Burgos, and what further happened._

The reader must have seen, from what I have stated in former chapters,
that the bishop of Burgos and archbishop of Rosano, Don Juan Rodriguez
de Fonseca, favoured Diego Velasquez in every way, and that, on the
other hand, he took every opportunity of thwarting the designs of Cortes
and of all of us. But now, by divine permission of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the holy father Adrian[35] was elected Pope in the year 1521;
and as this happened at the time he was governor of Spain, our agents
repaired to the town of Vittoria, where he was then residing, to kiss
his holiness's feet. There arrived with them, at the same time, in
Vittoria, a German gentleman of distinction named La Chau,[36] who had
been despatched thither by the emperor to congratulate the new Pope. As
this gentleman had heard a great deal of the heroic deeds of Cortes and
his troops, how we had conquered New Spain, what great and memorable
services we had rendered to his majesty, and of the many thousands of
Indians we had converted to Christianity, he supplicated his holiness to
investigate the matter of dispute between Cortes and the bishop of
Burgos. To this his holiness consented, and he immediately took the
matter in hand, which he did the more earnestly, as the complaints of
our agents had emboldened several other men of distinction to prefer
charges of injustice and oppression against the bishop. This bishop was,
upon the whole, detested, as, in his capacity of president of the
council of the Indies, during the emperor's absence in Flanders, he had
governed in the most arbitrary manner; notwithstanding this, it was a
matter of no small difficulty for our agents to reject him as the judge
in our own affairs.

Francisco de Montejo, Diego de Ordas, the licentiate Francisco Nunez,
and Martin Cortes, were purposely staying at Valladolid to wait an
opportunity of preferring their charges against the bishop. In this
place they found great protection and favour from several distinguished
cavaliers and grandees of the court, particularly from the duke of
Bejar, so that our agents were emboldened to maintain with great
firmness that they could not acknowledge the bishop as judge in their
affairs, for which they gave the following reasons:

Firstly. Diego Velasquez had given the bishop of Burgos a very lucrative
commendary in Cuba, the gold mines of which the former worked with the
inhabitants of the island, and sent the prod