Dr. De Puebla loved his ambassadorial dignity more than anything. To have to share with anyone the glory of making peace with Scotland was bad enough; to have another Spanish resident ambassador – and such a ruffian as Ayala! – dividing his honors in England, meddling in his business and disputing his precedence, was infinitely worse; to be the constant, quivering butt of his colleague’s barbed jokes was simply intolerable – more than flesh and blood could bear. The two ambassadors bickered continually. De Puebla, who could keep his temper with everybody else, would explode furiously under Ayala’s sly prodding, and the English would chuckle as the imperturbable Don reduced the pompous little doctor to helpless, sputtering rage. The dignity of degrees in the civil and the canon law, of a position as a counselor and ambassador of Their Most Catholic Majesties, turned to shoddy before the effortless poise of authentic blue blood; the mind which could master the most intricate legal problems, find its way unerringly through the most devious maze of diplomatic chicanery, was no match for the nimble repartee of a born courtier. Under Ayala’s leadership, baiting Dr. De Puebla became a popular sport.
De Puebla wrote to Spain that Don Pedro was an incompetent and impertinent intruder who should be ordered back to Scotland; Don Pedro’s letters merely wondered why De Puebla was so anxious to be rid of him unless he wanted to sell out his masters unobserved.
De Puebla let it be seen that he considered Don Pedro’s ignorance of law and Latin an insult to his profession, and his way of life a disgrace to his cloth. Don Pedro remarked that the Doctor’s penny-pinching meanness would be surprising in an ambassador, were it not so obvious that De Puebla was a Jew.
Source:
Mattingly, Garrett. “Part I: A Spanish Princess (1485-1509); Chapter Two, Section ii” Catherine of Aragon. New York: Quality Paperback , 1990. 32, 33. Print.
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