dismantling them, and using their timbers for firewood. In another display of ostentation and ingenuity, Tendilla treated the entire papal curia to an elaborate banquet on the banks of the Tiber, serving each course on a different set of silver and throwing the soiled service into the river after every course. His biographers report that this made a tremendous impression on the guests; but after they left, Tendilla ordered his servants to raise the nets concealed beneath the surface of the river, and they successfully retrieved all the service except one spoon and two forks. The incident, with its overtones from Petronius, was later repeated by the Sienese Agostino Chigi.⁽⁸⁾ In these incidents in Rome, as well as in his [154] defense of Alhama, Tendilla displayed a talent highly prized by Fernando -- an ingenuity in cutting through knotty problems without too much regard for legal or moral niceties. Fernando had adopted as his motto the words "Tanto monta" (so much for that) in admiration of Alexander the Great's cutting of the Gordian knot, and Tendilla's unorthodox but effective deeds could only have increased the king's appreciation of his abilities.

Furthermore, Tendilla achieved at least a limited success in most of his objectives during his embassy to Rome; he arranged a peace between the king of Naples and the papacy (12 August 1486); the Castilian crown received the patronage of the ecclesiastical offices of the cathedrals of Granada (13 July 1486 and 18 December 1486); the bull of crusade of 1482 (disliked by the papacy for financial reasons) was renewed for one year (1 September 1487), largely through the efforts of Rodrigo Borgia; the Castilian monarchs received pontifical indulgences for royal hospitals in Santiago and Granada, and a cathedral in Granada (28 August 1487); cardinal Mendoza received papal legitimation of his sons; and Tendilla and other members of his family received many indulgences for the building of monasteries and hospitals on their seigneurial lands. The only instruction he failed to achieve was renewal of the bull of 1474 restricting Spanish benefices to Spanish nationals.

Fernando renewed the campaign against Granada in 1489, and Tendilla played a principal role in both the campaigns and the negotiations that led to the capitulation of 1492. As a reward for these services, and through the influence of cardinal Mendoza, Tendilla was appointed captain general of the kingdom of Granada and alcaide of the Alhambra. A polychrome retablo in the cathedral of Granada commemorating the entry into the city of Granada on 2 January 1492 has aptly captured the political subtleties of this appointment -- though not the literal truth of the event itself -- by picturing the king and queen entering the city side by side, flanked by cardinal Mendoza on their right and Tendilla on their left.⁽⁹⁾

This appointment was the high point of Tendilla's career. All of his activities to this point -- military, administrative, and diplomatic -- had been successful, and his appointment as a territorial governor indicates the great confidence the Catholic Monarchs had in his abilities and loyalty. In later years, Tendilla looked back on the monarchs' confidence in his discretion with pride:

On Tuesday, 2 January 1492, this city came into the power of the king don Fernando and the queen doña Isabel after they had besieged it [155] for a long time. The same day, their highnesses appointed as alcaide and captain of the said city and of the fortress of the Alhambra Iñigo López de Mendoza count of Tendilla and lord of Mondéjar, to whose discretion they entrusted all their guard and presidio with a considerable number of horses and infantes, and a few days later their majesties departed for Catalonia, leaving to the abovesaid count the alcazar and city, residing in it more than twenty thousand Muslims.⁽¹⁰⁾

[The Catholic Monarchs] set me here as in a new birthplace, and I left what was mine and I disbanded my household there of servants of my grandfathers and of my father and my own children... it seemed to me that the king our lord had decided to make these offices permanent in me and my successors forever.⁽¹¹⁾

Tendilla's chances of success were worse than he imagined. In addition to the usual problems of an administrator in the field who must prevail over powerful policymakers in the central government, he was to have difficulty communicating with the consejo real. By nature he analyzed problems in terms of how things really were, while the letrados in the consejo thought in terms of how things ought to be. And Granada was not what it ought to have been: the newly conquered kingdom would unexpectedly suffer crop failure, famine, epidemic, invasion, religious revolt and repression, economic dislocation, and political confusion. The consejo's disappointment in Granada would increasingly be expressed as dissatisfaction with Tendilla and all he stood for.

As captain general, Tendilla was directly responsible to the crown for the defense and public order of the kingdom. All of the military forces were under his command: a company of one hundred lances usually stationed in Vélez Málaga where they could guard the coast from the frequent Muslim invasions from Africa; one thousand infantry stationed in strategic fortresses around the kingdom under the supervision of alcaides nominated by Tendilla and appointed by the crown; and twenty-five halaberderos as Tendilla's personal guard. As governor, Tendilla held final criminal jurisdiction over all the military personnel in the kingdom; and as the leading citizen of Granada, he frequently acted as arbitrator in civil suits. When the monarchs were absent from Castile, Tendilla was invested with the powers of viceroy for all of Andalucía; but ordinarily there was no central administrative power in the kingdom of Granada. The spiritual needs of the kingdom were in the hands of Fernando de Talavera, archbishop of Granada; and the senior royal secretary, Hernando de Zafra, was entrusted with the task of surveying the resources of the kingdom for tax purposes and assessing the pace at which the crown should move in the transition from a Muslim to a Christian fiscal administration. Each city had made its own arrangements for self-government as it capitulated to the Christians; and in the final capitulation of 1492, the Muslims of the city of Granada were free to retain their language, religion, customs, and local forms of government. Technically, Tendilla's powers were limited to military and police matters; but because he was the only administrator with command over personnel throughout an otherwise heterogeneous society, he wielded an inordinate amount of political power in the kingdom.⁽¹²⁾

Almost nothing is known about the history of Granada from 1492 to 1499, but this period has survived in the "folk memory" as a golden age [157] of peace and prosperity.⁽¹³⁾ Disputes over the interpretation of the terms of the capitulation were settled by Zafra to the satisfaction of both Muslims and Christians;⁽¹⁴⁾ Talavera made every effort to convert the Muslims through education and example, established a seminary to train priests in Arabic and in the missionary traditions of the church, and accommodated the new converts' Muslim dress, customs, and language. This period of peace was possible because both sides were willing to live in mutual toleration of one another, an attitude rooted in tradition and in the personalities of Tendilla and Talavera.⁽¹⁵⁾

But much of this mutual trust and cooperation was destroyed in December 1499, when Cisneros, archbishop of Toledo, visiting the city for the first time, engaged in a campaign of forcible conversion of the Muslims. Outraged by this violation of their treaty rights, the Muslims rebelled in the quarter of the city where Cisneros was lodged, the Albaicín, and a constable was killed. At first, Tendilla refrained from interfering in the jurisdiction of the municipal authorities, but finally he and Talavera went into the Albaicín to negotiate with the Muslim leaders. They agreed to submit when Tendilla, doffing his cap to the crowd, pledged that there would be no more forcible conversions and that no one except the murderers of the constable would be punished if the insurrection was ended. As a security for his pledge, Tendilla brought his wife and small children from the Alhambra and lodged them in a house in the heart of the Albaicín, next to a mosque. The story of Tendilla taking off his bonnet to the crowd and entrusting his wife and children to the Muslims became a legend "repeated in Granada from father to son." The violence had been controlled without further bloodshed and the reputations of Tendilla and Talavera were higher than ever with the Muslims. But the king was irritated with Tendilla for having allowed the situation to get out of control in the first place, and he wrote to Tendilla: "I am not surprised by the archbishop of Toledo who never saw a Muslim or knew them, but by you and the corregidor who have known them for so long."⁽¹⁶⁾

No sooner was the rebellion in the city ended than the Muslims in the Alpujarras heard of the forced conversions and rose up in revolt, attacking the Christian garrisons in Guéjar and Mondújar. This inspired another uprising in Ronda and its surrounding territory. The greatest captains of Spain -- Tendilla, Alonso de Aguilar, Pedro Navarro, Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, and Fernando himself -- succeeded in defeating the rebels, but only after some disastrous losses. When Fernando had written to Tendilla immediately after the uprising in the Albaicín, he had ordered him to proceed "with sense rather than rigor"; but after the [158] uprising in the Alpujarras, the monarchs reversed the policy completely and issued a decree requiring all Muslims to be baptized or expelled from the kingdom by 11 February 1502. The Inquisition of Córdoba was ordered to begin inquiries in the kingdom of Granada, with jurisdiction over the newly converted Moriscos, despite the strenuous objections of the corregidor and Tendilla. Finally, the Catholic Monarchs reformed the city government of Granada, abolishing the Muslim council and establishing a single city government similar to those in most cities of Castile but with some concessions to the peculiarly Arabic character of the population. The most important feature of this new government was a city council presided over by the royal corregidor -- the chief judicial and police officer of the city, appointed annually by the crown, directly responsible to the monarchs, and holding full executive and veto power in the administration of the council's decrees.

The political effects of these decrees and reforms was felt immediately. Some Muslims left Spain or took refuge in the wilderness of the Alpujarras rather than conform; most submitted to baptism. The religious unification of the country had been achieved almost overnight, to the relief of both the monarchs and their zealous advisers. But among the Moriscos -- the new converts -- there remained a memory, passed on from generation to generation, of two clear, incontrovertible facts: the conversions had been forced, and the Catholic Monarchs had violated the terms of the capitulation by extending the Inquisition's jurisdiction to the new converts.

The Muslims who had been a peaceful, cooperative citizenry, were overnight transformed into the Moriscos, a sullen, suspicious population. The unconverted outlaws in the Alpujarras began guerrilla operations against the Christian garrisons and extorted food and shelter from the Moriscos; while the unconverted Muslims who had emigrated to Africa inspired and led an almost continuous series of raids on the coast of Granada -- stealing stock, pillaging towns, and kidnaping Christians and Moriscos alike. Thus the immediate and permanent effect of the decrees was to place an ever-increasing strain on the military and political resources of the kingdom.

At the same time, the decrees severely restricted the discretionary powers and jurisdictions of Tendilla and Talavera. The old Christian city council was a small group -- probably there were twelve regidores -- easily dominated by Tendilla and Talavera. As a result of the reorganization of 1501, the city council acquired its own meeting hall (the cabildo) in the city next to the silk exchange; the number of regidores was increased to twenty-four; and the new regidores were chosen from a population [159] over which Tendilla had not previously exercized direct jurisdiction. The first corregidor of the city, Andrés Calderón, had served from the conquest until 1500 and worked closely with Tendilla. After 1500, the corregidores served only one-year terms; and although Tendilla boasted that he got along very well with each one of them until 1514,⁽¹⁷⁾ there was no chance to work out a permanent political understanding between them and Tendilla, a situation reflected in the minutes of the city council. Before 1501, Tendilla's name appears at the head of the list of regidores present; but after 1501, his name takes second place to that of the royal corregidor.

