actual deed_.[4] Perez gives this impression by a crafty
manipulation of dates in his narrative. When he had Escovedo
slain, he was fighting for his own hand; but Philip, who had
never countermanded the murder, was indifferent, till, in
1582, when he was with Alva in Portugal. The King now
learned that Perez had behaved abominably, had poisoned his
mind against his brother Don Juan, had communicated State
secrets to the Princess d'Eboli, and had killed Escovedo,
not in obedience to the royal order, but using that order as
the shield of his private vengeance. Hence Philip's
severities to Perez; hence his final command that Perez
should disclose the royal motives for the destruction of
Escovedo. They would be found to have become obsolete at the
date when the crime was committed, and on Perez would fall
the blame.

[Footnote 4: See p. 38, _supra_.]

Such is Major Hume's theory, if I correctly apprehend it.
The hypothesis leaves the moral character of Philip as black
as ever: he ordered an assassination which he never even
countermanded. His confessor might applaud him, but he knew
that the doctors of the Inquisition, like the common
sentiment of mankind, rejected the theory that kings had the
right to condemn and execute, by the dagger, men who had
been put to no public trial.