AUTOGRAPH OF BARBARA BLOMBERGHFrom a photograph by Lacoste
AUTOGRAPH OF BARBARA BLOMBERGHFrom a photograph by Lacoste
AUTOGRAPH OF BARBARA BLOMBERGHFrom a photograph by Lacoste
Barbara Blombergh was met at this port by Doña Magdalena de Ulloa, who had been warned of her advent by D. John, and at San Cebrian de Mazote she was awaited by Doña Magdalena's brother and sister-in-law, the Marqueses de la Mota, who wished to help the illustrious widow of Luis Quijada over this difficult meeting. In truth it needed all Doña Magdalena's tact, patience, and love for D. John to tame the furious wild beast who was disembarked at Laredo on the 3rd of May in the form of Barbara Blombergh. Doña Magdalena took her at once to the castle of San Cebrian de Mazote, where the Marqués de la Mota and his wife received her very kindly, and entertained her splendidly, and such pains did the good and discreet Doña Magdalena take, that in the three and a half months Madam Blombergh was with her, the angry, wild animal was changed into a gentle lamb, and when the hour of farewell came she herself asked to retire to the Dominican convent of Santa Maria la Real, in the village of San Cebrian, where Doña Magdalena had prepared for her a comfortable, separate apartment, so that she could go in and out.
From the 3rd of May, 1577, when she disembarked at Laredo, until the end of July, 1579, when, after D. John's death, Philip II gave her an income of 3000 ducats, all the expenses of Barbara Blombergh were borne by Doña Magdalena de Ulloa. This is shown, without any shadow of doubt, by the paper presented by this lady in the testamentary accounts of D. John of Austria, which exists in the Alba archives, signed and with this label:
"That which I, Doña Magdalena de Ulloa, have paid in virtue of two letters from the Very Serene D. John of Austria, God rest his soul, one dated from Louvain the 23rd of April, 1577, the other from Brussels the 4th of July of the same year, about the expenses of Madam Blomberghhis mother, also arranging her apartment and her ordinary expenses, and her extraordinary personal ones, servants and wages and clothes and other things, some furniture indispensable and necessary for her use, the which I gave over to her servants, and that which I gave for this is the following."
A detailed account of the money made over to Madam Blombergh and her stewards follows, divided into thirty-six items; then comes the reimbursement by the same Doña Magdalena in three items by the hand of Melchor de Camago, Juan de Escovedo, and Antonio Pérez, and this curious document concludes by making the following balance and protest: "So what I have paid by order of His Highness, according to the said letters relating to the building of the house and other things belonging to it, and providing for the said house and servants of the said Madam his mother, comes to one million three hundred and forty thousand one hundred and ninety-two maravedis, which as I have said in the items by God and my conscience I gave over to Madam and her servants, and what I have received on account of this amounts to nine hundred and seventeen thousand and eighty-eight maravedis: so that it is more than the goods of the said Lord D. John by four hundred and twenty-two thousand and five hundred and four maravedis; and I certify that the account and items, of the receipt as of the fact, by my conscience are certain and true, and that the said amount is due to me, and I have not received it, nor has anything been given to me on account, and this being true, I sign this with my hand and with my name, this date at Valladolid, fourteenth of July, one thousand five hundred and eighty-two."
"Doña Magdalena de Ulloa."
Thus it is proved that D. John, helped by Doña Magdalena, provided everything necessary for his mother until his last hour; and when he was dying he commended her to his brother D. Philip through his confessor P. Dorante, for which reason Philip II granted her an income of 3000 ducats for her life. No sooner was D. John dead, however, than Madam Blombergh presented a memorial to the King,claiming D. John's estate as sole and lawful heiress. This was granted to her without hesitation, as D. John had no private property, and his debts amounted to much more than the value of the jewels and furniture he possessed.
Barbara Blombergh lived peaceably at the convent of Santa Maria la Real for several years; but as regularity and quietness were not her strong point, she became bored, and begged Philip II to move her to some other place. As the house of the unfortunate Escovedo at Colindres was at Philip's disposal at that time, she retired there, and there died the same year as Philip (1598), leaving directions that she was to be buried at the Franciscan convent in the town of Escalante.
By her marriage with Jerome Kegel Barbara Blombergh had two sons. The younger drowned himself in a cistern in his own house, eight days after his father's death; the elder, who was named Conrad, took the name of Pyramus, which his father bore, joined to that of Kegel. He began to study for the Church, well supplied with funds by D. John, at whose death he abandoned these studies, owing to his love of arms. He joined the army, being helped by Alexander Farnese, and became a colonel. He married the Baroness de St. Martin, and died before his mother, during whose lifetime his widow came to Spain, and died there; but where or when we do not know.
CHAPTER XV
D. John of Austria at last signed the "Peace of Ghent," called the "Perpetual Edict," on the 14th of February, 1577, with his heart full of shame and depression. He was full of shame, because it was humiliating for Spain, for his King, and for himself as Philip's representative to give in to the rude and insolent demands of that band of rebels and dissembling heretics; and it depressed him, because, in signing the paper, he destroyed with a stroke of the pen, for a doubtful gain, the brilliant hope of his golden and chivalrous dream—the expedition to England.
