to alter the pulleys of the door to the Prince’s chamber in such a manner that it could be opened without the usual noise, which was almost sure to awaken him.  At midnight, accordingly, Count Lerma entered the room so stealthily that the arms were all, removed from the Prince’s pillow and the wardrobe, without awakening the sleeper.  Philip, Ruy Gomez, the Duke de Feria, and two other nobles, then noiselessly, crept into the apartment.  Carlos still slept so profoundly that it was necessary for Derma to shake him violently by the arm before he could be aroused.  Starting from his sleep in the dead of night, and seeing his father thus accompanied, before his bed, the Prince cried out that he was a dead man, and earnestly besought the bystanders to make an end of him at once.  Philip assured him, however, that he was not come to kill him, but to chastise him paternally, and to recal him to his duty.  He then read him a serious lecture, caused him to rise from his bed, took away his servants, and placed him under guard.  He was made to array himself in mourning habiliments, and to sleep on a truckle bed.  The Prince was in despair.  He soon made various attempts upon his own life.  He threw himself into the fire, but was rescued by his guards, with his clothes all in flames.  He passed several days without taking any food, and then ate so many patties of minced meat that he nearly died of indigestion.  He was also said to have attempted to choke himself with a diamond, and to have been prevented by his guard; to have filled his bed with ice; to have sat in cold draughts; to have gone eleven days without food, the last method being, as one would think, sufficiently thorough.  Philip, therefore, seeing his son thus desperate, consulted once more with the Holy Office, and came to the decision that it was better to condemn him legitimately to death than to permit him to die by his own hand.  In order, however, to save appearances, the order was secretly carried into execution.  Don Carlos was made to swallow poison in a bowl of broth, of which he died in a few hours.  This was at the commencement of his twenty-third year.  The death was concealed for several months, and was not made public till after Alva’s victory at Jemmingen.

Such was the account drawn up by de Thou from the oral communications of de Foix, and from other sources not indicated.  Certainly, such a narrative is far from being entitled to implicit credence.  The historian was a contemporary, but he was not in Spain, and the engineer’s testimony is, of course, not entitled to much consideration on the subject of the process and the execution (if there were an execution); although conclusive as to matters which had been within his personal knowledge.  For the rest, all that it can be said to establish is the existence of the general rumor, that Carlos came to his death by foul means and in consequence of advice given by the inquisition.