1659.[1] His funeral took place with the ceremonies becoming his rank; the corpse was buried in the principal chapel, and an elaborate tombstone with a eulogy of his character placed over his grave. Thus ended in an insignificant town of Spain the career of a man who had been vested with the highest civil and ecclesiastical powers ever conferred by the sovereign on any of his vassals in the New World. After his death miracles were attributed to him, and these, in addition to his eminent virtues, were made the grounds of a request for his canonization. The demand was supported by testimony from Spain and the Indies, and favored by the king, the viceroy, and the ecclesiastical dignitaries. A congregation of cardinals having in 1691 discussed the matter and examined his writings[2] reported favorably, and the prescribed proceedings were instituted. Intrigues in Rome and Madrid by the Jesuits and the descendants of the duke of Escalona frustrated, however, all efforts made at this period and at a later date.[3]
- ↑ The news reached Mexico in May of the following year, but apparently created no impression. Guijo, Diario, in Doc. Hist. Mex., série i., i. 442.
- ↑ Palafox was a prolific and able author, his first literary attempts having been made in 1618. His writings are not only on spiritual, but on historical, judicial, and other subjects, the greater part being written in New Spain. The most important are the Vida Interior, Varon de Desseos, Estatvtos . . . de la . . . Vniversidad de Mexico, and the different memorials bearing on his dispute with the Jesuits, and his letters to Pope Innocent X. Some of his works have been lost; the first general edition, comprising nearly all that had been written by him, and including the manuscripts which he had left to the barefooted Carmelites, was published between 1659 and 1671 in eight tomes, to which another was added, containing his biography by Antonio Gonzalez Rosende. Another edition was issued in 1762, by order and under the supervision of the Carmelite friars of Madrid, consisting of 13 volumes in 15 tomes in folio. Besides these editions there have appeared, before and after that time, several publications of single works, chiefly in Spanish, but also in other languages.
- ↑ In 1726 and 1767 Ribera, Gobernantes, i. 151-2, says the beatification was pronounced on August 16, 1767; but he has evidently misinterpreted Lorenzana, in Concilios Prov., 1555-65. See also Papeles de Jesuitas, MS., no. 8, 8-25, 30. The fact that in the second half of the eighteenth century proceedings for the beatification of Palafox were continued, explains the partiality manifested by nearly all his biographers and by the leading chroniclers; they were either friends or foes, and therefore overrated his virtues or exaggerated his defects. The most unbiassed but unfortunately rather fragmentary account is certainly that given by the contemporary Guijo in his Diario, in Doc. Hist. Mex., 1st ser., i. 6 et seq. The information furnished by him, together with that contained in the memorials and letters of Palafox, and
