Note 37 — ROJO’S NARRATIVE

56. The ambiguous letter of Draper of the twenty-eighth (in our calendar, the twenty-seventh), is slight foundation for so gross a suspicion and its proof; in which he seems to infer that the archbishop had made the cession, and infers on the other hand, that he was in condition of acting in regard to the cession. For the letter says that those who endeavored to persuade him not to make the cession would answer with their lives. It is a proof of the sincerity of the archbishop that he showed the said letter in the second council, for if it contained anything suspicious, or anything by which he would be discovered to be lacking in application, it would have been very easy for him to suppress it and return it to the general, in order that the latter might write another, in which nothing would be understood in regard to the secret understanding. It is not the mark of a good reason and less is it Christian to assert so great a crime as proved without having had any motive. For to such infamies, one is moved either by self-interest or the expectations of honors, or important posts which both lacked. For the archbishop had previously stripped himself of all his few valuables and pectorals, without reserving any; and he was clothed in the greatest honors and employments with which the powerful Catholic king can honor a vassal of his in these islands. And only by depriving himself of this recognition, and of his character as a Christian and archbishop could he offend so enormously against his king and religion because of the expectation or promise of greater honors in Londres or with the very crown of all Ynglaterra. Through the mercy of God, the archbishop has not been abandoned by His divine hand in his right judgment or in the works of his misery and weakness. Neither does he live so forgetful of quid prodest homini,37 etc.