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were at last withdrawn, and Ruy Gómez and his wife went forward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 seen about 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 were aided 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."