constancy far from royal, that she loved Perez, that Perez and she
feared that Escovedo would denounce them to the King, is M. Mignet's
theory of the efficient cause of Escovedo's murder. Yet M. Mignet
holds, and rightly, that Philip had made up his mind, as far as he
ever did make up his mind, to kill Escovedo, long before that
diplomatist became an inconvenient spy on the supposed lovers.

To raise matters to the tragic height of the _Phædra_ of Euripides,
Perez was said to be the natural son of his late employer, Gomez, the
husband of his alleged mistress. Probably Perez was nothing of the
sort; he was the bastard of a man of his own name, and his alleged
mistress, the widow of Gomez, may even have circulated the other
story to prove that her relations with Perez, though intimate, were
innocent. They are a pretty set of people!

As for Escovedo, he and Perez had been friends from their youth
upwards. While Perez passed from the service of Gomez to that of
Philip, in 1572 Escovedo was appointed secretary to the nobly
adventurous Don John of Austria. The Court believed that he was
intended to play the part of spy on Don John, but he fell under the
charm of that gallant heart, and readily accepted, if he did not
inspire, the most daring projects of the victor of Lepanto, the Sword
of Christendom. This was very inconvenient for the leaden-footed
Philip, who never took time by the forelock, but always brooded over
schemes and let opportunity pass. Don John, on the other hand, was all
for forcing the game, and, when he was sent to temporise and
conciliate in the Low Countries, and withdraw the Spanish army of
occupation, his idea was to send the Spanish forces out of the
Netherlands by sea. When once they were on blue water he would make a
descent on England; rescue the captive Mary Stuart; marry her (he was