motives certainly, but with as warm a friendship for his master as
princes usually inspire, proceeded to urge upon Perez the necessity of,
aiding the man who was able to help them. The first step was to get him
out of the Netherlands. That was his constant thought, by day and night.
As it would hardly be desirable for him to go alone, it seemed proper
that Escovedo should, upon some pretext, be first sent to Spain. Such a
pretext would be easily found, because, as Don John had accepted the
government, "it would be necessary for him to do all which the rascals
bade him." After these minute statements, the Secretary warned his
correspondent of the necessity of secrecy, adding that he especially
feared "all the court ladies, great and small, but that he in everything
confided entirely in Perez."

Nearly at the same time, Don John wrote to Perez in a similar tone.
"Ah, Senor Antonio," he exclaimed, "how certain is my disgrace and my
misfortune. Ruined is our enterprise, after so much labor and such
skilful management." He was to have commenced the work with the very
Spanish soldiers who were now to be sent off by land, and he had nothing
for it but to let them go, or to come to an open rupture with the states.
"The last, his conscience, his duty, and the time, alike forbade."
He was therefore obliged to submit to the ruin of his plans, and "could
think of nothing save to turn hermit, a condition in which a man's
labors, being spiritual, might not be entirely in vain." He was so
overwhelmed by the blow, he said, that he was constantly thinking of an
anchorite's life. That which he had been leading had become intolerable.
He was not fitted for the people of the Netherlands, nor they for him.
Rather than stay longer than was necessary in order to appoint his
successor, there was no resolution he might not take, even to leaving
everything and coming upon them when they least expected him, although he
were to receive a bloody punishment in consequence. He, too, suggested