“Incapable of Walking Without his Valido ”: The Privanza of the Pacheco Lineage (1435-1529)

. Starting off from a series of quotations taken from the Crónica de Enrique IV by fray Jerónimo de la Cruz (BNE, Mss. 1776), this article brings to light sources that justify why the first two Marquises of Villena – Juan Pacheco and Diego López Pacheco – were viewed as privados by their contemporaries and as validos by seventeenth-century authors. At the same time, this study will also analyse the Pachecos’ actions in an attempt to unveil the pragmatic and symbolic tactics they used to control the Castilian public arena. Particular attention will be paid to the teachings the past offered the Pachecos, through both the history of their lineage and the more recent events they had personally witnessed during their youth.

In the 1650s, the Hieronymite monk fray Jerónimo de la Cruz completed a chronicle recounting the life of King Enrique IV of Castile . In his opinion, Enrique IV had not been a bad monarch, viewing him instead as a virtuous but feeble man whose only weakness was being "incapable of walking without his valido Don Juan Pacheco" 3 . This statement casts Pacheco, the first Marquis of Villena, as a valido, and shows that in fray Jerónimo's judgement there was no difference between the role the Marquis had played in the fifteenth century and the one the Duke of Lerma, the Count-Duke of Olivares and other famous validos played in the Spanish Golden Age.
The term valido was a neologism coined at the beginning of the seventeenth century to label the favourite who orchestrated the royal court and the administrative system 4 . Kings' favourites, however, continued to be called privados, a word that derived from the Latin privatus, alluding to the exclusive relationship that bound a lord to a particular subject 5 . It might seem at first sight that both terms were almost identical, but there actually was a fundamental difference. Modern studies have pointed out that a seventeenth-century monarch could have multiple privados, but he never had more than one valido 6 . It thus becomes clear that fray Jerónimo considered Juan Pacheco to be Enrique IV's greatest favourite and several allusions in his chronicle suggest that he openly disparaged this modus operandi.
It is also interesting to investigate the motivations behind this monk's text. It has been indicated that fray Jerónimo used fifteenth-century history to discuss the present; he retold the story of Enrique IV to reflect on Felipe IV's reign 7 . Other writers shared this practice and often relied on medieval history to speak about their present 8 . The memorandum written against the Count-Duke of Olivares and its response known as Nicandro, for instance, perfectly illustrate this trend, as they both quote the "History of Don Enrique" when dealing with Felipe IV's ministers 9 . Saavedra Fajar-do, on his part, explicitly mentioned Juan Pacheco and his son Diego when listing past validos 10 and other authors even published fifteenth-century forgeries like the Centón epistolario. In this collection of letters supposedly sent by a royal physician, a missive vividly pictured Pacheco by saying that "he was already winning over his Prince's heart" in 1442 11 . This brief selection of seventeenth-century texts suggests that their authors and readers were well aware of the role played by the first two Marquises of Villena alongside their sovereigns. Nevertheless, the privanza of the Pacheco lineage is a topic that needs to be studied in greater depth because modern historiographic works still consider that the Pachecos were only moved by their "passion for wealth and power" 12 . Starting off from a series of quotations taken from fray Jerónimo's chronicle, this article brings to light sources that justify why the Pachecos were viewed as privados by their contemporaries and as validos by seventeenth-century authors like Saavedra Fajardo and De la Cruz. At the same time, this study will also analyse the Pachecos' actions in an attempt to unveil the pragmatic and symbolic tactics they used to control the Castilian public arena. Particular attention will be paid to the teachings the past offered the Pachecos, through both the history of their lineage and the more recent events they had personally witnessed during their youth.

The King elevated him from page to grandee: the Pachecos' Career
Like many of his contemporaries, fray Jerónimo de la Cruz took most of his information from the texts to which he had access 13 . When he spoke about the Pachecos, he relied on these accounts and did not explore the genealogy of his protagonists any further. In his opinion, the family only started to prosper when "the king elevated him [Juan Pacheco] from page to grandee" 14 . Fray Jerónimo was not greatly interested in the Pacheco lineage and simply repeated what others had said about their flight from Portugal at the end of the fourteenth century 15 . For the Pachecos, however, the past was a constant reminder of their former power, and their family's flight was a warning against future calamities.
This flight left a deep mark on the family's history. The Pachecos recalled the ascendency they once held in Portugal and constantly tried to recreate their former power in their adopted homeland of Castile 19 . This explains why they sided with the Castilian king's favourite Álvaro de Luna and sent their first-born son Juan Pacheco to his service in the early 1430s 20 . Growing up under Luna's protection, Juan Pacheco observed his master's tactics to rule over the royal court, but he also discovered the weaknesses that ultimately led Luna to the scaffold in 1453 accused of lèse-majesté 21 . Thanks to his master's patronage, Juan Pacheco was sent to the court of the Crown Prince Enrique in 1435. From that moment on, the young Pacheco made good use of his personal skills to establish a close relationship with the royal heir and, in just a few years, he obtained many possessions, royal offices and aristocratic titles, the first of which was the Marquisate of Villena 22 .