At that moment the key of the situation of the whole expedition was the departure of the Spanish regiments from Flanders. D. John could send them along the coast of Holland, and from there descend on England, where everything was ready for their reception. But the Prince of Orange, afraid lest these redoubtable soldiers should approach the two provinces he had usurped, Holland and Zeeland, vigorously opposed the plan of embarkation, and prevailed on the States to inform D. John, with their usual rudeness, that the troops should not leave by being embarked on the north, but should march towards Italy. A violent altercation took place between the Council in Brussels and D. John, and all the negotiations that had been made were on the point of being broken off, because D. John was at the end of his patience, and the Council at the limit of the insolence with which they endeavoured to tire and exasperate him. But Philip, frightened lest the peace, which was his only desire, should be endangered, stopped the quarrel by ordering D. John to dispatch the troops by land, as the States wished.
D. John bowed his head and signed the "Perpetual Edict," thus sacrificing by his obedience the hopes of a kingdom, then more than ever well founded, as Monsignor Filippo Sega, Bishop of Ripa Trazone, had just arrived at Luxemburg, sent to Flanders by Gregory XIII as Nuncio to D. John. The ostensible object of the mission was to counsel and guide him, that in his treaties with the heretics there should be nothing prejudicial to the Catholic Church; but in reality it came to give him the Bulls from Gregory XIII, conceding him the kingdom of England, and to give him the 50,000 golden crowns which the Pope sent to help the enterprise, and offering 5000 well-armed infantry which the Holy See would provide, and which only waited for D. John's signal to start for England. This unhoped-for assistance from the Pope, joined to the news from the English and Scotch lords that everything was ready, promised such success to the expedition that it made it all the harder and more disappointing to give it up.
All the same, D. John sacrificed his hopes just as they were coming true, and thus cruelly humbled his own personal pride, and smothered his own legitimate aspirations, in order to obey the King, his brother, loyally; and without loss of time he ordered the Spanish regiments to assemble at Maestricht, to leave Flanders for Italy. It happened, as D. John had foreseen, that the troops obeyed, because it was he who ordered them; but they did so murmuring against the King, grumbling at the way he treated them, promising that very soon he would call for them again, and claiming, with great justice, their overdue pay before leaving.
D. John then found himself in a fresh quandary; the States, who should have paid the troops, refused to pay more than a third part of what was due, and, by an unreasonableness which showed their bad faith, at the same time refused to acknowledge D. John as Governor, or give him the command so long as the troops did not leave Flanders. On the other hand, in spite of D. John's repeated petitions and Escovedo's violent letters, no money camefrom Spain, nor could D. John have found, by begging in all the exchanges and banks, any to lend him the necessary sum, because the King of Spain's credit was very bad in Flanders.
In this difficulty D. John told Monsignor Sega, and, showing him all the trouble of the situation, asked him to lend the 50,000 golden crowns destined by Gregory XIII for the unlucky expedition to England, to pay the soldiers, pledging his word and oath, in the name of his brother, that they should be quickly and surely returned. Escovedo was able to negotiate, for his part, by pledging his credit and oath, for the rest of the amount that remained to pay off this dangerous debt, at the cost of D. John's hopes and the self-denial of the secretary. By these means the famous troops at last left Flanders for Italy, commanded by the Count de Mansfeld, amid the great rejoicing of the Flemish rebels, who then saw the coast clear for the further treasons they were plotting.
This put an end to the pretext for not receiving D. John and making over the command to him, and he was proclaimed Governor at Louvain amid a crowd of gentlemen, and the real joy of some and the false and feigned enthusiasm of the rest. From there he went to Brussels, in spite of the fact that the loyal Count of Barlaimont warned him that they were conspiring against his life and liberty. He came in sight of the city on the 4th of May, and an hour before his entry an insurrection broke out, promoted by the followers of the Prince of Orange. One Cornelius Straten, a known agent and leader of highwaymen, began to harangue the crowd, telling them that they should not let the Austrian traitor enter Brussels, who, with falseness and deceit, was bringing them death. Upon this a mass of riotous people dashed towards the gates of the city, overthrowing the guards, and lowered the portcullis. The magistrates arrived in haste, and, arresting Straten, quieted the tumult and cleared the gates. D. John arrived a few minutes later, calm and quiet, showing his bravery and greatness by dismissing his guard of halberdiers, as a proof of his confidence in the people.This is how Famiano Strada refers to D. John's entry into Brussels and his first acts as Governor:
"But the Austrian, at the time the Spaniards left, entered Brussels with extraordinary pomp, between the Pontiff's delegate and the Bishop of Liége and a complete deputation of all the States. It was he who made the brilliance of the show, with his debonair person—he was not thirty-two—laden with fame and triumphs by land and sea, and with these adornments representing his father, the Cæsar Charles, beloved and popular name among Flemings. Having solemnly sworn at the beginning of his government, he started to fulfil these promises with incredible clemency, rare affability, and all sorts of kindnesses, and an unheard-of liberality, exercised towards those who had the least claim, to such an extent that the citizens, attracted by his gentle bearing, forgetting their first ideas, and how much they had said against him, outbid each other in praising him, principally for having seen him one day without the foreign militia, and they congratulated themselves that the Austrian had brought its former happiness back to Flanders."