By placing the new converts under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, the crown also took the greatest step toward reducing the influence of the archbishop of Granada over his own diocese, and given Talavera's own tendency toward toleration and moderation, placed him in the intolerable position of having to negotiate with the crown on behalf of the new Christians and in opposition to the advice of the archbishop of Toledo. The Inquisition's powers also intruded upon the jurisdiction of the city council and the corregidor. Among the first citizens investigated by the Inquisition were two of the city's constables; and when the corregidor, Diego López de Avalos, refused to hand them over to the Inquisition, claiming that he not the Inquisition had jurisdiction in the city, the Catholic Monarchs replied with a cédula ordering the corregidor to hand over the constables for penitence and forbidding him to submit a brief arguing that the Inquisition was another jurisdiction, "because everything is ours."⁽¹⁸⁾

Tendilla's jurisdiction was not affected directly by any of the decrees, but his credibility and his status as the principal representative of the crown were both diminished. The decrees directly contradicted the promises Tendilla had made to the Muslim leaders in the insurrection of the Albaicín and mark a serious erosion of Tendilla's freedom to act at his own discretion with the assurance that his actions would be approved by the crown. Furthermore, one of the decrees of 1500 had ordered the removal of the chancillería (supreme court) of Ciudad Real to Granada. The decree did not alter the legal jurisdiction of either the chancillería or Tendilla, and the chancillería did not move to Granada until 1505; but it seems clear that the crown was intent upon establishing in Granada another representative of the monarchy with powers and influence equal to those of Tendilla.

On a local scale in the kingdom of Granada, the Catholic Monarchs were making that same shift from a government by the military aristocracy to a government by letrados, which had long been accomplished in [160] the central government. From this time on, Tendilla and his successors fought a losing battle against the jurisdictional expansion of the Inquisition and the chancillería of Granada.

In addition to all the increased problems of policing and defending the kingdom and the city of Granada with diminished power, Tendilla suffered some personal losses that further weakened his influence at court and cast a gloomy shadow over the rest of his life. Years later, Tendilla still remembered the tragic events of 1502 with a sense of loss: "We lost two sons in one week and three daughters and another son a few days later and then the two lord cardinals and my brother Pedro and the brothers of the countess and we consoled ourselves, each one [consoling] the other, for there is no other consolation."⁽¹⁹⁾ With the death of Tendilla's brother, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, archbishop of Seville and cardinal of Spain, Tendilla lost his most loyal and powerful support in the royal court.

This was the first of a series of epidemics and natural disasters that plagued Granada for the next few years, destroying the prosperity of the kingdom and further weakening Tendilla's military position. By 1515, the kingdom the Catholic Monarchs and Tendilla had expected to be a paradise that would yield new riches had begun an irreversible trend of economic and demographic depression. The Catholic Monarchs never returned to Granada after 1502: there was not enough food in the kingdom to support a royal visit, but Tendilla remained at his post through famine and plague, drought and flood, depression and depopulation. From his command post in the Alhambra, he policed the highways, built fortresses and watchtowers along the coast and the major commercial routes, filled posts left vacant by the plague, established a school for orphans, collected taxes, supervised the sale and distribution of food to the poor, and organized and supplied expeditions against the coast of Africa.

Tendilla's attention to duty during this series of local crises is exemplary in itself. But his efforts to maintain the peace and prosperity of the kingdom of Granada take on a heroic quality when they are viewed in the perspective of his involvement in the national political crises of the same period. It was typical of the Trastámara dynasty that the great political crisis of the reign of the Catholic Monarchs revolved about the succession to the throne; and it was typical of Tendilla that his own actions during the conflict were shaped by a single overriding consideration -- his personal loyalty to Fernando and to the Trastámara dynasty -- with little concern for the policies followed by the constable as head of the Mendoza family.

It is a universally accepted custom in the writing of Spanish history to [161] turn from domestic to foreign affairs after the great triumphs of 1492, on the assumption that the monarchs' reforms had brought peace and order to the kingdom and that their preoccupation with foreign policy after 1492 reflects a lack of distractions from internal disorder.⁽²⁰⁾ In fact, a period of internal peace did follow the conquest of Granada; but it was largely due to the coincidence that a number of the principal political figures of the kingdom died immediately after the conquest, from January through October 1492; and there was a period of readjustment while new leadership developed.⁽²¹⁾ Nor did it last long; for beginning with the death of the crown prince Juan in 1497, the royal family suffered a series of untimely deaths which threw the royal succession into doubt.

By the time Isabel died in 1504, it was clear that Juana, the Catholic Monarchs' eldest surviving child, would inherit Castile and Aragon, and her eldest son, Charles, would succeed her. But Charles was only four years old, and Juana was widely regarded -- even by her parents -- as too emotionally unstable to be capable of ruling alone. Philip of Burgundy, Juana's husband, was the logical regent; but both Fernando and Isabel were convinced that Philip would sacrifice the well-being of both Juana and Spain in the interests of his own Hapsburg dynastic ambitions in northern Europe. Faced with nothing but unpalatable alternatives in disposing of the governance of her kingdom, Isabel wavered and wrote a codicil to her will, contradicting the will itself. In the end, it was not clear whether Fernando, Philip, and archbishop Cisneros, together and in that order, should be regents, or Philip alone. Philip, with a show of German arms, assumed control of the government in the name of Juana; but after he died suddenly in 1506, it was not clear whether Fernando alone or Cisneros alone should be regent for Charles (or for Juana). After Fernando managed to assert his authority in the kingdom and assume the regency in 1510, it was debated whether or not he had the power, as he claimed, to appoint his favorite, the duke of Alba, as his successor instead of Cisneros.

Historians have heaped opprobrium on everyone who had a part in the succession and regency disputes. But the legalities of both questions were so confused -- especially by the codicil to Isabel's will -- that the principal actors themselves were making decisions in conditions of chaos. True to the pattern of previous succession and regency disputes, the city councils split into factions. Municipal governments were paralyzed, and there were popular riots against Jews and conversos. Disaffected nobility took advantage of the chaos to seize long-coveted cities and fortresses. Ambitious nobility formed mutual assistance alliances in the hope of becoming [162] kingmakers by swinging their support to the winning side at a crucial moment. Bureaucrats smuggled papers, extorted signatures, and buried documents in red tape. Prelates used their prestige and influence as confidants to sway the confused Juana, the impressionable Philip, or an indecisive Cortes. But even men of the greatest integrity -- the most scrupulous legist or the most loyal vassal -- found himself in the same position as Ayala more than a century earlier and Santillana sixty years earlier. It had once again become impossible to discern a correct course of action.

In this situation, the only men who were able to follow a consistent line of action were those who disregarded legal and political considerations and acted on the basis of personal loyalties alone. These men were very few: Bernardino de Velasco, the constable of Castile, remained loyal to Juana and her son throughout; don Juan Manuel remained loyal to the Hapsburgs, first Philip and then his father, Maximilian; Alba and Tendilla remained loyal to Fernando. When the Cortes recognized Fernando as the regent of Charles in 1510 and it appeared that the dispute was finally settled legally, no one was satisfied. Those who had supported Fernando were the most frustrated of all; for Fernando was so skilled at dissimulation, compromise, and opportunism that no one could read his true intentions; and an action that appeared to be in his service one day might turn out to be a disservice the next. Furthermore, Fernando became increasingly stingy about rewarding even the most devoted sacrifices -- he was suspicious of over-mighty subjects, his finances were perilous most of the time, and when he did have money he poured it into his wars in Naples and Navarre. These men who had supported Fernando lived in the hope of reward and were repeatedly disappointed.

Tendilla had no delusions about Fernando's character. He was painfully aware of Fernando's stinginess, a serious political as well as personal defect; and he had learned early to guard himself against Fernando's duplicity. But Tendilla had great faith in Fernando's political skill and was convinced that no matter how bleak the king's prospects appeared at the moment in the end he would triumph over his enemies. Even in 1506 and 1507, when Fernando's political star was at its nadir, Tendilla repeatedly urged his friends and relatives to give their allegiance to Fernando so they would be favored and not punished when he reclaimed his control over the government.⁽²²⁾

Tendilla's loyalty to the Catholic Monarchs had first and always been a loyalty to Fernando rather than to Isabel. Tendilla and the cardinal remained fond of Enrique IV's daughter, Juana; and the servants and clients of Juana's mother looked to Tendilla for protection and patronage. On his deathbed, Tendilla was still being attended by the physician, [163] Iñigo López, who had been physician to Juana's mother.⁽²³⁾ There was also a strong bond of friendship and respect between Tendilla and Fernando, based on their common expertise in military affairs. Tendilla claimed that it was easier to discuss military matters with the king than with Isabel, and in the two months before Isabel's death, Tendilla wrote to Fernando alone on matters of police and defense. Tendilla's letters to the two monarchs jointly were impersonal and formal. The letters to Fernando alone have the more intimate and informal character typical of Tendilla's letters to friends and family, and reflect devotion to Fernando personally.⁽²⁴⁾

This devotion, which we will see carried to an extreme in Tendilla's politics, was also carried to extremes in Tendilla's personal life. His health and mood changed as Fernando's health and mood changed. In 1513, Fernando became seriously ill and his health remained perilous until late in 1514. Throughout this period, Tendilla was in bitter despair and often confined to his room by illness. When Fernando recovered and was again physically active, Tendilla's mood became sunny and playful, and he stopped complaining about his aches and pains. When he heard that Fernando had actually started hunting again, he joyously wrote to an old friend to arrange his first hunting trip in many months. Tendilla had no personal stake in Fernando's Italian venture, but he rejoiced over every victory as if it were his own. And he felt the greatest satisfaction when the newly elected Leo X acknowledged his debt to Fernando and praised his Italian policy.⁽²⁵⁾

