Tom Holland

This is where most of the children's books end.

And for some of Pizarro's men, this is the end.

So he gives them permission to go back to Spain with their winnings.

His brother Hernando has already gone, of course.

He reached Seville in January 1534.

And his gold was a huge sensation when he unloaded it.

When he unloaded it in Seville...

The council of the Indies immediately wrote to Charles V and said, you've got to welcome this guy at court.

You've got to see this.

And Ando was invited to the court in Toledo.

He was a massive celebrity.

Everyone was very excited.

He then went to Extremadura, to the Pizarro's kind of ancestral homeland, and he went on a recruitment drive to get more people.

You can come and get gold.

Why don't we all go?

And meanwhile, two of the other guys who returned, Cristobal de Meña and Francisco Jerez, they wrote accounts of their time in Peru, which became, by the standards of the 16th century, huge bestsellers.

And they were translated into Italian and into German.

And people in Venice, mapmakers in Venice, started producing sort of imaginary maps of Peru.

And it became this great sensation.

Basically, if you're young, if you fancy yourself as an adventurer, Peru is where you now go.