Padilla

Padilla, JUAN DE, one of the most popular heroes in Spanish history, was a scion of a Toledan family, and was appointed by the Emperor Charles V. military commandant of Saragossa. While he was so employed a formidable rebellion, caused by the excessive taxes which the emperor imposed on the Spaniards, to defray the cost of his various wars in Italy, Germany, and the Low Countries, broke out among the towns of Castile, and the rebels, who were known as comuneros, called upon Padilla to put himself at their head. He was successful in a number of enterprises undertaken against the royalist party, but on 23d April 1521 was completely beaten at Villalobos. This conflict decided the fate of the rebellion and of Padilla himself, who was taken prisoner, and next day beheaded. His wife, Donna Maria de Pacheco, rallied the remnants of the rebel army, and for a long time held Toledo against the royalist besieging army; after its fall she retired to Portugal, where she died in 1531. Numerous poems and dramas celebrate their deeds.