Before I get into this scenario, I want to tell you about the coincidence that made it possible. I had long toyed with the idea of doing a scenario where the Comuneros revolt turned into a long period of instability for Spain, loosening the royal hold on the Spanish colonies in the New World. Unfortunately, I didn't have a good source on the revolt and couldn't find a good point of divergence. A month or so ago, I went to a weekend retreat for the Information Technology department of the university where I recently got my Master's degree. After one of the sessions, I was talking to some of the people who had attended. One of them mentioned that he had a Doctorate in history. My ears perked up, and I asked him what period he had specialized in. He said “Early modern Spain.” It turned out that he had written a book on the Comuneros revolt.

 That book, The Comuneros of Castile, is the main source for most of this scenario, though its author, Stephen Haliczer is in no way responsible for any violence I do to history in creating the scenario.

 What actually happened: In May of 1520, Charles left Spain to become Holy Roman Emperor. He left behind a weak, financially destitute government and a great deal of resentment on the part of almost every segment of Spanish, and especially Castilian society. He had been raised in the Habsburgs' Flemish domains, and barely spoke Spanish. His court was dominated by greedy Flemish advisors, and it had spent the last three years going through the Spanish domains, vacuuming up money at a prodigious rate and spending it at an even more prodigious rate.

The towns and nobles of Castile were in a rebellious mood. Armed rebellion started even before the king left Spain. It was led by one of the three major forces of Spanish society, the great cities like Toledo and Segovia. The other two major factors in Spanish society were the great nobility and the royal court. Initially, the great nobility was for the most part neutral or even favorably disposed toward the rebellion, and the royalist forces were weakened by financial problems that left their forces unpaid for long periods of time. The royalists were also politically inept initially, stirring up a great deal of hatred by their tactics.

The rebels controlled a major part of Spain for a period of several months, but as the rebellion went on, it provided an opportunity for peasants of some of the great nobility to revolt against their lords. The Comuneros were not willing to act against those revolts, and some of their more radical elements may have encouraged the peasants. The great nobles went over to the royalists, bringing with them large numbers of experienced mercenary troops. 

Together with the royalists, those troops eventually crushed the revolt. The decisive defeat came on April 23, 1521, though Toledo held out until February 1522.

What might have happened: I think that the key to the situation was Spain's mad Queen Juana. Under ordinary circumstances she would have ruled Spain. Unfortunately, the death of her husband in 1506 had left her plainly too mentally unstable to rule. In the period leading up to the Comuneros Revolt, she had made a partial recovery. She was initially favorably disposed to the Comuneros, to the point where she welcomed them and agreed that the Comuneros junta would be allowed to operate under her nominal supervision, but was unwilling to sign any documents giving them any kind of power. Let's make the point of divergence her mental state in late August/early September 1520. She is living in Tordesillas, a city now controlled by the junta. She gets up one morning, signs some papers, and the Comuneros junta now has the tangible written blessing of someone with a better claim to the throne of Spain than Charles. 

In early September of 1520, the royalist government was on the verge of collapse in our time-line and in this one. In mid-October, its regent, a Cardinal Adrian was forced to flee in disguise with only a chaplain accompanying him. If Juana had given the Comuneros her blessing, that collapse would have probably been even quicker and more total. Let's say Cardinal Adrian and a small party of royalists are forced to flee, but in this time-line junta forces kill them during that escape attempt. The death of the Cardinal is an accident. He was in disguise and with a party of armed men. At this point, though, the Comuneros have burned their bridges. Killing the king's regent, not to mention one of his trusted aides, doesn't give them much room to negotiate with Charles. 

In this time-line, as in our time-line, the Comuneros move quickly and effectively to establish themselves as a government. Many of the members of the junta had previous governmental experience. In the early part of Ferdinand and Isabella's reign, the monarchs had tried to set up the towns as a counterbalance to the great nobles. As part of that effort, they had given considerable power to some of the same people who were now leading the revolt against the monarchy.

