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.
[Illustration:
PRINCESA DE ÉVOLI
_From 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 and quiet 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 mention it, 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 usual
brusqueness, 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.