Iberia (79 page)

Upon receipt of this letter, I ask you, the better to serve Our
Lord the King, to go to the house of the pastry-maker Gabriel
Espinosa in Madrigal and take possession of everything you find
in it, and to arrest those who normally live in the house, except
for any guests who might be there, whom you will order to find
other lodgings unless they seem suspicious to you, for in that case
you will arrest them also; search the house and, if you find
documents, make a packet of them and send them to me as safely
and rapidly as you can. This is all that I need to tell you, Don Luis,
and I reiterate my friendship for you and bid you farewell. May
God keep you. From Valladolid, September 28, 1594.

The second of these two letters and the one that follows shortly
are not reported in the archives but are of ancient tradition. For
what happened next we have documentary evidence from Judge
Santillán himself. Next morning, September 28, when Espinosa
was already in jail as a thief, Don Rodrigo happened upon the
two love letters from Doña Ana and in them found the words,
several times repeated, ‘Your Majesty.’ On the evidence of these
letters it was clear that the pastry cook had been passing himself
off as the vanished King of Portugal, and this was quite a different
matter. This was treason.

Don Rodrigo, recognizing that he had come upon something
monstrous, immediately reported his conclusions to King Felipe
at El Escorial. A full-scale investigation was launched, and then
a trial, and in each, Judge Santillán conducted himself with
dignity, if not impartiality. From the first he was determined to
accomplish two ends: he would hang the pastry cook, and he
would protect his own relationship with the king, to whom he
wrote: “Since, according to the indications given by the beginning
of this affair, it seems that it might offer me some profit, I beg
you not to let me be deprived of it now by those who used to sleep
and wench while I was patrolling and working.’ He was ambitious,
but to accomplish his aims he did not pervert justice and at his
hands the accused received fair trials. The daughter María, which
legend gives him, does not appear in the official records as
pleading for the life of her lover, but on this matter Madrigal
tradition is unequivocal. She never wavered in her affection for
the pastry cook nor in her belief in his innocence. She remained
convinced that he was the younger son of a noble family and that
he had behaved with pundonor.

In the lengthy investigation conducted by Don Rodrigo there
were four principal witnesses: Gabriel Espinosa, the servant girl
who had appeared with him in Madrigal, Fray Miguel and Doña
Ana. A special ecclesiastical judge was brought in to try Fray
Miguel and the nuns, and torture of the most severe sort was
applied to all but the latter. One innocent bystander who was
questioned was sentenced to four years in the galleys, but this was
rescinded when the judge found that in his questioning, the man
had been so severely tortured, he would never again be able to
use his arms.

The charge was treason. Fray Miguel and Gabriel de Espinosa,
whoever the latter might be, had cooked up a scheme whereby
Portugal would be detached from the throne of Spain, where it
rightfully belonged. In addition, a convent had been violated, a
royal nun had been seduced and jewels pertaining to the royal
family had been stolen. The outcome of the trial was known before
it started. Don Rodrigo had found a way to ingratiate himself
with the king and nothing would prevent him from pursuing his
advantage. What the trial really came down to was a fourfold
mystery. Who was Espinosa? Was he widely supported in
Portugal? And to what extent was Doña Ana de Austria involved?
In particular, King Felipe insisted upon knowing whether the
little girl was Doña Ana’s daughter by the pastry cook, for if so
she was a member of the royal family and Felipe felt that this
changed everything.

The process against Gabriel continued for more than nine
months: questions, torture, compare the answers, questions again,
torture again, compare again and repeat the cycle. A particularly
obnoxious aspect of the trial, if it should be called such, was that
on the surface it was an ordinary trial for treason, conducted
honorably, but at each step Don Rodrigo sent King Felipe a
summary of what was happening and sought from the king advice
as to what to do next. It was therefore the king who conducted
the trial, and always he wanted to know, ‘Who is that little girl?’
A good deal of the torture was an attempt to find a satisfactory
answer to that gnawing question.

