g for
work before it had been done. Some delay occurring, and the secret, thus
confided to so many, having floated as it were imperceptibly into the
air, Tinoco was arrested on suspicion before he had been able to deliver
the letters of Fuentes and Ybarra to Ferrara, for Ferrara, too, had been
imprisoned before the arrival of Tinoco. The whole correspondence was
discovered, and both Ferrara and Tinoco confessed the plot. Lopez, when
first arrested, denied his guilt very stoutly, but being confronted with
Ferrara, who told the whole story to his face in presence of the judges,
he at last avowed the crime.

They were all condemned, executed, and quartered at London in the spring
of 1594. The queen wished to send a special envoy to the archduke at
Brussels, to complain that Secretary of State Cristoval de Moura, Count
Fuentes, and Finance Minister Ybarra--all three then immediately about
his person--were thus implicated in the plot against her life, to demand
their punishment, or else, in case of refusals to convict the king and
the archduke as accomplices in the crime. Safe conduct was requested for
such an envoy, which was refused by Ernest as an insulting proposition
both to his uncle and himself. The queen accordingly sent word to
President Richardot by one of her council, that the whole story would be
published, and this was accordingly done.

Early in the spring of this same year, a certain Renichon, priest and
schoolmaster of Namur, was summoned from his school to a private
interview with Count Berlaymont. That nobleman very secretly informed the
priest that the King of, Spain wished to make use of him in an affair of
great importance, and one which would be very profitable to himself. The
pair then went together to Brussels, and proceeded straightway to the
palace. They were secretly admitted to the apartments of the archduke,
but the priest, meaning to follow his conductor into the private chamber,
where he pretended to recognize the person of Ernest, was refused
admittance. The door was, however, not entirely closed, and he heard, as
he declared, the conversation between his Highness and Berlaymont, which
was carried on partly in Latin and partly in Spanish. He heard them
discussing the question--so he stated--of the recompense to be awarded
for the business about to be undertaken, and after a brief conversation,
distinctly understood the archduke to say, as the count was approaching
the door, "I will satisfy hi