When Enrique reached the throne in 1454, Juan Pacheco's pre-eminence increased. From then on, the Marquis of Villena influenced the Castilian political agenda and his power remained almost unrivalled until his death in 1474 23 . Pacheco realised that Luna had failed to secure his lineage's future and that is why he transferred his titles and role as privado to his son Diego long before his death. Juan Pacheco passed away of natural causes in October 1474 and only a few months later the king also died, appointing Diego López Pacheco as the tutor of his heiress Juana and entrusting him with the mission to arrange her marriage to the Portuguese King.
The succession to the Castilian throne, however, was unclear and Diego López Pacheco fought against Isabel and Fernando, Juana's contenders for the throne, until their final victory in 1480 24 . This defeat dealt a harsh blow to the Pacheco lineage. Not only did they lose many possessions, they also had to face a new political landscape in which the privanza was no longer relevant. Despite his precarious position, 17 Costa, M. Y.: Diogo Lopes Pacheco: Subsídios para o estudo da acção política de um magnate português do séc. XIV, PhD Thesis, Universidade de Coimbra, 1967; Fernandes, F. R.: "Diogo Lopes Pacheco: Acción política y diplomacia entre Portugal y Castilla en el siglo XV", Studia historica. Historia medieval, 18 (2000), pp. 211-224. 18 Fernandes, F. R., "Os exílios da linhagem dos Pacheco e sua relação com a natureza de suas vinculações aos Castro (segunda metade do século XIV)", Cuadernos de Historia de España, 82 (2008) Diego López Pacheco regained some of his offices, served the Royal Crown and continued to be regarded as an important nobleman. When he died in 1529, he left behind a Castile that was radically different from the one into which he had been born in the 1440s 25 .
The aim of this article is not to offer a biography of the first two Marquises of Villena, but rather to understand the means through which they established a privanza that allowed them to exercise influence over their rulers and countrymen. A basic characteristic of any privanza was the fact that one had to be deemed a favourite by the monarch, but also by the elites and the commoners. Only through a skilful combination of personal bonds, cliental networks and symbolic communication tools could a person achieve a successful privanza that did not end in political exile or death, but which instead increased the privado's power and that of his lineage.

More a prisoner of Pacheco than a king: Personal Bonds
When discussing the short reign of King Alfonso (1465-1468), fray Jerónimo affirmed that he was "more a prisoner of Pacheco than a king" 26 . He asserted something similar to describe the power the Marquis held over Enrique IV by stating that "Pacheco was the master of Enrique's person" 27 and was even more explicit when he claimed that Juan II and Enrique IV "were both sick of their sides: one was ill of Álvaro de Luna and the other of Juan Pacheco" 28 . The chronicle does not discuss Diego López Pacheco's career, but the Venetian ambassador Vincenzo Querini depicted him in a similar fashion in 1506, when he stated that Diego "was the one who governed the king [Philippe I] who has recently passed away" 29 .
A feature that Álvaro de Luna, Juan Pacheco and Diego López Pacheco shared with former privados and later validos was the ascendency they exercised over their rulers through their personal relationships 30 . These bonds are difficult to outline because they were cultivated on the blurry borderline between the public and the private spheres, but some glimpses of the fondness that arose between the monarch and his favourite can be discerned in some official documents. In 1456, Juan Pacheco declared he was Enrique IV's "humble servant, creature and made-man" 31 and the King, for his part, called him his "beloved" in 1472 32 . Enrique IV even claimed that Juan Pacheco's aristocratic titles mirrored personal ties because "according to the "È quello che governava il re al presente morto", in Querini, V.: "Relazione di Borgogna con aggiunta di alcuni particolari intorno i regni di Inghilterra e di Castiglia", in Alberi, E. (ed.): Le relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti al Senato, Florence, All'Insegna di Clio, 1839, p. 24. 30 García García, B. J.: "La aristocracia y el arte de la privanza", Historia social, 28 (1997), pp. 115-116. 31 "Vuestro humilde servidor, criança e fechura", in Franco Silva, op. cit. (note 12), p. 155. 32 "Mi bienamado don Johan Pacheco", in Grant of 100,000 maravedís that Enrique IV made to Juan Pacheco on 8 June 1472, Real Academia de la Historia (RAH), 9/289, fol. 120r. laws of Castile, count means companion and, when a monarch makes somebody a count, it appears that he makes him his companion" 33 .
It is hard to pinpoint the origin of these personal bonds because they rarely left behind documentary traces and very few documents speak about the youth of royal persons. Nevertheless, the sources unanimously reveal that both Álvaro de Luna and Juan Pacheco played a fundamental role alongside Juan II and Enrique IV in their youth 34 and that they developed what has been defined as a parenté de bouche during their formative years 35 .
