"'During these transactions, I had occasion to go to Murcia. Before my departure, I spoke of it to Martinez, who told me I should find, in Murcia, certain herbs well adapted to our purpose; and he gave me a list of those which I was to procure. In fact, I sought them out and sent them to Martinez, who had provided himself with an apothecary, whom he had sent for from Molina in Aragon. It was in my house that the apothecary, assisted by Martinez, distilled the juice of those herbs. In order to make an experiment of it afterwards, they made a cock swallow some, but no effect followed; and what they had thus prepared, was found to be good for nothing. The apothecary was then paid for his trouble, and sent away.
"'A few days after, Martinez told me he had in his possession a certain liquid fit to be given to drink, adding that Antonio Perez, the secretary, would trust nobody but me, and that, during a repast which our master was to give in the country, I should only have to pour out some of this water for Escovedo, who would be among the guests, and for whom the preceding experiments had already been tried. I answered, that unless my master himself gave me the order, I would not have a hand in poisoning any body. Then the secretary, Anthony Perez, called me one evening in the country, and told me how important it was for him that the secretary Escovedo should die; that I must not fail to give him the beverage in question on the day of the dinner: and that I was to contrive the execution of it with Martinez; adding, moreover, good promises and offers of protection in whatever might concern me.
"'I went away very contented, and consulted with Martinez as to the measures to be taken. The arrangement for the dinner was as follows: entering the house by the passage of the stables, which are in the middle, and advancing into the first room, we found two side-boards, one for the service of plates, and the other for that of the glasses, from which we were to supply the guests with drink. From the said room, on the left, we passed to that where the tables were laid, and the windows of which looked out on the country. Between the room where they were to dine, and that where the side-boards stood, was a square room, serving as an antechamber and passage. Whilst they were eating, I was to take care that every time the secretary Escovedo asked for drink, I should be the person to serve him. I had thus the opportunity of giving him some twice; pouring the poisoned water into his wine at the moment I passed through the antechamber, about a nutshell-full, as I had been ordered. The dinner over, secretary Escovedo went away, but the others remained to play, and Antonio Perez having gone out for a moment, rejoined his major-domo and me in one of the apartments over the court-yard, where we gave him an account of the quantity of water that had been poured into secretary Escovedo's glass; after which, he returned to play. We heard, afterwards, that the beverage had produced no effect.
"'A few days subsequent to this ill success, secretary Antonio Perez gave another dinner in what is called Cordon House, which belonged to the count of Punoñ Rostro, where secretary Escovedo, Dona Juana Coëllo, the wife of Perez, and other guests, were present. Each of them was served with a dish of milk or cream, and in Escovedo's was mixed a powder like flour. I gave him, moreover, some wine mixed with the water of the preceding dinner. This time it operated better, for secretary Escovedo was very ill, without guessing the reason. During his illness, I found means for one of my friends, the son of captain Juan Rubio, governor of the principality of Melfi, and formerly Perez's major-domo (which son, after having been page to Dona Juana Coëllo, was a scullion in the king's kitchens), to form an acquaintance with secretary Escovedo's cook, whom he saw every morning. Now, as they prepared for the sick man a separate broth, this scullion, taking advantage of a moment when nobody saw him, cast into it a thimble-full of a powder that Diego Martinez had given him. When secretary Escovedo had taken some of this food, they found that it contained poison. They subsequently arrested one of Escovedo's female slaves who must have been employed to prepare the pottage; and, upon this proof, they hung her in the public square at Madrid, though she was innocent.
"'Secretary Escovedo having escaped all these plottings, Antonio Perez adopted another plan, viz., that we should kill him some evening with pistols, stilettoes, or rapiers, and that without delay. I started, therefore, for my country, to find one of my intimate friends, and a stiletto with a very thin blade, a much better weapon than a pistol for murdering a man. I travelled post, and they gave me some bills of exchange of Lorenzo Spinola at Genoa, to get money at Barcelona, and which, in fact, I received on arriving there.'
"Here Enriquez relates, that he enticed into the plot one of his brothers, named Miguel Bosque, to whom he promised a sum of gold and the protection of Perez; that they arrived at Madrid the very day Escovedo's slave was hanged; that, during his absence, Diego Martinez had fetched from Aragon, for the same object, two resolute men, named Juan de Mesa and Insausti; that the very day after his arrival, Diego Martinez had assembled them all four, as well as the scullion Juan Rubio, outside Madrid, to decide as to the means and the moment of the murder; that they had agreed upon this, that Diego Martinez had procured them a sword, broad and fluted up to the point, to kill Escovedo with, and had armed them all with daggers; and that Antonio Perez had gone, during that time, to pass the holy week at Alcala, doubtless with the intention of turning suspicion from him when the death of Escovedo was ascertained. Then Antonio Enriquez adds:—
"'It was agreed, that we should all meet every evening upon the little square of Saint James (Jacobo), whence we should go and watch on the side by which secretary Escovedo was to pass; which was done. Insausti, Juan Rubio, and Miguel Bosque, were to waylay him; while Diego Martinez, Juan de Mesa, and I, were to walk about in the neighbourhood, in case our services should be required in the murder. On Easter Monday, March 31, the day the murder was committed, Juan de Mesa and I were later than usual in repairing to the appointed spot, so that, when we arrived at St James's Square, the four others had already started to lie in ambush for the passing of secretary Escovedo. Whilst we were loitering about, Juan de Mesa and I heard the report that Escovedo had been assassinated. We then retired to our lodgings. Entering my room, I found Miguel Bosque there, in his doublet, having lost his cloak and pistol; and Juan de Mesa found, likewise, Insausti at his door, who had also lost his cloak, and whom he let secretly into his house.'"