Philip II wrote to thank D. John for his trouble, very pleased with his conduct, and letting him plainly understand that there was no reason for definitely giving up the English plan.
"On the 14th of last month," he says, "I told you of the arrival of Concha, and of the receipt of the dispatches which he brought, and how pleased I was to learn the good state of affairs through the arrangement you have made with the States, and the satisfaction everything you have done has given me, and this to the extent that I do not content myself with what I wrote then, without again thanking you for it, and certifying that it has given me such satisfaction, that, although nothing could add to the love I have for you, the desire to prove to you how much I esteem your work, and the fruit and success which has followed from it in all the business of my service, that I shall praise you more each day, and my care will grow for all that concerns you, knowing that every day you are putting me under fresh obligations by remaining in the same cares and work as heretofore,in order that the affairs of these States may become settled, and that which is best for the service of God and my service may be established; and although what you have done hitherto is much, what is before you is indescribably more. And as I know this, you may believe that it gratifies me much to show you the good-will which I have towards you in all that occurs, and that things will go on in such a way that that of England will be effected."
In the next line, and as if it were a means of arriving at this conquest, so desired by D. John, he insinuates his approval of the new and strange plans, invented by we know not whom, of substituting the marriage of D. John and Mary Stuart, which would cost blood and money, for that of D. John with Elizabeth of England, to which she seemed inclined.
"As to the marriage with the Queen of England, what I can tell you is that if in this way and with this view it could be treated of and brought about, it would be doing a great service and sacrifice to Our Lord, converting this kingdom to the Catholic Religion, which is in itself such an honour and glory that nothing can surpass it."
But D. John did not desire to be King of England by any and every means, but by those of justice and nobleness, conquering the kingdom with his sword, setting the lawful Queen, Mary Stuart, at liberty, and sharing her throne by her own wish. He therefore protested against this short cut of ignominy, which would lead him peaceably to the English throne, with no more exertion than that of joining his fate to that of a usurper, by her own apostasy and vices the scandal of Europe. "The favours the Queen of England is everywhere conferring," answered D. John to his brother, "are not so unimportant as to be disregarded and steps not taken to prevent them; as the world is so full already of heretics, she has very efficient ministers everywhere. It is natural to those whom God rejects to take much thought for things here, and thus does this unhappy Queen and her followers, of whose life and morals I have heard and hear so much,that I do not care to jest even about marrying her."
The summer was drawing on, and the letters from Madrid began to grow fewer in a strange way, and nothing was said in them of the absolute want of money, or of the loans which D. John and Escovedo had raised, pledging their own word and credit, until at last D. John decided to send the secretary to Rome, and from there to Spain, to tell Gregory XIII everything about the English expedition, and to require from the King the prompt acknowledgment and repayment of the debt contracted with the Pope, and of the letters honoured by Escovedo, compromising his credit and honour.
Escovedo set out at the beginning of July, and D. John said good-bye to him at Mechlin, little thinking he was sending him to be treacherously killed by a sword-thrust in a lane at Madrid.
CHAPTER XVI
There was so much brave daring in D. John's act of entering alone a country, for the most part rebel and not a little heretical, his Spanish troops already dismissed, and without other guards than the Duke of Arschot's Flemings, that the Prince of Orange and his followers were amazed and understood that nothing would stop D. John if he were not deprived of life or liberty. They determined, therefore, to effect one or the other, and the numerous agents of Orange, helped by those of the Queen of England, went about the country spreading clever calumnies against him, to prepare the way, maliciously interpreting all his acts and gradually making him and his government hated. Faithful to the policy of peace which had been enjoined on him, D. John wished to confer with Orange, and sent the Duke of Arschot to tell him that the Provinces of Holland and Zeeland were the only two which had not signed the "Perpetual Edict," and as they were under his command D. John confided this task to him. Orange then threw off that mask, which had gained for him the surname of "Silent," and with which he had covered his ambitions and mischievous designs, and answered Arschot that Holland and Zeeland would never sign the "Perpetual Edict," as both these provinces were Calvinistic and neither would promise to keep the Roman faith, and taking off his hat and showing his bald head, he said to the Duke, with a smile, "You see my head is bald (calva)! Then know that it is not more so than my heart." This play upon words signified that the traitor meant he was also a Calvinist, and his apostasy being now known, all hopes of agreement were at an end. In truth, Orange continued his infamous war of calumnies and perfidious intriguesagainst D. John even more openly from this time, and with the greatest effrontery as also all that he had hitherto done in secret to the Catholic Church in the provinces of Holland and Zeeland: persecuting the clergy, expelling monks and nuns, destroying temples and altars, melting bells to make cannon, confiscating ecclesiastical revenues for his own purse or those of his partisans, and from the pulpits of Catholic churches making heretic ministers preach the doctrines of Calvin. At such impious insolence D. John proposed to the States to join their troops with those of the King, and make war on Orange and seize the provinces he had usurped; but the States put off his proposal with such shallow excuses that D. John could easily see that mutual and secret confidence existed between them and Orange. Meanwhile, in Brussels, the want of confidence and even the hatred which the agents and partisans of Orange the Silent had sown against the Austrian, grew more and more. These men became so barefaced that they wore special caps and medals with allusive letters, and the authorities and deputies became so arrogant that they ordered D. John to be called the Magistrate of Brussels, as if he were what we should now call the Mayor. He answered that they must come and see him, because it was not usual for the Magistrate to hear anyone outside the Hôtel de Ville.
