Historical Mysteries by Andrew Lang
page 46 of 270 (17%)
page 46 of 270 (17%)
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faithfully. Queen Elizabeth tried to induce Amyas Paulet to murder
Mary Stuart. Paulet, as a man of honour, refused; he knew, too, that Elizabeth would abandon him to the vengeance of the Scots. Perez ought to have known that Philip would desert him: his folly was rewarded by prison, torture, and confiscation, which were not more than the man deserved, who betrayed and murdered the servant of Don John of Austria. NOTE.--This essay was written when I was unaware that Major Martin Hume had treated the problem in _Transactions of the Royal Historical Society_, 1894, pp. 71-107, and in _Españoles é Ingleses_ (1903). The latter work doubtless represents Major Hume's final views. He has found among the Additional MSS. of the British Museum (28,269) a quantity of the contemporary letters of Perez, which supplement the copies, at the Hague, of other letters destroyed after the death of Perez. From these MSS. and other original sources unknown to Mr. Froude, and to Monsieur Mignet (see the second edition of his _Antonio Perez_; Paris, 1846), Major Hume's theory is that, for _political_ reasons, Philip gave orders that Escovedo should be assassinated. This was in late October or early November, 1577. The order was not then carried out; the reason of the delay I do not clearly understand. The months passed, and Escovedo's death ceased, in altered circumstances, to be politically desirable, but he became a serious nuisance to Perez and his mistress, the Princess d'Eboli. Philip had never countermanded the murder, but Perez, according to Major Hume, falsely alleges that the King was still bent on the murder, and that other statesmen were consulted and approved of it, _shortly before the |
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