Alternate Obituary

Updated Sunday 15 May, 2011 12:18 PM

Alternate Obituary – Manual Vega

Exam – Major Historical Figures, question two:

Question: Describe the career of Manual Vega and his significance to the development of the Spanish Commonwealth.

Answer: If there is a significant figure in Spanish politics in the 1500s, Manual Vega is clearly the most important and yet the most obscure in his beliefs. However, the existence of the commonwealth of Spain clearly depends upon his existence, he was, quite literally, the right man at the right time.

Vega’s early origins are unknown. It is believed that he came from a middle-class family in Toledo, Castile. He served in the militia and was apparently decorated for service in a Muslim rebellion, although some reports have claimed that he spent much of that time in a brothel. The fact that his parents disapproved of his soldering may have influenced his decision, although his writings contain little details and many statements of questionable value.

After his service was concluded, Vega returned to his city and became involved in local politics. It was a heady time for Spain, as the city councils were being pressed by the great nobles, who treated the city people like serfs. Vega was instrumental in the formation of a militia party that evicted the nearest noble’s occupation party and tore down his claims to the land. This made him popular amongst the radical fringe of Spanish politics.

The growing crisis soon came to a head in 1520. The Spanish king, Charles V, had become Holy Roman Emperor and had left Spain behind. This caused resentment, as did his foreign wars (which drained money from Castile) and the foreign advisors he kept around him. He was either unable or unwilling to stop the nobles from encroaching on the towns and the towns demanded his assistance in preventing further encroachment. The king did nothing and, when his tax-collectors became too annoying, rebellion began in many of the major cities.

The towns held a meeting to decide how best they could work together and Toledo sent Vega as one of its members. While many of the members were unwilling to look beyond their own borders, Vega saw that that would bring disaster and worked to convince them to form a national army. He also had them encourage the noble’s vassals to join them and claim rights that the nobles had denied them.

Vega’s new army soon proved its value, as did the bribes the towns could pay if needed, and the noble’s private armies were soon defeated in a number of swift campaigns. Vega’s offer of safe-conduct to Charles’ court in Italy was accepted by many of the nobles, but Charles blamed them for the growing disaster and marginalized many of them.

Charles made two attempts to defeat the rebels, both times using foreign troops, but both attempts failed quite badly. The castellans were unhappy about foreign troops and were willing to fight them when they refused to fight outside their towns normally.

Vega’s role in the great council that settled Spain’s future as a limited democratic system (although no one put it that way) is unclear. He was one of the strongest anti-noble members, although there is some evidence that he would accept a king as a constitutional monarch, with real power vested in the Junta. When the possibility of a restoration became very unlikely, he fought for the union of towns that kept Spain together and for the tolerance act that accepted both Muslims and Jews in the new Spain.

Vega’s life after that is reasonably well known. He became the second Caudillo – effectively the Spanish president – in 1532 and severed that way for ten years. He codified the laws that bound Spain together, as well as supporting the newly independent Spanish colonies in Mexico against French and English attacks. Despite several attempts to maintain close links with the empire established by Cortes, Vega was unable to interest his countrymen in world empire, trade was all they wanted and the few who felt differently emigrated to New Spain.

After his defeat in an election, Vega left Spain to spread the word of town councils, although he tended to play down the peasant communes that now made up much of Castile. As those subversive ideas spread, revolts against nobles became too common for their liking and Vega was threatened with death several times. The massive revolts in Germany that destroyed the noble structure there sent many of them haring into France, while the English king made a point of wiping out small local communities that showed too much independence. Civil wars erupted across Europe, although the places that embraced city politics and parliaments tended to fare better.

Vega died in 1578 in Spain, for which he had fought so hard and seen reshaped in the democratic image.

Teachers Response: (B+) An excellent summery of both Vega’s life and times, but you miss out on several important details. You imply that Vega started the peasant uprisings throughout Spain, but in reality most of them happened spontaneously or after repressive programs began when the radicals threatened to take over the Junta. Further, you pay very little attention to the four-way power struggle for control of the New World, nor the collapse of the Portuguese government and its effective annexation to the Spanish commonwealth. The competition between the commonwealth, Charles V, Portugal and France for that control nearly ruined the new world and rendered the independent Spaniards position very difficult.

Author’s Notes: this exam question comes from an alternate world – but then you’ll have guessed that – where the commerous Revolt in Spain succeeded. The major problem with the revolt was their reluctance to work together, the lack of a common leader and a reluctance to go radical until it was too late. Here, they have a leader – a George Washington archetype - and attack the nobles at once, which removes the noble private armies from the playing field. That probably means that any major attack would need to be done using foreign troops and while Charles would probably have managed to raise them, the castellans were very xenophobic and would have fought foreign invaders with more eagerness than the king’s Spanish servants.

This means that the new world colonies will be cut off from the motherland for a long period. This taste of independence convinces the rulers to stay that way, as does the absence of a major import of Castile natives.

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