The solemn festivity which the magistrates were accustomed to hold in the Hôtel de Ville, a banquet, always presided over by the Governor-General, was about to take place. D. John received several warnings not to attend it, as something was being contrived against his person; but he, even more afraid of showing that he distrusted the magistrates, came to occupy his place, accompanied by eighty musketeers of his guard, who had orders that, happen what might, they were to wound nobody. Half-way through the banquet a crowd of seditious people attacked the Hôtel de Ville, intending to enter by force, uttering insults and threats against the Austrian. The musketeers drove them back without wounding any, but many of them were hurt. D. John retired with those who remained uninjured,leaving the magistrates to deal with the guilty ones, but they overlooked this and let them go free, to show D. John that they did not consider an affront to his person worth punishing. Then it came to D. John's knowledge that the Baron of Hesse and Count de Lalaing, with two other great lords, confirmed heretics, had assembled one night in the house of another noble, and had arranged with the English ambassador and more than 500 neighbours to take D. John at the first opportunity and to kill him if he resisted. They thought that the procession of the Holy Sacrament, called in Brussels the "Miracle," might afford a good one. It took place on the 3rd of July and was always presided over by the Governor-General. D. John did not wish to break with the States, who were consenting to all this, and preferred to avoid the danger by going to Mechlin on the pretence of settling the pay of the German troops, who were asking for their money, which was in arrears. But his friends did not think him safe there and so they told him; because the conspirators, furious at their prey having escaped them, armed the militia and took the road to Luxemburg, which was a quiet place where D. John and Alexander Farnese could take refuge, and to which the Spanish troops could return. With great patience D. John thought it wise still to dissimulate, and found another plausible excuse for leaving Mechlin and not returning to Brussels and getting nearer to a strong and safe place. He went to Namur, very quietly and calmly, to receive the Queen of Navarre, Margaret of Valois, who was passing in order to take the waters of Spa at Liége. This lady was the celebrated Queen Margot, first wife of Henry IV of France, then at the summit of her vaunted beauty and in the waxing period of her coquetry, which at last degenerated, as it generally does, into shameless and complete dissoluteness.
Queen Margot entered Namur on the 24th of July in a litter entirely made of glass, a present from D. John of Austria. The glass of the litter was engraved with forty verses in Spanish and Italian, all alluding to the sun and its effects, to which the poet gallantly compared the beautiful Queen. D. John rode on her right, and their persons wereguarded by the forty archers who surrounded them; they were preceded by a company of arquebusiers on horseback and one hundred Germans forming two lines, and were followed by the Princess de la Roche sur Yonne and Mme. de Tournon in litters; ten maids of honour, as pretty, coquettish and flighty as their mistress, were riding amid a crowd of gentlemen, who waited on them and flirted with them; six coaches were in the rear with the rest of the ladies, and the female servants and an escort of lancers on horseback.
Queen Margot stayed four days in Namur, entertained all the time magnificently by D. John; at eleven o'clock they dined in one of the delicious gardens of the place, and then danced till the hour of vespers, which they went devoutly to attend in some convent of friars. Then they went for a ride and supped at six o'clock, also out of doors in the gardens, when more dancing followed, or romantic walks by the river in the moonlight with delightful music. The Bishop of Liége, who had come there, was present at all these gatherings, also the Canons and a crowd of native and foreign gentlemen, among whom Margot made her treacherous propaganda, because this bad woman, (as she always was in many ways) was in connivance with the Prince of Orange, and was working secretly in favour of her brother the Duke of Alençon, whom Orange wished to appoint Governor of Flanders, D. John being a prisoner or dead. Margot knew this, and she, being very much taken with him and not wishing any harm to befall him, gave him several very useful warnings; through her he knew that the conspirators of Brussels had plans for carrying out their evil designs there in Namur, and then it was that, in agreement with the loyal Count of Barlaimont and his sons, he resolved to retire to the castle of Namur and break with the States.
