nt with inordinate hope; but, in
that very period, instigated and approved of investigations and actions
at law, which resulted in reducing Perez, in so far as wealth and
honours were concerned, to beggary and rags. He threw into a dungeon
Pedro de Escovedo, who talked unreservedly of his desire to assassinate
Perez; and refused the fervent entreaties of Perez himself to remove,
for a temporary relief, the fetters with which, when his ailing body
could scarcely support its own weight, his limbs had been loaded. He
sent Perez compassionate and encouraging messages, writing to him, "I
will not forsake you, and be assured that their animosity (of the
Escovedos) will be impotent against you;" while he regularly transmitted
to Vasquez and the Escovedos the information which nourished and
hardened their hatred. And finally, having constantly enjoined Perez to
take heed that no one should discover the murder to have been
perpetrated by the king, Philip, on the ground that he obstinately
refused to make a full confession, imperturbably consigned him "to that
dreadful proof, the revolting account of which," says M. Mignet, "I will
quote from the process itself:"--

"At the same instant, the said judges replied to him that the
proofs still remaining in all their force and vigour ..., they
ordered him to be put to the torture to make him declare what the
king required; that if he lost his life, or the use of some limbs,
it would be his own fault; and that he alone would be responsible.
He repeated, once more, his former assertions, and protested,
moreover, against the use of torture towards him, for these two
reasons: first, because he was of a noble family; and secondly,
because his life would be endangered, since he was already disabled
by the effects of his eleven years' imprisonment. The two judges
then ordered his irons and chain to be taken off; requiring him to
take an oath and declare whatever he was asked. Upon his refusal,
Diego Ruis, the executioner, stripped him of his garments, and left
him only his linen drawers. The executioner having afterwards
retired, they told him once more to obey the king's orders, on pain
of suffering torture _by the rope_. He repeated once more that he
said what he had already said. Immediately the ladder and apparatus
of torture having been brought, Diego Ruis, the executioner,
crossed the arms of