e, "discoursing, upon his deathbed, gravely and like a man of
sense."

The historian Cabrera, official panegyrist of Philip the Second, speaks
of the death of Carlos as a natural one, but leaves a dark kind of
mystery about the symptoms of his disease. He states, that the Prince was
tried and condemned by a commission or junta, consisting of Spinosa, Ruy
Gomez, and the Licentiate Virviesca, but that he was carried off by an
illness, the nature of which he does not describe.

Llorente found nothing in the records of the Inquisition to prove that
the Holy Office had ever condemned the Prince or instituted any process
against him. He states that he was condemned by a commission, but that he
died of a sickness which supervened. It must be confessed that the
illness was a convenient one, and that such diseases are very apt to
attack individuals whom tyrants are disposed to remove from their path,
while desirous, at the same time, to save appearances. It would certainly
be presumptuous to accept implicitly the narrative of de Thou, which is
literally followed by Hoofd and by many modern writers. On the other
hand, it would be an exaggeration of historical scepticism to absolve
Philip from the murder of his son, solely upon negative testimony. The
people about court did not believe in the crime. They saw no proofs of
it. Of course they saw none. Philip would take good care that there
should be none if he had made up his mind that the death of the Prince
should be considered a natural one. And priori argument, which omits the
character of the suspected culprit, and the extraordinary circumstances
of time and place, is not satisfactory. Philip thoroughly understood the
business of secret midnight murder. We shall soon have occasion to relate
the elaborate and ingenious method by which the assassination of Montigny
was accomplished and kept a profound secret from the whole world, until
the letters of the royal assassin, after three centuries' repose, were
exhumed, and the foul mystery revealed. Philip was capable of any crime.
Moreover, in his letter to his aunt, Queen Catharine of Portugal, he
distinctly declares himself, like Abraham, prepared to go all lengths in
obedience to the Lord. "I have chosen in this matter," he said, "to make
the sacrifice to God of my own flesh and blood, and to prefer His service
and the universal welfare to all other human considerations." Whenever
the letter to Pius V. sees the light, it will appe