son. Philip took a bad old woman to relieve his father; he took a
fair young princess at his son's expense; but similar changes in state
marriages were such matters of course, that no emotions were likely to be
created in consequence. There is no proof whatever, nor any reason to
surmise; that any love passages ever existed between Don Carlos and his
step-mother.

As to the process and the death of the Prince, the mystery has not yet
been removed, and the field is still open to conjecture. It seems a
thankless task to grope in the dark after the truth at a variety of
sources; when the truth really exists in tangible shape if profane hands
could be laid upon it. The secret is buried in the bosom of the Vatican.
Philip wrote two letters on the subject to Pius V. The contents of the
first (21st January, 1568) are known. He informed the pontiff that he had
been obliged to imprison his son, and promised that he would, in the
conduct of the affair, omit nothing which could be expected of a father
and of a just and prudent king. The second letter, in which he narrated,
or is supposed to have narrated, the whole course of the tragic
proceedings, down to the death and burial of the Prince, has never yet
been made public. There are hopes that this secret missive, after three
centuries of darkness, may soon see the light.--[I am assured by Mr.
Gachard that a copy of this important letter is confidently expected by
the Commission Royale d'Histoire.]

As Philip generally told the truth to the Pope, it is probable that the
secret, when once revealed, will contain the veritable solution of the
mystery. Till that moment arrives, it seems idle to attempt fathoming the
matter. Nevertheless, it may be well briefly to state the case as it
stands. As against the King, it rests upon no impregnable, but certainly
upon respectable authority. The Prince of Orange, in his famous Apology,
calls Philip the murderer of his wife and of his son, and says that there
was proof of the facts in France. He alludes to the violent death of
Carlos almost as if it were an indisputable truth. "As for Don Charles,"
he says, "was he not our future sovereign? And if the father could allege
against his son fit cause for death, was it not rather for us to judge
him than for three or four monks or inquisitors of Spain?"

The historian, P. Matthieu, relates that Philip assembled his council of
conscience; that they recommended mercy; that hereupon Philip gave the
m