THE BURIAL OF CORTÉS

Cortés left instructions in his will for his body to be buried in the church of the parish in which he died, and at the end of ten years for his bones to be carried to New Spain and interred in a Franciscan convent to be called La Concepcion, which he ordered to be founded at Coyoacan. However, his body was not buried in the parish church, but was placed in the tomb of the Dukes of Medina Sidonia in the Convent of San Isidro extra Muros at Seville. His bones were taken later to New Spain in accordance with his will, but as the convent which he had ordered to be founded at Coyoacan had not been built, they were placed in the Church of San Francisco at Texcoco. Thence they were removed and buried with great pomp in the Church of the Monastery of San Francisco in Mexico City on the 24th February, 1629.

In 1794 the remains of Cortés were removed to the Hospital de Jesus, which Cortés had himself founded and endowed, and were interred within a monumental tomb.

Here it might be supposed that his bones would have been allowed to remain in peace. However, during the heat of the revolution against the dominion of Spain, everything Spanish was abhorred, and it was even proposed in Congress that the bones of Cortes should be dug up and burnt. In the year 1823 this sacrilege would have been consummated but for the care of the authorities of the Hospital, who secretly exhumed the coffin and buried it in another part of the church and removed the metal bust and ornaments from the tomb.