Validos and privados also directed their efforts to gaining the trust of the heir to the throne 36 , a technique that, as we have seen, medieval favourites like Lopo Fernandes Pacheco had already employed. Luna was granted custody over the Prince in 1432, assumed control of his household in 1435 and soon tried to dominate it through his page Juan Pacheco. Later events demonstrated that Pacheco soon surpassed his master and took advantage of this position at Luna's expense 37 . Pacheco, for his part, was appointed as Prince Alfonso's tutor in 1465 and of Princess Juana in 1472 38 . He carefully avoided repeating Luna's error and instead of entrusting the tutorship to others when he could not directly exercise it, he left the young royals in the company his own family members like his wife, his son, his nephew the Count of Ureña or his relative the Bishop of Burgos 39 . The second Marquis of Villena found himself in a more difficult predicament because he had to create bonds with royal heirs who lived in foreign countries. Despite these difficulties, Diego managed to create links that allowed him to establish a short but successful privanza between 1502 and 1506 40 .
Recent research has shown that early modern validos cleverly used family members to sustain their power and complement their patronage activities 41 . We lack de-33 "Ca segunt las leyes de Castilla conde tanto quiere desir como conpañero, ca fasiendo el rey a alguno conde, paresçe que lo fase conpañero", in Title of Count issued to Juan Pacheco on 30 September 1461: Archivo Histórico de la Nobleza (AHNOB), Frías,c. 120,doc. 18,fol. 1v. 34 Carceller Cerviño, M. P.: "Álvaro de Luna, Juan Pacheco y Beltrán de la Cueva: Un estudio comparativo del privado regio a fines de la Edad Media", En la España medieval, 32 (2009), pp. 85-112. 35 Foronda, F.: La privanza ou le régime de la faveur: Autorité monarchique et puissance aristocratique en Castille (XIIIe-XVe siècle), 2 vols, PhD Thesis, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne, 2003, vol. 1, pp. 31-55. 36 Feros, A., El duque de Lerma. Realeza y privanza en la España de Felipe III, Madrid, Marcial Pons, 2006, pp. 90-108. 37 Calderón Ortega, J. M.: Álvaro de Luna, 1419-1453. Colección diplomática, Madrid, Dykinson, 1999Franco Silva, op. cit tailed studies outlining how earlier privados employed their families, but the fact that Álvaro de Luna's sons held important royal offices suggests that this might be a fruitful field of research 42 . We are still far from knowing if Luna's wife also assisted him in the day-to-day governance of Castile, but it is not unreasonable to suppose that she did because her actions after Luna's death reveal a woman with exceptional political skills 43 . Sources are more explicit when they discuss Juan Pacheco, who was often aided by his wife and brother, and often used his offspring to settle alliances with the most powerful families 44 . Pacheco's decision to place his son Diego alongside Enrique IV was particularly successful. Chronicles affirm that the king "told Diego López Pacheco that he would love him as he had once loved his father" 45 . Decades later, Diego employed the very same technique when he attempted to regain power in the royal court by placing his son Diego II at Charles V's service 46 .
Even if a privado was trusted by the monarch and the royal heirs, he still needed to establish a good understanding with the queen, the third pole of the monarchic triangle of power. According to Castilian law, the queen mirrored the king and was essential to attain political balance 47 . Juan II's first wife had shaped his relationship with Álvaro de Luna and his second spouse had a decisive impact on putting an end to the privado's career 48 . Juan Pacheco had personally witnessed these events and attempted to maintain a good relationship with Enrique IV's wives. Little is known about the relations Pacheco maintained with Blanca of Navarre, but we have more information on Enrique IV's second wife Juana de Avis. It has been suggested that her marriage to Enrique IV might have been induced by Pacheco himself and various extant letters she wrote demonstrate that he played an instrumental role by her side, especially between 1472 and 1474, when Pacheco was entrusted with her guardianship 49 . 42 About Juan de Luna, see Calderón Ortega, op. cit. (note 21, 1998), pp. 113-114; Cañas Gálvez, F. P.: "La cámara de Juan II: Vida privada, ceremonia y lujo en la corte de Castilla a mediados del siglo XV", in Gambra Gutiérrez, A. and Labrador Arroyo F. (eds.): Evolución y estructura de la Casa Real de Castilla, 2 vols., Madrid, Ediciones Polifemo, 2010, vol. 1, pp. 155 and 182. About Pedro de Luna, see Cañas Gálvez, F. P.: "El despensero mayor de raciones de la Casa del rey. Estudio institucional y documentos de un oficio curial en la Castilla Trastámara (1380-1456)", Cuadernos de Historia del Derecho, 22 (2015), p. 134. He succeeded in doing so, but after her defeat in 1480 at the hands of Isabel and Fernando, he was obliged to step back and await a more propitious moment. This arrived in 1500, when the heiress to the Crowns of Castile and Aragon was Princess Juana, the daughter of Isabel and Fernando, who had married Philippe Duke of Burgundy. Diego soon became one of their closest advisors and the conversations he held with Philippe were particularly fluid 50 .
