But if impartial justice acquit Philip of guilt, or even of undue severity in regard to his son, the same favourable verdict cannot be given in regard to two other affairs, which have been studiously wrapped in great darkness: they were the assassination of Juan de Escovedo, secretary to Don John of Austria, and the subsequent persecution of Antonio Perez, Philip’s secretary of state. The former, who had been sent to Spain on business of his master, was murdered at Madrid, in March, 1578. The assassins were not unknown; but they were suffered to escape into Italy, and were afterwards employed in the service of the Neapolitan viceroy. That they were hired by Antonio Perez is undoubted, from his own confession; but what interest had he, what revenge to gratify, in such a crime? The same confession—published many years after the tragedy—throws the entire blame on the king; nor is there any reason to doubt its truth.[92]
The most probable hypothesis is that Escovedo was the prime intriguer in the ambitious schemes which Don John is known to have formed: that he had persuaded his master to aspire to the hand of Elizabeth, queen of England, was seriously affirmed by letters from the Low Countries; and that he had passed two months in England in trying to open negotiations for that end was said to rest on the authority of the Spanish ambassador at Rome.[i]
The sons of the murdered Escovedo had, soon after their father’s death, instituted a prosecution against the secretary, Antonio Perez, as the author of the foul deed. Through the king’s intervention, and under his sanction, a compromise was effected between the parties. Perez paid a large sum of money to Escovedo’s family, whereupon he was set at liberty, and, though forbidden to appear at court, continued to conduct the business of his office. But either the alleged intimacy with the princess of Eboli still rankled in Philip’s mind, or he dreaded the disgraced secretary’s revealing his own share in Escovedo’s assassination. In 1591 Perez was accused of boasting of the murder, of betraying state secrets to the princess of Eboli, of falsifying the letters he deciphered, and of taking bribes. Upon these charges he was thrown into prison, where, whilst he was offered his liberty as the price of giving up the king’s letters touching Escovedo’s death, he was treated with extraordinary severity. Perez accepted the terms, and was released: but he managed to keep back one note, which Philip, it seems, had forgotten.
[1579-1591 A.D.]
The liberty thus purchased. Perez was not, however, long permitted to enjoy. The prosecution for the murder was revived; the accused was again thrown into prison, where he was tortured to extort a confession, which he had no desire to withhold. He is said to have revealed all, giving the reserved royal letter as evidence of his truth; and thus Philip, whose only object in this strange tissue of artifice appears to have been the clearing himself by a judicial sentence from any participation in the murder, was caught in his own toils. But the situation and prospects of the prisoner were not improved by the exposure of his royal accomplice; and he saw that in flight lay his only chance of life. His escape was happily managed by the address of his wife. Perez fled to his native Aragon; and there, though he was again seized by the king’s orders, his condition was far different. He appealed to the yet inviolate laws and privileges of Aragon. The justiciero mayor, Juan de Lanuza, evoked the cause before his own tribunal at Saragossa, where the proceedings were public; and he lodged the accused in the prison called the Manifestacion, under his own sole and especial jurisdiction.
Perez in Prison
This was not the tribunal before which it suited Philip that Perez should be tried. The Inquisition, therefore, accused the ex-secretary of heretical opinions; and as the justiciero mayor would not surrender his prisoner, the inquisitors, with the assistance of the marquis of Almenara, a minister of the king, broke open the prison, and removed him to their own dungeons. Such an infraction of the Aragonese constitution roused the spirit of the people, and a regular contest ensued between them and the king’s officers, in the course of which the marquis of Almenara was so ill-used as to occasion his death. Perez was recovered from the inquisitors and replaced in the justiciero’s custody; again seized by the inquisitors, and again torn from them by the populace, who, upon this second occasion, favoured his flight, when Perez, by the aid of his friends, escaped into France, where he was kindly received and protected by Henry IV.
Philip sent an army into Aragon, to quell and chastise these disorders. Prudence and submission upon negotiation might still, perhaps, have effected a compromise: but the justiciero had died during the tumults, and his son, who had succeeded to his office, rashly attempted to resist by force this second act of unconstitutional violence; for no foreign troops might enter Aragon without the consent of the cortes or the justiciero; and each of the several kingdoms united under the name of Spain still considered the natives of the others as foreigners. The attempt was unsuccessful, and again the fatal consequences of unsuccessful rebellion followed. The justiciero, together with the duke of Villa Hermosa, and some other leaders of the insurgents, were put to death; and the liberties of Aragon were very greatly diminished, though not so completely crushed as those of Castile had long been.[n]