420 XIMENES. PART II. Displeasure of the sove- reigns. Ximenes hastens to court. had the effect to restore tranquillity among the peo- ple, who, laying aside their hostile preparations, returned once more to their regular employments. ^^ The rumor of the insurrection, in the mean while, with the usual exaggeration, reached Seville, where the court was then residing. In one respect rumor did justice, by imputing the whole blame of the affair to the intemperate zeal of Ximenes. That personage, with his usual promptness, had sent early notice of the affair to the queen by a ne- gro slave uncommonly fleet of foot. But the fel- low had become intoxicated by the way, and the court were several days without any more authentic tidings than general report. The king, who always regarded Ximenes's elevation to the primacy, to the prejudice, as the reader may remember, of his own son, with dissatisfaction, could not now restrain his indignation, but was heard to exclaim tauntingly to the queen, "So we are like to pay dear for your archbishop, whose rashness has lost us in a few hours, what we have been years in acquiring." ^^ The queen, confounded at the tidings, and un- able to comprehend the silence of Ximenes, instant- ly wrote to him in the severest terms, demanding an explanation of the whole proceeding. The arch- bishop saw his error in committing affairs of mo- ment to such hands as those of his sable messenger; and the lesson stood him in good stead, according 34 Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., 35 Mariana, Hist, de Espana, epist. 212. — Bleda, Coronica, loc. torn. ii. lib. 27, cap. 5. — Robles, cit. — Marmol, Rebelion de Moris- Vida de Ximenez, 14. — Suma de cos, ubi supra. la Vida de Cisneros, MS.
