The author of the "History of the Reforms of the Barefooted Order of Our Lady of Carmel," Fr. Francisco de Santamaria, thus describes the arrival of the Princess de évoli at the convent of Pastrana. "The Prioress called the nuns, got ready the house, and prepared two beds, one for the Princess, the other for her mother, who arrived at eight o'clock in the morning. The Princess changed her habit, as the one she had taken in Madrid was neither suitable nor so clean as it might have been. She rested for a while, and suddenly showing her determination wished that the habit should be given at once to the two waiting-maids she had brought with her, paying with a little sackcloth the salaries of long years. The Prioress answered that the licence of the prelate was necessary. She said, very much offended, 'What have friars to do with my convent?' Not without resentment on the Princess's part, the Mother Prioress deferred doing it until she had consulted the Father Prior. Having conferred with him she resolved to give them the habit. This was done in the parlour, the Princess being placed between the two, so that she might also attain the blessings. They took her to eat meat with her mother in a room apart. She dispensed with this service and went to the refectory, and leaving the place near the Prioress which had been prepared for her took one of the lowest, without giving in to prayers and exhortations, preserving superiority in an inferior place.

"The Prioress, considering that such self-will would cause much trouble, consulted with the Princess, her mother, that it would be better if the lady took a part of the house, where she could live with her servants and be visited by secular people, with a door to go to the cloister when she wished, but not any secular person to use it. This seemed to everyone good advice, but she thought it bad, as it was not hers, and she remained as she was in the convent.

PRINCESA DE éVOLI

From a print of her portrait by Sanchez Coello,
belonging to Duque du Pastrana

"The next day, having buried the Prince and performed the obsequies, the Bishop of Segorbe and other persons of rank who were there came to visit her. Mother Elizabeth told her to talk to them at the grating, but she wished that they should come into the cloister, and made such a point of this that, in spite of the monks, nuns, and laymen who came to visit her, they opened the doors of the convent and many servants entered with the lords, overthrowing the decrees of the Council, the orders of the holy Mother, the silence and retirement of the nuns and all good government, because lords do not think that they need obey laws. Not content with this she insisted on having two secular maids; the Mother Prioress offered that she herself and everyone would wait on her, especially two novices formerly in her service, but nothing would satisfy her, as she thought that she should be obeyed.

"The Mother Elizabeth wrote to our Mother St. Theresa, telling her of the death of the Prince, the resolution of the Princess, and the first episodes she had gone through with her.

"Mother Elizabeth and two of the oldest nuns told her that if she went on in this way, they knew that the holy foundation would take them away and put them where they could keep their rules, of more importance in her eyes than all the Grandees in the world. Annoyed by this, she took her servants and went to a hermitage in the orchard, and remained there, having nothing to do with the nuns. They sent her, however, the novices to wait on her, they not being yet so bound by the rules of the cloister.

"From there a door opened into the street, by which she admitted everyone, modifying thereby the grief for her husband's death. Because of all this the work of the church and convent stopped and the alms which Ruy Gómez had left for its support, so that it began to suffer great straits."

But as all this lasted too long, and since the Princess would not give in and the troubles went on, so that all peace and quiet were at an end, and the "dovecot of the Virgin," as St. Theresa called it, was turned into a nest of intrigues and gossip, the saint wrote to the Prioress that she and all the nuns were to leave Pastrana and go to the convent in Segovia. This, however, was not necessary, as the superiors of the Order went to the King, and, acting with him, obliged the Princess to leave the convent. She then retired to her country house at Pastrana, and from there carried on such a campaign against the nuns and persecuted them so cruelly that Theresa, weary of it, ordered the Prioress to leave the convent with all the nuns, taking nothing with them that had been given by the Princess. "The beds," says the saint in her "Book of Foundations," "and the little things that the nuns themselves had brought, they took away with them, leaving the village people very sad. I saw them in peace with the greatest joy, because I was well informed that the displeasure of the Princess was no fault of theirs, rather they waited on her as before she wore the habit."

The Princess then sought for a Franciscan community to establish in the empty convent, and she helped and made much of them as she had never done before to the others. She took care that this should reach the ears of St. Theresa, her small, vindictive nature thinking that human jealousies could have a place in that heart which was protected by divine love. In the midst of this wretched strife the grief of the Princess had lessened, and in 1575 she already thought of returning to Madrid, so her father the Prince............