Juan Lopez Do Padilla, a Spanish patriot, born about 1490, executed at Villalar, April 24,1521. He was one of the foremost to complain of the grievances to which the Castilians were subjected under the Flemish officials appointed by Charles V.; and when the cortes in 1520 voted the monarch a "free gift" without obtaining the redress of any of their wrongs, he incited the people of Toledo to insurrection, was appointed their leader, and organized a popular form of government. Similar risings took place at Segovia, Toro, Salamanca, Murcia. and Avila; and at a meeting in the last named city a solemn league was formed, and its interests were committed to a junta de las comunidades composed of deputies from all the towns. In a short time the rehellion spread all over the kingdom. Padilla, who had driven a body of royalist troops from before the gates of Segovia, marched to Tordesillas, where the queen mother Joanna resided, and placed her at the head of the government. The junta now removed to Tordesillas, seized the members of the council at Valladolid, took possession of the public archives, seals, and treasury books, deposed the regent (Cardinal Adrian of Utrecht, afterward Pope Adrian VI.), and sent a remonstrance to Charles, which proposed a thorough reform of the political constitution of the state.

These measures alienated the nobility, who succeeded in depriving Padilla of the military command and conferring it upon Don Pedro de Giron, whose incapacity led to the capture of Tordesillas by the royalists, the seizure of the queen's person, and the recovery of the public seal. Padilla, again taking the command, made himself master of several small towns, and carried Torrelobaton by storm after a desperate siege. The junta, however, consented to a truce, during which the undisciplined popular army rapidly dwindled away, while the royalists under the conde de Haro prepared for battle, and as soon as the truce expired advanced upon Torrelobaton. Padilla was overtaken at Villalar, April 23, 1521, defeated, and made prisoner, and on the next day was executed with his two principal officers without any form of trial. - His wife, Maria Paciieco, belonged to one of the most illustrious families of Spain, and was an ardent supporter of her husband. When he was in great strait for money after the defeat of Giron, she seized the ornaments in the cathedral of Toledo. After her husband's death she placed herself at the head of the popular party, and invited the French, who had just invaded Navarre, to advance into Castile. The French were defeated, the insurrection was subdued, and after the fall of Toledo she escaped into Portugal, where she passed the rest of her life.