Returning to his apartment, Frederic is accosted by Manfred who requests that Frederic should join in his (Manfred’s) frolicking, much to the anger of a troubled Frederic who pushes him rudely out of his way, as he retires to his chamber, banging the door angrily against Manfred. As he makes his way back in his gloom, he encounters the domestic he had planted to spy on Father Jerome and Theodore and a certain lady is in a private conference at the tomb of Alfonso in St. Nicholas’s church. As he moves towards the tomb, he overhears the voices of the people h is apparently searching for. He is stunned to hear from them r e following the conversation.
“Does it alas! depend on me?
Manfred will never permit our union”.
To this, Manfred draws his dagger and plunges it into the bosom of the speaker and Matilda (Manfred’s daughter) screams. “At, me I am slain”. Good heaven, receive my soul!” Theodore is infuriated by this act of savagery and wrestles the dagger from Manfred as Matilda faintly screams, “stop, stop, it is my father’” Manfred, realizing his deed as though waking from a trancto to seize the dagger to kill himself. Meanwhile, some monks gather to assist Theodore who is trying to assist Matilda. Some of the monks prevent Manfred from killing himself. Matilda, resigning to fate looks and appreciates the zeal of Theodore with love. On his part, father Jerome reproaches Manfred for his tyranny and reminds him that the blood of Alfonso had cried to heaven for vengeance and heaven has permitted that it’s altar be polluted by assassination, that thou mightiest shed thy own blood at the foot of that prince’s sepulcher!”
While still struggling for life, Matilda forgives her father and equally asks him to forgive her as she did not go to the chamber for Theodore on account of which her father is provoked o commit this heinous crime. Instead, Manfred exclaims that he [-‘id mistaken her for Isabella. As Theodore and the monks carry Matilda to the castle, she tries to unite her mother and father’s hands hut Manfred resists this “act of pathetic piety”. Later on, the doctors attending to Matilda pronounce the fatal news of her demise. Theodore is ravaged by this news and he asks the friar father Jerome his father to unite them in marriage.
Meanwhile, Frederic challenges the audacity of Theodore to seek the hand of a princess in marriage and he replies that he is a prince “of the sovereign of Otranto” and alludes to the reverend for confirmation. The marquis challenges this view but the story of father Jerome in connection with the journey of Alfonso to the holy land, his encounter with the storm, his brief marriage to Victoria, and the birth of a female who later becomes his (Jerome’s) wife stuns Frederic.
Manfred is equally ratted and he equally alludes to the usurpation of the sovereignty of Otranto by his own father, Richardo who also tells of the purported “will” that confers the sovereignty of Otranto to him. Alfonso the Good is said to have died by poison and the “fictitious will” had declared Richardo, his heir.
However, it is said that soon after this questionable incident, Richardo is haunted by guilt and as he is overwhelmed by the storm, he makes a vow to St. Nicholas to build a church and two convents if he lives to reach Otranto. It is said that the sacrifice and prayer of Richardo were granted as St. Nicholas appears to Richardo in a dream promising that “Richardo’s posterity should reign in Otranto until the rightful owner should be grown too large to inhabit the castle”. Though Manfred does not know if in truth, Alfonso has an heir yet he does not know about the claim of Theodore to the sovereignty of Otranto and he surrenders his dominion. As they retire to the castle, Manfred abdicates the “principality” and together with Hippolita, they take to religion in the convent. Frederic offers Isabella, his daughter to the new price as a wife.