date when the crime was committed, and on Perez would fall
the blame.

[Footnote 4: See p. 38, _supra_.]

Such is Major Hume's theory, if I correctly apprehend it.
The hypothesis leaves the moral character of Philip as black
as ever: he ordered an assassination which he never even
countermanded. His confessor might applaud him, but he knew
that the doctors of the Inquisition, like the common
sentiment of mankind, rejected the theory that kings had the
right to condemn and execute, by the dagger, men who had
been put to no public trial.

III

_THE CAMPDEN MYSTERY_

I

The ordinary historical mystery is at least so far clear that one or
other of two solutions must be right, if we only knew which. Perkin
Warbeck was the rightful King, or he was an impostor. Giacopo Stuardo
at Naples (1669) was the eldest son of Charles II., or he was a
humbug. The Man in the Iron Mask was _certainly_ either Mattioli or
Eustache Dauger. James VI. conspired against Gowrie, or Gowrie
conspired against James VI., and so on. There is reason and human
nature at the back of these puzzles. But at the back of the Campden
mystery there is not a glimmer of reason or of sane human nature,
except on one hypothesis, which I shall offer. The occurrences are, to
all appearance, motiveless as the events in a feverish dream. 'The
whole Matter is dark and mysterious; which we must therefore leave
unto Him who alone knoweth all Things, in His due Time, to reveal and
to bring to Light.'

So says the author of 'A True and Perfect Account of the Examination,
Confession, Trial, and Execution of _Joan Perry_, and her two Sons,
_John_ and _Richard Perry_, for the Supposed Murder of _Will
Harrison_, Gent., Being One of the most remarkable Occurrences which
hath happened in the Memory of Man. Sent in a Letter (by _Sir Thomas
Overbury_, of _Burton_, in the County of _Gloucester_, Knt., and one
of his Majesty's Justices of the Peace) to _Thomas Shirly_, Doctor of
Physick, in London. Also Mr. _Harrison's_ Own account,' &c. (London.
Printed for John Atkinson, near the Chapter House, in _St. Paul's
Church-Yard_. No date, but apparently of 1676.)

Such is the vast and breathless title of a pamphlet which, by
undeserved good luck, I have just purchased. The writer, Sir Thomas
Overbury, 'the nephew and heir,' says Mr. John Paget, 'of the unhappy
victim of the infamous Countess of Somerset' (who had the elder