About the year 1590 or 1591 a Portuguese Augustin monk, named Fr. Miguel de los Santos, arrived in Madrid. He was a wild, scheming man, who had been exiled from his country as a supporter of plots and revolts in favour of the Prior of Crato, D. Antonio, then claiming the throne of Portugal. He was appointed vicar of the Augustin nuns at Madrigal, and for this reason used to confess and see much of Doña Ana de Austria, who, besides being very young then, seems to have been also very simple. At that time there was a shepherd named Gabriel Espinosa, who the monk thought bore a great resemblance to the King of Portugal, D. Sebastian, who had been killed shortly before at the battle of Alcárzarquiver in Africa. All these circumstances suggested an intrigue to Fr. Miguel, which, daring and absurd as it was, made much stir in Portugal and also in Castille. He persuaded the shepherd to pretend that he was the King, who by a miracle had escaped from the famous defeat, promising him by this deception to place him on the throne of Portugal. The first person he made to believe his story was Doña Ana, pretending that God had revealed to him that she was destined to share the throne of the spurious D. Sebastian. The simple Doña Ana fell into the trap, and, convinced that the shepherd was King Sebastian and she chosen by heaven to be his spouse, she sent rich jewels to Espinosa and established an "amoroso-politica" correspondence with him, which still exists in the archives of Sinmancas. The friar used these letters to obtain deluded partisans for the sham king, and so many did he thus gather in Portugal as well as Castille, and so much did the farce grow, that Espinosa was at last arrested in Valladolid on suspicion and tried with the monk and Doña Ana. Espinosa was condemned to be dragged from prison, put in a basket and hanged in the square of Madrigal, quartered, and put on the highway and his head placed in an iron cage. Fr. Miguel de los Santos, after being degraded, was given over to the secular law and was hanged in the square of Madrigal on the 19th of October, 1595. As to Doña Ana, she was ordered to be transferred to the convent of Augustins at Aviles, rigorous seclusion in her cell for four years, and to fast on bread and water during this time every Friday, to lose her right to be an abbess and to be addressed as Excellency. This sentence was, however, shortly afterwards remitted, and she was transferred to las Huelgas at Burgos, where she was elected perpetual abbess. The licentiate Baltasar Porreño dedicated his life of D. John of Austria to her about the years 1620 to 1625. CHAPTER VIII During all this time Prince Carlos's strangeness had been increasing little by little, until it had become madness, his overbearing nature cruelty, and the aversion he showed to his father deep hatred.