Tendilla's loyalty to Fernando during the confusion from 1504 to 1515 was also inspired by his assumptions about the nature of politics in the Castilian monarchy. Tendilla regarded the monarchy as a partnership of the king and his vassals -- a partnership based on mutual aid in the expectation of mutual profit. Every stage of Tendilla's public career -- his participation in the conquest of Granada, his governership of Alhama, his embassy to Rome, his governorship in the kingdom of Granada -- was in the nature of an investment from which he hoped eventually to gain a profit of heritable income for himself and his sons. There is no suggestion in Tendilla's letters that service to the crown is an obligation of the nobility. On the contrary, it is a voluntary act and has no implicit merit. Its sole merit lies in the profit that will accrue to the noble family as a reward for service.⁽²⁶⁾

Tendilla, of course, had many obligations to the crown as captain general of Granada, but he was careful not to confuse his official obligations and his politics. Every service he performed beyond his official duties he regarded as a service to Fernando personally, and he expected [164] Fernando to recognize this. It was because he regarded his support of Fernando and his position in Granada as investments that he was caught in an impossible choice. He had invested heavily and without reservation in Fernando's enterprises -- probably more than any other nobleman except the duke of Alba -- and he could not afford to throw away that investment. Tendilla had staked everything on Fernando; and no matter how clear it became that Charles and Cisneros should be cultivated for the sake of the family's future, Tendilla could not compromise himself in Fernando's eyes by establishing a good relationship with the king's enemies. Again and again he complains that he has never sent letters or messengers to Flanders, yet his loyalty is rewarded with losses instead of profits.⁽²⁷⁾ In politics, Tendilla maintained the same view of Castilian society as a free enterprise system that had been expressed by Guzmán fifty years earlier. In the early Trastámara period, the career of Tendilla's grandfather, Santillana, had been living proof that "as one's power and privilege mount, one takes for oneself as much as one can of honors, offices, and vassals." But Tendilla's career showed just as clearly that in the late Trastámara period Castile was no longer a free enterprise society and that his views were anachronistic.

Even on political matters in which Tendilla could exercise more emotional detachment, he never moved beyond the assumptions of his ancestors, Ayala, Guzmán, and Santillana. Tendilla assumed that the Castilian monarchy was made up of a delicately balanced cooperative effort between the king and powerful political groups. The king's ability to succeed in any venture was dependent upon his success in winning support from a substantial segment of the powerful groups and on his own abilities. Tendilla did not assume at any time that the king would have the support of all the nation; and even more significant, he never assumed that it would be the duty of every vassal to support the king just because he was king. Instead, he accepted without question a system in which the king was one of many political powers and had to negotiate with the other powers in the kingdom to carry out any venture successfully.

Once the king had acquired the support of a loyal group, Tendilla believed that he ought to do everything in his power to maintain this alliance -- the king owed allegiance to his supporters as much as they owed allegiance to him. This mutual loyalty between the king and his adherents, to Tendilla, was the essence of political life. He suggested several ways in which the king and his vassals could fulfill this ideal. First, the king must be loyal to his supporters: "Princes cannot expect to succeed who, enjoying the support of only one party among their [165] peoples, wish to make two, or indicate that they do not trust the party they already have by resuscitating an opposing party."⁽²⁸⁾ He also believed that it was a serious mistake for the king to compromise with his domestic enemies in a period of crisis, for the short-term advantages would be more than outweighed by the disadvantage of having empowered and enriched those who would betray the king once the crisis had passed. He complained that Isabel had made a serious error when she appointed Cisneros -- a man who was not a privado and had never proved his loyalty -- as archbishop of Toledo and that Fernando had compounded this error when in 1507 he had won a cardinalate for Cisneros after the archbishop had been openly disloyal.⁽²⁹⁾

With his ideas of a permanent state of balanced but competing powers, Tendilla never conceived of a state in which all parties would agree. It was best to treat defeated parties with respect and dignity and leave the way open for them to cooperate with the king in the future. Tendilla repeatedly advised Fernando to exercise temperance in dealing with his enemies. He bitterly criticized Fernando for having excluded the marquis of Cenete from all the centers of power. And when Fernando stripped the marquis of Priego of his offices and some of his possessions in Córdoba, Tendilla was shocked and angry.⁽³⁰⁾ As much as he hated these two men and as much as he deplored their disloyal actions, he could not rejoice in their misfortune; for the king, by destroying his enemies, was also destroying that balance Tendilla believed to be the essence of a stable society. In this attitude, Tendilla was repeating the attitude of his uncle, the first duke of Infantado, who was willing to fight against and defeat the marquis of Villena in the Isabelline succession war but refused to cooperate in the queen's attempt to destroy Villena's power.

The vassals, in Tendilla's view of society, had the daily and fundamental duty of giving counsel to the king. Tendilla took this responsibility most seriously, and he kept up a steady flow of letters of advice, recommendation, warning, and criticism to the king. He reinforced these with similar letters to his friends and agents at the court in an effort to make sure that his ideas were clearly and accurately understood by Fernando. Among all those who were bombarding Fernando with advice, Tendilla often found himself a lone voice, the single dissenter, but he was convinced that he and Fernando were in agreement on the necessity for his advice, although it won him many enemies:

That which the good servant has to do is to conform with the will of his lord and his highness does not expect that I will ever have to send [166] to say of anyone that he does not do as he should because I haven't won the enemies I have in any other manner except by saying the truth and giving his highness my letters and memorials to those who wish to destroy me because of it.⁽³¹⁾

Tendilla believed that Fernando was acting against his own interests because he was taking the advice of men who were not qualified to counsel a king -- the bureaucrats. Tendilla was convinced that giving counsel to the king was both the duty and the sole prerogative of the nobility. This attitude was based on two assumptions. First, he believed that only the nobility had the military expertise to advise the king in matters of defense and public order. Second, he believed that every policy -- whether religious, military, or economic -- should be judged by its consequences; and the nobles, as the men on the spot, were the only persons capable of assessing the consequences of a given policy in their area of jurisdiction. Tendilla was scornful of bureaucrats who presumed to give military advice to the king and of clerics who recommended religious policies without any realistic assessment of their political consequences. As usual, he could find a proverb to sum up his view: "Advice should come from where the action is."⁽³³⁾

Tendilla's particularist view of politics and society was one of the attitudes that linked him most strongly with his ancestors -- and caused the most conflict with the new, centralizing royal government. It must have been galling to men who had absorbed the hierarchical political theories of the letrados to see Granada, which the Catholic Monarchs had carefully kept in the royal jurisdiction, administered by this old-fashioned and arrogant man with his exalted view of the particularist, seigneurial regime. Once the first crack appeared in Tendilla's control over the Muslims (with the uprising in the Alpujarras), the royal officials lost no time in attacking the problem, and Tendilla spent much of his energy in the last ten years of his life in an effort to have his jurisdiction and discretionary powers in Granada guaranteed by a royal document, with a permanent title of viceroy or a royal cédula. As we have seen, Tendilla lost the most important round in his battle against [167] the royal officials when the chancillería of Ciudad Real was moved to the city of Granada in 1505. His original wide-ranging discretionary powers in judicial matters were severely curtailed by the presence of this royal court, and the letrados looked back on this move as a great victory for their profession.⁽³⁴⁾

Within the limitations imposed upon him by the presence of the chancillería, however, Tendilla continued to exercise his personal influence on the judiciary. He began to visit the chambers of the chancillería on the days when important cases were heard; and he must have been successful in exerting pressure on the proceedings, for in 1514 the royal pesquisidor threatened to bring charges against him of interfering with the royal justice. Tendilla's response to these charges is interesting because of its typical mixture of indignation and bravado and because it reveals his own assumptions about the origins of the law:

If they are saying that I am absolute, let them say what I have done. If they are saying that I rob, let them say how or in what. Also they tell me that Peñaranda has repeated there [at court] many of the evils being said against me and has said many slanders and here they have written it down. I swear by God that I don't dare go to the house of the judges or of the president as often as I used to for fear that they will say I am dragging them by the ears. With all of this, don't you fail to say that if they should put me on a mountain with deer and wild boars I will have them doing whatever I wish, and there is no prudent man who would do otherwise.⁽³⁵⁾

Because Tendilla could not conceive of government with a being and existence apart from the personalities of its leaders and administrators, he could not conceive of duty to a state. Instead, he continued to see the Castilian monarchy in terms of a network of deudos. He assumed that this network developed naturally out of a primitive state of anarchy because of the very nature of men and that since it was natural it was legitimate. On this basis alone, Tendilla was radically separated from the letrados who had taken up the idea of Hispania -- the state as an abstract political, moral, and religious force to which everyone, including the monarchs, owed a duty and allegiance. While the letrados [168] were speaking of the monarchy in terms of Hispania, Tendilla continued to speak of it in terms of family -- the basic form of deudo. One of the most often repeated sentiments in his letters is that it is natural and proper that there should be loyalty and cooperation between parents and children, and he makes this observation in reference to national politics as well as the family affairs of his friends. When Fernando and Philip signed the agreement of Villafáfila, Tendilla remarked that they were in agreement as fathers and sons should be.⁽³⁶⁾ And he never believed that there could be real hostility between Fernando and Charles, for "the prince must serve his grandfather and his grandfather -- since he will make the prince his heir -- must work to leave him the greatest lord of the world."⁽³⁷⁾

It was typical of Tendilla's Renaissance attitudes that he never attempted to explicate them in a systematic way. Yet it is only in view of his political ideas -- his extraordinary loyalty to Fernando coupled with the traditional political attitudes of the Mendoza family -- that Tendilla's actions in the succession crisis after 1504 make sense. And the contrast between Tendillas's actions and those of his Mendoza relatives strikingly illustrates the divisions in the family after the turn of the century.

Soon after Isabel's death, both Philip and Fernando began to solicit noble support.⁽³⁸⁾ Philip acquired the allegiance of the dukes of Nájera and Medina Sidonia, the marquis of Villena, and the count of Benavente, while Fernando received pledges of allegiance from the duke of Alba, the marquis of Denia, the count of Cifuentes, the adelantado of Murcia, and Tendilla. Fernando's son-in-law, the constable; Fernando's cousin, the admiral; and the duke of Infantado all remained neutral during this early period, allying with each other in the name of Juana but refusing to commit themselves to either Philip or Fernando. When Juana and Philip finally arrived in Castile (27 April 1506), the majority of the nobles and prelates of Castile rushed north to pay homage to them, including the party headed by Infantado, the constable, and the admiral. This party, which had remained neutral in the earlier dispute between Philip and Fernando, considered themselves to be paying homage to Juana, the legitimate heiress and, of course, sister-in-law and cousin of the constable and admiral, respectively. The two greatest prelates of Castile, who had previously remained loyal to Fernando, also gave their allegiance to Philip.

