tained. But this was not to last. In October 1522, less than three months after her arrival, she assisted at a banquet in her usual health, and on the morrow she was numbered among the dead.[1]
Lucky Cortés; men and women lived or died according to his heart's desire! Her return to Cortés after years of separation, while he was enjoying the felicities of another liaison, her sudden death, the convenience of the event in view of ambitious dreams attributed to him by certain persons, added to the interest pertaining to the conquerer at this time — all this made the decease a subject of general interest, and the ever-ready tongue of scandal found willing ears for the charge that she had been criminally removed. Nothing was openly said, however, for Cortés was too powerful and too widely feared; but in letters to Spain suspicions were intimated, and when, in 1529, his enemies held an audiencia, unawed by his presence, the mother and brother joined the opponents to arraign him as a murderer, who, like Othello, had suffocated her. The testimony, however, rested on imaginings, for death had removed the only reliable evidence, and no decision could be arrived at even by his enemies. The attorney of Cortés attributed the charge to an effort to extort money, and he himself suffered the affair to pass by in contemptuous silence. The second audiencia did not resume the investigation, and no notice was ever taken of the accusation by friends and patrons of Cortés.[2] This
- ↑ 'Fiestas de todos Santos.' Acusacion, in Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., xxvi. 347.
- ↑ The trial was held at Mexico in February and March 1529, the criminating circumstances alleged being, the mystery and suddenness of the death; strangulation marks round the neck; the order to the brother not to leave his house; the enveloping of the head of the deceased in a veil, and opposition to any scrutiny of the body; the refusal to impart any information about the death to the alcalde mayor and others; the desire of Cortés to be rid of his wife in order to marry a lady of rank, a niece of the bishop of Bargos. Several of these points were affirmed by biassed witnesses, but not in any very credible manner; while the wife of Alonso de Ávila, and others who had seen the corpse, denied the knowledge of criminating signs. No sentence was passed, and the affair was allowed to lapse into oblivion, the mother making no allusion to it during a later suit for her daughter's share in the property
