assume the crown of
the kingdom which had been forcibly and definitely wrenched from Spain.

That was the crafty plan which the priest had laid with a singleness of
aim and a detachment from minor considerations that never hesitated
to sacrifice the princess, together with the chief instrument of the
intrigue. Was the liberation of a kingdom, the deliverance of a nation
from servitude, the happiness of a whole people, to weigh in the balance
against the fates of a natural daughter of Don John of Austria and a
soldier of fortune turned pastry-cook? Frey Miguel thought not, and his
plot might well have succeeded but for the base strain in Espinosa and
the man's overweening vanity, which had urged him to dazzle the Gonzales
at Valladolid. That vanity sustained him to the end, which he suffered
in October of 1595, a full year after his arrest. To the last he avoided
admissions that should throw light upon his obscure identity and origin.

"If it were known who I am..." he would say, and there break off.

He was hanged, drawn and quartered, and he endured his fate with calm
fortitude. Frey Miguel suffered in the same way with the like dignity,
after having undergone degradation from his priestly dignity.

As for the unfortunate Princess Anne, crushed under a load of shame and
humiliation, she had gone to her punishment in the previous July. The
Apostolic Commissary notified her of the sentence which King Philip
had confirmed. She was to be transferred to another convent, there to
undergo a term of four years' solitary confinement in her cell, and to
fast on bread and water every Friday. She was pronounced incapable of
ever holding any office, and was to be treated on the expiry of her term
as an ordinary nun, her civil list abolished, her title of Excellency
to be extinguished, together with all other honours and privileges
conferred upon her by King Philip.

The piteous letters of supplication that she addressed to the King, her
uncle, still exist. But they left the cold, implacable Philip of Spain
unmoved. Her only sin was that, yielding to the hunger of her starved
heart, and chafingunder the ascetic life imposed upon her, she had
allowed herself to be fascinated by the prospect of becoming the
protectress of one whom she believed to be an unfortunate and romantic
prince, and of exchanging her convent for a throne.

Her punishment--poor soul--endured for close upon forty years, but the
most terrible part of it was n