The Story of Don John of Austria by Luis Coloma (e books for reading txt) 📖

The assassination of such a well-known personage as Escovedo in the midst of the streets at Madrid upset all the neighbourhood, and set all the mayors and "alguaciles" in the city to work. The next day, which was the 1st of April, they arrested everyone who tried to leave the gates, and the next day forced all the inn and hotel-keepers to furnish a detailed list of their inmates. Antonio Pérez ordered the assassins to remain quiet in their hiding-places, and not to make any noise so long as the first hot search was being made, and until he could find means of placing them in safety. He succeeded at last, after a long period of uneasy waiting, and on the 19th of April they all left Madrid, largely rewarded. Miguel Bosque received a hundred golden crowns from the hands of the priest Escobar, and then returned to his native place. Juan de Mesa went back to Aragon, carrying a gold chain, fifty doubloons, a beautiful silver cup, and the appointment of agent for the property of the Princess de Évoli, which she herself gave him. To Insausti, Juan Rubio, and Antonio Enriquez Antonio Pérez sent by Diego Martinez the appointment of ensign, with twenty golden crowns of pay, and without demur they went to their respective posts, Juan Rubio to Milan, Antonio Enriquez to Naples, and Insausti to Sicily, where he died shortly afterwards.

Meanwhile D. John of Austria was not losing time, and heartened by the first help that Philip II sent, set about to gain all the results possible from the victory of Gembleux. Since this defeat the rebels had fallen back towards Brussels, fearful lest D. John was going there, and he, leaving them in this belief, continued his plan of campaign with clever strategy, and in little more than a month became master of Louvain, Bouvignes, Tilemont, Sichem, Diest, Nivelles and Philippeville. There he stopped, tired out by this hard work, in which fell on him not only the anxieties of a general, but the duties of a soldier, and there, too, he received the news of Escovedo's death. This was the finishing stroke for D. John. It is not known when or through whom the information came to him; but the fatal news must have come quickly, as already on the 20th of April he wrote a beautiful letter to Philip, true transcript of his noble, generous and Christian soul[17].

A little later, while at Namur, he writes on the 3rd of May to his friend D. Rodrigo de Mendoza: "Of the little I shall say in this, the first thing shall be how grieved I am at the death of Escovedo, the more that they do not find out from whence comes such an ill deed; because certainly, besides how greatly he was needed for H.M.'s service in what he was looking after, I also wanted him infinitely, and I have lost a great support, and even more so, I think, in the future. May God rest him in heaven, and reveal to me who killed him."

And further, he wrote to Gian Andrea Doria on the 7th of June: "Of Escovedo's unhappy death I do not know what to say, particularly from such a distance, even if I could say anything were I nearer; but in my opinion it is a case which asks for prompt action more than words: but so many suspicions and no certainty stop one's mouth and tie one's hands, so at present one can only wait and feel what one must about such a servant and a case like this death of Escovedo."

These are all D. John's papers about Escovedo's death which have come down to us. Though nothing in these letters shows clearly that he had sounded all the depths of iniquity hidden behind the treacherous crime, it is impossible to think to the contrary. From the first moment public opinion in Madrid pointed at Antonio Pérez and the Princesa de Évoli as authors of the murder, and even, it is said, came near to the truth; a fact to be remembered, as those who wrote nearest the event, Van der Hammen and Cabrera de Córdoba, mention "that to authorise the assassination, Antonio Pérez gave the assassins a writing signed by the King, of the sort that are given blank to ambassadors and viceroys to shorten some business." The declaration of Antonio Enriquez at the famous trial eleven years later proves that these rumours reached beyond Spain. "Antonio Enriquez said that in Italy and Flanders it was openly said that Antonio Pérez killed Escovedo because of the Princesa de Évoli." It is impossible that these rumours should not have reached the ears of D. John, or that, with his shrewdness, he should not have put two and two together, the truth proved to him by the old story of their intrigue. One fact makes it patent that if D. John knew nothing for certain, he had at least very strong suspicions that Antonio Pérez was the murderer of Escovedo. From this time the intimate correspondence which he kept up with the false secretary abruptly ceases, and he only replies to the honeyed, flattering letters by stiff and official dispatches such as could not be avoided between the Governor-General and the Secretary for Flanders. And further, we think D. John must then have known, at any rate in part, of the treason and calumnies of Pérez and the absolute ruin of his credit with D. Philip effected by these means; which accounts for the depression, despondency, and presentiment of death that overwhelmed the hero of Lepanto at this time, never to leave him during his remaining months of life.

