The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 20 of 55: 1621-1624; Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century. — John Shaqi
The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 20 of 55: 1621-1624; Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century.
History
The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 20 of 55: 1621-1624; Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century.
Demarcation line of Alexander VI; Missions -- Philippines; Philippines -- Discovery and exploration; Philippines -- History -- Sources
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 Doña 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 him. The governor would have been in
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