spatches he bore conveyed the instructions of the queen regent Mariana de Neoburgo relative to the ceremonials to be observed, and were opened with the usual formalities.
In accordance with her commands the viceroy proceeded to arrange the obsequies. Two ministers, conversant with the prescribed etiquette, were promptly appointed, and orders despatched to the authorities of the different towns instructing them how to conduct the ceremonies. The ayuntamiento of the capital was notified to proclaim that the 16th of March was appointed for the public demonstration. Accordingly on that day a cavalcade with trumpets and muffled drums, draped in the insignia of mourning, left the cabildo between ten and eleven o'clock in the forenoon. These were followed by the mace-bearers dressed in black, and after them came the members of the audiencia, the alcaldes, alguacil mayor, and other authorities with their rods of office. The funeral cortege in dismal drapery slowly marched to the residence of the viceroy, where the king's death was publicly proclaimed; then at a given signal the great bell of the cathedral was tolled three hundred times.[1] With the same ceremonies similar proclamations were made at the archiepiscopal palace, and at the buildings of the inquisition and the cabildo.
March the 22d was appointed by Montezuma as the day on which he would receive visits of condolence from the different tribunals, royal officials, ecclesiastics, and gentry. The obsequies were celebrated on the 26th and 27th of April, on the first of which days in the afternoon all the bells of the city tolled the vespers for the dead, and the ceremonies were concluded by the delivery of a Latin oration in eulogy of the late king. On the following sunrise the service for the dead was chanted in the churches, the viceroy, archbishop, and nobility attending at the
- ↑ 'A que correspondieron las campanas de setenta y una iglesias, que habia en Mexico, y en sus arrabales.' Cavo, Tres Siglos, ii. 96-9.
