nterey had given the people a sort of military constitution, as he
divided them into companies according to the quarters of the town, which
resembled those _Hermandades_ which the Archbishop of Tortosa, afterward
Pope Adrian VI, formed in the time of Charles V in Spain, and that
afterward caused an insurrection of the Communeros. This practice in the
forms of war was now of use to the insurgents, and when on the second
morning some of the working classes and mechanics, and persons indeed
that belonged to a higher class of citizens, joined themselves to the
actual mob, thinking to obtain a better government in consequence of the
insurrection, the danger increased. The two principal leaders were
Domenico Perrone, formerly a captain of sbirri, and Masaniello, whom the
people about the market-place and the Lavinaro and its vicinity had
chosen: but Giulio Genuino conducted the whole affair by his counsel.

A formal council of war was held in Castelnuovo. The Viceroy was quite
aware that the utmost he could do with his few troops would be to defend
these fortresses of the town against the people, but that he could not
subdue them. He was, moreover, reluctant to make use of fire-arms, as
the insurgents proclaimed aloud everywhere their loyalty to the King. So
he resolved to open a negotiation, to regain his lost ground, or at
least to gain time.

The Duke of Arcos has been accused of having, even in these early
moments, conceived the plan to push the nobles forward, with the view to
make them more hateful than ever to the populace, and thus to annihilate
their influence completely, a policy that was so much the more knavish
the more faithfully the nobles had stood by him during these last
eventful twenty-four hours, at the peril of their own lives. Whatever
his plan may have been, the result was the same; whether the idea
proceeded from the Duke of Arcos, or his successor, the Count of Onate,
the insurrection of 1647 caused the ruin of the aristocracy.

The Prince of Montesarchio was the first whom the Viceroy sent as a
messenger of peace. The name of D'Avalos was through Pescara and Del
Vasto closely associated with the warlike fame of the times of Charles
V. His reputation had been brilliant from the period of the Moorish wars
until now. Great possessions secured him great influence in many parts
of the kingdom. Montesarchio rode to the market-place provided with a
written promise of the Viceroy's touching the abolition of