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provincial died twenty days after his election. He died, as some say (and this opinion seems not without foundation, as we shall see further on), from poison that they gave him, and consequently his death was very sudden. By the death of this Fray Geronímo de Salas, Fray Vicente de Sepulveda returned to the office of provincial, as their regulations provide. It seemed to some religious who were not of his party that it was too much for him to govern three more years, so they planned to cut the thread of life for him—by means of poison, since this would not betray them. They gave it to him more than eight times in his food and drink—in his chocolate, and even in the wine with which he was consecrated. The poison was ground glass, and it resulted in eruptions over his entire body and in illness for several days, but it did not produce death. When the conspirators saw that their attempts so far had been unsuccessful, four of them planned to kill him with their own hands. The affair was so public that not only was the conspiracy noised about among the friars but also among the laity of Manila. Thus it came to the ears of the provincial himself, who had not lived as prudently as he should have done for the safety of his person. After this, he was very careful about his food and drink; he locked himself in at night, and entrusted the key of the apartment to only a few. He ordered one, who was the author of the treason (and he was the one that was suspected), that in virtue of his [the provincial’s] holy precept, he should not come into the convent of Manila, but that he should prepare to embark for Nueva España where they should take from him the cowl. Thereupon this individual, Fray Juan de Ocadiz—who was a native of Madrid, a priest, and one of long service in his order—formed an agreement with three others, all young men about twenty years of age, who had been ordained to preach. These were Fray Juan de Quintana and Fray Andres Encinas (both natives of Manila), and Fray Ignacio de Alcaraz, born in Nueva España in a place near Acapulco, called I think, Quatulco. Fray Ignacio was companion and secretary to this provincial, and so he had the opportunity of making a key to the apartment, by first making an impression of the key in wax. On the thirty-first of July, 617, the day of our Father Ignacio, at eleven o’clock at night, the four opened the door of the provincial’s apartment with the key that had been prepared for the purpose. The provincial heard the noise immediately, and suspecting what it might be, rose from the bed, and went shouting to meet them. At this juncture the three evangelists repented of what had been begun, and talked of withdrawing from it. But Fray Juan de Ocadiz, bolder than the rest, since he had already begun the work, told them that if they deserted he would have to stab them. Thereupon all four together attacked the provincial, threw him upon the bed, and held his mouth. The three evangelists held his arms and legs firmly, and Fray Juan de Ocadiz, putting his knees upon his stomach, choked with his hands. While the friar was choking him, the provincial begged for confession. Fray Juan said, “Father, repent of your sins, and in token of this clasp my hand.” The provincial took his hand, and the murderer absolved him, adding, “Trust, Father, in our Lord, who will pardon your sins.” Upon this he seized his throat, and finished choking him. Then with diabolical cruelty, in order to be more certain [that he was dead] they twisted his neck against the bed in such a way that they disjointed the bones, no that the head fell from one side to the other as if he had been a dead fowl. All this tragedy was committed in the dark, so they went for a light, cleansed the provincial’s body of the blood that had gushed from his mouth, changed his bed-linen and garments, and set everything in good order, that it might appear that he had died of some sudden accident. They did not take into consideration the many discolorations upon his body, or the twisted neck, that must soon give testimony of the hideous crime. Fray Andres Encinas took all the bloody clothing and threw it into the closets. The others closed the door from within, with a cross bar, and jumped through a little window. Although the provincial had given many loud cries, and other friars lived near the apartment, nothing was heard in the convent—a thing that seems impossible. After the crime was completed the bells rang for matins, for which it was now time. The murderers, or rather parricides, with great craftiness went to prayers. Morning came, and the hour arrived at which the provincial was accustomed to open his apartment; but he did not open it. They waited a little, but he did not come out. They knocked at the door, but he did not respond; they knocked louder, but in vain. The prior and the other friars, who were ignorant of the affair, determined to break down the doors. They did so, entered, and then beheld the crime, and saw that the provincial had been killed