The Rosas Affair. Donald L. Lucero

among these beautiful creatures were the carriages and horses that had brought the members of the audiencia (high court). Opposite the stables, and completing two wings of the patio’s surround, were the offices of the viceroy’s staff. Making a tight circle at the center of the courtyard, Rosas’s carriage made its approach to the palace, arriving square on.

      Dismounting before a stone archway in a windowless façade, the governor elect was ushered into the building through its only entrance, a covered loggia or arcade beyond which were broad, open, double-doors, thickly studded and hung with iron. The walls of this gallery were decorated with a rich cloth of raised designs, Italian broccatos (brocades), and painted frescoes whose stiff, geometric patterns reflected European inspiration. A door leading off the entrance hall was held open by two liveried pages, one of whom politely asked Rosas to stand on the threshold of the room’s carved and ornate doorway until he was announced. Waiting at the entrance as he had been asked, Luis stood beneath the doorway’s stone lintel, observing the room’s interior, and dwarfed by its majesty.

      Inside the hall, amid a forest of garlanded pillars, palmers, armed with fronds of pine and willow, fanned air that was scented by sprigs of herbs and spices. Rosas admired with great interest the viceroy’s brocade baldachino, a canopy that was erected above the viceroy’s chair. This sign of royalty, the use of which had been denied preceding viceroys, was now being used to accentuate the fact that the viceroy, as the sovereign’s deputy, ruled in New Spain in the king’s stead. As Luis looked at the viceroy’s banner of vermilion on a background of gold damask, he thought that he, too, would have one similarly designed and set out.

      The crimson uniforms of viceregal servants, the dazzling short coats of heralds, and the violet jackets of attendants, all cast a regal glow on the walls of the reception hall. The room blazed with the brilliance of their raiments.

      Standing beside the viceroy’s chair was a master of ceremonies who briefly glanced in Rosas’s direction before crying out, “Don Luis de Rosas, your Lordship!”

      Rosas was ushered into the Salon de Coronas, a great reception hall distinguished by a dado (wainscoting) of azulejo tiles decorated with graceful blue and white designs, and a wooden ceiling, heavily beamed and decorated with radiant crowns. The viceroy, don Lope Diez de Armendariz, Marques de Cadereyta, a self-possessed gentleman with an animated look upon his face, rose from his chair. Twelve other men of honor, all beautifully dressed in their long black robes with ruffled sleeves, joined him in standing to receive Luis de Rosas. Rosas made a motion as to bend his knee.

      The viceroy, gentle and pleasant to those with whom he had a close association, reached out with both of his hands and said, “We’ve no need for that, don Luis. Come. Come join us! We’ve been anxiously awaiting your arrival. May I offer you something to drink? A glass of wine perhaps?” He motioned for a servant. “It would be well to have something warm in your belly before meeting with these old men.” The viceroy chuckled at the men standing before him who joined him in his laughter.

      “Your health and welfare are all I ask, your Lordship, and if God will maintain these, I shall want for nothing more.”

      Elegant in bearing and comely in person, the viceroy was, as the king’s representative, magnificently clothed and jeweled having been exempted from the canon prohibiting Knights of Santiago to wear anything but unadorned rough wool, although he was still obliged to say 15 Mysteries of the Rosary, daily, an imperative which he devotedly observed. He wore the grand, white satin robes of a Knight Commander of the military order of Saint James, his body concealed by the mantle’s cumbrous plaits. With a bright, attractive face and deep-set dark eyes he had a remarkable presence. He introduced Luis de Rosas to each member of the audiencia, with special attention given to its president, Bishop don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, royal troubleshooter and visitor general. For each member of the high court, he offered a brief resume of titles, lineage, and history in Spanish service. The viceroy then motioned for Rosas to occupy the chair of honor to his right. Rosas moved there, standing between the table and his chair awaiting the viceroy’s signal for all to sit.

      The visitor general, don Juan de Palafox, whose chair was directly across from that of the governor-applicant, eyed Luis de Rosas with suspicion. Naturally hot-tempered, impatient and proud—and even, perhaps, a bit contemptuous in his manner—he was, nevertheless, one of the viceroy’s most trusted advisors, and he questioned the selection of this particular individual as New Mexico’s tenth governor. The viceroy, Bishop Palafox knew, was a Spanish grandee who, ruling in place of the king, followed the simple and ancient theory of the “hungry falcon.” This was the practice of placing comparatively unknown men into positions of leadership where their ambitions, plus their reliance upon and gratitude toward the individual who had bestowed the honor, could be counted upon to keep them productive and loyal. It was a method followed by Their Catholic Majesties, Fernando and Isabella, who, upon assuming their thrones, had kept tiny notebooks with the names of individuals they met throughout their travels who might be useful to them. The Catholic sovereigns often solicited the advice of these obscure individuals, ultimately inviting some to join their court. However, the sovereigns’ appointees, like those of the viceroy’s, had not always responded as expected.

      And had it not been so with the viceroy’s previous selection of governor of New Mexico? thought the visitor general. Was it not Francisco de Martinez de Baeza about whom the New Mexican priest, Antonio de Ibargaray, had been speaking when he wrote:

      From the moment he became governor he has attended only to his own profit, causing grave damage to all these recently converted souls. He has commanded them to weave and paint great quantities of mantas and hangings. Likewise, he has made them seek out and barter for many tanned skins and haul quantities of pinon nuts. As a result, he has now loaded eight carretas with what he has amassed and is taking them and as many men from [New Mexico] to drive them to New Spain, thwarting everything His Majesty has ordered in his royal ordinance.

      Stiff charges, Palafox thought. Although loath to have others render such scathing judgments regarding one in royal service, he suspected that much of what Ibargaray had written was true. Martinez has proven to be little more than a drummer, he said to himself. We cannot have a repeat of his misrule. We must do a better job in selecting the new governor.

      * * *

      Distrusting both the Church and his overseas officers, the king, Philip IV, who had ascended to the throne in 1621, had established in New Spain three royal bureaucracies. Designed as somewhat autonomous but interdependent entities with a complicated system of checks and balances, these branches had ill-defined and overlapping jurisdictional boundaries with little definition as to how they were to share power. The first of these entities was the viceroyalty which wielded authority through a number of provincial governors and which administered in all matters civil and military. The viceroy, therefore, in selecting the governor of New Mexico, did not require the approval of the audiencia, the second of the three entities which constituted the district court of appeals. The third entity, the episcopate, the system of church government by bishops, was charged with ecclesiastical administration. The king knew that litigation among the three resulting from petty jealousies and jurisdictional disputes would check the power of each, while keeping him informed of affairs in the most remote corners of the Spanish empire.

      * * *

      Kind to his friends, cruel to his enemies, the viceroy was a man of practical skills. To assure that civil and military authority remained in his control, he sought the advice of others but ruled alone. Astute and unusually accurate in his judgment of men and other matters, he had the ultimate responsibility of choosing the new governor, and he wanted Luis de Rosas.

      Looking around the room at the men who were gathered there the viceroy placed his right hand on top of Rosas’s left hand and said, “Senores, as you’re aware, don Luis and I have been meeting to work out the various aspects of his contract as governor of New Mexico, and I’m convinced that I have the right man for this assignment. But do not think that we’re here for you merely to ratify my choice. I earnestly seek your advice and counsel in the selection of governor for New Mexico. And I especially request your assistance in the instructions he is to receive relative to the conduct of his office. In the Lord’s name,” he said,