If Doña Ana was not put to the torture she received little
consideration otherwise. Early in the process she felt herself so
abused that she wrote a strong letter of protest to her uncle, King
Felipe, which we have, and his response, better than anything else
in the case, shows how Spain was governed at the time.

I have received with surprise your complaint against Don
Rodrigo de Santillán and I regret that this judge has become
involved in a dispute with you that I wish could have been entirely
avoided. You are a person who, because of dedication and piety,
lives withdrawn from the world and has no knowledge of
administrators of justice, whose great severity must be tolerated
and even applauded, first, because they act in Our name and know
how to see that it is respected, and, second, because with their
harsh severity they keep evil people cautious and fearful of
punishment, thus preventing many crimes. For the common good
it is better that they be harsh than lenient, because leniency is not
understood by such people as mercy, but rather weakness, and
they take advantage of it, multiplying their crimes and doing great
injury to those who lead good and honest lives. Don Rodrigo de
Santillán is perhaps more severe than he needs to be, but this is
owing to the zeal with which he serves Us and has served Us all
his life. As for disrespect, if there should be any such as may be to
the detriment of Our dignity (since you are so close a relative of
Ours, the daughter of Our most dear brother), We should not
hesitate to punish Don Rodrigo most severely if there were good
reason for it; but if the disrespect is perhaps more apparent than
real, it is wise of princes not to allow anyone to understand that
it is even possible for a vassal to show them disrespect. It is better
to leave well enough alone. The two persons whom you sent to
me with your recommendation that the one be made a corregidor
in the Indies and the other provisioner of Our armies in Flanders
have been taken care of, but We beg you, Our dear child, not to
be so soft-hearted with office-seekers, because they will eat Us out
of house and home. I know that certain people are going to
Madrigal to see you so that you may serve as intercessor with me
in the affairs of Portugal. The Duque de Coimbra and two other
important gentlemen of that kingdom, who have spent some days
in the Capital, have told everyone that they would not seek an
audience with me until they can present themselves with your
letters of recommendation for me. This affair is very serious and
I wish you to proceed with great prudence and slowly, and to
inform me of everything secretly, to which end I have ordered
relays of post-horses to be stationed along the highway, so that
your letters can reach me within twenty-four hours. Receive these
people, listen to them, communicate to me immediately what
they say to you, and do not again receive them, under pretext of
illness or with some other clever excuse, until I shall have written
to you, counseling you as to what you should tell them, because
in these affairs of Portugal it is necessary to proceed very alertly,
and you can discover more than I could if I were seeing them,
because with you they will not be so much on their guard. May
God keep you many years, my very dear child, and do not forget
in your prayers to plead with God for your uncle.

Finally the judges handed down the sentences, first having
received initialed authorizations from the king. Doña Ana was
deprived of all privileges due her as a member of the royal family;
for four years she would live in solitary confinement; she would
be allowed to attend Mass only on feast days; on Fridays she could
eat nothing but bread; and for the rest of her life she could have
contacts only with the least-educated members of her order. The
nuns who helped slip the past cook into her quarters were given
harsher sentences.

Espinosa’s serving girl, having confessed under torture that the
child was hers and not the daughter of Doña Ana or some other
noble lady, was given two hundred lashes, which must have nearly
killed her, and was then banished.

Fray Miguel presented a special problem. As a friar he could
not be condemned by lay authority, yet clearly he had been the
manipulator of the whole plot. In Lisboa he had observed the
Portuguese royal family at intimate quarters and had known how
to find someone who looked like the king and then coach him in
his role. He had done a great job. Many Portuguese nobles were
convinced that Espinosa was their lost king. Fray Miguel paid
dearly for his fling but could not be hanged because as a priest
his person was inviolate, even to the wrath of the king. However,
Judge Santillán, after conducting scrupulous investigations into
his background, developed the interesting theory that since
Miguel’s parents had come from Jerez de los Caballeros, where
we found Balboa’s birthplace, he must be a secret Jew because
Jerez was known to contain many such, and as Santillán pointed
out to the king, ‘never has there been an evil of any importance
or a crime of any seriousness where a converted Jew hasn’t played
a part.’ At any rate, a weak-willed Spanish archbishop was finally
found who was willing to strip the friar of his ecclesiastical
privileges, whereupon the lay arm of the government grabbed
him, led him through the streets of Madrid with chains about his
neck, then dragged him back for public humiliation in Madrigal,
after which he was hanged.

