As he listed for his readers the monuments of Granada, Henríquez de Jorquera paused in Plaza Nueva to contemplate the Chancillería, fourth on his list, after the Alhambra, the cathedral and the royal chapel, but preceding in importance the city hall. The law courts, he pronounced, were ‘the temple, fortress and stronghold of great monarchies’, where ‘the offences of the powerful are remedied and the poor get their due’. The splendid new building which housed it was completed in 1587, partly funded, as legend would have it, out of a fine levied on the lord of Salar for refusing to take off his hat in the presence of the king's judges. Above the main door was inscribed the legend, which symbolised a new order of things: ‘to match the gravity of the business herein transacted, His Prudent and Catholic Majesty Philip II decreed that this place of resolution of disagreements should be both large and handsome’. Bermúdez de Pedraza marvelled at how a simple piece of paper, issued by the tribunal under the royal seal, could command more authority than the king in person in less fortunate lands.

Diego Hurtado de Mendoza (1503–75), younger son of the house of Mondéjar, hereditary wardens of the Alhambra and Captains General of Andalusia, gave a classic account of the slippage of power around the time of the Revolt of the Alpujarras (1568–70) from his family, old sword nobles, to these new men of the long robe.