CHAPTER III

The wise and respected Honorato Juan did not gain much credit from his three pupils. Certainly D. John and the Prince of Parma studied, but they did so because they were obliged to, and naturally progressed as they were sharp, understood easily, and had good memories. But the military proclivities of both, which afterwards made them such great generals, always kept their thoughts on other things, and they only gave a forced, listless attention to the literature and philosophy of Alcalá.

The Prince of the Asturias for his part did not even do this; apathetic and melancholy by nature, without other signs of character than pride or temper, he did not care for science, or letters, or arts, or arms, or wars, nor did healthy things amuse him; the only thing which pleased him was to do harm to his neighbour. Such was the very harsh judgment, according to our mind, of the Venetian Ambassador Paolo Tiepolo.

The Prince was, therefore, bored at Alcalá, and his boredom grew as his health improved.

In this dangerous state of mind it was proposed by one of his servants, of the sort who pander to the vices of their masters, that to amuse his leisure he should pay court to a girl, the daughter of the palace warden, who, according to probably true accounts, was named Mariana de Gardetas.

From a child the Prince had displayed an extraordinary aversion to women, going so far as to grossly insult several, without more reason than the sort of instinctive rage the sight of them caused him. He, however, gladly accepted the servant's evil idea, and, using him as an intermediary, presents and notes followed by assignations began between the Prince and the wench.

They met in the garden; she left her father's dwelling secretly, he descending a narrow staircase, barred by an iron gate, which ran inside the massive wall of the great, so-called, council chamber, and led into the orchard.

The vanity of D. Carlos did not allow him to keep the secret for long, and he confided it to D. John of Austria, asking his help. But D. John was too simple to understand the slippery ways of gallantry, and he laughed heartily at the Prince's extraordinary idea of making a warden's daughter into a Queen of Spain.

In his turn D. Carlos laughed at his uncle's innocence, and with evil intention tore off at a stroke the bandage which covered the still pure eyes of the victor of Lepanto. The part of confidant which the Prince had arranged for him in the unknown land opening before his eyes was repugnant to D. John, and he refused his help and withdrew in disgust. D. Carlos then sought other confidants, and found two very complaisant ones among the gentlemen of his bedchamber, who began to urge him with insistence along the dangerous path, on the pretence that love, as they understood it, would sharpen the Prince's intellectual faculties and build up his weak physique. But neither his tutor D. García de Toledo, nor his master of the horse Luis Quijada, shared their ideas, and, when they at last heard of the matter, with mutual consent, ordered that the little gate leading to the orchard should be shut. D. Carlos did not dare then to vent his rage on his tutor D. García, and contented himself with cruelly thrashing the servant who shut the gate. With great secrecy he procured another key, and on the 19th of April, 1562, which, being Sunday, was for the Prince the freest day, made an assignation with the girl for noon on the following day at the foot of the staircase.

That day D. Carlos dined very hurriedly and as if agitated, and the meal was hardly finished before he sent away all the servants and went out himself, leaving the Prince of Parma and D. John of Austria by themselves.

Photo Anderson

DON CARLOS, PRINCE OF THE ASTURIAS

By Sanchez Coello. Prado Gallery, Madrid

They had noticed the Prince's excitement, and, following him at a distance, saw him disappear by the little staircase of the council chamber without even troubling to shut the door.

The Princes looked at each other and smiled, knowing what this meant. At the same moment they heard a great noise on the staircase as of someone falling, and pitiful cries coming from the ground. D. John ran there with open arms, and Alexander Farnese very wisely informed D. García de Toledo and Luis Quijada.

They found the unfortunate Prince lying on the ground, with his head cut open and covered with blood. He had descended the staircase in blind haste, missed his footing on the last step, and fallen on his head, giving it a tremendous blow against the heavy gate.

From the first moment the doctors of the bedchamber Vega and Olivares treated him, and also the Licentiate Deza Chacón, surgeon to the King; and, as the Prince complained very much when he was being bandaged, the surgeon rather stayed his hand. Quijada, who always thought badly of the wound, said, "Tighter, tighter, Licentiate Deza. Do not treat him as a prince, but as a peasant."

D. García de Toledo at once sent off one of the Prince's gentlemen of the bedchamber, D. Diego de Acu?a, to tell the King what had happened, and by daybreak the next day, Monday, the 20th, he had already returned with Dr. Gutiérrez, first physician to the King, and the doctors Portugues and Pedro de Torres, his surgeons.

A few hours afterwards the King arrived in person, and in his presence all the doctors examined the wound; they unanimously declared that it was not dangerous; and, reassured by this, D. Philip went back to Madrid that same night.

But at daybreak on the 30th, the eleventh day, a high fever seized the Prince, with severe pains in the wound, neck, and right leg, which otherwise seemed dead.

The doctors were frightened, and then declared that the symptoms revealed a lesion in the skull, if not in the brain.