The quiet pertinacity which characterizes this deliberate murder adds a creditable chapter to the voluminous "Newgate Calendar" of the sixteenth century. The murderers—first, second, third, and fourth—having executed their commission, were rewarded with a dramatic appreciation of their merits. Miguel Bosque received a hundred gold crowns from the hand of the clerk in the household of Perez. Juan de Mesa was presented with a gold chain, four hundred gold crowns, and a silver cup, to which the Princess of Eboli added, in writing, a title of employment in the administration of her estates. Diego Martinez brought to the three others brevets, signed nineteen days after this deed of blood, by Philip II. and Perez, of alfarez, or ensign in the royal service, with an income of twenty gold crowns. They then smilingly dispersed, as the play directs, "you that way, I this way."
Such blood will not sink in the ground. Instantly, at a private audience granted to him by Philip, the son of Escovedo, impelled by a torrent of universal suspicion, charged his father's death home to Perez. On the same day, Philip communicated to Perez the accusation. No pictorial art, we are sure, could exhibit truly the faces of these two men, speaking and listening, at that conference. This, however, was the last gleam of his sovereign's confidence that ever shone on Perez. His secret and mortal enemy, Mathew Vasquez, one of the royal secretaries, having espoused the cause of the kinsmen of Escovedo, wrote to Philip, "People pretend that it was a great friend of the deceased who assassinated the latter, because he had found him interfering with his honour, and on account of a woman." The barbed missile flew to its mark, and rankled for ever.
Our limits preclude the most concise epitome of the next twelve years of the life of Perez, of which the protracted tribulations, indeed, cannot be related more succinctly and attractively than they are by M. Mignet. During this weary space of time, Perez, single-handed, maintained an energetic defensive warfare against the disfavour of a vindictive monarch, the oppression of predominant rivals, the insidious machinations and wild fury of relentless private revenge, the most terrific mockeries of justice, the blackest mental despondency, and exquisite physical suffering. Philip II. displayed all his atrocious feline propensities—alternately hiding and baring his claws—tickling his victim to-day with delusions of mercy and protection, in order to smite him on the morrow with heavier and unmitigated cruelty. The truth is, he did not dare to kill, while he had no desire to save. Over and over again, in the course of the monstrous burlesques which were enacted in judicial robes as legal inquiries, did Philip privately, both orally and in writing, exonerate and absolve the murderer. Prosecutors and judges were bridled and overawed—kinsmen were abashed—popular indignation was quelled by reiterated assurances and reports, that the confidential secretary of state had been the passive and faithful executioner of royal commands. Even Uncle Martin, the privileged court-fool, when the flight ultimately of Perez gave general satisfaction, though not to the implacable Philip, exclaimed openly—"Sire, who is this Antonio Perez, whose escape and deliverance have filled every one with delight? He cannot, then, have been guilty; rejoice, therefore, like other people." But the lucky rival—the happy lover, could not expiate his rank offence by any amount of sacrifice in person or estate. According to our view of these lingering scenes of rancorous persecution, Philip gradually habituated himself to gloat over the sufferings of Perez with the morbid rapture of monomania. So long as the wretched man was within his reach, he contemplated placidly the anguish inflicted on him by the unjust or excessive malevolence of his enemies. He repeatedly checked the prosecutions of the Escovedo family, and sanctioned their revival with as little difficulty as if he had never interposed on any former occasion. He relaxed at intervals the rigorous imprisonment under which Perez was gasping for the breath of life, granting him for nearly a twelvemonth so much liberty as to inflate a naturally buoyant temperament with inordinate hope; but, in that very period, instigated and approved of investigations and actions at law, which resulted in reducing Perez, in so far as wealth and honours were concerned, to beggary and rags. He threw into a dungeon Pedro de Escovedo, who talked unreservedly of his desire to assassinate Perez; and refused the fervent entreaties of Perez himself to remove, for a temporary relief, the fetters with which, when his ailing body could scarcely support its own weight, his limbs had been loaded. He sent Perez compassionate and encouraging messages, writing to him, "I will not forsake you, and be assured that their animosity (of the Escovedos) will be impotent against you;" while he regularly transmitted to Vasquez and the Escovedos the information which nourished and hardened their hatred. And finally, having constantly enjoined Perez to take heed that no one should discover the murder to have been perpetrated by the king, Philip, on the ground that he obstinately refused to make a full confession, imperturbably consigned him "to that dreadful proof, the revolting account of which," says M. Mignet, "I will quote from the process itself:"—