The public execution in the Plaza Mayor of the two principal conspirators, both nobles, Don Pedro de Silva, Marquis de la Vega de Sagra, and Don Carlos de Padilla, moved excitement-loving Madrid profoundly, and several eye-witnesses of the scene have left their impressions of it. From one unpublished account in the British Museum[28] the following description is condensed as an example of a Spanish execution, of the first importance at the time. Shortly before noon, on Saturday, the 5th December 1648, the massive doors of the Carcel de la Corte, opposite the Plaza de Santa Cruz, near the Atocha entrance of the Plaza Mayor,[29] opened for {409} a sombre procession to issue therefrom. First came seventy alguacils of the Court; then followed, amidst tapers and swinging censers, two famous figures of Christ from the parish church of Santa Cruz opposite, with the attendant clergy. Then came a saddle mule covered to the ground with housings of black baize, and led by an executioner. Upon the mule sat Don Carlos de Padilla, who only on the previous day had been divested of his honourable habit of a Knight of Santiago. Now, as he rode disconsolate, a crucifix in his hand and closely surrounded by many Jesuit fathers, he wore a long gown of black baize, with a cap of the same, and a steel chain dangled from his right foot. It was noticed, too, that instead of the almost universal golilla he wore a white starched Walloon collar unblued. After him came on another draped mule the Marquis, Don Pedro, similarly garbed; but, instead of the collar, wearing the tippet of a Fellow of the College, of Cuenca at Salamanca. Following the condemned men came crowds of alguacils, notaries, and officers of justice; and as the procession swept along dismally, heralded by tolling bells and the dreary call of the criers for the people to pray for the souls of the departing, vast crowds stood at every coign of vantage, and were held back at the end of each side street by guards and alguacils. The procession did not enter the Plaza by the nearest gate, that of the Atocha, but debouched into the {410} Calle Mayor, in order to enter the Plaza by a principal, Guadalajara, portal. It was noticed that as Don Carlos Padilla reached the entrance by the Guadalajara gate his face lit up radiantly, and the word passed along the awestruck crowd that a heavenly vision had brought comfort to him, now that all earthly comfort had fled.