In the following year died Tavera, archbishop of Toledo. He was an excellent man, and greatly valued by the emperor; who may be thought to have passed a sufficient encomium on his worth when he declared, that "by his death Philip had suffered a greater loss than by that of Mary; for he could get another wife, but not another Tavera." His place was filled by Siliceo, Philip's early preceptor, who, after having been raised to the archiepiscopal see of Toledo, received a cardinal's hat from Rome. The accommodating spirit of the good ecclesiastic had doubtless some influence in his rapid advancement from the condition of a poor teacher in Salamanca to the highest post,--as the see of Toledo, with its immense revenues and authority, might be considered,--next to the papacy, in the Christian Church. For some years, no event of importance occurred to disturb the repose of the Peninsula. But the emperor was engaged in a stormy career abroad, in which his arms were at length crowned with success by the decisive battle of Muhlberg. This victory, which secured him the person of his greatest enemy, placed him in a position for dictating terms to the Protestant princes of Germany. He had subsequently withdrawn to Brussels, where he received an embassy from Philip, congratulating him on the success of his arms. Charles was desirous to see his son, from whom he had now been separated nearly six years. He wished, moreover, to introduce him to the Netherlands, and make him personally acquainted with the people over whom he was one day to rule. He sent instructions, accordingly, to Philip, to repair to Flanders, so soon as the person appointed to relieve him in the government should arrive in Castile. The individual selected by the emperor for this office was Maximilian, the son of his brother Ferdinand. He was a young man of good parts, correct judgment, and popular manners,--well qualified, notwithstanding his youth, for the post assigned to him. He was betrothed, as already mentioned, to the emperor's eldest daughter, his cousin Mary; and the regency was to be delivered into his hands on the marriage of the parties. Philip received his father's commands while presiding at the cortes of Monzon. He found the Aragonese legislature by no means so tractable as the Castilian. The deputies from the mountains of Aragon and from the sea-coast of Catalonia were alike sturdy in their refusal to furnish further supplies for those ambitious enterprises, which, whatever glory they might bring to their sovereign, were of little benefit to them. The independent people of these provinces urged their own claims with a pertinacity, and criticized the conduct of their rulers with a bluntness, that was little grateful to the ear of majesty. The convocation of the Aragonese cortes was, in the view of the king of Spain, what the convocation of a general council was in that of the pope,--a measure not to be resorted to but from absolute necessity.