_Of the lamentable ending of the disputes between the governor and
the archbishop; and how the latter was exiled to Mariveles._
Within a short time, the old wounds were reopened, and the archbishop
was given new causes for anger in which it was impossible for him to
employ dissimulation, as they were all concerning the administration
of his office. The governor deprived the Order of St. Francis of
the administration and chaplaincy of the royal hospital of Manila,
which they had administered with great care, charity, and zeal; and
appointed a lay administrator and a secular chaplain. The archbishop
felt that greatly, and declined to give the new chaplain permission to
administer the sacraments, on account of legitimate reasons which he
had for this step. The latter had recourse to the Audiencia by plea
of fuerza; and the auditor, Don Marcos Zapata, immediately declared
that it had been committed. The archbishop protested, knowing by what
had happened in the past the prejudice that the said auditor felt,
and because one auditor with only the fiscal could not constitute so
sovereign a tribunal. For the fiscal had not the royal appointment,
but had only been appointed by the governor _ad interim_; for the
plurality of votes which attest a correct decision and authorize the
best opinion, according to the Divine sentence _Salus autem ubi multa
consilia_ (Proverbs, ch. 5), were lacking. This has been experienced on
various occasions, on which only one auditor has been left in Manila,
an arbiter following rather the dictates of his will than that of
his understanding, which has the truth as its object.
At that same time, Don Francisco de Valdés having resigned the post
of archdean, to which he had been presented by Don Juan Cerezo de
Salamanca, the governor appointed Don Andrés Arias Xirón to it on
the eighteenth of April, and presented him to the archbishop, so that
the latter might give him the collation. The prudent prelate grieved
sorely over an occasion that could only with great difficulty terminate
satisfactorily, as the said Don Andrés was then prohibited from being
promoted to any dignity, because of the visitation in which he had
been proclaimed as a criminal by many heavy charges, which demanded a
rigorous sentence and deprivation of the benefice that he held; and
it was impossible to give him the collation for so lofty a dignity
according to the holy canons and council. The archbishop refused to
commit a like act of injustice, whereupon Don Andrés Arias Xirón,
aggrieved, interposed the appeal from fuerza, which the auditor
Zapata did not fail to declare against the archbishop. He did this,
and despatched a royal decree for it, which the archbishop refused to
obey. The governor was very angry at not succeeding with his attempt,
and because the archbishop had not given the canonical collation to
Don Andrés Arias Xirón. That strife increasing in violence by means of
the interlocutors, Don Andrés and the auditor, the declared enemies
of the archbishop, assemblies and meetings were held in order to
exile the archbishop from the kingdom, because he did not obey the
royal decrees. In conclusion, they issued a decree for his exile,
and notified the archbishop of it May 9, 1636.
The archbishop called a meeting of the orders, in order to consult
them and get their advice in so urgent a case. All were of the opinion
that the archbishop ought not to yield, since what they were trying
to compel him to do was manifestly unjust. They exhorted him to be
constant in defending the ecclesiastical immunity, and the observance
of the holy canons; for that, in case he were exiled, he was suffering
for defending his church as a good shepherd, and it was enough to
acquire the aureola of a martyr. Upon this the archbishop took the
resolution to suffer for his church, with a valor and constancy worthy
of wonder. The party of the governor having learned this, and that
the archbishop would not yield his right, the governor determined to
execute what had been decided by what he called the royal Audiencia.
The evening of that same day, Friday, May 9, the governor summoned
the auditor Zapata and the fiscal to a meeting. After the meeting
they sent the chief constable of that court with orders to execute
the banishment of the archbishop. He was given such aid of soldiers
as the governor deemed sufficient. The latter also sent other squads
to the cathedral church, so that they might take their station in the
sacristy of the most holy sacrament, so that it might not be taken
out or destroyed. That order went forth and immediately the city
learned of the impious imprisonment that was about to be executed
on their shepherd. It caused great excitement and grief to all,
and a great scandal among the natives of these islands, even among
the pagans and Mahometans who frequent the islands for commerce;
and not many wished to concur in so unjust a determination. The
orders hastened to the archiepiscopal houses, where they found the
archbishop with the warnings that they were about to arrest him,
clad in his pontifical robes. He, also knowing that the most holy
sacrament was being guarded in the cathedral, sent father Fray Juan
de Piña, guardian of St. Francis, to his convent for the most holy
sacrament. On that occasion it was placed in a lunette; and it was
brought with all the propriety possible, accompanied by many religious
carrying candles. When it had been brought, the father guardian placed
it in the hands of the archbishop. He, bathed in tears, received it;
and, with noteworthy courage, seated himself to await the agents of
the execution. He sent his notaries to notify the governor and the
auditor, Don Marcos Zapata, of censures; but the notaries, finding them
assembled with the fiscal in the hall of meeting, had more respect
for the human Majesty, whom they represented there in assembly, than
the chief constable and his helpers had for the supreme majesty of
majesties, Christ our Lord, whose sacrament was in the hands of the
archbishop. Therefore the ecclesiastical notaries notified them at
the doors. While doing this at one of the doors, it is said that the
governor ordered a soldier to extinguish the lights by which they
were reading, by waving his hat, which was done.
