Tom Holland

One of the best people we've ever done on The Rest Is History is up there with Augustus the Strong, the Kaiser, and all the other big friends of the show with chequered pasts.

He is a man who loves a gilet.

He loves a great laugh.

He loves a massacre of indigenous people at a festival.

And he loves a weekend trip with the girls to Cornwall to rock or similar.

He climbed the Giralda in Seville.

He let himself down quite badly in Mexico.

He almost certainly went to Tabby's old school, Marlborough College.

He's Pedro de Alvarado.

So what's he been doing?

So if you listen to the Fall of the Aztecs, you will remember that Pedro Alvarado is a great laugh.

But you want to stay on the right side of him.

So actually, he's been roistering around Guatemala and he's been slaughtering indigenous people and being a total legend.

And he's heard all these rumors of the gold of Peru and he wants in.

So he finally turns up.

February 1534, Pedro de Alvarado lands on the coast of Ecuador with a load of Spanish infantry and crossbowmen, 500 of them.

So he's turned up with a lot of men and 4,000 Guatemalans.

And the great thing about Pedro is everything he touches turns to dust and disaster.

Even as he arrives, people in Central America are writing to Spain saying, Pedro's turned up and it's all going to go horribly wrong for him.

So an official in Panama writes to Charles V, although there are many Guatemalans, I believe they will all die soon because they're from a hot country and they're going to a cold one.