Perez ought
to have known that Philip would desert him: his folly was rewarded by
prison, torture, and confiscation, which were not more than the man
deserved, who betrayed and murdered the servant of Don John of
Austria.
NOTE.--This essay was written when I was unaware that Major
Martin Hume had treated the problem in _Transactions of the
Royal Historical Society_, 1894, pp. 71-107, and in
_Espanoles e Ingleses_ (1903). The latter work doubtless
represents Major Hume's final views. He has found among the
Additional MSS. of the British Museum (28,269) a quantity of
the contemporary letters of Perez, which supplement the
copies, at the Hague, of other letters destroyed after the
death of Perez. From these MSS. and other original sources
unknown to Mr. Froude, and to Monsieur Mignet (see the
second edition of his _Antonio Perez_; Paris, 1846), Major
Hume's theory is that, for _political_ reasons, Philip gave
orders that Escovedo should be assassinated. This was in
late October or early November, 1577. The order was not then
carried out; the reason of the delay I do not clearly
understand.
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