In its early stages, the privanza was not an institutionalised political system 51 , but it reached a new stage during Enrique IV's reign when it was formalised through the so-called "contracts of privanza". These were agreements that settled a governmental system in which the ruler's authority was never placed into question, but the power had to be shared with certain figures 52 . It seems that this new political tool was conceived by Juan II and Juan Pacheco in 1440. In a first exceptional contract, Juan II undertook that he "would not consent nor allow you to be separated and distanced from the side of the said Prince my son" 53 . Pacheco's position at the Prince's side was thus officialised and, in later years, it was further reinforced through the numerous contracts he devised to set the rules of his political game 54 .
Juan Pacheco reached the climax of his privanza when he signed an unprecedented document with the Archbishop of Toledo in 1468. The king was no longer a party to this contract of privanza and the two privados affirmed: "Since King Alfonso is of such a tender age that he cannot rule and govern these reigns by himself, and he needs people to accompany, assist and help him [...] we shall aid him to rule and govern these realms" 55 . After King Alfonso's death in 1468, Pacheco returned to Enrique IV's side and, only three years later, the monarch gave him permission to establish on his behalf any alliance under any terms with whomever he wished 56 . This last document granted Pacheco almost absolute power and it was precisely in these circumstances that his contemporaries affirmed that they saw him "not only as a king, but also as a god of the Earth" 57 .
Diego López Pacheco followed in his father's footsteps and signed a similar contract of privanza with Afonso V of Portugal in 1475 58 . During the privanza he exercised alongside Juana and Philippe, however, no documents were drafted setting forth the terms of their agreement. This did not mean that Diego had forsaken his faith in the privanza as an almost-official governmental system and a message he sent to Charles V during the War of the Comunidades proves that he still believed in it as late as the 1520s 59 .

Ruling the palace more than the King: Orchestrating the Royal Court
Fray Jerónimo de la Cruz claimed that many members of the royal court did not know how to behave when they realised that Juan Pacheco and Alfonso Carrillo were "ruling the palace more than the King" 60 , complaints that were very similar to those voiced in the seventeenth-century against the Count-Duke of Olivares 61 . In the case of Diego López Pacheco, these voices were not so virulent because he always operated cloaked by the shadows of the throne. As the following pages will show, the Pachecos attempted to control the complex mechanisms of Castile's administration and external affairs by directly exercising power and creating flexible networks of clients.
Seventeenth-century validos and former privados knew that a first step to achieving a successful privanza was to reach a position that entitled them to exercise real power, which was usually attained through the offices they accumulated 62  The Pachecos augmented their offices in a similar fashion. Juan Pacheco was allowed to hold the Prince's knife and was made Justice of Segovia in 1440. The following year he entered the Royal Council and, in 1442, he became Guarda del Rey and Camarero Mayor de los Paños. Nevertheless, the most important office of his early career was that of Mayordomo Mayor of the Prince's household, which he obtained in 1444 after Luna was forced to relinquish it 64 . According to contemporary accounts, these offices gave Pacheco great power, but "if someone approached him requesting assistance, he was not ashamed of feigning powerlessness" 65 . Besides, Pacheco did not directly manage Enrique's expenditure and, on the few occasions he did, he made sure that Enrique asked him in writing to oversee his treasurer's books 66 . After Juan II's death, Pacheco kept his title of Mayordomo Mayor 67 and was then elected Grand Master of Santiago and appointed administrator of the Order of Calatrava 68 . Juan Pacheco passed his offices on to his son Diego, who successfully held on to the title of Mayordomo Mayor during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, but failed to be elected Grand Master of Santiago 69 .
Being appointed Mayordomo Mayor was critical for the Pachecos since it granted them authority over the offices of the royal household 70 . Nonetheless, privados and validos also exercised their power in far more subtle ways through extensive and flexible networks of clients 71 . Even though he was not the King's Mayordomo, Luna controlled many sectors of Castile's administration though his made-men 72 and his fall from grace was partly caused by these bureaucrats' desertion 73 . Juan Pacheco was named Mayordomo of the Prince in 1444 but was acting as such much earlier, as is perfectly illustrated by a letter Juan II sent him in 1442 74 .
Over the years, Juan Pacheco appointed his own men to many positions 75 . An eloquent letter sent by a certain Juan Martínez Guerrero to Pacheco in the early 1450s confirms that he had been granted the honour of appointing Enrique's scribes "because Your Nobility has ordered these powers to be given to me and not to any 64 Franco Silva, op. cit. (note 12), pp. 49-101. 65 "Si alguno se acercaba a pedirle ayuda, no se avergonzaba de alegar impotencia", in Palencia, op. cit other person" 76 . Future research might clarify the extent of Juan Pacheco's network of clients, but what matters now is the fact that he benefited from the authority he exercised over these people, a sound example of which is a letter he sent on 18 November 1469. The missive says "We have entrusted you with a charter of our king with a blank space for the amount of maravedís that should be given to the Count of Plasencia [...] and we now beseech you to place a thousand maravedís there" 77 . Few words could be more explicit, Pacheco had given an important document to one of his made-men and asked him to issue its final version when he thought the situation was auspicious.