 In this time-line, given a better legal claim to the government, the Comuneros quickly consolidate power over most of Castile. In the south, the Andalusian part of Castile does not initially support the Comuneros because they fear that the revolt will lead to chaos and leave Andalusia vulnerable to attacks by the Moors from North Africa, or to a revolt of the Moriscos, descendents of Spain's Moors. Andalusia switches to the Comuneros when it becomes obvious that they have won, and that attempting to revive the royalist cause would simply bring on the chaos that they are trying to avoid.

So the Comuneros junta now rules Castile. The great nobles initially wavered a bit. They weren't sure whether to oppose the revolt or try to co-opt it. In this time-line, they have for the most part decided to co-opt it. That strategy aims at affecting the composition of the new Cortes (think Parliament with a lot of quirks), and the new administration. The towns and the great nobles have long been rivals in Castile, with the nobles often trying to encroach on the territory and rights of the towns. 

Dealing with each other without the crown would have been difficult anyway, but the Comuneros revolt has stirred up forces that make cooperation impossible. Peasant revolts in a number of areas threaten the power and even the lives of the great nobles. The nobles attempt to get the Comuneros regime to help them put down those revolts. The Comuneros aren't willing to do that, in part because the peasants are making demands for rights that they are legally entitled to, and which have been illegally denied them by the nobles.

The growing divide between the Comuneros and the nobles remains primarily political until November of 1520. Then the nobles go into open revolt, claiming that the junta has betrayed the goals of the revolution and is destroying the social order of Castile. They also claim that the junta is no longer acting with the consent of Juana. Some of the nobles initially want to bring back Charles, but most of them have by this time acknowledged that Juana is the legal ruler of Spain. Also, the more cynical ones have noticed the advantages of having a ruler who is incapable of ruling. They form a counsel that they claim will act as a collective regent until Juana is freed from the clutches of the Comuneros.

By this time, most of the old royal guard has gone over to the Comuneros. Actually, quite a bit of it did in our time-line. With the bulk of the royal guard on their side, the Comuneros are a fairly good match for the great nobles. Both sides suffer from a great deal of internal strife. The great towns of Castile have their long-running rivalries and feuds, as do the nobles. Also, the Comuneros Revolt has unleashed political forces that are threatening the power of the urban elites as well as the great nobles.

 The war seesaws back and forth through the rest of 1520 and 1521. The nobles hold most of Andalusia in the south of Castile, and part of the area that they originally held as estates, while the cities hold most of central Castile. The nobles attempt to cut the cities off from one another, and from the countryside. The Comuneros increasingly sweep through the countryside, encouraging revolts against nobles who have joined the opposition. Neither side is strong enough to score a knockout against the other.

 Meanwhile, France has taken a hand in the fighting, just as it did in our time-line. France attempts to seize the Kingdom of Navarre, which has recently become part of the Spanish crown. The French also attempt to take advantage of the fighting to compromise the Spanish position in Italy. 

The Moors have also taken advantage of the fighting to launch larger and bolder raids against the southern coast of Spain. Those raids tie down a considerable portion of the army of the nobility. The increasingly chaotic situation gets worse. Portugal has long sheltered a claimant to the throne of Castile, also confusingly known as Juana. She had lost a civil war in 1475, but still claimed to be the legitimate ruler of Castile until her death in 1530. With the growing chaos in Castile, Portugal makes a play to put their Juana on the throne of Castile.

At this point, the unrest in Castile starts having an impact outside of Europe. Cortes has finished his conquest of the Aztecs. He has a substantial amount of gold to give to the king or queen of Spain. He also needs to be confirmed as the governor of the province of New Spain, which he has just conquered. One problem: Spain has three major claimants to power, four if you count Portugal's Juana. Who's confirmation of his powers counts? Who gets the gold and silver of the Aztecs?

 Cortes has another problem. With the government of Spain in chaos, the various other Spanish colonies in the New World are acting more and more like independent powers. That was true to some extent in our time-line, but existence of a powerful government in Spain tended to keep those tendencies in check to some extent. In this time-line, the riches of Mexico quickly attract two sets of interlopers from nearby colonies. The governors of Cuba and Jamaica put together a force to challenge Cortes's control of the coastal area of Mexico. Expeditions from Panama probe their way up both coasts. Those forays are justified as attempts to restore the rule of the rightful king of Spain.

