ernor with his niece.[1] Detaining the messengers and their papers by deferred promises and other measures,[2] he filled the royal ear with the most damaging charges against them and their party in behalf of his protégé.
Velazquez had meanwhile been taking testimony against Cortés, and had sent treasurer Guzman to Spain with documents and instructions to join Martin in pressing his suit before the bishop.[3]
Charles V. had been elected emperor, and was busy in Spain raising supplies and making preparations on a vast scale for presenting an appearance in Germany befitting so high a dignity. Previous to embarking for Flanders he was to meet the cortes at Compostela. The messengers from New Spain could afford to lose no more time, and so with the aid of Puertocarrero's friends and the men opposed to Fonseca, among them the Licenciado Nuñez, relator of the royal council and related to Cortés, they slipped away, and in company with Alaminos and Martin Cortés, managed to be presented to the monarch at
- ↑ Doña Mayor de Fonseca. El obispo de Búrgos . . . por la muerte del Gran Chaneiller . . . tornó á alear y á ser principal.' Las Casas, Hist. Ind., v. 2; Herrera, dec. ii. lib. iii. cap. xi.; Zúñiga, Anales Ecles. Sevilla, 414.
- ↑ The bishop of Búrgos, then at Valladolid, spoke so harshly to Puertocarrero that the latter ventured to remonstrate, and demand that their messages be forwarded to the king. A charge was now raked up against Puertocarrero of having three years before carried off a woman from Medellin to the Indies, and for this he was cast into prison. Bernal Diaz., Hist. Verdad., 28; Vetancvrt, Teatro Mex., pt. iii. 119.
- ↑ Guzman appears to have started in October from Cuba, when Narvaez' expedition against Cortés had already begun to be fitted out. Carta de Velazquez, Oct. 12, 1519, in Col. Doc. Inéd., i. 472-3; Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., xii. 246-51; Carta al Figueroa, in Icazbalceta, Col. Doc., i. 402; Las Casas, Hist. Ind., v. 2. His appeal to the Jeronimite Fathers, says Bernal Diaz, met only with rebuff. They considered that Cortés had done well to send so rich a present to the king. Le embiaron al Diego Velazquez â Cuba â vn Licenciado que se dezia Zuazo para que le tomasse residencia Uelazquez, se congoxó mucho mas, y como de antes era muy gordo, se paró flaco en aquellos dias.' Hist. Verdad., 38. Martin petitioned the bishop for the repair and return of the messengers' vessel to Velazquez, together with another vessel, both to carry reinforcements to the Indies. This was needed, partly to prevent the possible conflict between Cortés' party and the expedition fitting out under Velazquez to support the men he had already sent under Cortés as his lieutenant. Memorial, in Col. Doc. Inéd., i. 407-9.