By mid-June 1505, Fernando had been abandoned by all the highest prelates and nobles of Castile except Alba, Denia, Cifuentes, Tendilla, and the adelantado of Murcia. Fernando was outmaneuvered; and in a [169] series of moves subtly calculated to create the most sympathetic reaction, he abandoned the field to Philip. On 27 June 1506, at Villafáfila, Femando agreed to abdicate the regency in favor of Philip alone and to leave Castile forever. On 13 July 1506, Fernando left Valladolid for Aragon, where he secretly renounced the treaty of Villafáfila, declared that Juana was incapable of ruling and that Philip was holding her prisoner, and embarked for Naples. Those who had been loyal to Fernando throughout and were not privy to his renunciation of the treaty of Villafáfila accepted Philip and Juana as joint rulers, believing that this was Fernando's wish. Tendilla gave the oath of homage to Philip and Juana on 29 August 1506,⁽³⁹⁾ and the city council of Granada, under his leadership, instructed the city's representatives in the Cortes to give the oath of homage to Philip on their behalf, as coruler with Juana.⁽⁴⁰⁾ There was widespread suspicion, especially in the remote regions of Castile and in Andalucía, that Juana was sane and that Philip was keeping her a prisoner. When Philip died on 25 September 1506, this suspicion was transferred to the provisional government formed under the leadership of the constable, Cisneros, and the duke of Nájera. Immediately, parties reformed, this time with Alba, Infantado, and the constable supporting the regency of Fernando in the name of Juana, while Nájera, Villena, and don Juan Manuel issued a Dictamen calling on Maximilian to assume the regency in the name of Charles.

With Philip dead, Fernando in Italy, and Juana either insane or being held prisoner, chaos was inevitable. In Valladolid and Toledo, the city councils broke up into warring factions. There were riots and violence in Medina del Campo, Ubeda, Avila, and Toledo. The Flamenco party -- those who had issued the Dictamen -- tried to kidnap the infante Fernando (then three years old) from the fortress in Simancas. The marquis of Cenete, always brash and opportunistic, kidnapped María de Fonseca from the convent of las Huelgas, where she had been sent until the courts could decide whether Cenete would be allowed to marry her or not, and married her without royal permission and without legal resolution of her status. The marquise of Moya attacked and took the alcázar of Segovia from the troops of don Juan Manuel. The count of Lemos laid siege to Ponferrada, and Medina Sidonia laid siege to Gibraltar. Nájera armed his household cavalry and defied the authority of the provisional government. Fernando could not have anticipated Philip's death, but he had counted on his inexperience and his foreignness to inspire a political crisis, and the chaos fitted into his plans perfectly. He wrote to the provisional government, promising that he would return to Castile to govern and that he would authorize [170] Cisneros to govern until his return. In the meantime, he appointed Tendilla as viceroy of Andalucía and the constable and Alba as his lieutenants in Castile and ordered them to pacify the kingdom. Satisfied with these arrangements, several of the most powerful nobles supporting Fernando left their positions in the provisional government in the hands of their lieutenants and returned to their estates. Infantado left Garcilaso in his place and the admiral left Alonso Téllez in his.

By the end of October 1506, the rebellions in Castile had been subdued by Alba and the constable without a single battle, and the military orders had organized their defenses to protect their own lands and lend support to the government's cavalry. The greatest number of disturbances and the greatest number of rebellious nobility were in Castile, but the most serious and persistent rebellions occurred in Andalucía; and they brought Tendilla into the midst of a political conflict that continued in open warfare or smoldering intrigue for the next ten years. As soon as the news of Philip's death reached Andalucía, in the first week of October, Medina Siclonia laid siege to Gibraltar, claiming that Philip had reinstated him in his family's position as alcaide of the fortress in Gibraltar, of which he had been dispossessed by Isabel in 1502.

The conflict over Gibraltar was made even more bitter by the circumstance that the crown's alcaide of the fortress was Garcilaso de la Vega, who was actively involved in the provisional government. As soon as the siege began, Garcilaso's lieutenant in the fortress asked the surrounding cities for help; and this request was met by Tendilla, who was anxious to assert his powers as viceroy over his rival, Medina Sidonia, and who organized an expedition to rescue the city. The marquis of Priego, one of the most powerful noblemen in Andalucía, openly refused to obey the orders of Tendilla without an order from the consejo real signed by Juana. Tendilla immediately wrote to the consejo real -- presided over by Cisneros -- requesting such an order and then he "anticipated" their response by persuading the chancillería of Granada to issue an order "signed by the queen." Priego did not send troops or any other help, but Gibraltar was able to hold out until Tenclilla brought relief and raised the siege, again without a battle.

Medina Sidonia retaliated by forming an alliance with his relatives and friends in Andalucía: Priego, the counts of Ureña and Cabra, and the archbishop of Seville, Diego de Deza. By this time it was known in Andalucía that Cisneros had placed one hundred of his five hundred cavalry in Burgos as a guard on Juana, and it was widely assumed that [171] he was holding her prisoner. The alliance formed by Medina Sidonia announced as its purpose the support and liberation of Juana, but it was clearly directed against the provisional government, especially Garcilaso. Then Juana, in one of her rare moments of political activity and in defiance of Císneros, the consejo real, and the Cortes, issued a decree annulling all the decrees and mercedes of Philip. Thus, with one gesture, she removed the basis for the alliance's appeal to her as the upholder of Philip's wishes and their claim that she was being held prisoner. By the end of the year, all resistance to the provisional government and to Fernando's regency had been overcome, at least temporarily.

By mid-January 1507, the alliance of Alba, the constable, Infantado, and Garcilaso had solidly committed itself to Fernando and was dominating the consejo real. Juana had rejected Philip's policies and dashed the hopes of those nobility who expected her to support their claims to the mercedes granted by Philip, and she had foiled Cisneros's attempts to force her to assume the government and thus preclude Fernando's regency. Fernando had, without leaving Italy, subdued the rebellions, acquired the support of an important political bloc, and bribed or tricked into neutrality Cisneros and the Great Captain. When rebellions again erupted in the late winter and spring of 1507, it was the leaders of the Mendoza family who dealt with them. Infantado intervened in a dispute between two factions in Toledo and established a temporary peace in the city. Tendilla successfully retrieved the rebellious fortresses of Ubeda, Loja, Adra, Ronda, and Almería for the crown; and he secured the ports of Cádiz, Gibraltar, and Málaga.⁽⁴¹⁾

By the time Fernando returned to Spain in the summer of 1507, the political situation in the country had settled into the pattern it would maintain until his death. Fernando was accepted as the regent by everyone, and all parties now agreed that Juana would not or could not govern. In 1510, the Cortes of Castile recognized Fernando as regent, even if Juana were to die before Charles came of age. In effect, Fernando became regent for Charles, and Juana lost all effectiveness as a ruler. Royal documents continued to be issued in the name of "la reyna doña Juana," but they were written by the secretaries at the orders of Fernando, and Juana was confined to the castle at Tordesillas for the rest of her life. The issue was no longer whether Maximilian would rule as regent for Charles, or Fernando as regent for Juana: now the issue facing the political factions had become whether to cooperate fully with Fernando and consolidate political power during his lifetime, or to defy Fernando and ingratiate themselves with the Flemish court. In these [172] few crucial years before Fernando's death, the Castilian nobles were forced to choose between the old, native Trastámara dynasty and the new, foreign Hapsburgs.

In this situation, the division in the Mendoza family became clearly and permanently fixed. The duke of Infantado's moves in the succession crisis have most commonly been described as vacillating, but this vacillation was based not on weakness or indecision but on hardheaded and carefully calculated efforts to make himself indispensable to whomever should emerge as the ruler, in the expectation that the new ruler would have to reward Infantado because no king could afford to have such a powerful enemy. The constable's first loyalties were to his sister-in-law, Juana, and his nephew, Charles. Even though Fernando was the constable's father-in-law, it was only after Fernando emerged as regent for Juana and Charles that the constable cooperated with the old king.

During the ten years from Fernando's reentry into Castile (21 August 1507) until Charles arrived in September 1517, Infantado and the constable maintained their cavalry at full strength, allied themselves with the powerful nobles in Spain, and cooperated with Fernando's enemies in the Castilian church and bureaucracy without engaging in any openly hostile actions against Fernando. The alliances they formed after Fernando's death (23 January 1516) indicate that their intention was to form a political bloc so powerful that the new dynasty would be forced to favor it just as the Catholic Monarchs had been forced to favor the Mendoza after their decisive role in the succession war from 1474 to 1480. Infantado and the constable seem to have been little affected by questions of legal rights, Castilian nationalism, loyalty to the monarchy, or even loyalty to Fernando. Infantado's loyalties were strongly oriented toward the family only, while the constable was loyal to the new generation of his royal in-laws; and they were successful in carrying most of the Mendoza with them to a position of strength which placed the Mendoza family in a favorable position under Charles V.⁽⁴²⁾

But the Mendoza under the Hapsburgs were not nearly as powerful as they had been under the Trastámara, and this is in part due to the inability of Infantado and the constable to unite the family behind their policy of dealing from strength. Tendilla especially refused to cooperate. Throughout the succession dispute, Tendilla remained loyal to Fernando and invested much of his personal fortune in maintaining the military strength of the kingdom of Granada against those nobility in Andalucía who were trying to undermine Fernando's position. When Philip and Juana arrived in Castile in 1506, Tendilla offered to do homage to Fernando for the fortresses he commanded in Andalucía. [173] After rescuing Gibraltar from the duke of Medina Sidonia and manipulating the chancillería of Granada into assisting him, he sequestered the properties of the duchy of Medina Sidonia for Fernando. When several Andalucian nobles formed an alliance in support of Juana in 1507, Tendilla joined the alliance and persuaded a majority of the members to declare themselves a confederation in support of Fernando.⁽⁴³⁾

Tendilla was also instrumental in separating his son-in-law, the count of Monteagudo, from an alliance Infantado had formed against Fernando. After Fernando was recognized as the regent of Charles in 1510, Tendilla never attempted to correspond with anyone at the Flemish court, and he refused to ally with those nobles who were withholding support from Fernando. He persistently tried to expose and discredit what he called "el bando de Toledo," a group of nobility in New Castile led by the marquis of Villena and cardinal Cisneros, whom Tendilla believed to be disloyal to Fernando. Most of the nobles who were Tendilla's neighbors in Andalucía formed a mutual assistance pact, "la liguilla," under the leadership of the Great Captain and the marquis of Priego; and in 1515, the liguilla allied with the bando de Toledo.

