[1514] "Le cicalerie, et novellacce, che si dicono, sono molto indigne d'essere ascoltate, non che scritte, perchè in vero il satisfar al popolaccio in queste simil cose è molto difficile; et meglio è farle, siccome porta il giusto et l'honesto senza curarsi del giudicio d'huomini insani, et che parlono senza ragione di cose impertinenti et impossibili di autori incerti, dappochi, et maligni." Lettera di Nobili, Luglio 30 1568, MS.
[1515] Letter of Antonio Perez to the counsellor Du Vair, ap. Rauner, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, vol. I. p. 153.
[1516] "Mais afin de sauver l'honneur du sang royal, l'arrêt fut exécuté en secret et on lui fit avaler un bouillon empoisoné, dont il mourut quelques heures après, au commencement de sa vingt-troisième année." De Thou, Histoire Universelle, tom. V. p. 436.
[1517] "Mas es peligroso manejar vidrios, i dar ocasion da tragedias famosas, acaecimientos notables, violentas muertes por los secretos executores Reales no sabidas, i por inesperadas terribles, i por la estrañeza i rigor de justicia, despues de largas advertencias a los que no cuidando dellas incurrieron en crimen de lesa Magestad." Cabrera, Filipe Segundo, lib. VII. cap. 22.
The admirable obscurity of the passage, in which the historian has perfectly succeeded in mystifying his critics, has naturally led them to suppose that more was meant by him than meets the eye.
[1518] "Ex morbo ob alimenta partim obstinate recusata, partira intemperanter adgesta, nimiamque nivium refrigerationem, super animi aigritudinem (si modò vis abfuit), in Divi Jacobi pervigilio extinctus est." Strada, De Bello Belgico, tom. I. p. 378.
[1519] Apologie, ap. Dumont, Corps Diplomatique, tom. V. par. i. p. 389.
[1520] "Parquoy le roi conclud sur ses raisons que le meilleur estoit de le faire mourir; dont un matin on le trouva en prison estouffé d'un linge." Brantôme, Œuvres, tom. I. p. 320.
A taste for jesting on this subject seems to have been still in fashion at the French court as late as Louis the Fourteenth's time. At least, we find that monarch telling some one that "he had sent Bussy Rabutin to the Bastile for his own benefit, as Philip the Second said when he ordered his son to be strangled." Lettres de Madame de Sevigné, (Paris, 1822.) tom. VIII. p. 368.
[1521] A French contemporary chronicler dismisses his account of the death of Carlos with the remark, that, of all the passages in the history of this reign, the fate of the young prince is the one involved in the most impenetrable mystery. Matthieu, Breve Compendio de la Vida Privada de Felipe Segundo, (Span, trans.,) MS.