Perez, the King's most confidential Secretary
of State at that period. That the Governor was plotting no treason is
sufficiently obvious from the context of his letters: At the same time,
with the expansiveness of his character, when he was dealing with one
whom he deemed has close and trusty friend, he occasionally made use of
expressions which might be made to seem equivocal. This was still more
the case with poor Escovedo. Devoted to his master, and depending most
implicitly upon the honor of Perez, he indulged in language which might
be tortured into a still more suspicious shape when the devilish arts of
Perez and the universal distrust of Philip were tending steadily to that
end. For Perez--on the whole, the boldest, deepest, and most unscrupulous
villain in that pit of duplicity, the Spanish court--was engaged at that
moment with Philip, in a plot to draw from Don John and Escovedo, by
means of this correspondence, the proofs of a treason which the King and
minister both desired to find. The letters from Spain were written with
this view--those from Flanders were interpreted to that end. Every
confidential letter received by Perez was immediately laid by him before
the King, every letter which the artful demon wrote was filled with hints
as to the danger of the King's learning the existence of the
correspondence, and with promises of profound secrecy upon his own part,
and was then immediately placed in Philip's hands, to receive his
comments and criticisms, before being copied and despatched to the
Netherlands. The minister was playing a bold, murderous, and treacherous
game, and played it in a masterly manner. Escovedo was lured to his
destruction, Don John was made to fret his heart away, and Philip--more
deceived than all--was betrayed in what he considered his affections, and
made the mere tool of a man as false as himself and infinitely more
accomplished.

Almost immediately after the arrival of Don John in the Netherlands; he
had begun to express the greatest impatience for Escovedo, who had not
been able to accompany his master upon his journey, but without whose
assistance the Governor could accomplish none of his undertakings. "Being
a man, not an angel, I cannot do all which I have to do," said he to
Perez, "without a single person in whom I can confide." He protested that
he could do no more than he was then doing. He went to bed at twelve and
rose at seven, without having an hour in the day in which