It is likely that many of the letters and documents through which privados and validos performed their daily activities have disappeared, but it also appears that numerous orders were dispatched orally 78 . During the privanza of Diego López Pacheco, for instance, various sources reveal that he received and sent emissaries who conveyed sensitive information. Although the official ambassador sent by Juana and Philippe from Brussels was Philibert de Veyre, Diego communicated directly with them through his own personal accountant Pedro de Guaza 79 .
Besides controlling the Castilian administration, one of the greatest achievements of privados and validos alike was to be viewed by their contemporaries as the intermediaries anyone had to resort to if they wished to contact the monarchs 80 . The preceding paragraphs have already shown that Juan II contacted Juan Pacheco when he wished to obtain something from the Prince and two letters his wife addressed to Pacheco in 1442 testify to this practice 81 . Diego López Pacheco fulfilled a similar role when the Catholic Monarchs asked him to use his influence over Juana and Philippe in 1502. A first letter explicitly ordered Diego to convince Princess Juana to travel to Madrid 82 and another asked him to "persuade her to remain strong and to hinder and disapprove of the Prince's departure, for it is a harmful thing for them and for us" 83 .
These excerpts demonstrate that the Castilian royal family considered the Pachecos as useful intermediaries, but other documents suggest that foreign forces were also aware of their importance. The Queen of Navarre contacted Juan Pacheco when she wished to recommend her personal messenger to the Castilian court 84 and the monarchs of Aragon often sought his help when they wanted to intervene in Castilian 76 "Vuestra Noblesa mandó que fuesen a mí dados los poderes e non a otra persona ninguna", in Letter by Juan Martínez Guerrero to Juan Pacheco, undated, AHNOB, Villena, c. Despite the different historical circumstances, he had to live through, Diego López Pacheco also became a crucial link with foreign powers. When Enrique IV was seeking a temporary truce with the Kingdom of Granada in 1469, Diego acted as his intermediary with the Muslim ambassadors 89 . Likewise, when Afonso V of Portugal was attempting to seize power in Castile after having married Juana, it was not the monarch himself but rather Diego who sent messengers to Louis XI of France to seek his support 90 . The same happened with the Emperor Maximilian I, who discussed with Diego the possibility of becoming governor when Charles V's was a minor 91 . Diego also maintained amicable conversations with Manuel I of Portugal, who often addressed him by saying that he was "the one I much love and appreciate" 92 .
Privados were an essential link with foreign powers, but they further reinforced their control over foreign policy by influencing the choice of ambassadors, as Álvaro de Luna did during Juan II's reign 93 . According to contemporary sources, Juan Pacheco also chose Enrique IV's ambassadors 94  was precisely Diego de Guevara, whose sister Marina happened to be married to Diego's brother Alonso Téllez Girón 96 .
Despite the importance of the spoken word, written documents continued to be powerful tools in internal and external affairs, and having royal papers in one's possession was a mean of increasing that person's ascendency over the polity. This was graphically illustrated by Mateo Renzi in 1622 when he affirmed that the privado was "the Prince's archive and chest of his papers" 97 , an idea that was repeated by Juan Baños de Velasco, who stated that a privado was a "very faithful archive of the Prince's secrets" 98 . Both statements can be applied perfectly to the Pachecos' privanza because they stored numerous royal documents in their own personal archive.
Juan Pacheco kept papers linked to events of major importance in which he had intervened like, for instance, when he acted as one of the judges of the Sentencia de Medina del Campo 99 . On other occasions, he retained documents he had actively helped to draft, as in the case of the marriage agreement between Princess Juana and Enrique Fortuna 100 . He also kept charters because two drafts of the same document were drawn up, one for the king and the other for himself 101 . But one of the most interesting features of the Pacheco archive is the fact that it was a repository of already signed and sometimes partially blank documents that, in normal circumstances, one would expect to find in royal archives 102 .
A final item on the privado's agenda was to ensure his pre-eminence and avoid losing favour. Many authors have shown that Álvaro de Luna was labelled a tyrant because he had subjugated Juan II and controlled Castile 103 . Juan Pacheco, for his part, made sure that he was never seen as the only person acting alongside Enrique IV. Despite his overall supremacy, he was always accompanied by other privados and, when they began threatening his position, he managed to distance them from Enrique's entourage ( 130-134, 219-226 and 254-279. 105 Montero Tejada, R. M.: "Ideología y parentesco: Bases de la actuación política del primer duque de Nájera a comienzos del siglo XVI", Espacio Tiempo y Forma. Serie III, Historia Medieval, 5 (1992) amples, it almost seems that the Pachecos were following Joaquín Setanti's advice, who said in 1614 that a royal favourite "should have many made-men; but they should be created in such a way so that he could get rid of them later if they do not turn out well for him" 106 .

