deluded and deluding nun. The gossip in the house of the
Princess was carried to Madrid, and the result was that the
Inquisition began to make a search for the book. [16] It is not
quite clear, however, that it was seized at this time.

The Princess became a widow in July, 1573, and insisted on
becoming a Carmelite nun in the house she and her husband, Ruy
Gomez, had founded in Pastrana. When the news of her resolve
reached the monastery, the mother-prioress, Isabel of St.
Dominic, exclaimed, "The Princess a nun! I look on the house as
ruined." The Princess came, and insisted on her right as
foundress; she had compelled a friar to give her the habit before
her husband was buried, and when she came to Pastrana she began
her religious life by the most complete disobedience and
disregard of common propriety. Don Vicente's description of her
is almost literally correct, though intended only for a general
summary of her most childish conduct:

"On the death of the Prince of Eboli, the Princess would become a
nun in her monastery of Pastrana. The first day she had a fit of
violent fervour; on the next she relaxed the rule; on the third
she broke it, and conversed with secular people within the
cloisters. She was also so humble that she required the nuns to
speak to her on their knees, and insisted upon their receiving
into the house as religious whomsoever she pleased.
Hereupon complaints were made to St. Teresa, who remonstrated
with the Princess, and showed her how much she was in the wrong,
whereupon she replied that the monastery was hers; but the Saint
proved to her that the nuns were not, and had them removed
to Segovia." [17]