Surrounded by these powerful enemies, Tendilla remained aloof from all alliances and continued to serve Fernando loyally. Instead of trying to find a position of strength and then negotiate with the king, Tendilla gave his resources and his loyalty to Fernando without reservation. Since Fernando could always count on him, there was never any need to negotiate the terms under which Tendilla would serve Fernando. Once the service was performed, Tendilla was in a weak position to negotiate and had to depend on Fernando's sense of justice and gratitude for his reward.⁽⁴⁴⁾ Tendilla placed loyalty to Fernando above the family's welfare; and as a result, he placed his own immediate family in a weakened position and weakened the position of the Mendoza as a whole, by breaking up the family's ability to present a united front in times of crisis. As a result, the Mendoza received few rewards from either Fernando or the Hapsburgs.

The weaknesses that had developed within the family itself coincided with a major change in the government which made it difficult for the Mendoza (or the other nobles) to deal directly with the crown during the sixteenth century. The bureaucracy created by Enrique IV and nurtured by Fernando and Isabel became the single most effective political bloc during the years from 1504 to 1520. While the traditional political blocs of the nobility broke up into smaller, less effective units; while the Castilian monarchs were outside the country, or insane, or not recognized by the Cortes, or too ill to assume the responsibilities [174] of government, the bureaucracy plodded on with the business of the country -- collecting taxes, notarizing contracts, issuing licenses, dispensing justice, supervising municipal governments, and countersigning royal decrees. In the last three years of Fernando's life, from 1513 to 1516, when the king was too ill most of the time to do more than maintain a pretense of governing, the bureaucracy emerged decisively as the single most influential political group in the kingdom; and during the almost continuous absences of Charles, they solidified their position.

More than most nobles, Tendilla was adversely affected by the increasing powers of the bureaucracy. The strength of the great noble families in the fifteenth century, and especially of the Mendoza, was their independence of the royal government. But Tendilla could not detach himself from the royal government: he wanted to increase his fortune and therefore had to receive favors from the crown; and he was an officer of the crown and could not act independently, as the events of 1499-1500 had shown. As Fernando's health failed after 1513, his correspondence was taken over by the royal secretaries; and Tendilla lost that direct communication with the monarch which was the most important privilege of the nobility. He was in the worst possible position for a nobleman: he had to make his voice felt at court, but he could not do so in person. Instead, he had to influence these new centers of power at court -- those who held the king's pen, he called them -- and to do this he needed to use all the influence of his political powers in Granada and his connections among the nobility. Throughout the succession dispute, Tendilla had single-mindedly placed loyalty to Fernando before his own interests; and he had failed to build those alliances in Granada and Castile that would have protected his own interests. As all of Castile prepared to meet the new Hapsburg rulers of Spain, Tendilla found himself isolated and weak.

Tendilla's position became most clearly and dangerously evident in 1514-1515 when Fernando tried to collect enough political support in Castile to appoint his favorite, the duke of Alba, as regent for Charles, a violation of Isabel's will stipulating that cardinal Cisneros should act as regent after Fernando's death. Tendilla, of course, supported Fernando on this issue and pledged himself wholeheartedly to Alba. This time Tendilla had chosen the losing side. Cardinal Cisneros won the support of the nobles who had supported Philip in the succession dispute and of most of the bureaucracy. By mid-1515, even the constable and Infantado had pledged their support to Cisneros. Tendilla was left with only a handful of allies and a plethora of powerful enemies.

Tendilla's most dangerous enemy was the archbishop of Toledo, [175] cardinal Cisneros, of whom he said: "I would rather remain in the power of the Muslims and devils than the cardinal because I see him ambitious and, as you know, he always wanted to put me down and humble me during the time when the king was absent."⁽⁴⁵⁾ Much of this antagonism between Tendilla and Cisneros was based on simple rivalry between two men who wanted to have power in appointments and in military affairs. After Tendilk failed to win the bishopric of Avila for his son, Francisco, in 1514, he could not help but compare the influence his family had held when cardinal Mendoza controlled appointments and his own lack of influence with Cisneros:

I have been so disappointed and grouchy since the vacancy of Avila that I only felt like snapping like a dying horse at whoever comes near me. The truth is that where the cardinal [Cisneros] ventures forth there is nothing to say. The cardinal my uncle said to the marquise of Moya, "Tell the queen that if she gives the archbishopric of Seville to a favorite it doesn't bother me at all, but if she gives it to anyone except my nephew I will never again live at her court." Thus [the vacancy of Avila] was offered to a favorite.⁽⁴⁶⁾

Tendilla's other major enemy, the Great Captain, was also increasingly powerful in the last months of Fernando's reign, as his nephew, the marquis of Priego, and other dissident nobility attempted to reestablish control over local areas of Andalucía before a new regime could consolidate its position. Tendilla was hostile toward the Great Captain for several reasons, all arising from the incidents surrounding the Great Captain's return from Italy in 1507. Fernando had lured the Great Captain out of Italy by promising him the grand mastership of the [176] Order of Santiago and command of an expedition to Africa. Once back in Spain, the Great Captain plunged into the preparations for the African expedition, only to have Fernando cancel the whole undertaking after the men and supplies had already been collected. Instead of appointing him grand master of Santiago, Fernando made him alcaide of the fortress of Loja, just a few miles west of the city of Granada. Tendilla had hoped to receive this appointment himself, and he was angry with Fernando, not only for giving Loja to someone else but for giving it to an enemy in preference to an ally.⁽⁴⁸⁾

Among the royal secretaries, Tendilla most frequently dealt with the powerful Lope Conchillos and the rising Francisco de los Cobos, but he never trusted Conchillos to be loyal to him or to the king's interests in Granada. For some time, Tendilla was successful in bribing both Conchillos and Cobos to gain their cooperation, but in 1514 both of them raised the price of their cooperation so drastically that Tendilla was unable to meet it. For most of 1514, Tendilla tried to ingratiate himself with Conchillos with flattery, even while he was complaining bitterly to his agent Ortiz about the secretary's avarice; but when Conchillos began to advise the king about military matters in Granada, Tendilla lost all control. The idea that a bureaucrat would presume to give advice on military matters, especially one who did not know the terrain, and the disrespect toward himself which this advice implied made Tendilla furious. His pride as a nobleman and his jurisdiction as an administrator could not have been more deeply intruded upon.⁽⁴⁹⁾

When Fernando became seriously ill in the summer of 1515 Tendilla realized that in addition to the cardinal and the Great Captain all the royal secretaries had become his enemies and were trying to turn others against him. All of his favors and patronage for Cobos and all of his bribes and flattery for Conchillos had done nothing to win these men to his side when the king was at the point of death.⁽⁵⁰⁾

In addition to acquiring all these enemies in high places and low, Tendilla was in constant conflict with his cousin, the third duke of Infantado. They had chosen opposing sides in the succession disputes, and Tendilla had the lowest opinion of Infantado's judgment in political affairs. But the real source of antagonism between them was litigation over the terms of the will of their grandfather, Santillana. Infantado had taken up the claims of Tendilla's sister-in-law, Catalina Laso de la Vega, and succeeded in 1515 in obtaining a court order which prevented Tendilla's tenants from harvesting the grapes on the disputed property. To Tendilla, the enmity of Infantado was just the final straw [177] in a long series of conflicts which had left him without allies in the face of increasing dangers.

Tendilla's relations with the rest of the Mendoza family were not much better. His son-in-law, Antonio de Mendoza, count of Monteagudo, had allied himself with Infantado. His young cousin, the marquis of Cenete, had remained noncomittal throughout the succession dispute, pursuing personal interests rather than political affairs. Since Cenete was alcaide of Guadix, one of the strategic fortresses of the kingdom of Granada, Tendilla had to cooperate with him in the maintenance of public order, and especially in the policing of the highway between the cities of Guadix and Granada. But Tendilla was always suspicious of Cenete, and his spies in Guadix fed this suspicion by reporting on various occasions that Cenete was negotiating with the Great Captain, though he seems never to have committed himself to the Great Captain's party.

By late Spring in 1515, Tendilla was isolated from the sources of power in Andalucía, and when he found that Cenete was again sending messengers to Loja to negotiate with the Great Captain, he complained to Ortiz in the most despairing (but typically pungent) terms:

Now you will see what the marquis of Cenete intends in Guadix. I find myself well placed here on the cross, one hand nailed in Loja and the other in Guadix and my feet on the marquis of Priego and my head crowned by the corregidor of Granada and my side pierced by Zapata and Cobos.⁽⁵¹⁾

But this was not enough; and in the end, Tendilla had to accept [178] defeat. In his last report to Ortiz, two weeks before his own death, he instructed Ortiz to compromise with Fernando's enemies:

And they say that the duke of Infantado has allied secretly with the cardinal and they write to me from Guadalajara that they believe that the count of Coruña is secretly allied with the duke of Infantado. On my behalf say to the comendador mayor of Castile [Hernando de Vega] and even to the duke [of Alba] when you speak to him that my enmity with the duke [of Infantado] is no more than that he does not want to give what is mine, which is a light thing and that whether I give in or he pays it can be agreed that it is not a thing which impedes.... Give him to understand that I am very much for the cardinal... for I am not able to do anything and they can do harm every hour.⁽⁵³⁾

By 1515 Tendilla had outlived most of his own generation of the conquest of Granada; he had tied his own fortune to the prosperity of the kingdom of Granada; he had isolated himself geographically and politically from the rest of the Mendoza and most of the nobility; he had lost his influence with Fernando; and he had acquired powerful enemies among the bureaucracy and church hierarchy. But Tendilla's most serious political weakness grew out of his own conservative and inflexible nature. The party to which he had committed himself had become the losing party and he knew it, but he refused to change his allegiance until it was too late to bring him any advantage. Instead of lending his strength to a party that would welcome and reward it, Tendilla, by his reversal in the summer of 1515, was simply accepting a fait accompli: cardinal Cisneros, Tendilla's most hated enemy, would be regent of Castile after Fernando's death. Even the duke of Alba, whom Tendilla had supported in the hope that he would become regent, had recognized this fact, but Tendilla, like Fernando himself, admitted defeat only on the point of death.