Some people censure as fantastic the scheme of invading England which the two Pontiffs Pius V and Gregory XIII were always planning, and D. John as a dreamer, for placing in this project all his aspirations and ardent desires for glory. But Lord Burghley judged otherwise. He was an immoral politician, certainly, but the most far-seeing and profound that England then possessed. In a memorandum all in his own handwriting, which exists in the British Museum in London, and from which Mignet quotes, he advises Queen Elizabeth to send prompt aid to the Flemish rebels. "If the Spaniards succeed in subduing the Low Countries, they will lose no opportunity of invading England, and will unite their forces with the malcontents of this kingdom; thus, if D. John finishes with the States, he will not tarry in turning his arms against Y.M. The correspondence which is carried on between him and the Queen of Scots since he arrived in the Low Countries, his interview with the Bishop of Glasgow, the ambassador of this Queen, and the general opinion that there is a plan of marriage between him and her, are the reasons which make for this conclusion. According to those who desire a change of religion in this kingdom, this marriage is the best and only means for the return of the kingdom to the Church of Rome. By this marriage D. John would have a claim to the crown of England, and then it would be seen that the Pope, the King of France, and the King of Spain, and all the Catholic Princes would help him; the Pope from religious motives, the King of France to please the house of Guise and to prevent England helping the French Protestants, and the King of Spain to settle his brother advantageously. Therefore, to give aid to the Low Countries is a means of preservation and defence for this realm."

These grave reasons, which did not seem fantastic to Burghley, decided Queen Elizabeth and the lords of her Council to help the Flemish rebels even more openly than they had hitherto done, not only with money, but also with English and Scotch troops, under the command of Norris. But they soon saw that the real obstacle to these ends was the person of D. John, and that nothing and nobody could dismay him or weary out his patience, or overcome his military skill, and they judged, as Orange had done before the retreat from Namur, that the shortest and safest way to conquer this obstacle was to overthrow it by treachery, taking D. John's life. One warning voice, however, God sent from a prison, and it reached the ears of D. John, and stopped this new crime.

There was a Spanish merchant in London, a native of Tarragona, called Antonio de Guaras, rich and respected. He lived in a house belonging to the Guild of Drapers, with a warehouse and wharf on the Thames, and many pedlars came there to fit themselves out with things that they afterwards sold retail, travelling about the counties. But in these humble pedlars' boats which slowly mounted the Thames, most important secrets and messages from great personages came to the house of Antonio de Guaras. The merchant was an Aragonese, and an agent of the Court of Spain since the time of Henry VIII, and since the arrival of D. John in Flanders he had constituted himself the most active promoter of the Spanish invasion of England, and the intermediary between D. John and the Queen Mary Stuart, at that time a prisoner in Sheffield Castle. D. John sent his letters for the Queen of Scots to Guaras, and she also sent him the answers; a very interesting correspondence, of which no trace remains.

Under the disguise of one of these hucksters the English Jesuit Hort, whom Gregory XIII had sent to England, together with his Scotch companion Crichton, to be Papal agent in the business of the Spanish invasion, came one day to the house of Antonio de Guaras. He came from Sheffield, and brought a letter in cipher from Mary Stuart for Antonio de Guaras. He carried it cleverly hidden in a little mirror, which in these perilous times he always had among his pedlar's wares. In this letter the Queen of Scots ordered Antonio de Guaras to tell D. John of the plot that the Council of Queen Elizabeth were scheming against his life, rumours of which reached Sheffield by one of the many advocates of the marriage of Mary and D. John, who were numerous, and were working in England and Scotland. The news was vague, however, as she only talked of this plot without giving any details, and contented herself by warning D. John to have a care for his person. "It seems to me that the Lord Don John should be very careful that he has not near him some greater spies than faithful servants, English or others."

Guaras, alarmed, hastened to communicate this warning to D. Bernardino de Mendoza, then ambassador of the Catholic King in London, and a great partisan of Mary Stuart, who, having more means of action and of espionage, at last succeeded in unravelling the mystery, as far as was necessary, and could thus write to Philip II on the 17th of May: "Here for many days there is talk in the house of Leicester of killing H.H. (D. John), the talk being renewed by the good opportunity of the war. Of this I have advised H.H., and also that this Queen on the 10th set free Edmond Ratcliffe, brother of the Earl of Sussex, who has been confined in the Tower of London for three years, and because of giving him liberty very secretly he has been exiled from this kingdom, which is a thing very seldom or never done, he resolved the moment he regained his liberty to go and serve H.H.; I have been advised that he is an intemperate youth, and daring enough for anything, they tell me, so his sudden liberation and determination can with great reason engender suspicion."

D. Bernardino did, as he notifies in this letter, write to D. John, and also sent him a portrait of Ratcliffe, that he should recognise him and be prepared at once if he came. The assassin did not fail to arrive. D. John was in his camp at Tirlemont, and when giving audiences one day, suddenly saw Edmond Ratcliffe enter his tent, humbly begging the favour of a hearing. He had entered the camp, in spite of the vigilance of the sentries, and had hidden two light Hungarian horses in a wood near to ensure his flight, in the event of his being able to strike the blow. D. John knew him in a moment, from the picture D. Bernardino had sent, and without displaying the least surprise or mistrust, graciously ordered him to speak. At the same time he called his valet Bernardino Ducarte in the most natural manner, and secretly gave him an order for the Captain of the Guard to take the gentleman, whenever he left the tent, and give him over to the Provost-General of the camp. Ratcliffe explained to D. John, with the most refined hypocrisy, who he was and what he wanted. He said that he was a son of the