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Updated: June 24, 2025
"Here Enriquez relates, that he enticed into the plot one of his brothers, named Miguel Bosque, to whom he promised a sum of gold and the protection of Perez; that they arrived at Madrid the very day Escovedo's slave was hanged; that, during his absence, Diego Martinez had fetched from Aragon, for the same object, two resolute men, named Juan de Mesa and Insausti; that the very day after his arrival, Diego Martinez had assembled them all four, as well as the scullion Juan Rubio, outside Madrid, to decide as to the means and the moment of the murder; that they had agreed upon this, that Diego Martinez had procured them a sword, broad and fluted up to the point, to kill Escovedo with, and had armed them all with daggers; and that Antonio Perez had gone, during that time, to pass the holy week at Alcala, doubtless with the intention of turning suspicion from him when the death of Escovedo was ascertained.
No proof of the wild design was offered. The language which Escovedo was accused by Perez of having held previously to his departure for Flanders that it was the intention of Don John and himself to fortify the rock of Mogio, with which, and with the command of the city of Santander, they could make themselves masters of Spain after having obtained possession of England, is too absurd to have been uttered by a man of Escovedo's capacity.
Did the King have him assassinated for purely political reasons, really inadequate, but magnified by the suspicious royal fancy? Or were the secretary of Philip II. and the monarch of Spain rivals in the affections of a one-eyed widow of rank? and did the secretary, Perez, induce Philip to give orders for Escovedo's death, because Escovedo threatened to reveal to the King their guilty intrigue?
Moreover, the horrible news of Escovedo's assassination had sickened him to the soul. The deed had flashed a sudden light into the abyss of dark duplicity in which his own fate was suspended. His most intimate and confidential friend had been murdered by royal command, while he was himself abandoned by Philip, exposed to insult, left destitute of defence.
Philip's rage against Don John was accordingly turned to account, and Perez received the King's secret orders to procure Escovedo's assassination. The details of the murder were arranged and executed by Perez, but it must be confessed in justice to Philip, with much inferior nicety to that of his, own performances in the same field. Many persons were privy to the plot.
No proof of the wild design was offered. The language which Escovedo was accused by Perez of having held previously to his departure for Flanders that it was the intention of Don John and himself to fortify the rock of Mogio, with which, and with the command of the city of Santander, they could make themselves masters of Spain after having obtained possession of England, is too absurd to have been uttered by a man of Escovedo's capacity.
He threatened to denounce to the King, who seemed the only person about the court ignorant of the affair, this double treason of his mistress and his minister. Perez and Anna of Eboli, furious at Escovedo's insolence, and anxious lest he should execute his menace determined to disembarrass themselves of so meddlesome a person.
Out of these shreds and patches the plot against England, the Pope's bull, the desire expressed by Don John to march into France as a simple adventurer, with a few thousand men at his back Perez, according to his own statement, drew up a protocol, afterwards formally approved by Philip, which concluded with the necessity of taking Escovedo's life, instantly but privately, and by poison.
Escovedo's wife mistrusted me, though at first she seems equally to have suspected in this deed the hand of the Duke of Alva, who was hostile to Don John and all his creatures. Very soon, as a result of this, came the Court alcalde to visit and question me.
The reward of fidelity, as in poor Escovedo's case, was oftener the stiletto. Was it astonishing that murder was more common than fidelity? With the subsequent career of Antonio Perez his famous process, his banishment, his intrigues, his innuendos, his long exile, and his miserable death, this history has no concern. We return from our brief digression.
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