CORTÉS’ ARMOR.
Copied from an engraving (in Ruge’s Das Zeitalter der Entdeckungen, p. 405) of the original in the Museum at Madrid. Wilson refers to some plate armor in the Museum at Mexico, which he, of course, thinks apocryphal (New Conquest, p. 444).
He had now honors sufficient for any match among the rank of grandees; and a few days after he was ennobled he was married, as had been earlier planned, to the daughter of the late Conde de Aguilar and niece of the Duque de Béjar,—both houses of royal extraction.
Cortés now prepared to return to Mexico with his new titles. He learned that the Emperor had appointed a new audiencia to proceed thither, and it promised him better justice than he had got from the other. The Emperor was not, however, satisfied as yet that the presence of Cortés in Mexico was advisable at the present juncture, and he ordered him to stay; but the decree was too late, and Cortés, with a great retinue, had already departed. He landed at Vera Cruz, in advance of the new judge, July 15, 1530.
His reception was as joyous as it had been four years before; and though an order had reached him forbidding his approach within ten leagues of Mexico till the new audiencia should arrive, the support of his retinue compelled him to proceed to Tezcuco, where he awaited its coming, while he was put in the interim to not a little hazard and inconvenience by the efforts of the Guzman government to deprive him of sustenance and limit his intercourse with the natives.
Near the end of the year the new Government arrived,—or all but its president, Fuenleal, for he was the Bishop of Santo Domingo, whom the others had been ordered to take on board their vessel on the way; but stress of weather had prevented their doing this. The Bishop did not join them till September. In Mexico they took possession of Cortés’ house, which they had been instructed to appropriate at an appraisement.