Perplexed, angry, and frustrated, Tendilla continued until the last month of his life to believe that Fernando could save him from all of his difficulties if he could only break through the circle of "those who have the king's pen." Blinded by his exaggerated confidence in Fernando, Tendilla could not see that the king had become apathetic [179] and given up the active leadership of Alba's party. Thus isolated by geography, politics, and his own stubborn loyalty, Tendilla continued to act in a manner no longer relevant to the new realities uf Castilian politics. By following this anachronistic policy of loyalty to the last of the Trastámara monarchs, Tendilla brought about his own failure. Through this same policy, he refused to cooperate with the rest of the Mendoza and so destroyed the family's ability to act as a single political bloc in periods of crisis. Throughout his career, Tendilla had followed the patterns established by his glorious ancestors; and even after he knew that it would result in political and economic disaster, he could not bring himself to abandon the Mendoza tradition. As he ruefully confessed to the royal secretary, Francisco de los Cobos, a week before he died, "I never was able to leave aside a course of action once I took it up."⁽⁵⁵⁾

1. Unless otherwise noted, the following biographical information on Tendilla is from Mondéjar. This material is summarized in González Palencia, Vida, I, 3-44. The recent biographical sketches of Tendilla by Cepeda, "El Gran Tendilla," and Emilio Meneses García, appearing in Iñigo López de Mendoza, Correspondencia del conde de Tendilla, I (1508-1509): Biografía, estudio y transcripción, in Archivo Documental Español, vol. XXXI, Madrid, 1974; confuse Tendilla with several of his homonyms.

2. AGS, Registro General del Sello, VII-1478, f. 108, 17 July 1478.

3. Joaquín Durán y Lerchundi, La toma de Granada y caballeros que concurrieron a ella, Madrid, 1893, II, 329-347.

4. Mondéjar does not explain how Tendilla knew about the siege of Faenza. The defense of Alhama is described in Mondéjar, ff. 179-180v.

5. Salazar, M-131, fols. 232v-233; Mondéjar, ff. 184-186v; Azcona, La elección, pp. 295-296; Goñí Gastambide, "La santa sede," pp. 46-57; "Carta de los RRCC a conde de Tendilla su embajador en Roma, ordenándole que no entendiese en los pleitos que en la corte Romana seguían Pero Carrillo, vuestro cuñado e Alvaro Carrillo su hermano," Córdoba, 13 May 1486, Salazar, M-1, f. 13.

6. But the papal secretaly Johannis Burchardi noted: "et quia comes nesciebat expedite loqui latinum, protonotarii responderunt alternatis vicibus." Cited by González Palencia, Vida, I, 6.

7. "El Conde de Tendilla fué enbaxador en Roma, y estando en Florencia tomó amistad con Lorenço Médicis, el qual desseava casar una hija con un sobrino del Papa Inocencio, y el Conde lo effectuó, y de allí vino a tener el capello el que después fué Papa León," Floreto de anécdotas y noticias diversas que recopiló un fraile dominico residente en Sevilla a mediados del siglo XVI, ed. F.J. Sánchez Cantón, in Memorial Histórico Español, vol. XLVIII, pp. 32-33.

8. Eugene F. Rice, Jr., The Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 1460-1559, New York, 1970, p. 85. Mondéjar admits that other ambassadors are reported to have done these same things, but believes that they were all imitating Tendilla, f. 186v.

9. The polychrome is reproduced in Tormo, "El brote," facing p. 61.

10. "El dia Martes a Dos de Henero año 1492 vino esta ciudad de Granada a poder del Rey Don Gernando y de la Reyna doña Isabel despues de largo sitio que la tenian puesto. El mismo dia hizieron sus Alteras Alcayde, y capitan de la dicha ciudad, y fortaleza del Alhambra a Iñigo Lopez de Mendoza conde de Tendilla, y señor de Mondejar a cuyo adbitrio cometieron toda su guarda, y presidio con no despreciable numero de cavallos, e infantes, y pasados pocos dias despues se partieron sus Magestades a Cataluña, dexando al sobredicho Conde en el Alcaçar y ciudad, habitando en ella mas de veynte mil Moros." This is a note written in Tendilla's hand in Latin in the margin of a copy of Aeneus Sylvius' Historia de Bohemia, which Tendilla had brought with him from Rome. Mondéjar gives only this Spanish translation, ff. 217-217v.

11. "Quando el rey n. s. y la reina n. s. que aya gloria me mandaron dar este cargo asentaron me aqui como en nueva naturaleza y dexe la mia y deshize mi casa alla de criados de mis avuelos y de mi padre y mios y he la hecho aca con esperanza que como el rey n. s. lo ha concertado a hacer duraran estos cargos en mi y en mis subcesores para sienpre." Copiador, Tendilla to Francisco Ortiz, 10 March 1514.

12. Osuna 293/1; Salazar, M-121, f. 222v. For an example of his actions as arbitrator, see his decision in a dispute over the boundaries of the términos of the cities of Vélez Málaga and Alhama, given at Ventas del Alcaycería, Copiador, 28 January 1506. For the powers and responsibilities of the captaincy-general, see J.I. Rubio Mallé, "El concepto histórico de capitanía general," reprint from Diario de Yucatán, 19-20 March 1938; idem, Introducción al estudio de los virreyes de Nueva España, 1535 a 1746, vol. I, Orígines y jurisdicciones y dinámica social de los virreyes, Mexico, 1955, pp. 1-16.

13. I have relied on the Actas del Cabildo and the following published works for the general history of Granada in the sixteenth century: Julio Caro Baroja, Los Moriscos del reino de Granada, Madrid, 1957; Durán y Lerchundi, La toma de Granada; Francisco Bejarano, "El almirantazgo de Granada y la rebelión de Málaga en 1516," Hispania 15 (1955), 73-109; Francisco Bermúdez de Pedraza, Antigüedad y excelencias de Granada, Madrid, 1608; J.L. Cano de Gardoqul and A. de Bethencourt, "Incorporación de Gibraltar a la Corona de Castilla, 1435-1508," Hispania 26 (1966), 325-381; Juan de Mata Carriazo, "Cartas de la frontera de Granada, 1430-1509," Al-Andaluz, 11 (1946), 69- 130; Alfonso Gámir Sandoval, "Organización de la defensa de la costa del Reino de Granada desde su reconquista hasta finales del siglo XVI," Boletín de la Universidad de Granada, 73 (1943), 259-337; Kenneth Garrad, "La industria sedera granadina en el siglo XVI y su conexión con el levantamiento de las Alpujarras, 1568-1571," Miscelánea de Estudios Arabes y Hebraicos, 5 (1956), 73-104; idem, "La inquisición y los moriscos granadinos, 1526-1580," Bulletin Hispanique, 67 (1965), 67-78; idem, "The Original Memorial of Don Francisco Núñez Muley," Atlante, 2 (1954), 199-226; idem, "La renta de las habices 'de los mezquinos' de las Alpujarras y Valle de Lecrin: Algunos datos sobre su administración a mediados del siglo XVI," Miscelánea de Estudios Arabes y Hebraicos, 2 (1953), 41-48. Francisco Henríquez de Jorquera, Anales de Granada, parayso español, ed. Antonio Marín Ocete, Granada, 1934; Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, De la guerra de Granada, ed. Manuel Gómez Moreno, Memorial Histórico Español, vol. 49 Madrid, 1948; T.D. Kendrick, St. James in Spain, London, 1960; Miguel Angel Ladero Quesada, Granada: Historia de un país islámico, 1232-1571, Madrid, 1969; "La repoblación del reino de Granada anterior al año l500," Hispania, 28 (1968), 489-563; Lafuente y Alcántara, Historia de Granada; Henri Lapeyre, La Géographie de l'Espagne morisque, Paris, 1959; José Francisco de Luque, Granada y sus contornos..., Granada, 1858; Francisco Martín Hernández, Un seminario español pretridentino, el Real Colegio Ecleciástico de San Cecilio de Granada, 1492-1842, Valladolid, 1960; Erika Spivakovsky, "Some Notes on the Relations between Diego Hurtado de Mendoza and D. Alonso de Granada Venegas," Archivum, 14 (1964), 212-232; idem, Son of the Alhambra: Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, 1504-1575, Austin Texas, 1970.

14. Many of Zafra's reports to the monarchs are published in Codoín, vols. VIII and XI. On Talavera, see Tarsicio de Azcona, "El tipo ideal de obispo en la iglesia española antes de la rebelión luterana," Hispania Sacra, 11 (1958), 21-64.

15. "Vivir como 'mudéjares,' dentro de la tradición establecida en los siglos xii, xiii, y xiv sobre todo, no hubiera parecido intolerable a los granadinos. Y las dos personalidades cristianas más destacadas a las que se encargó en un principio del govierno del reino y la ciudad, don Iñigo López de Mendoza, conde de Tendilla, primer alcaide y capitán general de Granada y Fray Hernando de Talavera, su arzobispo, parecían estar dispuestas a esta clase de convivencia, de 'mudejarismo' clásico, aparte de que eran tolerantes y de carácter apacible." Caro Baroja, Los Moriscos, pp. 13-14.

16. "Del arzobispo de Toledo que nunca vió Moro, ni los conoció, no me maravillo, pero de vos, y del corregidor que tanto tiempo ha que los conoceis de no haberlo dicho." Seville, 22 December 1499, transcribed in Mondéjar, ff. 223v-224. This account of the uprising in the Albaicin is taken from the history written by Tendilla's youngest son, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, De la guerra de Granada, and has been repeated almost verbatim by all later historians. The earliest published account of the uprising, by Hernán Núñez de Toledo, lacks some of the dramatic embellishments of Mendoza's version, Prólogo to La historia de Bohemia en romance, Seville, 1509, ff. ii-iii. See also the anonymous "Relación del caso de Granada... principio de la rebelión de los moros después de la conquista (1499)," Codoin, XXXVI, 441-449; and "Minuta de carta de los RRCC a Enrique Enriquez encargándole que fuera a Granada y tratara de conformar a los arzobispos de Toledo y de Granada para que con conde de Tendilla, con el Gran Capitán, con el corregidor y con el pesquisidor, entendieran en la conversion de los moros." Seville, 3 January 1500, BN, MS 226/137.

