By the tenor of these acts the royal authority would seem to have been virtually vested in Juana. From this moment, however, Philip assumed the government into his own hands. The effects were soon visible in the thorough revolution introduced into every department. Old incumbents in office were ejected without ceremony, to make way for new favourites. The Flemings, in particular, were placed in every considerable post, and the principal fortresses of the kingdom intrusted to their keeping. The style of living at the court was on the most thoughtless scale of wasteful expenditure. The public revenues, notwithstanding liberal appropriations by the late cortes, were wholly unequal to it. To supply the deficit, offices were sold to the highest bidder. The income drawn from the silk manufactures of Granada, which had been appropriated to defray King Ferdinand’s pension, was assigned by Philip to one of the royal treasurers. Fortunately, Ximenes obtained possession of the order and had the boldness to tear it in pieces. He then waited on the young monarch, and remonstrated with him on the recklessness of measures which must infallibly ruin his credit with the people. Philip yielded in this instance. All this could not fail to excite disgust and disquietude throughout the nation. The most alarming symptoms of insubordination began to appear in different parts of the kingdom. In Andalusia, in particular, a confederation of the nobles was organised, with the avowed purpose of rescuing the queen from the duress in which it was said she was held by her husband. At the same time the most tumultuous scenes were exhibited in Cordova, in consequence of the high hand with which the Inquisition was carrying matters there. Members of many of the principal families, including persons of both sexes, had been arrested on the charge of heresy. This sweeping proscription provoked an insurrection, countenanced by the marquis of Priego, in which the prisons were broken open, and Lucero, an inquisitor who had made himself deservedly odious by his cruelties, narrowly escaped falling into the hands of the infuriated populace. The grand inquisitor, Deza, archbishop of Seville, the steady friend of Columbus, though his name is unhappily registered on some of the darkest pages of the tribunal, was so intimidated as to resign his office. The whole affair was referred to the royal council by Philip, whose Flemish education had not predisposed him to any reverence for the institution; a circumstance which operated quite as much to his prejudice, with the more bigoted part of the nation, as his really exceptional acts. The minds of the wise and the good were filled with sadness, as they listened to the low murmurs of popular discontent, which seemed to be gradually swelling into strength for some terrible convulsion; and they looked back with fond regret to the halcyon days which they had enjoyed under the temperate rule of Ferdinand and Isabella.