Francisco Pizarro, though affecting to be shocked at the death of Almagro, cannot be acquitted of all share in it.  So, indeed, the followers of Almagro thought, and they were goaded to still further hatred of the Pizarros by the poverty and contempt in which they now lived, as the survivors of a discredited party.  The house of Almagro’s son in Lima formed a centre of disaffection, to whose menace Pizarro showed remarkable blindness.  He paid dearly for this excessive confidence, for on Sunday, the 26th of June, 1541, he was attacked while sitting in his own house among his friends, and killed.

IV.—­Later Fortunes of the Conquerors

The death of Pizarro did not prove in any sense a guarantee of peace among the Spaniards in Peru.  At the time of his death, indeed, an envoy from the Spanish court was on his way to Peru, who from his integrity and wisdom might indeed have given rise to a hope that a happier day was about to dawn.  He was endowed with powers to assume the governorship in the event of Pizarro’s death, as well as instructions to bring about a more peaceful settlement of affairs.  He arrived to find himself indeed the lawful governor, but had before him the task of enforcing his authority.  This brought him into collision with the son of Almagro, at the head of a strong party of his father’s followers.  A bloody battle took place on the plains of Chupas, in which Vaca de Castro was victorious.  Almagro was arrested at Cuzco and executed.

The history of the Spanish dominion now resolves itself into the history of warring factions, the chief hero of which was Gonzalo Pizzaro, one of the brothers of the great Pizarro.  The Spaniards in Peru felt themselves deeply injured by the publication of regulations from Spain, by which a sudden check was put upon their spoliation and oppression of the natives, which had reached an extreme pitch of cruelty and destructiveness.  They called upon Gonzalo to lead them in vindication of what they regarded as their privileges by right of conquest and of their service to the Spanish crown.  His hands were strengthened by the rash and high-handed behaviour of, Blasco Nunez Vela, yet another official sent out from Spain to deal with this turbulent province.  Pizarro himself was an able and daring leader, and, at least in his earlier years, of a chivalrous spirit which made him beloved of his soldiers.  He had great personal courage, and, as says one who had often seen him, “when mounted on his favourite charger, made no more account of a squadron of Indians than of a swarm of flies.”  He was soon acclaimed as governor by the Spaniards, and was actually supreme in Peru.  But in the following year, 1545, the Spanish government selected an envoy who was to bring the now ascendant star of Pizarro to eclipse.  This was an ecclesiastic named Pedro de la Gasea, a man of great resolution, penetration, and knowledge of affairs.  After varying fortunes, in which Pizarro for some time held his own, he was routed by