1820 because of confiscations by a new liberal government, but they returned in 1823 after King Ferdinand VII restored conservative institutions. However, the nearby villagers denied support to the monastery despite its protection by the king. The monastery ceased to operate in 1835: the Ecclesiastical Confiscations of Mendizábal enforced a law declaring that minor religious holdings housing fewer than 12 residents were to be forfeit to the state; the monastery had only four monks and one lay brother, who were cast out. Vacancy After the Confiscations, many of the furnishings and artistic treasures of Santa María de Óvila passed to the surrounding parish churches, especially Ruguilla, Huet, Sotoca de Tajo and Carrascosa de Tajo. Other valuables, such as books and historic documents, were stolen and sold. The remaining contents were auctioned, including wine-making equipment and an oxcart. The precious 328-pages cartulary of the monastery () went to a private owner but was donated in 1925 to the Monastery of Santa María la Real of Oseira. The thick manuscript holds copies of royal privileges granted to the monastery throughout its history, as well as the Abadologio, a comprehensive and thorough history of the Cistercian abbots and monks who lived in the monastery, which was written from March 1729 to February 1730 by Father Gerofeo, a Cistercian monk of the monastery of Valparaíso (Zámora). The new owners of Santa María de Óvila were well-to-do farmers who cared little for the buildings. For a brief time, the former monastery was used as a hostel, but mainly, the buildings were subjected to hard agricultural use as barns sheltering livestock. The chapter house served as a manure pit. Other buildings were used as storage. In the early 20th century small trees were seen to be growing in the dirt packed atop the monastery roofs—the protective roof tiles had long since been taken down and sold. Removal to California In 1928, the Spanish state sold the monastery to Fernando Beloso for a little more than 3,100 pesetas, roughly $600 to $700 at the time. Beloso, director of the Spanish Credit Bank in Madrid, was the owner of Coto de San Bernardo in Óvila, which included expansive irrigated grain fields and forests surrounding the monastery. Arthur Byne, an art agent living in Madrid, whose biggest client was American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, was working for Hearst to acquire an old monastery in 1930. In 1925, Byne