ed all, saw that the game was up, and admitted the
truth of all that Enriquez had confessed in 1585.

About a month after the torture Perez escaped. His wife was allowed to
visit him in prison. She had been the best, the bravest, the most
devoted of women. If she had reason for jealousy of the Princess,
which is by no means certain, she had forgiven all. She had moved
heaven and earth to save her husband. In the Dominican church, at high
mass, she had thrown herself upon the King's confessor, demanding
before that awful Presence on the altar that the priest should refuse
to absolve the King unless he set Perez free.

Admitted to her husband's prison, she played the trick that saved Lord
Ogilvy from the dungeon of the Covenanters, that saved Argyle,
Nithsdale, and James Mor Macgregor. Perez walked out of gaol in the
dress of his wife. We may suppose that the guards were bribed: there
is _always_ collusion in these cases. One of the murderers had horses
round the corner, and Perez, who cannot have been badly injured by the
rack, rode thirty leagues, and crossed the frontier of Aragon.

We have not to follow his later adventures. The refusal of the
Aragonese to give him up to Castile, their rescue of him from the
Inquisition, cost them their constitution, and about seventy of them
were burned as heretics. But Perez got clear away. He visited France,
where Henry IV. befriended him; he visited England, where Bacon was
his host. In 1594 (?) he published his _Relaciones_ and told the world
the story of Philip's conscience. That story must not be relied on, of
course, and the autograph letters of Philip as to the murder of
Escovedo are lost. But the copies of them at the Hague are regarded as
authentic, and the convincing passages are underlined in red ink.

Supposing it possible that Philip after all secured the whole of the
autograph correspondence, and that Perez only succeeded in preserving
the copies now at the Hague, we should understand why Perez would not
confess the King's crime: he had only copies of his proofs to show;
and copies were valueless as evidence. But it is certain that Perez
really had the letters.

'Bloody Perez,' as Bacon's mother called him, died at Paris in
November 1611, outliving the wretched master whom he had served so
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 vengea