At length, on the night of 21st January, Valenzuela took fright at some voices near, and foolishly let himself down by his twisted sheets from the window of his safe retreat; and, though one sentry let him go, and the monks made desperate attempts to keep him hidden, he was captured on the 22nd January and carried with every circumstance of ignominy to close confinement in Don Juan’s fortress of Consuegra; then after terrible sufferings and stripped of all his honours and possessions, he was imprisoned in Manila, and afterwards taken to Mexico to die; whilst his unfortunate wife, treated with atrocious brutality by Toledo, was reduced to beg from door to door for charity, until her troubles drove her mad.[277] No sooner was Valenzuela safe behind the bars at Consuegra than Don Juan of Austria entered Madrid in state on the 23rd January, acclaimed by the populace as the saviour of Spain, and welcomed by the King as the heaven-sent minister who was to make his reign brilliant and successful. Don Juan’s vengeance knew no limit, as his soul knew no generosity. Whatever may have been Mariana’s faults as a Queen of Spain, or her errors as a diplomatist, the ignominy to which she was now subjected by order of her son, at the instance of Don Juan, shows the lack of generosity of the latter and the miserable weakness of the former. Mariana’s turn was to come again by and bye, but with her banishment to Toledo her life as ruling Queen of Spain came to an end. She lived nearly twenty years afterwards, but her vicissitudes during that time may be told more fittingly in connection with the lives of her two successors, the wives of her afflicted son. BOOK V I MARIE LOUISE OF ORLEANS With Mariana, closely watched in her convent at Toledo, and all her friends exiled from Court, Don Juan of Austria reigned supreme. For years he had been clamouring for reform, and holding up as a terrible example of the results of mis-government the utter prostration that had seized upon the nation. This was his chance, and he missed it; for he, whom a whole people had acclaimed as the strong man that was to redeem Spain from the sins and errors of the past, proved in power to be a jealous vindictive trifler, incapable of great ideas or statesmanlike action. Every supporter of the Queen-Mother, from the highest to the lowest, was made to feel the persecution of Don Juan; letters from Toledo were opened, spies listened at every corner, and violated the sanctity of every home, in the anxiety of the Prince to discover plots against him. His pride exceeded all bounds, and most of his time was occupied in intrigues to secure for himself the treatment due to a royal prince of legitimate birth.