In this connection, Duke Cesare de Valentinois has not been named. The Pope’s Holiness did not alter His behaviour to him. He found him antipathetic as always: some said He was afraid of him.[44] But He did not cease to use him, to allow him access to His person, to decorate him with titles; and the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was far too magnificently invincible and too conscious of His power, not to have resented the murder of the beloved husband of His charming and favourite daughter. A Pontiff Who could, and did, crush reigning sovereigns at His will, was not likely to fear a mere duke. The clergy treated Duke Cesare, as always, with profound respect. And—Madonna Lucrezia Borgia, until the very end of his life, maintained friendly relations with him; and it was to her that the death of the Prince of Bisceglia brought most grievous trouble. Evidently the people most intimately concerned with Duke Cesare did not look upon him as an assassin: at any rate, the legend of his guilt subsequently emanated, not from them but, from his foes. There was a total absence of motive on the part of Duke Cesare, unless the theory of legal but private execution, or the theory of justifiable homicide, be maintained. And for want of proof of strangulation, these can be dismissed with deserved contempt. But—there was a very strong motive for the stabbing present in the Neapolitan House of Sanseverini, and in the Roman House of Caïetani, who had suffered loss of the principality of Salerno, and of the duchy of Sermoneta, in order to the enrichment of Prince Don Alonso of Bisceglia and Salerno and his infant son Duke Roderico of Sermoneta. Is it probable that great barons of the Fifteenth Century, or of any other century, calmly would submit to deprivation of their choicest fiefs, without at least an attempt to gain satisfaction of one or another kind? It may be concluded, then, that in all human probability Prince Don Alonso was the victim of a vendetta. His assassination was a private affair. The assassins were professionals in the pay of Sanseverini, or Caïetani, or both together; who, when the deed apparently was done, (here Burchard recording probability is valuable,) were surrounded by forty knights (Sanseverini or Caïetani of course) and escorted out of the City by the nearest gate, Porta Pertusa behind St. Peter’s, (the nearest gate to avoid attracting the attention of the bargelli in Borgo or Trastevere), whence, by a short circuit to the south, they would attain the Via Portuense, sixteen miles of which would bring them to Porto on the right bank of Tiber, opposite to the fortress at Ostia on the left bank belonging to Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere. * * * * * At the Eighth Consistory of the twenty-eighth of September 1500, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI named ten cardinals, who were, (α) the Lord Don Jaime Serra, a Catalan, Vicegerent of Rome; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Vitale: