The king, without delay, took the road to Valladolid; but on arriving at that capital, whether depressed by his late disaster, or from his habitual dislike of such empty parade, he declined the honors, with which the loyal inhabitants would have greeted the return of their sovereign to his dominions. Here he was cordially welcomed by his sister, the Regent Joanna, who, long since weary of the cares of sovereignty, resigned the sceptre into his hands, with a better will than that with which most persons would have received it. Here, too, he had the satisfaction of embracing his son Carlos, the heir to his empire. The length of Philip's absence may have allowed him to see some favorable change in the person of the young prince, though, if report be true, there was little change for the better in his disposition, which, headstrong and imperious, had already begun to make men tremble for the future destinies of their country. Philip had not been many days in Valladolid when his presence was celebrated by one of those exhibitions, which, unhappily for Spain, maybe called national. This was an _auto da fé_, not, however, as formerly, of Jews and Moors, but of Spanish Protestants. The Reformation had been silently, but not slowly, advancing in the Peninsula; and intelligence of this, as we have already seen, was one cause of Philip's abrupt departure from the Netherlands. The brief but disastrous attempt at a religious revolution in Spain is an event of too much importance to be passed over in silence by the historian. [Sidenote: THE REFORMED DOCTRINES.]