It was built by King Enrique and Pacheco took it away from him: Cultural displays
In Jerónimo de la Cruz's opinion, the Hieronymite monastery of Santa María de El Parral in the outskirts of Segovia "was built by King Enrique and Pacheco took it away from him" 107 . This passage suggests that fray Jerónimo had read the chronicle by José de Sigüenza (1595Sigüenza ( -1605 according to which El Parral was a royal oeuvre in all respects. Juan Pacheco waited patiently until the works were almost finished and he then asked to be given the monastery. For both Sigüenza and De la Cruz, Pacheco had stolen from Enrique IV both his kingdom and his final resting place 108 .
Without entering into the debate about this anecdote's veracity, it is useful since it highlights the close links that existed between cultural creations and politics in the world of privados and validos. Some scholars have spoken about self-fashioning, while others have preferred to use terms like symbolic communication and social performance 109 . What all these studies have demonstrated is that, despite the changes in the leading aesthetic trends of the time, cultural manifestations continued to be used to stage personas and to mediate how somebody's actions were meant to be perceived. Following the same train of thought, the Pachecos targeted their patronage at creating cultural works that showcased their family's position next to the Crown as a natural status quo.
Privados and validos often transmitted messages during public festivities, but the way in which these messages were conveyed always depended on the cultural language of the society in which they were living 110 . This is the case of chivalric performances. Chivalry was a cultural construct; it implied a set of ideals, models and paradigms that wide sectors of society shared and understood 111 . The Pachecos might have drawn their inspiration from Álvaro de Luna, for numerous sources indicate that he used chivalric displays to show off his court's greatness and openly challenge his opponents 112 . Nonetheless, the Pachecos might have also looked back at their Conseils et conseillers dans l'Europe de la Renaissance: v. 1450-v. 1550, Tours, Presses universitaires François-Rabelais, 2012 "Le conviene tambien mucho hazer hombres de su mano, pero hechos de manera que pueda luego deshazerlos quando no le salgan bien (Centella 259)", in Setanti, J. and Arias Montano, B., Aphorismos sacados de la Historia de Publio Cornelio Tacito y Las Centellas de varios conceptos, Barcelona, Sebastián Mateuat, 1614, p. 28. 107 "Fue fábrica del Rey Don Enrrique y se le quitó Pacheco", BNE, Mss. 1776, fol. 298r. own family history. In fact, chivalric tales like the Twelve of England recounted the adventures of the fictional characters of their fourteenth-century ancestors João and Lopo Fernandes Pacheco 113 . These models might explain why Juan Pacheco also challenged other grandees in public games, as he did in Seville in 1456. On this occasion, he used a tournament in the German fashion as the excuse to contest the power of the Duke of Medina Sidonia and the rising royal favourite Miguel Lucas de Iranzo 114 . Diego López Pacheco also took part in chivalric games 115 and even conducted himself as a true knight when he lost an arm fighting in the Granada War 116 . Moreover, the Pachecos employed the language of chivalry in the clever design of their personal mottos "One with no equal" and "May life die and fame forever live", which they proudly displayed next to the phoenix they employed as their heraldic animal (Fig. 1) 117 . Military and chivalric orders constituted another fundamental facet of knightly culture. Belonging to an order served to create a sense of community among the few knights selected for them and this was precisely the aim of the Order of the Jarra, to which Juan Pacheco was admitted in 1449 118 and of the Orders of the Golden Spur and of the Golden Fleece, whose ranks Diego López Pacheco joined in 1519 119 . Orders also functioned as a means of distinction for those who ruled them and this paper has already mentioned the great efforts the Pachecos made to become Grand Masters of Santiago, the richest and most important order in Castile. Juan Pacheco timed this concession particularly well and was granted the Santiago's insignia at the unique moment when the contending kings Enrique and Alfonso were both residing in Segovia, thereby pre-empting any possible future problems that could place his appointment into doubt 120 .
