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Two hours after the traveller's departure, the news arrived of the deed, together with orders to arrest Anastro, but it was too late. The merchant had found refuge within the lines of Parma. Meanwhile, the Prince lay in a most critical condition.
To be a knight companion of Spain's proudest order of chivalry was the guerdon, over and above the eighty thousand pieces of silver, which Spain's monarch promised the murderer, if he should succeed. As for Anastro himself, he was too frugal and too wary to risk his own life, or to lose much of the premium.
Two hours after the traveller's departure, the news arrived of the deed, together with orders to arrest Anastro, but it was too late. The merchant had found refuge within the lines of Parma. Meanwhile, the Prince lay in a most critical condition.
To be a knight companion of Spain's proudest order of chivalry was the guerdon, over and above the eighty thousand pieces of silver, which Spain's monarch promised the murderer, if he should succeed. As for Anastro himself, he was too frugal and too wary to risk his own life, or to lose much of the premium.
Parma received the first intelligence of the attempt from the mouth of Anastro himself, who assured him that the deed had been entirely successful, and claimed the promised reward.
That merchant, being on the verge of bankruptcy, had entered with Philip into a mutual contract, which the King had signed with his hand and sealed with his seal, and according to which Anastro, within a certain period, was to take the life of William of Orange, and for so doing was to receive eighty thousand ducats, and the cross of Santiago.
Anastro had intended as he said in a letter afterwards intercepted "to accomplish the deed with his own hand; but, as God had probably reserved him for other things, and particularly to be of service to his very affectionate friends, he had thought best to entrust the execution of the design to his servant."
The body of the assassin was forthwith exposed upon the public square, and was soon recognized as that of one Juan Jaureguy, a servant in the employ of Gaspar d'Anastro, a Spanish merchant of Antwerp. The letters and bills of exchange had also, on nearer examination at the Town House, implicated Anastro in the affair.
The young Count Maurice, William's second son, examined the murderer's body; and the papers found on him, and subsequent inquiries, told fully who and what he was. His name was John Jaureguay, his age twenty-three years; he was a native of Biscay, and clerk to a Spanish merchant of Antwerp, called Gaspar Anastro.
His cashier, Venero, and a Dominican friar, named Antony Zimmermann, both inmates of his family, were, however, arrested upon suspicion. On the following day the watch stationed at the gate carried the foreign post-bags, as soon as they arrived, to the magistracy, when letters were found from Anastro to Venero, which made the affair quite plain.
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