He had married his own niece, Francisca Pizarro, illegitimate daughter of the Marquis Francisco, by a daughter of the great Inca, Huayna Capac. The woman was a half-sister of Atahualpa and Huascar. By this questionable means, the family of the Pizarros, with certain dignities, restored for their Peruvian service, was perpetuated in Spain. Hernando died at the age of one hundred and four.
De Rada, after the assassination of Francisco, assembled the ancient partisans of Almagro. They swore fealty to the young Almagro, and immediately { 109} took the field against a new governor sent out by Charles V. to take charge of affairs in Peru. This Vaca de Castro, through his able lieutenants, Alvarado and Carvajal, defeated the forces of Almagro on the bloody and desperately fought field of Chapus, took the young man prisoner to Cuzco, and beheaded him forthwith. He met his death bravely, without beseeching or repining. Before the fate of the battle was decided, Almagro, suspecting that the gunner, De Candia, another of the thirteen who had adhered to his cause, was not serving his artillery with so good effect as he might, ran him through the body.
There remains but one of the brothers who gave Peru to Spain, the magnificent cavalier, Gonzalo. His fate may be briefly summarized. Another Viceroy, named Blasco Nuñez Vela, succeeded De Castro. He had orders to release the Peruvians from servitude, which meant that the conquerors and the thousands who had come after, would have been compelled to work. Led by Gonzalo, who had been rewarded for his services in the rebellion against Almagro by a domain in Peru which included the newly discovered mines of Potosi, which provided him with the sinews of war, the people rebelled against the Viceroy. Pizarro and his lieutenant, Carvajal, deposed and defeated the Viceroy in a battle near Quito on the 18th of January, 1546, the latter losing his life.
Gonzalo Pizarro was now the supreme lord of Peru, which included practically the whole of the South American coast from the Isthmus of Darien to the Straits of Magellan, for Valdivia, one of Francisco Pizarro's lieutenants, had partially conquered Chili at last.
The Spanish monarch, three thousand miles away, { 110} could do nothing by force. He sent an able and devoted ecclesiastic, Gasca by name, clothing him with dictatorial powers, to see what he could do. Gasca arrived at Panama, cunningly and tactfully won the captains of Gonzalo's navy to his side, went to Peru, assembled a force, and although Centeno, one of his lieutenants, was badly defeated by Gonzalo and Carvajal on the 26th of October, 1547, at Huarina, the bloodiest battle ever fought in Peru, finally gained strength enough to march to Cuzco, where Gonzalo had command of a large and splendidly equipped army. Gasca, by promising that the obnoxious laws concerning the Indians should be repealed, and adroitly pointing out that those who adhered to Gonzalo were, in effect, in rebellion against their sovereign, had so undermined the allegiance of his men that Gonzalo, who had marched to the Valley of Xaquixaguana, found himself deserted on the eve of the battle by all but a handful of faithful retainers.