Such performances spoke of the privados' personal virtues, but these men also needed to stage their proximity to the monarch as both a person and an institution 121 . The close relationship that linked seventeenth-century validos to the Crown was often crystallised in the creation of a networks of private residences used to host the royal family 122 . Earlier privados resorted to a similar technique and particularly telling is the occasion when King Alfonso retired to Juan Pacheco's hometown of Belmonte 123 , a tactic the privado used to alleviate tensions in the royal court and which he had probably learnt from Álvaro de Luna, who often welcomed Juan II in his villages of Escalona and Ayllón 124 . Diego López Pacheco also hosted members of the royal family in 1502, precisely when Juana and Philippe travelled to Castile to be sworn in as heirs to the throne. When the young couple reached Madrid, they were hosted by Diego 125 and, when they travelled to Toledo, they were housed again in one of his palaces. According to contemporary sources, eighty-two new servants were hired for the occasion 126 and all the rooms were enriched with tapestries and silverware 127 . Diego offered frequent entertainments and even gave Phillipe a domesticated ostrich as a present 128 . All these activities should not be regarded as extravagantly frivolous courtly games, they were strategies used by elites to promote themselves and which their contemporaries understood 129 . 119 AHNOB, Frías, c. 210, doc.1, fol. 311v; Vilanova de Rosselló, R. and Doménech y Roura, F.: Capítulo del Toisón de Oro celebrado en Barcelona el año 1519, Barcelona, Librería Verdaguer, 1930, p. 106. 120 Such performances demonstrated that a monarch as a person enjoyed the privado's company, but a public display of their relationship during political ceremonies was something altogether different, projecting the trust that the Crown as an institution placed on the privado. A first symbolic moment was the baptism of a royal child, when privados like Álvaro de Luna, Juan Pacheco and Diego López Pacheco were granted the honour of becoming the child's godparents 130 . The official swearing in of an heir, however, was of greater significance due to its political implications. Álvaro de Luna appeared next to Prince Enrique during his 1425 swearing in ceremony 131 , as did Juan Pacheco when Princess Juana was sworn in in 1462 132 . During the dynastic troubles of the 1460s, Pacheco remained close to the Princes and, when Isabel was sworn in by the Cortes of 1469, he orchestrated the event so that it took place in his own town of Ocaña 133 . Diego López Pacheco closely mirrored his father's footsteps walking next to Princess Juana during her swearing in ceremonies held in Toledo and Zaragoza in 1502 134 .
Despite their importance, these were just one-off events and the presence of privados alongside their monarchs during the Cortes was considered of far greater importance because it symbolised the privado's role in the polity's day-to-day governance. Luna and Juan Pacheco occupied a position traditionally assigned to members of the royal family 135 and Diego López Pacheco went a step further in the Cortes that Juana and Philippe attended in 1506. On that occasion, Diego publicly showed King Philippe how to behave at formal receptions, thus demonstrating he was his most important advisor and highlighting that the monarch's Burgundian favourites were not up to the task because of their lack of familiarity with Castilian etiquette 136 .
Such public acts were witnessed by just a few people and their communicational value diminished when people stopped talking or reading about them. It is therefore not surprising that royal favourites of all times resorted to more long-lasting methods to display their privanza's ideals 137 . Álvaro de Luna, for instance, devised an extensive literary campaign: he became the dedicatee and also ordered the redaction of several literary works that mirrored his intellectual concerns; he staged his persona by composing court poetry 138 ; and he even wrote a lengthy book in which he defend-ed the moral equality of men and women (Fig. 2) 139 . The ultimate aim of this latter piece was much deeper, however. When one lingers on the passage: "Virtues and vices are not a person's appetite, desire or vigour; they are virtues we have and acquire because we are used to doing them many times" 140 , one realises that these words could well be read as Luna's response to those who claimed that nobility was an inherent virtue that only a few families possessed 141 . Through this work, Luna was stating that people were born with no virtues or rights, and that they only acquired them through their actions, just as he had done. As far as we know, the Pachecos did not write any literary works, but the prefaces of several books dedicated to them suggest that they had an interest in literature. Juan Pacheco became the dedicatee of two practical treatises by Diego de Valera. The first of these was written following Juan Pacheco's instructions and analysed various Castilian titles, while the second offered practical advice for leading a successful political life 142 . The latter's closing sentence closely matches Pacheco's ideas about cliental networks, for it reads: "Examine your friends and servants with great care, and regard virtuous and good noblemen as treasures" 143 . Literary works were also dedicated to Diego López Pacheco, but in his case their subject matter focused on religious piety and inner devotion 144 .
Not everybody could attend ceremonies or had access to poems and books, which is why privados and validos also showcased their personas through lavish edifices 145 . We have already mentioned Luna's palace in Escalona, but it should be added that this building was conceived as a joint enterprise of Juan II and his privado. Indeed, a royal charter affirms that Luna had built "chambers, palaces and houses which are very remarkable and sumptuous" in Escalona following the King's orders 146 , and an eighteenth-century description specifies that these very rooms "had been ordered by King Juan II, so that they could be used as His Majesty's palace" when he visited the town 147 . Nevertheless, Luna's greatest architectural enterprise was the renowned Chapel of Santiago in Toledo Cathedral, to which we shall return below 148 .
During his youth, Juan Pacheco was at Luna's service and witnessed his great architectural enterprises. Hence, it comes as no surprise to note that he too devoted enormous resources to the construction of castles and churches in his own estates 149 . As pointed out above, he escorted King Alfonso to Belmonte in 1467 to show him "the great and complex buildings he was constructing at the time" 150 . It is possible to surmise that on that occasion he showed Alfonso the proud genealogical statements that he had included in Belmonte's triangular fortress, the church of San Bartolomé, the hospital of San Andrés and the Franciscan convent 151 . The Pachecos also financed the construction and maintenance of numerous religious and charitable institutions, 142 Villa Prieto, J.: "El epistolario de Diego de Valera: Consejos y consuelos para el marqués de Villena (c. 1445-1465)", Territorio, sociedad y poder, 6 (2011), pp. 152-172. 143 "Pues con mucha solicitud examinad los amigos e servidores; e de los virtuosos fidalgos e buenos fazed thesoro", in Valera, D.: "Tratado de providencia contra fortuna", in Penna, M. (ed.): Prosistas castellanos del siglo XV, 2 vols., Madrid, Atlas, 1959, vol. 1, p. 144 and a thorough analysis of this religious patronage reveals that the Pachecos always sponsored orders that were in tune with the Crown's interests (Franciscans, Hieronymites, Dominicans and Conceptionists) 152 .
