Note 112 — The Pardo Controversy

In the Ventura del Arco MSS. (iii, p. 761) is an extract from a letter by the Jesuit Pedro Cano, dated May 26, 1690, which says: “On December 31, 1689, they found Archbishop Pardo dead in his bed, sine cruce et sine luce, without any sacrament, through the negligence of the people of his household and his own confidence that he was to live a long time. For some days all his body had been swollen, and he said that, thanks to the Lord, he was gaining flesh. In the agonies of death, he called to his servants, who were buried in sleep; no one heard him except Don Juan de Cazorla, a cleric whom the archbishop kept a prisoner under his own apartment, in fetters—who did not dare to go upstairs, lest the archbishop should learn that his fetters were removed at night. The prelate’s body, wrapped in a loose gown, was carried to the house where Auditor Grimaldos died; and from there to Santo Domingo, where four days later it was buried.”