nce of the Scots. Perez ought
to have known that Philip would desert him: his folly was rewarded by
prison, torture, and confiscation, which were not more than the man
deserved, who betrayed and murdered the servant of Don John of
Austria.

NOTE.--This essay was written when I was unaware that Major
Martin Hume had treated the problem in _Transactions of the
Royal Historical Society_, 1894, pp. 71-107, and in
_Espanoles e Ingleses_ (1903). The latter work doubtless
represents Major Hume's final views. He has found among the
Additional MSS. of the British Museum (28,269) a quantity of
the contemporary letters of Perez, which supplement the
copies, at the Hague, of other letters destroyed after the
death of Perez. From these MSS. and other original sources
unknown to Mr. Froude, and to Monsieur Mignet (see the
second edition of his _Antonio Perez_; Paris, 1846), Major
Hume's theory is that, for _political_ reasons, Philip gave
orders that Escovedo should be assassinated. This was in
late October or early November, 1577. The order was not then
carried out; the reason of the delay I do not clearly
understand. The months passed, and Escovedo's death ceased,
in altered circumstances, to be politically desirable, but
he became a serious nuisance to Perez and his mistress, the
Princess d'Eboli. Philip had never countermanded the murder,
but Perez, according to Major Hume, falsely alleges that the
King was still bent on the murder, and that other statesmen
were consulted and approved of it, _shortly before the
actual deed_.[4] Perez gives this impression by a crafty
manipulation of dates in his narrative. When he had Escovedo
slain, he was fighting for his own hand; but Philip, who had
never countermanded the murder, was indifferent, till, in
1582, when he was with Alva in Portugal. The King now
learned that Perez had behaved abominably, had poisoned his
mind against his brother Don Juan, had communicated State
secrets to the Princess d'Eboli, and had killed Escovedo,
not in obedience to the royal order, but using that order as
the shield of his private vengeance. Hence Philip's
severities to Perez; hence his final command that Perez
should disclose the royal motives for the destruction of
Escovedo. They would be found to have become obsolete at the