The Pachecos displayed their privanza through ceremonies, literature, religion and architecture, but the element that closed the circle of their public performance was the mise-en-scène of their pantheon. This might seem a simple matter, but no seventeenth-century valido ever came so close to reflecting his privanza in his burial place. Besides, complex political, economic and symbolic interests lay behind choosing a final resting place over another. This conflict of interests is well exemplified by the struggle that arose over Juan II's burial place. His ancestors had traditionally been buried in the Chapel of the New Kings in Toledo Cathedral 153 and it was no coincidence that Luna had built his own funerary chapel in that same cathedral (Fig.  3)  The introductory quotation of this section alluded to the fact that Juan Pacheco "had stolen" Enrique IV's pantheon in the monastery of El Parral. Contemporary historians and modern scholars have assumed that Pacheco had simply taken over the King's luxurious burial place, but Pacheco actually went much further: he was leaving open the possibility of Enrique IV being buried next to him. In fact, archival documents from 1472 explicitly state that only members of the Pacheco family could occupy El Parral's main chapel "with the sole exception of King Enrique IV should he wish to do so" 156 .
Juan Pacheco might well have been inspired by Luna's project in Toledo Cathedral, but it cannot be forgotten that Lopo Fernandes Pacheco, the very first privado of the Pacheco lineage, had also been buried in a royal pantheon. When Afonso IV of Portugal completed the reconstruction of Lisbon Cathedral's chevet in 1334 and decided that it would be his burial place, his notion of a royal pantheon was quite flexible and included the closest members of his entourage 157 . For this reason, Lopo Fernandes Pacheco and his wife were allowed to immortalise their life-long affinity to the Crown by being buried in one of the deambulatory's chapels and leaving a lengthy inscription that spoke about Lopo's close bond with the monarch (Fig. 4) 158 .

Conclusions
When Juan Pacheco chose El Parral as his family's final resting place he was placing a final broach on the representation of his lineage's privanza (Fig. 5). In fact, this monument contained several messages that played on the past, present and future of the Pacheco family. El Parral alluded to the lineage's past because, by encouraging Enrique IV to be buried there, they could rest forever under the same roof, just as their forebear Lopo Fernandes Pacheco had done next to Afonso IV. This pantheon also alluded to the Pachecos' present because it had been built by a king who had decided to grant it to his privado, exactly as he had done with other many favours. Lastly, El Parral also projected messages about the lineage's privanza into the future because a Requiem Mass would be sung for Enrique IV's soul every 9 September for centuries to come in order "to thank him for the many favours that my lord the Grand Master [Juan Pacheco] and I [Diego López Pacheco] have received from His Majesty, for we are his made-men" 159 .
El Parral also demonstrates that privados could not always bring their plans to fruition. As it happened to Álvaro de Luna, Juan Pacheco could not convince Enrique IV to choose El Parral as his pantheon and the King's remains were buried in the Monastery of Guadalupe instead. Nevertheless, some sources add that Enrique corpse was placed in "the house of oblivion [...] not far from Master Pacheco" 160 because his privado's body was temporarily buried in Guadalupe before its definitive transfer to El Parral 161 . This anecdote suggests that the Pachecos' success depended on their ability to learn from past errors and adapt to fast-changing circumstances. The very nature of privanza required a high degree of memory and elasticity, since it depended on the character of the king and his entourage, as well as on the historical, social and cultural constructs in which they operated.
This study has analysed the flexible ways -which have been divided into personal bonds, ways of orchestrating the royal court and cultural displays -through which the Pachecos controlled the polity, and has highlighted the critical role played by the lessons they learnt from former privados. This work has also shown that one of the most fruitful approaches to the analysis of their privanza is to view it within the spectrum of performance because the Pachecos devised actions that were aimed at presenting their power as an irreplaceable, logical and natural status quo.
Lastly, this work has demonstrated that the Pachecos lived in a tempus continuum with their past and this very continuity over time offered legitimacy to their privanza. The seventeenth-century authors who spoke about the Pachecos also perceived a continuity over time and understood the Pachecos' actions because, despite the inevitable differences, they read them with the same idiom of privanza. Only occasionally did they adapt this language to fit in words of a new jargon like valido. For this reason, authors such as Jerónimo de la Cruz and Diego de Saavedra Fajardo described the Pachecos using exactly the same terms they employed to define the Duke of Lerma and the Count-Duke of Olivares. 159 "En reconosçimiento de las muchas merçedes que de su Alteza el maestre mi señor y yo recibimos, cuya hechura fuimos", in Franco Silva, op. cit