He was, however, ignorant of the number of the soldiers in the castle, and how far it was safe to count on the Governor de Ives; time pressed and he then formed a scheme, the execution of which Vander Hammen refers to as follows: "Mos. de Hierges, eldest son of the Count of Barlaimont, said that he would go to sleep that night at the castle, asMos. de Ives, the Governor, was a great friend of his; and that His Highness would come next morning to hunt, and as he passed, if he thought he could install himself in the castle, he would put his hand to his beard as a signal, and if not he was to commend himself to God and fly. They agreed on the plan and executed it the following day, without telling the Council of the States or the deputies or trusting them. He therefore pretended to go hunting, and passing by the gate of the castle asked what it was. They answered, 'One of the best in Flanders.' Monsieur de Barlaimont then said, 'My eldest son is there: would Y.H. like us to see if he wishes to go hunting?' D. John stopped and ordered him to be called. He came to the gate; His Highness asked why he had gone to sleep at a castle and had left the town, and then they began a conversation. In the middle of it he said, 'If you like to see it, it is still early and it will please them greatly,' and made the sign. D. John turned to the Duke of Arschot and the Marquis de Havré, and said to them, 'It is early, let us see it.' With this he reached the door and dismounted, carrying a pistol he had taken from the saddle-bow. Twenty-four Spanish lackeys preceded him. As relations were not ruptured, Mos. de Ives ordered the few Walloons (they were old soldiers, wearied by long wars) to open the door, and the twenty-four lackeys entered and disarmed the guard. The Lord D. John, standing at the door, said, 'All who are servants of the King, my Lord, come here to me,' and turning to Ives, he told him 'not to fear, because he had taken the castle for the King, his Lord, to whom it belonged, to free himself from a conspiracy formed against him.' He gave him the keys and permission to leave to all those who did not wish to stay with him. Nobody stirred, all mounted with him. Upstairs he took Arschot and Havré on one side, and told them all that had passed and the treaty they had made, and showed them his letters. The Duke, being convinced, offered, in the name of the States, to acknowledge him Lord of Flanders, and said that all would readily obey him if he liked to take them as vassals; but the Lord D. John reproved him very severely for the offer, and said many angrywords. It was only his courage and loyalty which could do so heroic an action and resist such a great temptation. The talk ended by the two leaving the castle and going to the town, where their wives were; but on reaching it they, also Mos. de Capres and the soldiers who had come to capture His Highness fled, so hurriedly, that they scarcely collected their clothes, saying that there was nothing further to do there as he had escaped them. D. John's chief almoner, the Abbot de Meroles, who was crafty and untrustworthy, followed them with a few others. D. John heard of the flight of the Duke and the Marquis, and at once sent Octavio Gonzaga after them, with rather more than twenty gentlemen, to make them return, but they fled in such good earnest that he could not overtake them."
The Duchess of Arschot and the Marchioness of Havré, who were at Namur, indignant at the bad conduct of their husbands, wrote to D. John protesting and offering themselves as hostages. He answered that his mission was to serve ladies, not to make them captive, and sent them 600 crowns, so that they might rejoin their husbands. So impoverished was D. John that to obtain this money he had to borrow from the gentlemen and servants who had followed him. Bad as this was, the worst part of D. John's situation was that Philip II persisted in upholding that policy of peace, which was encouraging the States more and more, forbidding the Spanish regiments to return to Flanders to continue the war, which D. John thought absolutely necessary, and as a means of forcing him to this obedience, against his opinions and wishes Philip adopted the plan of sending no money whatever to Flanders or answering the frequent and despairing letters the poor Prince wrote, which, after four centuries, give one pain to read. But what was the most extraordinary, and which immersed D. John in a sea of fears and perplexities and made him foresee grave catastrophes, was that his false friend Antonio Pérez did not write either, and the good and loyal Escovedo preserved the same silence.
CHAPTER XVII
To understand properly the complicated reasons which induced Philip II to leave his brother D. John of Austria without help in such an uncalled-for way, it is necessary to disentangle the skein, among whose threads will be found the mysterious and tragic death of the secretary Juan de Escovedo. Some light has been thrown on the gloomy drama which shows that various figures are stained with this innocent blood. By these sinister signs we are able to trace, and through many winding ways to establish, the connection of certain deeds which show by themselves the characters and degree of responsibility of these persons.
