letto with a very fine blade, much better than a pistol
to kill a man with.' Enriquez, keeping a good thing in the family,
enlisted his brother: and Martinez, from Aragon, brought 'two proper
kind of men,' Juan de Nera and Insausti, who, with the King's
scullion, undertook the job. Perez went to Alcala for Holy Week, just
as the good Regent Murray left Edinburgh on the morning of Darnley's
murder, after sermon. 'Have a halibi' was the motto of both gentlemen.

The underlings dogged Escovedo in the evening of Easter Monday.
Enriquez did not come across him, but Insausti did his business with
one thrust, in a workmanlike way. The scullion hurried to Alcala, and
told the news to Perez, who 'was highly delighted.'

We leave this good and faithful servant, and turn to Don John. When
he, far away, heard the news he was under no delusions about love
affairs as the cause of the crime. He wrote to his wretched brother
the King 'in grief greater than I can describe.' The King, he said,
had lost the best of servants, 'a man without the aims and craft
which are now in vogue.' 'I may with just reason consider _myself_ to
have been the cause of his death,' the blow was really dealt at Don
John. He expressed the most touching anxiety for the wife and children
of Escovedo, who died poor, because (unlike Perez) 'he had clean
hands.' He besought Philip, by the love of our Lord, 'to use every
possible diligence to know whence the blow came and to punish it with
the rigour which it deserves.' He himself will pay the most pressing
debts of the dead. (From Beaumont, April 20, 1578.)

Probably the royal caitiff was astonished by this letter. On September
20 Don John wrote his last letter to his brother 'desiring more than
life some decision on your Majesty's part. Give me orders for the
conduct of affairs!' Philip scrawled in the margin, 'I will not
answer.' But Don John had ended his letter 'Our lives are at stake,
and all we ask is to lose them with honour.' These are like the last
words of the last letter of the great Montrose to Charles II., 'with
the more alacrity and vigour I go to search my death.' Like Montrose
Don John 'carried with him fidelity and honour to the grave.' He died,
after a cruel illness, on October 1. Brantome says that he was
poisoned by order of the King, at the instigation of Perez. 'The side
of his breast was yellow and black, as if burned, and crumbled at the
touch.' These things were always said when a great pe