Young
Escovedo retreated: Vasquez persevered, and the Princess d'Eboli,
writing to the King, called Vasquez 'a Moorish dog.' Philip had both
Perez and the Princess arrested, for Vasquez was not to be put down;
_his_ business in connection with the litigations was to pursue the
Princess, and Philip could not tell Vasquez that he was on the wrong
trail. The lady was sent to her estates; this satisfied Vasquez, and
Perez and he were bound over to keep the peace. But suspicion hung
about Perez, and Philip preferred that it should be so. The secretary
was accused of peculation, he had taken bribes on all hands, and he
was sentenced to heavy fines and imprisonment (January 1585). Now
Enriquez confessed, and a kind of secret inquiry, of which the records
survive, dragged its slow course along. Perez was under arrest, in a
house near a church. He dropped out of a window and rushed into the
church, the civil power burst open the gates, violated sanctuary, and
found our friend crouching, all draped with festoons of cobwebs, in
the timber work under the roof. The Church censured the magistrates,
but they had got Perez, and Philip defied the ecclesiastical courts.
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