Tired by the long wait and the dull reading, Jeromín ended by falling asleep, his head leaning against Doña Magdalena's knees, but he woke up in the midst of a strange tumult, of which he was far from knowing that he was the cause. This is how Vander Hammen describes the scene: "At it (the Auto) the greater part of Old Castille was present, and a great number of Andalucians and those from New Castille, and as the news spread about everywhere of the new son of Charles V, a little more and there would have been a serious disaster, as everyone wanted to see him and the guards could not check them.
"The people threw themselves on each other without minding the halberds, javelins or arquebuses. It came to this, that the Conde de Osorno had to carry him in his arms to the Princess's carriage, because everyone liked him. In it the sister took him to the Palace (the house of the Conde de Benavente), followed by a crowd of people, and from there he went back with Doña Magdalena to her Villagarcia."
All the same, Vander Hammen is wrong in what he says about the Princess and other things. The Conde de Osorno did, it is true, take Jeromín and lift him up to show him to the people, but he did not give him into the Princess's charge, nor did she commit the imprudence of taking him with her to the Palace. He gave him into Doña Magdalena's care, from whom he had got separated in the confusion, and this lady took him back the same night to Villagarcia.
The child, frightened by the tumult, whose cause he did not suspect, asked with rather timid anxiety whether the heretics had escaped.
CHAPTER XVI
After an absence of five years Philip II at last returned to Spain and disembarked at Laredo on the 8th of September, 1559. Six days later he made his entry into Valladolid, and the following day his sister Princess Juana made over to him the government of the kingdom, and retired to the convent of Abrojo, about a league away. She and Philip were not long separated, as on the 21st, the first anniversary of the Emperor's death, he caused solemn services for the eternal repose of the Emperor's soul to be celebrated in the same convent.
Meanwhile Luis Quijada awaited at Villagarcia with real anxiety the King's promised decision about Jeromín, which would so much affect the whole family. But the King settled nothing, and the former steward, accustomed to the promptness of the Emperor, who with the inspiration of genius saw, ordered, thought and resolved all in a second, that which more common intelligence would require months to decide, began to despair and could not reconcile himself to D. Philip's slow parsimony.
Philip, however, had not forgotten his brother, as is proved by the famous state council of which Antonio Pérez speaks in one of his letters to Gil de Mesa: "That they were so divided, having taken sides on the subject, these great councillors, each to his own end, but with arguments about the service of the King, whether the Catholic King Philip ought to follow his father's wish about the position of his brother." This last an invention, no doubt, of the crafty secretary Pérez, as none of the councillors, much less Philip II, could quibble in any way about what the Emperor had not counselled but ordered in his will with regard to his bastard son.
At last Luis Quijada received a message from the King ordering him to go to the mountain of Torozos on the 28th of September, making hunting the excuse, and taking Jeromín with him, dressed as usual like a peasant; that they were to go towards the monastery of the Espina, and that about midday he would meet them between the monastery and the forester's tower. He also told Quijada to say nothing to the child to enlighten him, as he wished to do this himself.