While the case thus rested, an incidental scandal was introduced into it. By the fleet from Spain came one Doña Ana Porcel de Velasco: a lady of good birth, very beautiful, the widow of a naval officer, reduced by her widowhood and by other misfortunes to poverty. In her happier days she had been a beauty at Court, and there the Marqués de Cadereita had known her and had made suit to her, wherefore she had come to Mexico to seek his Viceregal protection. Housing her in the Palace being out of the question, the Viceroy begged that Don Juan would take her into his own home: and that disposition of her, accordingly, was made--with the result that more "odious gossip" was aroused. What became of the beautiful Doña Ana is unrecorded. Her episodic existence in the story seems to be due to the fact that because of her the popular ill-will against Don Juan and against the Viceroy was increased.
A far-reaching ripple from the wave of the Portuguese and Catalonian revolt of the year 1640, influencing affairs in Mexico, gave opportunity for this ill-will to crystallize into action of so effective a sort that the Viceroy was recalled, and his favorite--no longer under protection--was cast into prison. Don Juan's commitment--the specific charge against him is not recorded--was signed by one Don Francisco Vélez de Pereira: who, as Señor Obregón puts it, "was not only a Judge of the criminal court but a criminal Judge" (_no era solamente un Alcalde del crímen sino un Alcalde criminal_) because he made dishonest proposals to Doña Mariana as the price of her husband's liberation. It would seem that Doña Mariana accepted the offered terms; and in so grateful a spirit that she was content to wait upon the Alcalde's pleasure for their complete ratification by Don Juan's deliverance. Pending such liquidation of the contract, news was carried to Don Juan in prison of the irregular negotiations in progress to procure his freedom: whereupon he procured it for himself, one night, by breaking jail. Going straight to his own home, he found there the Alcalde--and incontinently killed him.
That one killing that Don Juan Manuel certainly did commit--out of which, probably, has come the legend of his many murders--created, because of the high estate of all concerned in it, a deplorable scandal: that the Audiencia--while resolved to bring Don Juan to justice--sought to allay by hushing up, so far as was possible, the whole affair. The Duque de Escalona, the new Viceroy (1640-1642), was at one with the Audiencia in its hushing-up policy; but was determined--for reasons of his own which are unrecorded--that Don Juan should not be executed. So, for a considerable period of time, during which Don Juan remained in prison, the matter rested. The event seems to imply that the Audiencia accomplished its stern purpose, as opposed to the lenient purpose of the Viceroy, by means as informal as they were effective. Certainly, on a morning in October, 1641, precisely as described in the legend, Don Juan Manuel was found hanging dead on the gallows in front of the Capilla de la Espiración. Señor Obregón concludes the historical portion of his narrative in these words: "The Oidores, whose orders it is reasonable to suppose brought about that dark deed, attributed it to the angels--but there history ends and legend begins."