Mexican sovereign. During one of the evolutions of the spectacle, Avila threw around the neck of the young Marques a collar of intermingled flowers and jewels, similar to the one with which his father had been adorned by Montezuma; and, at the conclusion of the scene, he placed on the heads of the Marques and his wife a coronet of laurel, with the exclamation,—"How well these crowns befit your noble brows!"
These simple diversions of a family festival were, doubtless, altogether innocent, and, certainly, not designed to prefigure an intention upon the part of the Marques and his friends to usurp the government of the New World. But it is probable that he had
unwisely made enemies of men in power who were either ridiculously suspicious, or eagerly sought for any pretext, no matter how silly, to lay violent hands upon the son of Cortéz. It is probable, too, that the prestige,—the moral power,—of the great conqueror's name had not yet ceased to operate in Mexico; and, in those days when individuals were not dainty in ridding themselves of dangerous intruders, it is not unlikely that it was the policy of the Audiencia and its coadjutors to drive the gallant Marques from scenes, which, in the course of time, might tempt his ambition. The extreme popularity of such a man was not to be tolerated.
However, the domestic festival, symbolical as it was deemed by some of a desire to foreshadow the destiny of the son of Cortéz, was allowed to pass over. The oidores and their spies, meditating in secret over the crowning of Cortéz and his wife by Avila, and the remarkable words by which the graceful act was accompanied, resolved to embrace the first opportunity to detect what they declared was a conspiracy to wrest the dominion of New Spain from Philip II.
When men are anxious to commit a crime, a pretext or an occasion is not generally long wanting to accomplish the wicked design. Accordingly we