King, Georgiana Goddard: A brief account of the military orders in Spain (New York: The Hispanic Society of America, 1921)

154
MILITARY ORDERS
The
Queen's
policies
the city of Plasencia that they should
withdraw from the obedience and fealty of
the Duke D. Alvaro—the Master’s father
—and come under the royal crown: these
took up arms and drove out the Duke’s
officers and besieged the fortress, that
tower still strong where white pigeons coo
and mate in the sunshine now. The Duke
discreetly gave it up to the Kings and was
called thereafter Duke of Bejar. Next the
Kings claimed the Mastership when it
should fall vacant, and Innocent VIII and
Alexander VI gave Bulls to that effect:
within two years thereafter John was
invited to resign. He was discreet as his
father had been: with three knights and
three clerks he retired to a convent that
he built in Villanueva de la Serena, and
that was the end of the Order. D. Juan
became later Archbishop of Seville, and the
Pope made him a Cardinal: finally he died
when on a visit to Guadelupe and lies
among the innumerable unknown dead,
great lords and kings and pilgrims, at
the sanctuary there.
The history of the Order began and
HISPANIC NOTES