Alonso Roman

Death of Dona Catalina Zambrano

May 12, 1621, occurred the unfortunate death of the governor’s wife, which I intend to relate here, as it is a peculiar case.  The governor of these Filipinas Islands, Don Alonso Fajardo de Tenza, suspected that his wife, called Dona Catalina Zambrano, was not living as was fitting for such a personage.  One afternoon, that of May 12, he pretended that he was going to the port of Cavite, where he generally went because the Dutch enemy were in this bay with their fleet.  The governor went, but, leaving all the men who accompanied him, returned alone.  Entering the city secretly, he concealed himself in a house, where a captain in his confidence brought him a young page who was in the service of his wife—­the one who carried the messages, and knew everything that went on.  The governor placed a dagger to his breast in order to get him to tell what he knew of his wife.  The page openly confessed that she was maintaining a sinful alliance with a clerk, an ordinary person, called Juan de Messa Suero, who had been a member of the Society of Jesus for some years at Coimbra; and that his wife was dressing in the garb of a man, in order to go outside of the palace, as she had done at other times.  Juan de Messa came with a very eminent pilot.  The governor’s wife left the palace clad as a man, with her cloak and sword and all went together to the square.  Thence they began to walk toward a house of Juan de Messa.  The governor, with three other men who accompanied him, went on ahead of them, and awaited them near the door of the said house, hidden in a recess.  The governor’s wife entered first, then Juan de Messa.  Then the pilot stopped to shut the door.  Thereupon the governor attacked him alone, and giving a violent push on the door, opened it.  He entered, and found himself with the pilot alone, for the other man, Juan de Messa, with the governor’s wife, on hearing the noise, fled up the stairs.  It appears that the governor stabbed the pilot in the breast.  The latter left the portal of the house, whereupon those who accompanied the governor and had remained to guard the door, attacked and killed him there.  The governor went upstairs and found Juan de Messa in the hall.  He chased the latter around a table that held two lights.  The governor made a strong thrust at him, which almost knocked him down; but showed that he was clad in armor.  By the force that the governor exerted in the thrust, he felt that he himself was wounded in the hand.  Apparently the pilot had given him that wound, and he had not felt it before that.  The governor’s sword began to grow weak, and he said:  “Ha, traitor, thou hast wounded me.”  Juan de Messa lost his head, and ran down stairs, thinking that his safety lay there.  The governor attacked him, and on the way down stabbed him in the neck, with such force that he tripped and fell down.  Below, the governor and the guard finished killing