ng of Spain unquestionably ordered the murder
of Escovedo, and confided its perpetration to the docile secretary. But
the death-warrant slumbered for a while in the keeping of the
executioner. It was not until Escovedo acquired his perilous knowledge
of the debaucheries of Perez and the Princess of Eboli, and had avowed
his still more perilous resolution of publishing their frailty in a
quarter where detection was ruin, that Perez plied with inflexible
diligence artifice and violence, poison and dagger--to satisfy,
coincidently, himself and his sovereign. By a similar infusion of
emotions, roused by later occurrences, the feelings of Philip towards
Perez underwent, after the murder, a radical change. He at first
unhesitatingly joined, as we have seen, in rewarding the actual
murderers. The tale of the preference lavished by beauty on his minion
had not seared his heart-strings. With that revelation came the mood of
inexpiable hate. A word from him, uttered with unequivocal emphasis,
would have cleared and rescued Perez. Such words, indeed, he pronounced
more than once; but never as he would have done, if their effect had
been to screen merely the faithful minister of state. The object in
their occasional recurrence was one of profound dissimulation. Philip's
design was to lull the alarm of Perez, and to recover out of his hands
every scrap of written evidence which existed, implicating himself in
the death of Escovedo. And it was under an erroneous impression of his
efforts having been at length completely triumphant, that he sent Perez
to the torture, with a foregone determination of killing him with the
sword of justice, as a slanderous traitor, who could not adduce a tittle
of proof to support his falsehood.

But the wit of Perez was as penetrating as Philip's, and had avoided the
snare. Retaining adroitly, in authentic documents, ample materials for
his own defence, and the inculpation of the king, Perez fought
undauntedly and successfully his battle, on the charge of Escovedo's
murder, before the tribunals of Aragon, which were either ignorant of,
or indifferent to, the scandals and personal criminalities inseparably
mixed up with the case at Madrid. The retributive justice which had
overwhelmed Perez in his person and circumstances in Castile, now
descended on the reputation of Philip in Aragon, who was likewise not
only obliged to hear of the acquittal of his detested foe by the supreme
court there, but necessita