e day the murder was
committed, Juan de Mesa and I were later than usual in repairing to
the appointed spot, so that, when we arrived at St James's Square,
the four others had already started to lie in ambush for the
passing of secretary Escovedo. Whilst we were loitering about, Juan
de Mesa and I heard the report that Escovedo had been assassinated.
We then retired to our lodgings. Entering my room, I found Miguel
Bosque there, in his doublet, having lost his cloak and pistol; and
Juan de Mesa found, likewise, Insausti at his door, who had also
lost his cloak, and whom he let secretly into his house.'"

The quiet pertinacity which characterizes this deliberate murder adds a
creditable chapter to the voluminous "Newgate Calendar" of the sixteenth
century. The murderers--first, second, third, and fourth--having
executed their commission, were rewarded with a dramatic appreciation of
their merits. Miguel Bosque received a hundred gold crowns from the hand
of the clerk in the household of Perez. Juan de Mesa was presented with
a gold chain, four hundred gold crowns, and a silver cup, to which the
Princess of Eboli added, in writing, a title of employment in the
administration of her estates. Diego Martinez brought to the three
others brevets, signed nineteen days after this deed of blood, by Philip
II. and Perez, of _alfarez_, or ensign in the royal service, with an
income of twenty gold crowns. They then smilingly dispersed, as the play
directs, "you that way, I this way."

Such blood will not sink in the ground. Instantly, at a private audience
granted to him by Philip, the son of Escovedo, impelled by a torrent of
universal suspicion, charged his father's death home to Perez. On the
same day, Philip communicated to Perez the accusation. No pictorial art,
we are sure, could exhibit truly the faces of these two men, speaking
and listening, at that conference. This, however, was the last gleam of
his sovereign's confidence that ever shone on Perez. His secret and
mortal enemy, Mathew Vasquez, one of the royal secretaries, having
espoused the cause of the kinsmen of Escovedo, wrote to Philip, "People
pretend that it was a great friend of the deceased who assassinated the
latter, because he had found him interfering with his honour, and _on
account of a woman_." The barbed missile flew to its mark, and rankled
for ever.

Our limits preclude the most concise epitome of the next t