" That same night," says Benchard, " Don Alphonzo,
who declined to die of his wounds, was strangled in his
bed."

The next day his obsequies took place, and if they
were not on a scale of magnificence suited to his rank,
they were at least respectable. Don Francesco Borgia,
Archbishop of Cosenza, acted as chief mourner at St.
Peter's, where the body was interred in the chapel of
Santa Maria.
Lucrezia reached Rome the night after the funeral.
She knew her father and brother too well to be the dupe
of their pretended grief; and although Cffisar, immedi-
ately upon Don Alphonzo's demise, caused the arrest of
his physicians and surgeons, as well as a poor devil of a
hunchback who was his valet-de-chambre, she saw at
once whence the blow came. And so, fearing that her
own sorrow, which was genuine enough this time, might
deprive her of her father's and brother's confidence, she
withdrew to Nepi with her whole household, her whole
court, and more than six hundred horsemen, there to
pass her period of mourning.
This momentous family affair adjusted, and Lucrezia



Digitized by Microsoft®



THE BORGIAS

Don Alphonso of Aragon, husband of Lu-
crezia, murdered by order of the Borgias.