At that same time the chief constable and his helpers were in the
archiepiscopal house, where the archbishop was found in the manner
above described, surrounded and accompanied by all the orders except
that of the Society of Jesus. The chief constable sent to advise
the governor of the condition in which he had found the archbishop,
whereupon the governor sent him orders that he should cause the
religious to retire to their convents; and that, when the archbishop
grew tired of holding the most holy sacrament, he was to arrest him
with the soldiers whom he had with him. That was intimated to the
religious and lay priests who were about the archbishop; but they
refused to obey it, fearing lest they incur the wrath of God if they
abandoned the prince of the Church on such an occasion. Thus by common
consent they remained to aid their afflicted prelate; relieving him
at times by easing him of the weight of the lunette, by placing their
hands on those of the tired old man, whose eyes were turned into two
fountains of tears when he reflected on the acts of desecration that
they were practicing on the Supreme Lord. The governor was so far
from mitigating his anger in what he had commenced, that, in place
of repenting and returning to himself, he took horse, although it
was the middle of the night, and went to the archiepiscopal house;
and, seated at the door, sent his orders to the executors of the
commission. The first order was for them to eject forcibly all the
priests who were with the archbishop, the adjutants striking the
soldiers with the flat of their swords and giving them heavy blows
because they did not execute their orders. Thereupon the religious,
seeing that the poor soldiers were forced to do what they did
not wish, allowed themselves to be seized and carried outside. The
soldiers humbly begged their pardon, protesting that they were under
orders. The governor's purpose was to wait until the archbishop,
destitute of all human consolation, should surrender on account
of his advanced age and his lack of nourishment, his watching and
continual annoyance, and should relinquish the most holy sacrament,
so that they could then seize him and make him enter the boat. That
report circulated among the orders, and accordingly they all came
in a body with lighted candles to attend to the recovery of the most
holy sacrament. But the governor had already seized the entrances of
the streets by means of soldiers, in order that they might not pass,
and they accordingly returned to their convents. The city and the
magistracy sent their commissaries to the archbishop, begging him to
avoid compromising himself, which was equivalent to telling him to
allow himself to be arrested and exiled. For, as these islands are
one body which has only one head, it is the latter which attracts
all wills to his own; for fear (which is very powerful here), or
self-interest, has more place here than anywhere else in the world.
The afflicted shepherd seeing that "this was his hour of darkness,"
and that the frightened sheep had abandoned him, ordered the interdict
to be raised--the grieving bells publishing the feeling that many
did not give vent to and others could not show, in order not to
incur the anger of the passionate governor. The governor ordered
the soldiers to disperse the religious by force, even if they had
to take them into custody. The soldiers carried out the order with
the violence necessary for so unjust a sentence, being instigated by
the sword-blows and strokes of the adjutants. That having been seen
by the priests, they pitied them so keenly that they preferred to
have that punishment executed on them than on the poor soldiers. Some
religious were seated beside the archbishop to see whether they would
be allowed to aid him; but so many were the pushes and prods given
them by the soldiers, that not only did they tear them away, but
they fell down with the holy monstrance breaking the lunette in which
was the holy host. This ought to be written with tears of blood. The
father guardian of St. Francis and a secular priest hastened to put
a strap about the archbishop's neck and to fasten the lunette to him,
so that he could support it, for his powers were now failing him. At
that juncture, order was given to a soldier named Juan de Santa Ana
(whom I knew, and who told me that event many times), to draw away
the hand of the archbishop. He, assisted by a living faith, answered
boldly that he would kill himself before he would commit such an
act of sacrilege. Then drawing his sword, and placing the point in
his breast, he fell upon it. By the permission of divine Providence,
the sword doubled up in such a manner when the soldier fell upon it,
that he was not wounded at all. That incident caused great surprise
to all the bystanders; but the governor was so little moved by it that
he ordered the soldier to be arrested, when he ought to have rewarded
his heroic determination. At one o'clock at night, the archbishop was
so greatly weakened and tired out from thirst, that he begged to be
given a little water. They sent to consult with the governor as to
what they were to do. The governor ordered that they should not allow
it to be given him, explaining that the denial of the temporalities
was understood not to allow water to be given him for his thirst, and
that to do otherwise would be not to execute the royal law--as if so
sovereign dispositions extended to such impieties. Advice was given
to the convents, threatening the suspension of religious functions,
in order that they should not forestall by celebrating the offices of
