1681. Carta de don Pedro de Escobedo para doña Isabel de Ortega.

Letter from Pedro de Escobedo to Isabel de Ortega

The author informs Isabel de Ortega about what he is doing in Madrid, and avises her not to worry about the rumour she has heard.

In 1682, Tomás de Ortega Morales sued Pedro Escobedo for the illicit marriage that this had contracted with her daughter Isabel de Ortega. The girl, after refusing to marry his cousin, was imprisoned by his parents in the Convent of the Holy Trinity in Martos (Jaén). However, they had to take her out of the monastery because of a disease, and they put her in the house of her aunts. It was there that the relationship with Pedro de Escobedo, who promised her that they were going to get married, started. Isabel gave in to the requests of her lover to leave the house of her relatives. She spent three days at the house of Pedro de Escobedo, but after three days she returned to the house of her aunts. His father denounced Pedro de Escobedo and placed her daughter in another house. However, they got married clandestinely; then, a series of events led Isabel to stay for a short time in the locutorium of the convent of Santa Clara de Martos. There she met Quiteria González, who had a relationship with Pedro de Escobedo, and who advised her not to testify. Eventually, by order of the ecclesiastical vicar, she was transferred at the house of Juana de Cárdenas, who helped the epistolary communication between her and Pedro de Escobedo. The letters included in the process were provided by Isabel Ortega to complete her statement of the 23rd of January, 1682.