faith, from which he had never for an instant swerved.
His whole demeanor was noble, submissive, and Christian.
“In every essential,” said Fray Hernando,
“he conducted himself so well that we who remain
may bear him envy.” He wrote a paper of
instructions concerning his faithful and bereaved
dependents. He placed his signet ring, attached
to a small gold chain, in the hands of the ecclesiastic,
to be by him transmitted to his wife. Another
ring, set with turquois, he sent to his mother-in-law,
the Princess Espinoy, from whom he had received it.
About an hour after midnight, on the morning, therefore,
of the 16th of October, Fray Hernando gave notice
that the prisoner was ready to die. The alcalde
Don Alonzo then entered, accompanied by the executioner
and the notary. The sentence of Alva was now
again recited, the alcalde adding that the King, “out
of his clemency and benignity,” had substituted
a secret for a public execution. Montigny admitted
that the judgment would be just and the punishment
lenient, if it were conceded that the charges against
him were true. His enemies, however, while he
had been thus immured, had possessed the power to
accuse him as they listed. He ceased to speak,
and the executioner then came forward and strangled
him. The alcalde, the notary, and the executioner
then immediately started for Valladolid, so that no
person next morning knew that they had been that night
at Simancas, nor could guess the dark deed which they
had then and there accomplished. The terrible,
secret they were forbidden, on pain of death, to reveal.
Montigny, immediately after his death, was clothed
in the habit of Saint Francis, in order to conceal
the marks of strangulation. In the course of
the day the body was deposited, according to the King’s
previous orders, in the church of Saint Saviour.
Don Eugenio de Peralta, who superintended the interment,
uncovered the face of the defunct to prove his identity,
which was instantly recognised by many sorrowing servants.
The next morning the second letter, prepared by Philip
long before, and brought by Don Alonzo de Avellano
to Simancas, received the date of 17th October, 1570,
together with the signature of Don Eugenio de Peralta,
keeper of Simancas fortress, and was then publicly
despatched to the King. It stated that, notwithstanding
the care given to the Seigneur de Montigny in his
severe illness by the physicians who had attended him,
he had continued to grow worse and worse until the
previous morning between three and four o’clock,
when he had expired. The Fray Hernando del Castillo,
who had accidentally happened to be at Simancas, had
performed the holy offices, at the request of the
deceased, who had died in so catholic a frame of mind,
that great hopes might be entertained of his salvation.
Although he possessed no property, yet his burial
had been conducted very respectably.