That left a problem. Who was this pastry cook? The strange
thing is that no one ever knew. One fantastic rumor, which I both
heard in Madrigal from people who swore it to be true and found
in the Encinas book, is reflected in the genealogical chart on page
498, but kept within parenthesis since it can only be legend. King
Sebastián’s father was John of Portugal, who failed to attain the
throne because he died prematurely in 1554, eighteen days before
Sebastián was born. When a mere youth he had married Princess
Juana, daughter of Carlos V, and when the young couple were
living in Valladolid, John of Portugal fell in love with the very
beautiful daughter of a pastry cook who worked in Madrigal, and
by her he had an illegitimate son who was given the name Gabriel
de Espinosa. Later, by Carlos V’s daughter, he had a legitimate
son, Sebastián. Gabriel and Sebastián were thus half brothers,
which accounted for the unquestioned similarity between them
and also for the fact that when Gabriel returned to Madrigal he
had a pastry shop waiting for him.

A second rumor was thoroughly explored during the trial and
came to be the one generally accepted by members of the
government. According to this, Gabriel was a child who had been
abandoned in the torno of a Toledo convent and had grown up
reckless and willing for any adventure. The turmoil in Portugal
attendant on King Sebastián’s crusade attracted him and he may
or may not have gone to Africa with the king. On subsequent
travels through Europe he learned German and French, but how
he fell into the hands of Fray Miguel was not known. Furthermore,
the very fact that he had been abandoned secretly in a torno added
fuel to the suspicion that he was the offspring, legitimate or
otherwise, of some noble family.

The third rumor was the one that Espinosa himself had used
when wooing María, the alcalde’s daughter. He was the
acknowledged son of a noble family and for some reason wished
to travel incognito for the time being.

And, finally, there were many in both Portugal and Spain who
believed that he was indeed the lost King Sebastián, and that King
Felipe knew it. Just as Felipe had tried in 1578 to cause his
nephew’s death by denying him the army and navy he needed, so
he now in 1594 ordered his horrible execution.

At Felipe’s direction Gabriel de Espinosa, whoever he might
be, was taken back to Madrigal de las Altas Torres and was there
paraded through the streets in a wicker basket. His tour ended at
a gallows, where a discalced priest jammed a crucifix into his
mouth every time he sought to address the crowd. He was hanged,
cut down, beheaded and hacked into quarters, which were nailed
to trees on four different roads leading out of Madrigal. The head
was exhibited in an iron cage hung from the tip of a pike in the
town itself as a deterrent to the next man who might want to
challenge the right of Felipe II to rule Portugal.

Fray Miguel, when he faced death, recanted prior confessions
made under torture and insisted that Espinosa was King Sebastián.
On the gallows, Espinosa conducted himself like a true king and
convinced many. It seems to me that the most damning evidence
against him was two-fold: when he was locked in his cell, without
recourse to the dye pots of an apothecary, his hair grew in almost
white, so that he looked more nearly sixty than the forty that
Sebastián would have been; but as an old man in Madrigal pointed
out to me, ‘Think a minute! He was under such torture that his
hair turned white.’ And, as Judge Santillán skillfully brought out,
he could not speak Portuguese.

Especially ironic was the fact that even if Espinosa had escaped
hanging by Felipe, even if the plot had worked, he was doomed,
because under torture Fray Miguel confessed that he intended
using Espinosa only until Portugal gained its independence. Then
Fray Miguel would have denounced Espinosa as an impostor. He
would have been executed and a real member of the Portuguese
royal family called to the throne. As for Doña Ana, she was a giddy
nun and was expendable. As a matter of fact, such deviousness
was not necessary, for in 1640, by what might be termed natural
processes not requiring the existence of a King Sebastián, Portugal
regained her independence from Spain.