17. "Yo nunca estuve mal con corregidor ninguno de los pasados antes muy bien con todos ellos hasta que vino el pesquisidor y este corregidor." Copiador, Tendilla to Ortiz, 12 June 1515.

18. "E non fagades apuntamiento diciendo que la Inquisition es otro jurisdiccion porque todo es nuestro." Cited by A. Cotarelo y Valledor, Fray Diego de Deza. Ensayo biográfico, Madrid, 1902, p. 149.

19. "Suplico a y. m. me haga saber que hizo el termino que esperavedes, y si Dios ordenare otra cosa de lo que quemamos, hazed vos señor y la señora doña Isabel a cuyas manos beso la que hadamos la condesa y yo que perdimos dos hijos en una semana y tres hijas y otro hijo en pocos dias y despues a los señores dos cardenales y a mi hermano don Pedro y a hermanos de la condesa y consolavamonos el uno con el otro que no hay ninguna otra consolacion." Copiador, Tendilla to don Iñigo Manrique, 22 April 1514. Tendilla often used his own losses and his own stoic conduct as an example in consoling friends. When the royal secretary Miguel Pérez de Ahnazán died, he wrote to Conchillos: "No se que os diga sino que mires a mi que perdi a mi tio y mi hermano cardenales y despues a my muger y trabajo por vivir." Copiador, Tendilla to Conchillos, 5 May 1514.

20. The only historian to treat this internal history in detail is Azcona, Isabel, pp. 709-742.

21. The constable, Pedro Fernández de Velasco, and the adelantado of Andalucía, Pedro Enríquez, in January; Enrique de Guzmán, duke of Medina Sidonia, and his rival, Rodrigo Ponce de León, marquis of Cádiz, in August; Pedro de Stúñiga, count of Miranda, in September; and Beltrán de la Cueva, duke of Alburquerque, in October. Miguel Lafuente y Alcántara, Historia de Granada, comprendiendo la de sus cuatro provincias Almería, Jaén, Granada, y Málaga, desde remotos tiempos hasta nuestros días, Paris, 1852, II, 344n.

22. Many of these arguments are summed up by Zurita and repeated by Mondéjar, ff. 231v-232v.

23. "Yñigo Lopez fue fisico de la señora reyna doña Juana tia de y. al. y sirvio la con mucha lealtad y mucho tienpo." Copiador, Tendilla to the king of Portugal, 30 April 1514; "Yñigo Lopez mi fisico ya sabes señor como es loco y si no lo sabes sabeldo. Es muy cobdicioso y fantaseo se le que agora puede cobrar 100,000 que le deve la hija de la reyna de quando fue su fisico. Dijo me que quiere ir alla a cobrarlos di le una carta para el rey de Portugal." Copiador, Tendilla to Vargas, 12 May 1514.

24. "Y tambien le dezid que en esto de las galeras no osa onbre hablar a su al. como a la reyna nuestra señora que aya gloria." Copiador, Tendilla to Ortiz, 6 April 1514.

25. At one point during Fernando's illness, he instructed Ortiz to tell the court that he (Tendilla) "ni va a cabildo ni entiende en negocio chico ni grande ni habla a nuevamente convertido ninguno ni los consiente que saban a el manera que acaesce estar xv dias que no abaxa abaxo e tres y quatro que no sale de un estudio y de su camara." Copiador, Tendilla to Ortiz, 23 March 1514 "Pesado me ha porque v.m. no esta sano porque quisiera ir a comer los pollos y anades de Cazalla y si estais para ello todo es tres dias de tardanza en que podamos ir daca y v.m. venir de alla sino que creo que es como el azor quando sopesa a la perdiz que no quiere esperar a quien le quiere cojer y por esta no querra v.m. volver. De la corte no se nada sino que el rey n.s. andava a monte en Ventosilla y en la torre del monte que es cabo Aranda. Otros decian que habla poca caza y que se tornaran presente." Copiador, Tendilla to Rodrigo Mexia, 13 October 1514; Tendilla to the comendador mayor de Castilla, 14 June 1515; Tendilla to Juan Hurtado de Mendoza, 1 September 1514; Tendilla to Rodrigo Mexia, 16 June 1515; Tendilla to the comendador mayor de Castilla, 14 June 1515; Tendilla to Femando, 13 June 1515.

26. This attitude is the basis of his complaints about not receiving favors. For example: "Digo asi que yo tengo la necesidad que Dios y el mundo sabe y cada dia vendo mi hacienda para comer y por esto es me necesario y forzado que no puedo hacer otra cosa. Suplico a su al. que me mande dar de tomar como lo da a otros que tienen cargos." Copiador, Tendilla to Ortiz, 6 September 1514.

27. "Yo en todo el mundo no tengo en este reyno arrimo ny ayuda ninguna sino la vida del rey ny esperanza en onbre de Flandes ny de Alemaña porque nunca vieron carta mia ny unas recomiendos y que solo al duque d'Alba me he ofrecido de servir y seguir y el segundo es el a quien tengo de mirar como a señor verdadero y que por esto me parece que puedo y devo seguramente pedille por merced." Copiador, Tendilla to Ortiz, 7 July 1515.

28. "Que no espera poder mucho los principes que no aviendo mas de una parcialidad en sus pueblos quieren hacer dos o señal que no se fian de la parte que tienen por suya quando le resucitan otra contraria." Copiador, Tendilla to the comendador mayor de Castilla, 14 May 1515.

29. Copiador, Tendilla to the bishop of Málaga, 15 August 1514; Tendilla to Francisco Ortiz, 6 October 1514.

30. "He tenydo pena y congoxa y a me pesado mucho del enojo que en vuestra casa a avido." Tendilla to Hernando de Córdoba, 29 June 1508, printed in Cepeda, "Un aspecto de la correspondencia," p. 74; Copiador, Tendilla to Ortiz, 7 July 1515.

31. "Porque lo quel buen servidor ha de hacer es conformarse en la voluntad de su señor y no espere su alteza que jamas yo le tengo de enbiar a decir de nadie que no haze lo que deve porque no he ganado yo los enemigos que tengo de otra manera syno diziendo verdad y dando su alteza mis cartas y memoriales a los que por ello me querrian destruir." Copiador, Tendilla to Ortiz, 5 December 1514.

32. "Que yo estoy aqui peleando por su al. con su al. mismo." Copiador, Tendilla to Ortiz, 7 July 1515.

33. "De donde vienen los hechos han de venir los consejos." Copiador, Tendilla to the alcaide de los donceles, 10 June 1506.

34. Bermúdez de Pedraza, Antigüedad, pp. 16, 132-141. Bermúdez was a judge of the chancillería of Granada in the seventeenth century.

35. "Si dicen que soy absoluto digan que he hecho. Si dicen que robo digan como o en que. Tanbien me dicen que Peñaranda ha confirmado alla quantos males se dicen de mi y a dicho diabluras y aca lo han escrito. Juro por Dios que no oso ir a la casa de los oidores como solia ni al president tantas veces porque no digan que los traigo por el oreja. Con todo eso no dexes de decir que si me ponen en el monte con venados y puercos jabalies les hare hacer algo de lo que quisiere y no hay ningund onbre cuerdo que no haga otro tanto." Copiador, Tendilla to Ortiz, 6 October 1514.

36. "Costunbre es que los amigos quando saben alguna buena nueva la digan a sus amigos porque ayan placer. El rey don Fernando y el rey don Felipe y la reyna doña Juana n.s. estan juntos y amigos como Dios y la razon requiere que esten padres y hijos." From a speech Tendilla made to the Muslims of the Albaicín, reported in his letter to don Luis, Copiador, [3 July] 1506.

37. "A buen seso a de servir el principe a su ayudo y su ayudo pues le ha de heredar a de trabajar por dexar le el mayor señor del mundo." Copiador, Tendilla to Ortiz, 7 July 1515.

38. This account of the succession crisis is based on Geronimo Zurita y Castro, Anales de la corona de Aragón [Zaragoza, 1578-1585], vol. VI; Fernández Alvarez, La España de los Reyes Católicos, vol. 17: 2; Konrad Häbler, Der Streit Ferdinand's des Katholischen und Philipp's I um die Regierung von Castilien, 1504-1506, Dresden, 1882; Cano de Gardoquí, "Incorporación de Gibraltar." Tendilla's activity during the succession crisis is described in Mondéjar, ff. 225v-239. My interpretation of the attitudes of the nobility in this crisis is based on the following documents from Osuna and Salazar, and differs in many important points from that of Elliott, Imperial Spain, pp. 133-142. "Confederación y alianza original... que hicieron don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza hijo mayor de don Iñigo López de Mendoza duque del Infantado... de una parte y de la otra don Alonso Pimentel conde de Benavente." Benavente, 12 December 1499, Osuna, 1860/23; "Confederación original que hicieron don Bernardino de Velasco, condestable de Castilla... y doña Mencia de la Vega, su prima." n.p., [1500], Osuna, 1860/24; "Confederación y amistad original que hicieron don Francisco de la Cueva, duque de Alburquerque... y don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza y Luna, duque del Infantado." Cuellar, 26 September 1501, Osuna 1860/25; "Carta de Diego Pérez a Fernando el Católico comunicándole diversas noticias relacionadas con el conde de Tendilla, el adelantado de Murcia, y el marqués de Villena," Jumilla, 24 July 1505, BN, MS 20.214 (11); Copiador, Tendilla to Francisco Ortiz, 7 July 1515.

39. "Escritura otorgada por Iñigo López de Mendoza, conde de Tendilla, por la que hace pleito homenaje por la fortaleza de la Alhambra de Granada a los reyes Felipe I y doña Juana," Granada, 29 August 1506, Salazar, M-23, f. 106.

40. "Instrucción que se envió a los procuradores de cortes de Granada y su reyno, Copiador, [September] 1506.

