Sor Patrocinio
Her parents, Diego de Quiroga y Valcárcel and Dolores Capopardo y del Castillo, were members of the royal court in Madrid, who were fleeing the city due to the upheavals of the Spanish War of Independence then taking place, when her mother was overtaken by birth pangs and had to take shelter at the farm.
Her mother intended her to marry Salustiano Olózaga, then a young lawyer; but this plan was rejected by Patrocinio herself.
In 1826 Quiroga was sent to the monastery of the nuns of the Order of Santiago in Madrid, under the guidance of her aunt, the Marquesa of Santa Coloma for her education.
On 19 January 1829, under the patronage of the Duchess of Benavente, she was admitted as a novice in the Conceptionist Monastery of Caballero de Gracia and received her religious name.
[3] When the death of King Fernando VII in 1833 was followed by the Carlist war, "the clericals, who favoured Don Carlos, saw in her a useful instrument.
She was made to prophesy the success of the Pretender (Don Carlos) and to furnish proof of the illegitimacy of the young Queen Isabel".
Under oath, the nun stated that during her novitiate the Capuchin friar, Fermín Sánchez y Artesoro,[4][a] had supplied her with "a relic which, when applied to any part of the body, would cause a wound which would then have to kept open as the source of suffering and mortification as offerings to God as penitence for sins... showing no-one their cause, and if questioned she had to say that they had come to her supernaturally".
[2]: 204 The nun's reputation had attracted alms and donations intended for the Order and its monasteries; this now appeared as motive for fraud.
The Capuchin friar had left the kingdom and could not be found to give evidence, and the court regarded this as confirming his guilt.
For his part, the advocate for the defense, Juan M. González y Acevedo, argued that the evidence presented "was all lies, except the torment" of his client, whose role was that of "a victim, the more worthy of compassion in that she appeared condemned to a slow and painful death".
After petitioning the queen several times by letter, she was allowed to move to the monastery of her Order at Torrelaguna, near Madrid, where she lived for the next five years.
Dr Argumosa, who had cured her stigmata, was persecuted and Alcaraz (sic), who had emerged from his hiding place, was made Bishop of Cuenca.
In regard to the relationship between Patrocinio and Isabel II, the queen's daughter Princess Eulalia wrote: "I often heard my mother talking about how Father Claret, her confessor and someone with a great deal of influence over her, and the nun Sor Patrocinio (...) had suggested an approach to Pope Pius IX asking for the new dogma to be promulgated.
"Under her guidance, during the remainder of the reign of Isabel II, the camarilla practically ruled the kingdom and precipitated the revolution of 1868" which brought about the temporary fall of the Spanish monarchy.
