endeavored to compass the
death of the king, his father, and as having conspired to usurp the
sovereignty of Flanders. The counsellor Munatones, in his report, which
he laid before the king, while he stated that the penalty imposed by the
law on every other subject for these crimes was death, added, that his
majesty, by his sovereign authority, might decide that the heir apparent
was placed by his rank above the reach of ordinary laws. And it was
further in his power to mitigate or dispense with any penalty whatever,
when he considered it for the good of his subjects.--In this judgment
both the ministers, Ruy Gomez and Espinosa, declared their concurrence.

To this the king replied, that, though his feelings moved him to follow
the suggestions of his ministers, his conscience would not permit it. He
could not think that he should consult the good of his people by placing
over them a monarch so vicious in his disposition, and so fierce and
sanguinary in his temper, as Carlos. However agonizing it might be to
his feelings as a father, he must allow the law to take its course. Yet,
after all, he said, it might not be necessary to proceed to this
extremity. The prince's health was in so critical a state, that it was
only necessary to relax the precautions in regard to his diet, and his
excesses would soon conduct him to the tomb! One point only was
essential, that he should be so well advised of his situation that he
should be willing to confess, and make his peace with Heaven before he
died. This was the greatest proof of love which he could give to his son
and to the Spanish nation.

Ruy Gomez and Espinosa both of them inferred from this singular
ebullition of parental tenderness, that they could not further the real
intentions of the king better than by expediting as much as possible the
death of Carlos. Ruy Gomez accordingly communicated his views to
Olivares, the prince's physician. This he did in such ambiguous and
mysterious phrase as, while it intimated his meaning, might serve to
veil the enormity of the crime from the eyes of the party who was to
perpetrate it. No man was more competent to this delicate task than the
prince of Eboli, bred from his youth in courts, and trained to a life of
dissimulation. Olivares readily comprehended the drift of his
discourse,--that the thing required of him was to dispose of the
prisoner, in such a way that his death should appear natural, and that
the honor of the king should