41. Duque de Baena y de San Lúcar la Mayor, "El Gran Capitán y el maestrazgo de Santiago," Hispania, 13 (1953), 189-194; "Escritura original que hicieron y otorgaron los condes de Cifuentes y Fuensalida... porque el señor duque del Infantado movido con buen celo de dar paz entre ellos y la dicha ciudad se lo enbió arrogar con don Antonio de Mendoza tío del dicho duque y con Pero Gómez, señor de la villa de Pros, dijeron que davan su fe al dicho duque y hacían pleito omenaje en manos del dicho don Antonio de Mendoza, de que guardaran la dicha paz." Toledo, 28 February 1307, Osuna, 1860/26. "Provisión del consejo de Castilla, en nombre de la reina doña Juana, para que el conde de Tendilla prenda a Antonio Manrique," Palencia, 5 May 507, Salazar, M-131, ff. 238v-239.

42. "Escritura de reclamación original que hizo y otorgó don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, duque del Infantado," Burgos, 29 October 1507, Osuna 1860/27. Here Infantado reveals his hard-headed and materialistic motives for having supported Femando. It is only in these rare statements of renunciation that the nobility stated their material motives: the treaties of alliance and allegiance continue to claim the most exalted and patriotic motives in their wording, just as Infantado here claims that be is going to serve and follow Charles as his prince and natural lord because he is the legitimate heir to the throne. During Fernando's final illness, Infantado and his eldest son (Iñigo López de Mendoza, conde de Saldaña) signed a treaty of friendship with Juan de Aragón, duque de Luna (Aragon), and Alonso de Aragón, conde de Rivagorza. "to better serve the king," who is not named but is clearly Charles. Luna, 3 December 1515, Osuna, 1860/28. Note that Infantado is here allying with Fernando's Aragonese relatives, who would hardly have felt the sentiments of "many Castilian nobles, who hated Ferdinand as a strong ruler and also as a Catalan." Elliott, Imperial Spain, p. 135. See also "Confederación... entre [el] duque del Infantado y D. Diego de Cárdenas, adelantado de Granada," Guadalajara, 3 February 1516, Osuna 1860, no number; "Confederación entre... Infantado y Iñigo de Velasco, condestable de Castilla," Berlanga, 12 August 1516, Osuna, 1860/29; "Confederación entre... Infantado y don Alvaro de Zuñiga, duque de Béjar," Guadalajara, 18 September 1516, Osuna, 1860, no number.

43. Copiador, Tendilla to Ortiz, 7 July 1515. "Carta del rey dirigida a todas las ciudades de Andalucía para que asistan en lo que necesitase marqués de Mondéjar que se disponía por su orden a dar posesión de sus estados al duque de Medina Sidonia," Salazar, M-131, ff. 205v-206; "Doña Juana... manda al marqués Iñigo López de Mendoza... que vaia a poner en la posesión de la casa y estado de Medina Sidonia a don Alonso Pérez de Guzmán... y para ello llebe todas las gentes de pie, y de caballo que fuere menester según que mas largamente se contiene en las cartas y poderes que sobre ello le mande dar," Medina del Campo, 9 March 1513 Salazar, M-131, f. 205v; "Carta del rey Femando V al corregidor de Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz) ordenándole que ayude a marqués de Mondéjar dar posesión de los estados de su casa a[l] duque de Medina Sidonia por fallecimiento de su hermano." Medina del Campo, 22 February 1513, Salazar, M-1, 13v.

44. Tendilla was aware of this pattern and complained about it in 1508: "Como se sabe cierto que he de servir asy, asy y asy ponenme en la baraja." Tendilla to Gonzalo del Campo, 30 June 1508, printed in Cepeda, "Andalucía en 1508," p. 77.

45. "Yo querria mas quedar en poder de los moros y de los diablos que del cardenal porque yo le veo ambicioso y como vos sabes sienpre deseo abatir me y abaxar me en el tiempo quei rey estuvo ausente." Copiador, Tendilla to Francisco Ortiz, 7 July 1515.

46. "Esto tan desesperado y regañado despues de la vacante de Avila que no querria syno morder a quantos llegan a mi como haca matada. Verdad es que donde el cardenal se atraviesa no hay que decir. Dixo el cardenal mi tio a la marquesa de Moya, 'Dezi a la reyna que si da el arzobispado de Sevilla a privado no me da nada. Mas si lo da a otro sino a mi sobrino [Tendilla's brother], nunca mas viviera en su corte.' Asi que a privado se dio en ofrecimientos. Ni para v.s. ni para mi no tengo cauza ninguna ni fago otra cuenta sino que v.s. medrara para quien es y my hijo para quien fuere." Copiador, Tendilla to the bishop of Málaga, 9 August 1514.

47. When Ortiz, on Tendilla's orders, tried to speak to the cardinal about easing the financial burdens of the Moriscos, the cardinal replied that "era muy malo dexarllos ser moros." Tendilla denied the implication that he, by supporting the Moriscos' request to wear Arabic clothing without financial penalties, was giving the Moriscos license to remain Muslims. Copiador, Tendilla to Francisco Ortiz, 23 March 1514.

48. The twenty-five letters published by Cepeda in "Andalucía en 1508," were written immediately after Loja was given to the Great Captain. On the basis of these letters, Cepeda has concluded that Tendilla was simply supporting the protests of the citizens of Loja that they were being cut off from the royal power and being turned over to the whims of a nobleman (p. 58), and that Tendilla's gracious letters of congratulation to the Great Captain indicate a sincere desire to establish friendly relations with this powerful neighbor (p. 57). But these letters to the Great Captain and other officials in Andalucía must be taken with a grain of salt, since Tendilla's letters to Ortiz, where he expresses his true feelings, show that he hated the Great Captain and was envious of his royal favors.

49. "Escrevi[d]me si tomo el secretario [Conchillos] el vasillo que yo os juro a Dios tomandole o no sea la postre mas porque no diga que le tengo por cobdicioso." Copiador, Tendilla to Francisco Ortiz, [April 1514]; "Seria bien que su alteza nola diese [Tendilla's letter] a Conchillos porque es descubierta la celada que me quexo en ella de ese rapaz de Cobos aunque no le nonbro." 10 May 1515; "Se que don Miguel [de León] del conde de Ureña es y dineros le da y a mi hace Conchillos desservidor del rey y aun enemigo." 10 March 1514; "Nunca vi cosa mas donoso que ver el esgremir que hace el [Conchillos] que dio el memorial y decir que ha de guardar fuentes y rios y veredas y aguas que aquello es tan imposible hacerse con ninguna gente de guerra como bolar un buey quanto mas con docientos onbres. Maravillo me quien oso dar tal memorial a su al. y para que lo viesen esos señores que entienden en las cosas de guerra." Tendilla to Francisco de los Cobos, 12 August 1514; "Nunca vi cosa tan vana ni tal trastras, diciendo cosas imposibles de hacer por Dios que no se guarde todo el reyno con quadrillas de mill y quinientos onbres y que ellos roben y destruian mas que los Moros y alli andara la cosa a saber si lo avian hecho los contrarios o los amigos. Yo maravillado estoy porque donde hay capitan general no se les dice, 'Tomad tanta gente,' y 'Tened esta orden y esa,' y 'Buscad quien lo haga,' sino que de alla enbien el capitan y le den la orden como si yo fuese bestia o onbre que acostunbrase estarme hilando." Tendilla to Francisco Ortiz, 12 August 1514.

50. "Basta que Conchillos y Cobos acuerdan sy el rey muriese o le acaesciese algo semejante a lo de la otra vez de dexarme condenado con los vecinos y con los de la cibdad y enemigo no yendo les otro ynterese en ello syno el que todo el mundo vee. Aviendo yo hecho por Cobos mas que ningun del reyno porque yo le hize dar la contaduria de Granada y yo le di lo del campo de Dalias a pesar de todos yo le di agora la procuracion y le he hecho otras buenas obras que no cuento aqui.... Al señor comendador mayor de Calatrava dezi leeys con quanto estudio trabajan Conchillos y Cobos y Zapata por su parte por enemistarme con estos en quien tengo parte." Copiador, Tendilla to Francisco Ortiz, 7 July 1515.

51. "Ay veres en que entiende el marques del Zenete en Guadix. Yo estoy bien que esto[y] en la cruz la una mano enclavada en Loja y la otra en Guadix y los pies en el marques de Pliego y la cabeza coronada del corregidor de Granada y el costado abierto por Zapata y Cobos." Copiador, Tendilia to Francisco Ortiz, 12 May 1515.

52. "En tal caso el no podia fallecer a los de Mendoza porque la casa era toda una que me lo hazia saber." Copiador, Tendilla to Francisco Ortiz, 7 July 1515. Tendilla himself was not devoid of such family feeling. He voted for his cousin Bernardino Suárez de Mendoza, count of Coruña, in an election to fill the trezenazgo of the Order of Santiago vacated by the death of the royal secretary, Miguel Pérez de Almazán. Copiador, Tendilla to Femando, 15 May 1514.

53. "Aves de saber que se an juntado el Gran Capitan y el marques de Villena y el almirante y no se sy el condestable y tanbien dizen que de secreto el duque del Infantado con el cardenal y escriven me de Guadalajara que creen quel conde de Coruña esta de secreto concertado con el duque del Infantado y porque porventura al duque Dalva por algund concierto que terna con el duque del Infantado se le hara algo grave el mostrase muy claro por mi dires al comendador mayor de Castilla aun al duque cuando le hablardes que mi enemistad con el duque no es syno sobre que no me quieren dar lo mio ques cosa liviana y que o callando yo o pagando el lijeramente se puede concertar que aquello no es cosa que enpacha y all almirante que como veres en su carta del conde de Coruña ha escrito al conde y es mucho del cardenal dalde a entender que yo soy mucho del cardenal y al comendador mayor dezilde la verdad tanbien al de Calatrava como al de Castilla y aun sy os paresciere aunque no ayays de dar la carta larga a Conchillos mostralda al comendador mayor y dezi que no la quieres dar por no enemistar me pues yo no puedo hacer nada y ellos pueden dañar cada ora." Copiador, Tendilla to Francisco Ortiz, 7 July 1515, postscript.

54. "Ellos [his sons] y yo le serviremos que aun no soy muerto ni esto de intencion de morir me hasta que entierre otros pocos de los que me quieren mal con los que he enterrado." Copiador, Tendilla to Alba, 2 December 1514.

55. "Nunca supe dexar el camino que una vez comence a andar." Copiador, Tendilla to Francisco de los Cobos, 7 July 1515.