Jeromín hurried his steps as if he would be late getting to the castle, and running through the courts and up the stairs, he arrived at the parlour, opening and slamming the doors. Doña Magdalena was there alone and very pale. The child went to her, and took her hand to kiss it. "Aunt! Aunt!" "My lord, your Highness is no nephew of mine," answered the lady. And she tried to kiss his hands, and set him in her big chair while she sat on the carpet.
But the child, beside himself, cried with great energy that made his voice, all choked with tears, quite hoarse:
"No! No! My aunt, my aunt, my mother." And he kissed her tearfully, miserable and angry all at the same time, as one who cries for something lost through his own fault, and by force made her sit in the chair, and would not be silent or calm until he sat at her feet with his head leaning against her knee, making her promise a thousand times that she would always be his aunt, and that she would never leave off being his mother.
This all happened on a Thursday, and the following Monday, which was the 2nd of October, the acknowledgment of Jeromín took place in the Palace of Valladolid, as the King, D. Philip, had arranged. It is related thus in a manuscript, quoted by Gachard in the Maggliabecchiana library in Florence:
"Thursday, the 8th of September, it reached the lords of the Holy Office that the King would not go before he had seen the act, and so then they had it proclaimed for the 8th of October. And thus the King went to la Spina, and there they brought his half-brother, and he was pleased to see him, as he is handsome and sensible, and he ordered that he should be brought secretly to his house. And thus, the following Monday, he made everyone in the Palace recognise him as his brother, and embraced and kissed him, then his sister, then his son, and then the rest of the black cloaks."
It is, therefore, not true what Vander Hammen says of Philip giving his brother the Golden Fleece, either at Torozos or in the Palace of Valladolid. What really happened at this second interview was that the King gave his brother the family name, and changed his name of Jeromín for that of John, creating that which has descended to posterity surrounded by rays of genius and glory—Don John of Austria.