The various colonies have different ideas on who that king is. Jamaica and Panama have declared for the junta. Cuba is divided—actually fighting it's own series of civil wars, with the politics of Spain being superimposed on local political rivalries. Hispanola hesitates, then declares for the junta. It then switches to Charles as the second act of the civil war starts in Castile. Cortes is initially pro-Charles, but he is afraid that the issue will tear apart the fragile unity of his army, so he basically waits to see how the chips fall. 

Cortes is forced to fight Spanish rivals several times in 1521 and 1522, and faces a couple of revolts from pro-Junta or pro-Charles factions. The rival colonies try to cut New Spain off from Europe, and also from supplies of horses and other livestock in the West Indies.

 Meanwhile, back in Europe, the Castilian civil war continues into 1522. As the war drags on, both sides are becoming exhausted and looking for a way to end the war, but that becomes more difficult with each death and the bitterness that comes from it. The Comuneros have a more effective administration and a better financial position than their enemies. On the other hand, they are increasingly divided, as elements of their revolution become more radical. The wealthy in the cities are beginning to feel more and more threatened by that radicalism. 

As the war goes on through 1522, more and more elements in the cities are looking for a way to restore order without giving power over to the great nobles or to Charles. The war is doing a great deal of harm to Castile, and a growing number of people want out. There is a potential solution. Charles has a younger brother named Ferdinand, who was raised in Castille, and who would be acceptable to most Castilians, as long as he was willing to agree to some of the constitutional arrangements of the Comuneros. 

A faction of the Comuneros secretly negotiates with Charles, trying to set up that kind of a deal. Charles has other ideas though. He has been approached by some of the great nobles. Those nobles want the stability of a monarchy enough to risk bringing back a monarch that they have previously denounced as a usurper. Charles over-estimates the power of the nobles involved. In late 1523 he attempts to reassert his power by landing with several thousand German troops. The behavior of his foreign troops quickly reminds wavering nobles why they got rid of Charles in the first place. The restoration attempt collapses and Charles barely escapes capture. At that point Charles is no longer a viable option for Castile.  Most of Charles's advisors understand after the defeat that Castile is lost to him for good. His few remaining Spanish advisers begin quietly clustering around Ferdinand. 

Charles has been courting leaders of the New World colonies, especially Cortes. New Spain gets several Franciscan clergy from Flanders to help convert the Indians. Charles also quietly allows a trade in weapons for gold between Flanders and New Spain. He needs the money and Cortes needs the weapons. There are enough Spanish artisans in New Spain to make a lot of what Cortes needs, and Indian artisans learn very quickly, but New Spain is nowhere near self-sufficient. Charles also woos Cortes himself with hints of rewards like the position of hereditary viceroy of New Spain. Those hints are easy to give in a situation where it looks unlikely that Charles will ever be in a position to have to follow through on them. 

Negotiations between Charles and the junta drag on through the most of 1524, as does the civil war. Charles might be persuaded to give up Castile, but he refuses to give up Aragon or the Spanish conquests in the New World, especially New Spain.  The Comuneros are not willing to give up a unified Spain, or the rich colonies of the New World. Portugal helps those negotiations along by seizing some of their old territory in the Canary Islands from Spain.

Then in late November 1524, the Moriscos of southern Castile cut through the impasse. They revolt, with the help of their Moorish relatives in North Africa. That revolt is the last straw for many Castilians. A group of the great nobles of southern Spain make an appeal to Charles. Moderate Comuneros, seeing a threat not just to the nobles but to the whole accomplishment of reconquering southern Spain, become much more flexible on the issue of New World colonies. 

There are still a lot of issues to be worked out, and negotiations drag on until the spring of 1525, but by the end of May 1525, the main part of the Castilian Civil War is settled. Charles gives up his claim to his Castilian inheritance. He is still Holy Roman Emperor, as well as ruler of the traditional Habsburg lands and of Aragon. 