We must retrace our steps to the year 1569, and on a beautiful June afternoon we shall see slowly entering Pastrana a covered waggon of the sort still called "galeras." The mysterious vehicle excited much curiosity, and a crowd of men, women and children gathered round it when it stopped at the threshold of the ducal palace of Pastrana, whose heavy doors opened to receive it, leaving the curious outside. In the first courtyard Prince Ruy Gómez de Silva and his wife the Princess de Évoli were waiting with all their children, even down to the babies in the arms of their nurses and maids, the duennas, waiting-maids, pages and other retainers in rows, according to their standing. All eyes were fixed on the waggon, with curiosity mingled with respect, and those in the back row stood on tiptoe to see better. The curtains of the cart were at last withdrawn, and Ruy Gómez and his wife went forward respectfully; all heads were stretched out, and an old woman, who had been in the service of the Condesa del Mélito, the mother of the Princess, fell on her knees and beat upon her breasts. Three strange figures alighted, such as were never seenabout the streets at that time; they wore tunics of coarse cloth, white cloaks of the same material, and their bare feet were shod with sandals of esparto grass; long, thick black veils covered their faces and almost all their persons. A small bundle tied up in a cloth was carried under the cloak by the last figure to alight.
All these marks of curiosity and respect, however, were well justified, as the woman who was first to get out, dressed in the coarse cloth, was St. Theresa de Jesus, who was come to found a convent of barefooted Carmelites at Pastrana. It was not two years since Ruy Gómez had come into possession of his duchy, and he was hastening to do all he could for the material and moral welfare of his vassals. He wished to establish a monastery in his town, and the Princess a convent for women, which she had given over to Mother Theresa, attracted by the wonderful things she had heard of this marvellous woman, and anxious to flatter her own curiosity and vanity by associating herself with one with whom God held familiar intercourse and to whom He showed such stupendous wonders. The saint accepted the offer; she was just beginning her great reforms, and for this purpose went from Toledo to Pastrana, passing by Madrid, where she stayed with an old friend of ours and a devoted follower of the saint, Doña Leonor Mascareñes, in the Franciscan convent which Doña Leonor had founded and to which she had retired. She gave Mother Theresa many details of the Princess's difficult temper, having known her well at Court. Well primed with this information the saint went to Pastrana, where she arrived towards the end of June. Here, she says in her book about her foundations, "I found the Princess and the Prince Ruy Gómez, who received me very well; they gave me a private apartment, which was more than I could have expected, because the house was so small that the Princess had had much of it pulled down and rebuilt, not the walls, but many things. We were there for three months, hard times, the Princess asking me things contrary to our religion. I had even determined to leave rather than give in, but the Prince Ruy Gómez, in his gentle way (he was very gentle and sensible), made his wife come to reason."Besides the troubles alluded to by the saint the Princess made others from her capricious, domineering character and want of fine feeling. She had heard that St. Theresa was very beautiful, in spite of being fifty-four, and she was dying of curiosity to see her face, but the saint would not consent to show it to her, nor did she or her companions ever lift their veils before the Princess or anybody else. This exasperated the Princess, and she was always peeping through the windows and keyhole hoping to surprise Theresa in one of her trances, in which Our Lord used to appear to her. Theresa laughed at what she calls stupidities, but in the end this constant prying worried and became intolerable to her. The Princess also gave her another real cause for annoyance; knowing that her confessor had ordered her to write her wonderful life, the Princess, full of curiosity, wished to read it. Mother Theresa refused with much firmness; this piqued the capricious lady, who wrote to the saint's superiors, asking them to order her to let the Princess read the manuscript she had with her at Pastrana. They, being either very complacent or not knowing the Princess's character, did not hesitate to give the order. Theresa obeyed without delay, and then the Princess triumphed. She greedily read the ingenuous pages in which the divine marvels are told with such sublime simplicity; they excited her imagination, and, like all talkative women, feeling the necessity of imparting her feelings, she committed the breach of confidence of giving the manuscript to her duennas, waiting-maids and pages. So from hand to hand, in hall and antechamber, went the mysterious outpouring of the Virgen del Carmel, and so many comments were made that they reached the ears of the Inquisitor, who sent for the book. The severe tribunal kept it for ten years and then returned it without observation or alteration, but not before all this had caused very great annoyance.
At last the foundation was finished, and Mother Theresa left for Salamanca and the Prince and Princess for Madrid, where a year afterwards Ruy Gómez died in his house in the lane of St. Mary. He expired in the arms of his old and faithful friend Juan de Escovedo; his last moments wereaided by two barefooted Carmelite friars who came from Pastrana. The Princess gave way to paroxysms of grief, which were more like fits of temper; in the first moments she roared rather than wept over her sorrow, as she really loved the worthy man who had gratified her vanity and her senses, the only two poles which guided this lady's life. Suddenly, thinking herself like St. Theresa, inspired by Heaven, she determined at once to retire to the Carmelite convent at Pastrana and end her days in retirement and prayer. In vain the two monks, her relations and friends put before her her obligations as a mother, the duties which the will of Ruy Gómez imposed on her by making her guardian of her children, and her strict obligation to administer the properties and fortunes of these minors.