Hastily the King was informed of this, and the same night, the 30th, he arrived at Alcalá with the Duque de Alba, the Prince de évoli, and Charles V's former doctor, Vesale. A few hours later came the rest of the Council and the Grandees who held offices at Court.

The Prince was so ill on the 2nd of May that the King ordered the sacraments to be administered to him; his face was inflamed, swollen eyelids made him blind, and his right leg was completely paralysed.

D. Carlos received the Viaticum with great devotion, and, clearing the room, made signs to D. John of Austria to come near him.

Taking his hands affectionately the Prince whispered to him that he had offered to Our Lady of Montserrat his own weight in gold and three times his weight in silver if he got well; and that he had also made the same offerings at the sanctuary of Our Lady of Guadeloupe and to the Christ of St. Augustine in Burgos; but that there was there in Alcalá, in the convent of the Franciscans of Jesus and Mary, the body of a great saint, who was called Brother Diego, to whom he wished to make the same offering, and he begged D. John, as he loved him, to go himself and make this offering at the saint's sepulchre in D. Carlos's name. Much touched, D. John promised, and from that day he went morning and evening to beg for the Prince's recovery before the sepulchre of Fr. Diego. The illness had changed the miserable D. Carlos; he became docile and gentle, obeyed everyone, and asked pardon, especially of his father and Honorato Juan, the only person, perhaps, that he really loved.

He liked D. John of Austria and the Prince of Parma to be always at his side, and when, from exhaustion, he could not talk to them, he took their hands and fondled them.

King Philip presided over forty consultations of doctors between April 30th and May 8th. He sat on his throne with the Duque de Alba on his right and D. García de Toledo on his left; behind were the Grandees of the Court and in front the doctors, sitting on benches in a semi-circle. D. García de Toledo indicated whose turn it was to speak. At one of these consultations someone spoke of an old Moor in Valencia, called the Pintadillo, who had effected wonderful cures with unguents of his own making. The doctors protested; but the King sent to fetch the Pintadillo post-haste, to the great annoyance and scandal of them all.

The night of the 8th of May the doctors gave the Prince up, and told the King that he could not live more than three or four hours.

D. Philip did not wish to see him die, and left that same night, having given the Duque de Alba and the Conde de Feria detailed instructions for the funeral and burying of his son. Some of the lords of the Court hastened to buy cloth for mourning.

All that sad night D. John of Austria passed by the pillow of the dying boy, and at dawn he told the Duque de Alba to accompany him to the convent of Jesus and Mary, for the last time, to ask Fr. Diego to save the Prince.

Then the Duque de Alba had a sudden idea, inspired, no doubt, by God. He ordered, in the name of the King, that the tomb of Fr. Diego should be opened and the body taken to the Prince's room.

The procession was arranged by midday; in front went the people begging mercy from God; then followed hundreds of penitents in hoods and sackcloth, their shoulders bare, cruelly disciplining themselves; then four brothers of St. Francis, carrying on a bier the body of Fr. Diego, which was in a coffin, covered with a shroud, his face, not decomposed, but dried up as it is to-day, uncovered.

Right and left of the coffin went two penitents, their faces covered by a hood of coarse material, and, below, the sackcloth tunic showing their bare and bleeding feet cut by the stones of the road; they were those two "thunderbolts of war," Alexander Farnese and D. John of Austria.

Behind them came the Duque de Alba, with uncovered head, followed and surrounded by the University communities, students, nobility, clergy, courtiers and professors, not in a devout and orderly procession, but all anyhow, filling up the streets like a wave of sorrow and bitterness, which carried to the palace the body of Fr. Diego, which was to save the only male heir of the Crown of Spain.

The body entered the Prince's room, the doors of which were already wide open, as is proper for those of a death-chamber, and all followed who could, without order, precedence or arrangement.

The Prince was lying in bed on his back, his eyes closed through swelling of the lids, his nose pinched, his mouth open, and his hoarse breathing coming with difficulty from his dry throat.

They placed the coffin on the bed, touching the body of the Prince; the Prior of St. Francis took one of the inert hands and placed it gently on Fr. Diego's chest.

An unnatural silence reigned, during which no one breathed, a leaf dropping would have been heard, the wings of the Guardian Angel bore to heaven these clamours of faith, these tears of hope.

Suddenly the Prince turned towards the coffin, and the rattle changed to gentle breathing.

The terror of the supernatural possessed them all, and made the hair of many stand on end. Ten minutes later a gentle sleep overcame the Prince, which lasted for six hours. They all went out on tiptoe, holding their breath; silently the body was taken out.

On waking the Prince called D. John of Austria, and told him that during this sleep he had seen Fr. Diego de Alcalá in his Franciscan habit, with a cross of reeds tied with a green ribbon. The saint had told him that this time he would not die. Nor did he.