Ferdinand becomes ruler of Castile. He doesn't have an enviable task. He has to suppress the Morisco revolt, sort out the thousands of disputes left over from the war, suppress some other lingering wars like the continuing peasant revolts against some of the great nobles, push the French out of Navarre and their gains in Italy, and reestablish respect for royal authority.

 Ferdinand takes control. He is a reasonably able man, but he is faced with an enormous series of tasks. France has almost cut Spain off from its colonies. It has also begun raiding those colonies heavily. That creates problems beyond just the destruction involved. The colonies have had to make their own defense arrangements, and to become more self-sufficient. Also, during the Castilian Civil War, Charles encouraged trade between the Habsburg domains like Flanders and Aragon and the New World. 

As noted earlier, while he has abdicated the Castilian throne, Charles has not given up his claim to all of the lands of the New World. Those lands are divided between the two kings. Ferdinand gets Panama, Jamaica, and the bulk of Cuba. Charles gets the rest of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Hispanola. 

The issue of New Spain almost destroys the agreement. Charles knows that it is extremely rich, and is unwilling to give it up. A compromise is eventually reached where New Spain is divided North to South, with Charles receiving most of the already conquered core of MesoAmerica while Ferdinand gets title to the northern fringes of that territory, and the unexplored areas to the north. The Haustecs and Tarascans are both divided by the line drawn on a map by people who have never visited Mexico. That will have major consequences later. 

The boundary between New Spain and Panama is vague, something that will eventually cause a great deal of trouble between those two colonies. Actually, the division of the colonies is a lot like the “lines on a map” that divided Africa during the European scramble for Africa in the 1800's. They have very little relationship to the geography or politics on the ground, and that sets up all kinds of problems. For now though, those problems are of only relatively minor concern to the two Hapsburg rulers. Both of them are primarily concerned with what is happening in Europe.

 In Europe, a relatively united Castile weighs in against France. The French have seized Navarre and parts of northern Castile, as well as several important parts of Italy. Ferdinand finds that his new Castilian subjects are not particularly enthusiastic about fighting the French in Italy. That has traditionally been a concern of Aragon. They do enthusiastically support an offensive to drive the French out of northern Castile, followed by one to crush the Morisco revolt. 

The Moriscos put up a fierce fight, and eventually a desperate one. The Castilians are determined not to leave the Moriscos in a position where they can revolt in the future, and the Castilians employ scorched earth tactics to destroy any future Morisco military potential. 

No matter how desperately the Moriscos fight, they are going to lose against a reasonably united Castile. That war drags into 1526, as does the war with France. With Castile's civil war over, France is finally willing to agree to a compromise peace. Navarre becomes independent again, and the French make some gains in Italy, but they give up any conquests in the north of Castile. 

With the end of the war with France, it is time to look at how far we've diverged so far. Charles is now “only” the Holy Roman Emperor, with huge domains in Flanders, Germany, Austria, Italy, Aragon and the New World—still too large a domain for any one man to rule effectively. His brother Ferdinand is king of a battered, impoverished Castile. Ferdinand faces thousands of unsettled disputes left over from the years of civil war. He faces great nobles, many of whom have been impoverished by the years of war. He faces continuing peasant unrest. He faces the great cities, jealous of their newly won power. 

The royal government has little independent military or financial power under the agreement that put Ferdinand on the throne. Ferdinand does have the ability to set Castile's agenda as a country. To help reunite the country, he pushes for a major effort to expand Castile's toe-holds in North Africa. That campaign becomes a way for ruined nobles to regain their lost wealth, and for Spanish cities to prove their loyalty to the crown.

Castile's path is set. Its primary focus will be North Africa. That will put it directly in a path of the expanding power of the Ottoman Empire. Charles has his path set too. He will spend the rest of his days as ruler trying to hold together his huge and unwieldy domain. The reformation, which is gaining steam in Germany, is his primary concern. He is also very concerned about the fate of his New World colonies. While most of those colonies had declared for him during the Comuneros Revolt, they are not happy about becoming part of an empire that does not include Castile. 