The widow's obstinacy was fanned by this opposition, and as her only answer she requested the two friars to give her the habit. They replied that they could not do so without the permission of the superiors and the authorisation of Mother Theresa. The Princess shrugged her shoulders and ordered a new habit, but as one was not forthcoming at once, she attired herself in an old, dirty one and covered herself with a black veil, as she had seen St. Theresa do, never raising it to show her face. As the sandals of esparto grass hurt her bare feet she ordered them to be lined with the softest cloth. She also ordered a waggon covered with an awning like St. Theresa's, and with her duennas and maids set out for Pastrana, without taking leave of anyone and abandoning the body of her husband. Her mother, the Princess del Mélito, got into the cart almost by main force, so as to accompany her to the convent. One of the friars, Bartholomé de Jesus, seeing that she was really going, outstripped the Princess's waggon and arrived at the convent at two in the morning to warn the nuns. The Prioress, Elizabeth de San Domingo, a discreet woman of rare virtue, came downstairs, and on hearing that the Princess was arriving in a few hours, already habited as a nun and with the intention of remaining at the convent, exclaimed, clasping her hands in amazement, "The Princess a nun—then I give up this house as lost."
CHAPTER XVIII
The author of the "History of the Reforms of the Barefooted Order of Our Lady of Carmel," Fr. Francisco de Santamaria, thus describes the arrival of the Princess de Évoli at the convent of Pastrana. "The Prioress called the nuns, got ready the house, and prepared two beds, one for the Princess, the other for her mother, who arrived at eight o'clock in the morning. The Princess changed her habit, as the one she had taken in Madrid was neither suitable nor so clean as it might have been. She rested for a while, and suddenly showing her determination wished that the habit should be given at once to the two waiting-maids she had brought with her, paying with a little sackcloth the salaries of long years. The Prioress answered that the licence of the prelate was necessary. She said, very much offended, 'What have friars to do with my convent?' Not without resentment on the Princess's part, the Mother Prioress deferred doing it until she had consulted the Father Prior. Having conferred with him she resolved to give them the habit. This was done in the parlour, the Princess being placed between the two, so that she might also attain the blessings. They took her to eat meat with her mother in a room apart. She dispensed with this service and went to the refectory, and leaving the place near the Prioress which had been prepared for her took one of the lowest, without giving in to prayers and exhortations, preserving superiority in an inferior place.
"The Prioress, considering that such self-will would cause much trouble, consulted with the Princess, her mother, that it would be better if the lady took a part of the house, where she could live with her servants and be visited by secular people, with a door to go to the cloister when she wished, but not any secular person to use it. This seemed to everyone good advice, but she thought it bad, as it was not hers, and she remained as she was in the convent.
PRINCESA DE ÉVOLIFrom a print of her portrait by Sanchez Coello,belonging to Duque du Pastrana
PRINCESA DE ÉVOLIFrom a print of her portrait by Sanchez Coello,belonging to Duque du Pastrana
PRINCESA DE ÉVOLIFrom a print of her portrait by Sanchez Coello,belonging to Duque du Pastrana
"The next day, having buried the Prince and performed the obsequies, the Bishop of Segorbe and other persons of rank who were there came to visit her. Mother Elizabeth told her to talk to them at the grating, but she wished that they should come into the cloister, and made such a point of this that, in spite of the monks, nuns, and laymen who came to visit her, they opened the doors of the convent and many servants entered with the lords, overthrowing the decrees of the Council, the orders of the holy Mother, the silence and retirement of the nuns and all good government, because lords do not think that they need obey laws. Not content with this she insisted on having two secular maids; the Mother Prioress offered that she herself and everyone would wait on her, especially two novices formerly in her service, but nothing would satisfy her, as she thought that she should be obeyed.
"The Mother Elizabeth wrote to our Mother St. Theresa, telling her of the death of the Prince, the resolution of the Princess, and the first episodes she had gone through with her.
"Mother Elizabeth and two of the oldest nuns told her that if she went on in this way, they knew that the holy foundation would take them away and put them where they could keep their rules, of more importance in her eyes than all the Grandees in the world. Annoyed by this, she took her servants and went to a hermitage in the orchard, and remained there, having nothing to do with the nuns. They sent her, however, the novices to wait on her, they not being yet so bound by the rules of the cloister.
"From there a door opened into the street, by which she admitted everyone, modifying thereby the grief for her husband's death. Because of all this the work of the church and convent stopped and the alms which Ruy Gómez had left for its support, so that it began to suffer great straits."
But as all this lasted too long, and since the Princess would not give in and the troubles went on, so that all peace andquiet were at an end, and the "dovecot of the Virgin," as St. Theresa called it, was turned into a nest of intrigues and gossip, the saint wrote to the Prioress that she and all the nuns were to leave Pastrana and go to the convent in Segovia. This, however, was not necessary, as the superiors of the Order went to the King, and, acting with him, obliged the Princess to leave the convent. She then retired to her country house at Pastrana, and from there carried on such a campaign against the nuns and persecuted them so cruelly that Theresa, weary of it, ordered the Prioress to leave the convent with all the nuns, taking nothing with them that had been given by the Princess. "The beds," says the saint in her "Book of Foundations," "and the little things that the nuns themselves had brought, they took away with them, leaving the village people very sad. I saw them in peace with the greatest joy, because I was well informed that the displeasure of the Princess was no fault of theirs, rather they waited on her as before she wore the habit."