the following day. The archiepiscopal hall was cleared of the religious
who were assisting the archbishop, the soldiers having already driven
them away by blows. The soldiers stationed themselves with firearms
in hand, and thus did they remain all the night without giving any
nourishment to the archbishop, except what a pious Franciscan religious
could give him by applying to his lips a wet cloth, under pretext of
tightening the strap with which the most holy sacrament was fastened
to the afflicted prelate's breast. And he did not receive any other
nourishment for a day and a half, until they took him to the island
of Mariveles. Saturday, the second [_sic; sc._ tenth] of May dawned,
the most fatal day that these islands have seen. On that day the
archbishop was so defeated that, seeing that he could make no further
resistance for lack of strength, he ordered the most holy sacrament to
be returned to the church with all possible reverence, and, bathed in
tears, he laid aside the pontifical robe. Immediately he was seized by
an adjutant and fifty soldiers with firearms. They led him from the
archiepiscopal palace on foot, at five in the morning, and without
other following than the troops who executed the tragedy. They did
not need so great preparation for an old man of sixty, worn out by
so much fatigue, hunger, and thirst. They took him on foot through
those streets boasting of their victory, the fearful inhabitants
thrusting their heads out of the most hidden windows, frightened by the
despotic governor, to whom any commiseration that should be shown to
the poor archbishop was regarded as a detestable crime. The soldiers
took the archbishop to the gate on the river, called Santo Domingo,
where the prelate, complying with the precept of Christ, shook off
the dust from his shoes; and, bathed in tender tears, he threw five
little stones at the ingrate walls of Manila. It was noted that one
of them touched the leg of Don Pedro de Corcuera (sargento-mayor of
the camp, and chief of that impious execution), where later in the
war with Joló he received a ball, from which he died.
They put the archbishop aboard a champan of a ship-captain called
Marcos Cameros, who would not allow one single mouthful of food to
be placed on board. Setting sail, they carried the archbishop to the
island of Mariveles, which is situated in the middle of the mouth
of the bay. There they disembarked the exiled shepherd, for whose
lodging they had provided a wretched little room, where he suffered
many discomforts, too long to relate; for it has not been my intention
to enlarge upon this lamentable tragedy, in the narration of which
I have omitted many circumstances which aggravate the execution [of
his banishment]. For it is my intention not to exaggerate, but only
to relate succinctly what happened; and, although eye-witnesses of
everything are not lacking today, to guide myself by the most truthful
relations, and chiefly by those which are found in a book containing
sketches of the archbishops, which is kept in the cathedral church
of Manila. [43]
The purpose of the governor and his followers having been obtained,
as we have seen, they persuaded the ecclesiastical cabildo to take
charge of the government, interpreting the archbishop's exile as
a vacant see, thus opening the door to other disturbances, no less
serious, which originated from this intrusion--in the very sight of
the archbishop who was [still] within his diocese, and who had left a
provisor in Manila, Doctor Don Francisco Fernandez de Ledo. For his
forcible banishment and the deprivation of his secular revenues did
not extend to his spiritual jurisdiction, which originated from the
Roman pontiff. In case that the church had suffered a vacancy by the
death of the archbishop, then the bishop of Cebú, Don Pedro de Arce,
was to enter its government; for it belonged to him by virtue of the
bull and royal decree mentioned in another place. The archbishop
had already appointed the father master, Fray Francisco de Paula,
of the Order of Preachers, to govern the archbishopric in the first
place, and two others in the second, and hence they could not allege
the condition of affairs that the law points out in the chapter _Si
Episcopus: de supplenda negligencia Prælatorum_, in Case sixth. That
happened afterward in Manila, in the exile of Archbishop Don Fray
Felipe Pardo, [44] of the Order of Preachers, who had appointed to
his place of governor during his absence Don Fray Ginés de Barrientos,
bishop of Troya; the cabildo refused to admit him, but [declared] that
it was a case of a vacant see, and took charge of the government--which
cost the dean, Master Don Miguel Ortiz de Covarrubias, and all the
prebendaries, very dear.
The cabildo took charge of the government at the governor's command,
and appointed Don Fray Francisco Zamudio, bishop-elect of Camarines
(who had come to Manila to negotiate concerning his bishopric),
as provisor-general. He received the appointment under protest
of _ad interim_ until the bishop of Cebú should be advised, for
the vacancy pertained to him in case that one were proclaimed. He
absolved the governor, the auditor Zapata, and the others included in
the excommunications of the archbishop, on the twentieth of May. It
is said that when the cabildo were obliged to take charge of the
government by the governor and auditor, they entered their protests;
but the archbishop was greatly grieved over it when he heard of it,
which with the many other sorrows [that he endured] made it remarkable
that his life did not come to an end, since he was so aged and had
borne so many hardships.