A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Pacheco, (Donna Maria)
P.
On the ill conduct of one of their generals, they were much discomfited, and in great distress for money. Donna Maria, a woman of noble birth, great abilities, and unbounded ambition, superior to the prejudices of the age, proposed to seize all the rich and magnificent ornaments in the cathedral of Toledo; but lest that action should offend the people, by an appearance of impiety, she and her retinue went to the church in a solemn mourning procession, and implored pardon of the saints, whose shrines she was about to violate. By this artifice, she procured a considerable sum of money for the Junta, without paining the minds of the pious. Their general, the young and generous Padilla, was however taken prisoner, and condemned to death, which he bore with christian magnanimity. He wrote an affectionate letter to his wife, in which he tells her the bitterest pang of death is the grief she will suffer on the occasion: yet he exhorts her to consider it as his deliverance. This blow was fatal to the confederacy.—The city of Toledo alone, animated by Donna Maria, who sought to revenge her husband's death, yet held out. Respect, admiration, and sympathy, secured to her the ascendancy over the people which he had possessed; and the prudence and vigour with which she acted justified this confidence. She wrote to the French general in Navarre, encouraging him to invade Castile: she endeavoured, by her letters and emissaries, to revive the hopes and spirits of other Castilian cities; raised soldiers, and by keeping the death of their beloved general fresh in the minds of the people, by processions, &c. she prevented fear or despondency from acting on their minds. Her enemies in vain tried to undermine her popularity; and, when the city was invested, she defended it with vigour, her troops frequently repulsed the royalists, and no progress was made in reducing the place, till the clergy, whose property she had been forced to invade, ceased to support her. They soon openly deserted her; and persuaded the credulous multitude, impatient of a long blockade, that she had acquired such influence over them by enchantments, and that she was assisted by a familiar demon, in the form of a negro maid. Incensed by these suggestions, they themselves took arms against her, drove her out of the city, and surrendered it to the royalists. She then retired to the citadel, which she defended with amazing fortitude four months longer; and, when reduced to the last extremities, made her escape in disguise, and fled into Portugal, where he had many relations.