The Princess then sought for a Franciscan community to establish in the empty convent, and she helped and made much of them as she had never done before to the others. She took care that this should reach the ears of St. Theresa, her small, vindictive nature thinking that human jealousies could have a place in that heart which was protected by divine love. In the midst of this wretched strife the grief of the Princess had lessened, and in 1575 she already thought of returning to Madrid, so her father the Prince de Mélito wrote to the King's secretary Mateo Vázguez, that he might inform Philip and gain his support in her lawsuits. According to his custom, the King answered on the margin of Mateo Vázguez's letter, in these very severe words: "Here is the paper, which I have seen, and by the prudence, which I have exercised all my life, of not mixing myself in the affairs of these persons, it will be well to do what is said here; and the more as I do not know if for these affairs and lawsuits the coming (of the Princess) is necessary, but I am certain that for their conscience and peace, and, who knows, their honour, it is best that she should not come here; and even for keeping the friendship of her father and mother,as she herself says, that when absent they are friends, but cannot be so when they are together. And Ruy Gómez often told me, and well I know that it was much against his will that she should come here as a widow, and that he would be sorry if he knew that she did it; and it is not reasonable that I should order a thing I know to have been so certainly against his wishes. And, moreover, I do not know if this would suit all of us of the Court, especially those who cannot leave it. Thus, although I should have to mix in such matters, I will not in this one, particularly as I have long since determined not to do so. Otherwise I should be pleased to favour Ruy Gómez's relations, as his services deserve. This for yourself, as it cannot be said to others. And you must see how you can answer Mélito, excusing me from interfering about his daughter's coming."
The precise date of the Princess de Évoli's arrival in Madrid is not known; we think that she came for short and frequent visits in 1575 and settled there the next year. She would then realise that it was not the same thing to be the widow as the wife of Ruy Gómez, and many rude awakenings soured her proud spirit. The secretary Antonio Pérez began to frequent her house at this time, and these two monsters of vanity were attracted by, and suited to, each other. He, a political puppet, sought from her the prestige that intimacy with such a great and high-born lady as the Princess could give him, for, in spite of all his grandeur and luxury and power, then at its height, he never could forget his base and lowly origin. She, on her part, sought in him what she had lost by the death of Ruy Gómez, a share of power and influence, easier to manage from the hands of the unworthy Antonio Pérez than from those of the level-headed Prince de Évoli: "I can do more than ever," said the Princess proudly a little later to one of her correspondents.
The lady was at this time thirty-six, and in spite of the superlative praise of her beauty that Antonio Pérez gives in his "Relaciones," it was not then extraordinary, nor ever could have been so. None of her contemporaries mentionit, and the only authentic portrait known of her represents her as a nice-looking girl, dreadfully disfigured by a black patch which covered her blind eye, and specially noticeable from the whiteness of her skin and the blackness of her hair. Antonio Pérez was forty-two, and was, according to Luis Cabrera de Córdoba, "a good-looking man, with a handsome, manly face, over sumptuously and curiously dressed, perfumed, and pompous in his house." The inevitable happened: the sudden intimacy of two people, so well known, after years of slight acquaintance, caused them to be talked about, and the frequency and familiarity of the visits at unsuitable hours, and, above all, the endless exchange of presents, until mine and thine hardly existed between them, let loose among all the Court that gossip which previously had only been timidly circulated, as the Marqúes de Fabara had whispered to D. John. Then, in the presence of Antonio Pérez, she committed the treacherous act of a plotting woman; she called her children and told them not to be astonished at his visits or the affection he showed for them, because he was the son of Ruy Gómez and therefore their brother.
At this historical moment Escovedo arrived from Flanders (July, 1577), sent by D. John to Madrid to represent to Philip how cut off he was, and the grave risks that these States and his own person ran. Escovedo had not forgotten, among his many preoccupations, the adventure at the Chorrillos, that D. John had told him of to moderate his zeal for the Princess de Évoli, and one of his first cares on reaching Madrid was to inform himself of the state of the case. At once he found that the fact was true, the scandal public, and the honoured memory of Ruy Gómez degraded by the lightness of the widow and the horrible ingratitude of Antonio Pérez, who owed everything to this great patrician. Loyal Escovedo was greatly distressed, and wishing to retrieve the honour of his dead benefactor and friend went to the house of the Princess, intending to warn and counsel her with all the regard he had for her. She was in the saloon with Doña Brianda de Gúzman; he waited patiently until this lady had left, and then spoke, not with his usualbrusqueness, but with deep and affectionate concern, of the dreadful rumours that were going about, and said that she must close her door to Antonio Pérez in order not to give support to them. Blind with rage on hearing him, the Princess rose, and in an unsteady voice answered that "it did not concern squires what great ladies did." And with this she turned and went to the further end of the room. All of which is told by Doña Catalina de Herrera, duenna to the Princess.