By the terms of the royal grant he
was empowered to name his successor. He accordingly devolved his
office on his son, appointing Diego de Alvarado, on whose
integrity he had great reliance, administrator of the province
during his minority. All his property and possessions in Peru,
of whatever kind, he devised to his master the emperor, assuring
him that a large balance was still due to him in his unsettled
accounts with Pizarro. By this politic bequest, he hoped to
secure the monarch's protection for his son, as well as a strict
scrutiny into the affairs of his enemy.
The knowledge of Almagro's sentence produced a deep sensation in
the community of Cuzco. All were amazed at the presumption with
which one, armed with a little brief authority, ventured to sit
in judgment on a person of Almagro's station. There were few who
did not call to mind some generous or good-natured act of the
unfortunate veteran. Even those who had furnished materials for
the accusation, now startled by the tragic result to which it was
to lead, were heard to denounce Hernando's conduct as that of a
tyrant. Some of the principal cavaliers, and among them Diego de
Alvarado, to whose intercession, as we have seen Hernando
Pizarro, when a captive, had owed his own life, waited on that
commander, and endeavoured to dissuade him from so high-handed
and atrocious a proceeding. It was in vain. But it had the
effect of changing the mode of execution, which, instead of the
public square, was now to take place in prison.
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