Jerónimo Castillo de Bovadilla goes on in his voluminous handbook to maintain that such skill in ruling comes only with long experience. During the last years of Isabella's reign, a number of corregidores were repeatedly reappointed; but length of stay, upon examination, turns out not to be the key element in assuring that her officials would be allowed to govern with wisdom and prudence.

In an era of fresh crisis for the monarchy, the insistent claims of privilege pushed aside the common good. Laws were increasingly disregarded, under royal instruction, to favor those who claimed exemption or held high title. In other cases decrees were rewritten and traditions overturned to facilitate the assault of the privileged upon the rest of society. Corregidores were highly visible as enforcers of this new order of the day, and suffered an according loss of the prestige granted them in the previous era of acceptance.

On the roads

As the Granada War receded into the past protests increased from the municipalities both against continued taxation for the militia of the Holy Brotherhood and against the total freedom from outside review claimed by its police.