“Dear Heaven, why did you withhold a knowledge that would have upheld
me and enheartened me through all that I have suffered? Once, long, long
ago I hoped--”
“You hoped!”
“I hoped, Antonio--long, long ago.”
We were in each other's arms, she weeping on my shoulder as if her heart
would burst, I almost mad with mingling joy and pain--and as God lives
there was more matter here for pain than joy.
We sat long together after that, and talked it out. There was no help
for it. It was too late on every count. On her side there was the King,
most jealous of all men, whose chattel she was become; on mine, there
was my wife and children, and so deep and true was my love for Anne that
it awakened in me thoughts of the loyalty I owed Juana, thoughts that
had never troubled me hitherto in my pleasure-loving life--and this not
only as concerned Anne herself, but as concerned all women. There was
something so ennobling and sanctifying about our love that it changed
at once the whole of my life, the whole tenor of my ways. I abandoned
profligacy, and became so staid and orderly in my conduct that I was
scarcely recognizable for the Antonio Perez whom the world had known
hitherto.
We parted there that day with a resolve to put all this behind us; to
efface from our minds all memory of what had passed between us! Poor
fools were we to imagine we could resist the vortex of circumstance
which had caught us. For three months we kept our engagement
scrupulously; and then, at last, resistance mutually exhausted, we
yielded each to the other, both to Fate.
But because we cherished our love we moved with caution. I was
circumspect in my comings and goings, and such were the precautions
we observed, that for four years the world had little suspicion, and
certainly no knowledge, that I had inherited from the Prince of Eboli
more than his office as Secretary of State. This secrecy was necessary
as long as Philip lived, for we were both fully aware of what manner of
vengeance we should have to reckon with did knowledge of our relations
reach the jealous King. And I think that but for Don John of Austria's
affairs, and the intervention in them of the Escovedo whom you say--whom
the world says I murdered, all might have been well to this day.
Escovedo had been, like myself, one of Eboli's secretaries in his day,
and it was this that won him after Eboli's death a place at the Royal
Council board. It was but an inferior place, yet the King remarked him
for a man shrewd and able, who might one day have his uses.
That day was not very long in coming, though the opportunity it afforded
Escovedo was scarcely such as, in his greedy, insatiable ambition, he
had hoped for. Yet the opportunity, such as it was, was afforded him
by me, and had he used it properly it should have carried him far,
certainly much farther than his talent and condition warranted.
It came about through Don John of Austria's dreams of sovereignty. You
will have heard--as who has not?--so much of Don John, the natural son
of Charles V, that I need tell you little concerning him. In body and
soul he was a very different man, indeed, from his half-brother Philip
of Spain. As joyous as Philip was gloomy, as open and frank as Philip
was cloudy and suspicious, and as beautiful as Philip was grotesque, Don
John was the Bayard of our day, the very mirror of all knightly graces.
To the victory of Lepanto, which had made him illustrious as a soldier,
he had added, in '73--the year of Eboli's death--the conquest of Tunis,
thereby completing the triumph of Christianity over the Muslim in the
Mediterranean. Success may have turned his head a little. He was young,
you know, and an emperor's son. He dreamt of an empire for himself, of
sovereignty, and of making Tunis the capital of the kingdom he would
found.
We learnt of this. Indeed, Don John made little secret of his
intentions. But they went not at all with Philip's views. It was far
from his notions that Don John should go founding kingdoms of his own.
His valour and talents were required to be employed for the greater
honour and glory of the Crown of Spain, and nothing further.
Philip consulted me, who was by then the depositary of all his secrets,
the familiar of his inmost desires. There was evidence that Don John's
ambitions were being fomented by his secretary, who dreamt, no doubt,
of his own aggrandizement in the aggrandizement of his master. Philip
proposed the man's removal.
“That would be something,” I agreed. “But not enough. He must be
replaced by a man of our own, a man loyal to Your Majesty, who will not
only seek to guide Don John in the course that he should follow, but
will keep close watch upon his projects, and warn you should they
threaten to neglect your interests the interests of Spain, for his own.”
“And such a man? Where shall we find him?”
I considered a moment, and bethought me of Escovedo. He was able; he
had charm and an ingratiating manner; I believed him loyal, and imagined
that I could quicken that loyalty by showing him that advancement would
wait upon its observation; he could well be spared from the Council,
where, as I have said, he occupied a quite inferior post; lastly, we
were friends, and I was glad of the opportunity to serve him, and place
him on the road to better things.
All this I said to Philip, and so the matter was concluded. But Escovedo
failed me. His abilities and ingratiating manner endeared him quickly to
Don John, whilst himself he succumbed entirely, not only to Don John
of Austria's great personal charm, but also to Don John's ambitious
projects. The road to advancement upon which I had set him seemed to him
long and toilsome by contrast with the shorter cut that was offered by
his new master's dreams. He fell as the earlier secretary had fallen,
and more grievously, for he was the more ambitious of the two, and from
merely seconding Don John's projects, it was not long before he spurred
them on, not long before he was dreaming dreams of his own for Don John
to realize.
From Tunis, which had by now been recovered by the Turks, and any hopes
concerned with which King Philip had discouraged, the eyes of Don John
were set, at Escovedo's bidding, I believe, upon the crown of England.
He had just been invited by Philip to make ready to take in hand the
affairs of Flanders, sadly disorganized under the incompetent rule of
Alva. It occurred to him that if he were to issue victoriously from that
enterprise--and so far victory had waited upon his every venture--if
he were to succeed in restoring peace and Spanish order in rebellious
Flanders, he would then be able to move against England with the Spanish
troops under his command, overthrow Elizabeth, deliver Mary Stuart from
the captivity in which she languished, and by marriage with her set
the crown of England on his brow. To this great project he sought the
support of Rome, and Rome accorded it very readily being naturally
hostile to the heretic daughter of Anne Boleyn.
