Dominic Sandbrook

And then he discovers they've killed Atahualpa, and he goes absolutely ballistic.

And he says, how could you do this behind my back when I was gone?

I'm meant to be the number two man in this expedition.

You've killed this guy who was our chief hostage and one of our biggest assets.

Now, meanwhile, Pizarro

One of his secretaries writes a report for him to Charles V saying, I have executed a monarch, but I'm just going to explain exactly why I've done it.

And the reaction in Spain was that Pizarro had behaved badly.

Not that Pizarro had done the right thing, but that Pizarro had let Spain down.

So there's a judge in Panama called Gaspard Espinosa, who's writing all the time to Charles V, basically sending him reports of what these guys are getting up to in Peru.

And he writes to Charles V and he says, the Spanish in Cajamarca are totally out of control.

Their greed is so great as to be insatiable.

The more the native chiefs give, the more the Spaniards kill or torture them to give even more.

He says, they should never have killed Atahualpa, a man who'd fallen into their hands and who'd done no harm to any Spaniard.

They could have sent him here to Panama with his wives and servants as his rank deserved.

We would all have honoured him and treated him like a great noble of Castile.

And actually,

This will surprise some listeners who have subscribed to the black legend of 16th century Spain as uniquely cruel and greedy and whatnot.

Most Spanish chroniclers agreed that Pizarro had done the wrong thing.

So this is Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo in the 1530s.

The killing of so great a prince was an infamous disservice to God and the emperor, an act of great ingratitude and outstanding evil.