But in the meanwhile a much more serious conflict had taken place between the King and the offended Cortes of Valencia at Monzon. There for weeks the King was kept waiting. The clergy and popular estates were bribed and frightened {165} into promising to vote the amount demanded; but, deaf to the King's anger and the violent threats of Olivares, the landed gentlemen's estate obstinately stood out. The expulsion of the Moriscos, their best tenants, they said, had ruined them, and they could not pay. Philip, in a formal document, almost raved at their obstinacy, and on one occasion said that there could not have been loyal gentlemen amongst them, or they would have stabbed a particularly bold speaker who advocated resistance. It was necessary that the three estates should vote together, and that the decision should be unanimous; and at length, in the face of open threats, the vote was cast as the King demanded, with the exception that one member, Don Francisco Millan, obstinately held out. He ought to be garroted, said one of Philip's secretaries, and at the alarmed persuasion of his colleagues he gave way. But then other difficulties were raised. The estates could not agree amongst themselves as to their shares of the vote, but after much wrangling promised to contribute in material, but not in money, one half as much as the Aragonese paid. This did not suit Philip, and fresh trouble, more acute than ever, arose. The Cortes asked the King to stay in Monzon twelve days more, whilst the Cortes remained in legislative session; to which request the King replied by a haughty intimation that he should leave next day, and that the matter of the vote of supply must be settled within half an hour, which, taking out his watch, he told the deputation had already begun. This message fell like a thunderbolt upon the Cortes, which had not yet even discussed any legislation. Some were for {166} defiance, and an immediate dissolution of the assembly without voting or discussion on any subject. All night long they sat, considering this grave crisis in their national history, and at six in the morning a messenger from the King entered the chamber, and told the members that his Majesty had decided to punish them by abolishing their famous right of _nemine discrepante_, by which no vote of supply could be enforced unless it was unanimous. In future, he said, a bare majority would suffice, and he was leaving for Barcelona at once.