After his experience in Castile, Charles is aware of the problems that can arise with the xenophobic Castilians if they are faced with rule by foreigners. Unfortunately, he doesn't have enough high-quality advisers of Castilian origin to administer his colonies. As a result, resentment begins to build in those colonies, as relatively incompetent Spaniards or foreigners are given places in colonial administration.

Spanish colonists have been virtually independent during the war. They find these administrators extremely annoying. A major point of conflict: Charles is actually very concerned about his Indian subjects and attempts to protect them from the excesses of the colonists. He is also concerned about the possibility that those colonists will become an uncontrollable group of great nobles on the Castilian model. In late summer of 1525, he has to move firmly enough to assert control, but carefully enough to avoid open revolt.

In New Spain, that means confirming Cortes as governor, while watching carefully for any signs of disloyalty. There are plenty of signs to see. Cortes has many enemies, both on the islands and in New Spain, and they accuse him of everything from murdering his first wife to stealing the king's share of the gold of the Aztecs. Everything that Cortes has done to consolidate his rule can be presented as a move to consolidate independent power for an eventual attempt to set up an independent kingdom.

The hints of vast rewards that Charles gave Cortes earlier now come back to haunt the emperor. Anything he can reasonably give Cortes will be less than the expectations he has raised. Charles would love to replace Cortes, but for now he bides his time, officially appointing him as governor of New Spain and waiting for the right time to appoint someone he trusts more. 

Cortes has another problem in that he has at least some control over territory that belongs to Ferdinand according to the agreement. In this time-line the Haustecs are for the most part still unconquered, but the Tarascans are at least nominally part of Cortes's New Spain.

And that's about all for this issue. It's now 1526. History has diverged a great deal since late August of 1520. A united Spain is no more. Castile has something very close to a constitutional monarchy, though Ferdinand is working hard to change that. The Spanish New World colonies are divided between Castile and the Charles's widely scattered domain. They have also had a five-year taste of virtual independence—a very dangerous taste. 

Where do we go from here? Do one or more of the colonies become independent? Is Charles able to hold together his slightly more manageable empire in Europe? Without Charles as a nearly universal monarch, how does Europe meet the rising threat of Ottoman Turkey? Can Castile build a North African empire? Will it continue to virtually ignore the New World in favor of building that empire? Will it discover and attempt to conquer the rich Northwest African empire (I think it was still Mali at the time, but Songhai might have taken over). Some of the richest silver mines in the world are sitting undiscovered in Castile's part of New Spain. Will they be discovered? Who by? Will the poorly defined boundary between Panama and New Spain lead to war or wars over the various Central American territories? What will happen when Castile tries to take over its share of New Spain? With the flow of New World gold and silver redirected at least partly to Flanders, how will the economic development of Europe change? Will there still be an industrial revolution at about the same time as in our time-line? With Spain divided, will other powers push into the part of the New World previously reserved to Spain? Who will discover and attempt to conquer the Incas? I'll try to come up with answers to all of those questions next issue. 

Second thoughts: As usual, I let this scenario sit for a while, then reread it with a skeptical eye. I see some potential weaknesses in it. 

Would the great nobles really wait until 1523 before attempting to bring back Charles? To be honest, I have my doubts. I had them wait that long for five reasons:

• They would see the advantage of having a weak monarchy nominally headed by Juana but actually under their control.
• They would be somewhat apprehensive about Charles eventually taking revenge for their previous disloyalty.
• With no royal government or loyal troops in Castile, Charles would have little to offer them initially.
• Legally, Juana is entitled to be Queen. The more thoughtful nobles would be aware that challenging that openly would open a can of worms in terms of the legitimacy of power and control of property that they don't want to open.
• The nobles really genuinely did detest Charles. 

Would the Spanish colonies really be divided in this manner? That's a tough one. I tried to trace the relationships between the governors of the various colonies and the leading personalities of Castile, but eventually bogged down in question of which side the various Spanish leaders would end up on in various circumstances. I don't consider the configuration I suggest to be particularly implausible and it sets up some potentially dramatic events for next issue.