It was Escovedo himself who went as Don John's secret ambassador to the
Vatican in this affair Escovedo, who had been placed with Don John to
act as a curb on that young man's ambitions. Nor did he move with the
prudence he should have observed.
Knowledge of what was brewing reached us from the Papal Nuncio in
Madrid, who came to see me one day in the matter.
“I have a dispatch from Rome,” he announced, “in which His Holiness
instructs me to enjoin upon the King that the expedition against England
be now executed, and that he consider bestowing its crown upon Don John
of Austria for the greater honour and glory of Holy Church.”
I was thunderstruck. The expedition against England, I knew, was no new
project. Three years before a secret envoy from the Queen of Scots, an
Italian named Ridolfi, had come to propose to Philip that, in concert
with the Pope, he should reestablish the Catholic faith in England and
place Mary Stuart upon the throne. It was a scheme attractive to Philip,
since it agreed at once with his policy and his religion. But it had
been abandoned under the dissuasions of Alva, who accounted that it
would be too costly even if successful. Here it was again, emanating now
directly from the Holy See, but in a slightly altered form.
“Why Don John of Austria?” I asked him.
“A great soldier of the faith. And the Queen of Scots must have a
husband.”
“I should have thought that she had had husbands enough by now,” said I.
“His Holiness does not appear to share that view,” he answered tartly.
“I wonder will the King,” said I.
“The Catholic King is ever an obedient child of Mother Church,” the oily
Nuncio reminded me, to reprove my doubt.
But I knew better--that the King's own policy was the measure of his
obedience. This the Nuncio should learn for himself; for if I knew
anything of Philip's mind, I knew precisely how he would welcome this
proposal.
“Will you see the King now?” I suggested maliciously, anxious to witness
the humbling of his priestly arrogance.
“Not yet. It is upon that I came to see you. I am instructed first to
consult with one Escoda as to the manner in which this matter shall be
presented to His Majesty. Who is Escoda?”
“I never heard of him,” said I. “Perhaps he comes from Rome.”
“No, no. Strange!” he muttered, frowning, and plucked a parchment from
his sleeve. “It is here.” He peered slowly at the writing, and slowly
spelled out the name: “Juan de Escoda.”
In a flash it came to me.
“Escovedo you mean,” I cried,
“Yes, yes--Escovedo, to be sure,” he agreed, having consulted the
writing once more. “Where is he?”
“On his way to Madrid with Don John,” I informed him. “He is Don John's
secretary.”
“I will do nothing, then, until he arrives,” he said, and took his
leave.
Oh, monstrous indiscretion! That dispatch from Rome so cunningly
and secretly contrived in cipher had yet contained no warning that
Escovedo's share in this should be concealed. There are none so
imprudent as the sly. I sought the King at once, and told him all that
I had learnt. He was aghast. Indeed, I never saw him more near to anger.
For Philip of Spain was not the man to show wrath or any other emotion.
He had a fish-like, cold, impenetrable inscrutability. True, his yellow
skin grew yellower, his gaping mouth gaped wider, his goggle eyes
goggled more than usual. Left to himself, I think he would have
disgraced Don John and banished Escovedo there and then, as he did,
indeed, suggest. And I have since had cause enough to wish to God that I
had left him to himself.
“Who will replace Don John in Flanders?” I asked him quietly. He stared
at me. “He is useful to you there. Use him, Sire, to your own ends.”
“But they will press this English business.”
“Acquiesce.”
“Acquiesce? Are you mad?”
“Seem to acquiesce. Temporize. Answer them, 'One thing at a time.'
Say, 'When the Flanders business is happily concluded, we will think of
England.' Give them hope that success in Flanders will dispose you
to support the other project. Thus you offer Don John an incentive to
succeed, yet commit yourself to nothing.”
“And this dog Escovedo?”
“Is a dog who betrays himself by his bark. We will listen for it.”
And thus it was determined; thus was Don John suckled on the windy pap
of hope when presently he came to Court with Escovedo at his heels.
Distended by that empty fare he went off to the Low Countries, leaving
Escovedo in Madrid to represent him, with secret instructions to advance
his plans.
Now Escovedo's talents were far inferior to my conception of them.
He was just a greedy schemer, without the wit to dissemble his appetite
or the patience necessary to secure attainment.
Affairs in Flanders went none too well, yet that did not set a curb
upon him. He pressed his master's business upon the King with an ardour
amounting to disrespect, and disrespect was a thing the awful majesty of
Philip could never brook. Escovedo complained of delays, of indecision,
and finally--in the summer of '76--he wrote the King a letter of fierce
upbraidings, criticizing his policy in terms that were contemptuous, and
which entirely exasperated Philip.
It was in vain I strove to warn the fellow of whither he was drifting;
in vain I admonished and sought to curb his headlong recklessness. I
have said that I had a friendship for him, and because of that I took
more pains, perhaps, than I should have taken in another's case.
“Unless you put some judgment into that head of yours, my friend, you
will leave it in this business,” I told him one day.
He flung into a passion at the admonition, heaped abuse upon me, swore
that it was I who thwarted him, I who opposed the fulfilment of Don
John's desires and fostered the dilatory policy of the King.
I left him after that to pursue his course, having no wish to quarrel
with this headstrong upstart; yet, liking him as I did, I spared no
endeavour to shield him from the consequences he provoked. But that
letter of his to Philip made the task a difficult one. Philip showed it
to me.
“If that man,” he said, “had uttered to my face what he has dared to
write, I do not think I should have been able to contain myself without
visible change of countenance. It is a sanguinary letter.”