with violence. The prior, a certain Fray del Rincon,18 hastened to the president of the royal Audiencia and to Don Geronimo de Sylva, captain-general, in order that they might give him help of which he was destitute because there was so great a tumult in the convent. They soon came with men. First the president ordered that all the friars should go one by one to kiss the hand of the dead man, in order that he might note the countenance of each. Finally they buried the provincial, and every one can well infer what would be said of the whole order; for people will forget that in the apostolic college there was a Judas and in Heaven a Lucifer, and yet the other apostles and the angels did not fall on this account. Reports of the affair were transmitted to the bishop of Zebu, Don Fray Pedro de Arce, of the Order of St. Augustine, and at that time governor of the archbishopric of Manila. He imprisoned some and tortured others; and in a short time, and with little trouble, the criminals were discovered. He made all the investigations, prepared the case, and handed it over to the definitorio, which, as they said, had by right jurisdiction in the matter. The definitorio, which was composed of nine of the most prominent friars of their order, advised with the other orders as to whether, without consulting the pope, it could condemn the criminals to actual degradation and deliver them over to the secular arm. The Society [of Jesus] avoided, as far as it could, giving its opinion upon an affair that was of such moment, and that must create such a sensation. In the decision of the affair, whether wise or unwise, it was best for us not to interfere. The authors were examined, and upon the advice of wise and learned men the definitorio resolved to give the sentence. It was read to the criminals from the pulpit of the church of St. Augustine, on the nineteenth of September, 617, before all the people, who had congregated to witness a spectacle so extraordinary. Immediately they took from him the cowl, and left them with only some short cassocks such as are worn by clergymen. They delivered them to the bishop, who was already prepared for the degradation. He immediately began to degrade them, and then delivered them over to the secular arm. They were taken to jail by the strong guard of soldiers that had been in the church ever since the criminals had been removed from the prisons to hear the sentence. But it was possible to execute this sentence against three only, because Fray Andres Encinas had escaped the night before, in company with a lay brother who was guarding him. With chains and all, the lay brother removed him from the prison at twelve o’clock at night, and, placing him upon his back, carried him along an unfinished wall of the convent, with great danger to both of falling and killing themselves. He took from him the chains and, together with another lay brother of their order, they jumped from the wall and fled in great haste. On the twenty-second of September of the same year, 617, the secular tribunal pronounced the sentence of death upon the three. They were taken from the jail amid a great retinue of religious of all orders, who were assisting, and of soldiers who were guarding the prisoners. At ten o’clock in the morning they were hanged in the square before the largest assembly of people, I think, I have ever seen in my life. They died with suitable preparation. I am unwilling to omit the account of a very peculiar circumstance. Twenty years ago they were hanging in Madrid that Augustinian friar because he wished to make a pastry-cook king of Portugal, and to marry him to Doña Ana de Austria, the mother of Fray Juan de Ocadiz. She was watching the proceeding, and all at once she began to scream and weep. When asked the cause of this she replied that she fancied she saw on the gallows her son, who was an Augustinian friar. Followed by a large crowd they took the bodies of these three men who had been hanged, to the convent of San Agustin for interment, where they will remain with their provincial until God calls them to judgment. The friars then very diligently searched for the one who had fled, in order to execute upon him the same sentence. At first they did not find him. And afterward, although they might have captured him, they did not, because they did not feel obliged to revive the painful remembrances and cause to all, and especially to his mother and the relatives whom he has here, the grief and distress that the first three deaths occasioned.
Besides these there were found guilty in the affair Fray Joseph de Vides, a native of Mexico, who had been instructor of the novices; and Fray Pedro de Herrera, a native of Medina del Campo, who had been professor of theology, and
Alonso Rincon was one of the Augustinians arriving in the Philippines in 1606. He was minister in various Indian villages until 1617, when he was appointed prior of the Manila convent. He was sent as procurator to Spain and Rome in 1618, and returned to Manila four years afterward. He died there in 1631.
