No proof of the wild design was offered.  The language which Escovedo was accused by Perez of having held previously to his departure for Flanders —­that it was the intention of Don John and himself to fortify the rock of Mogio, with which, and with the command of the city of Santander, they could make themselves masters of Spain after having obtained possession of England,—­is too absurd to have been uttered by a man of Escovedo’s capacity.  Certainly, had Perez been provided with the least scrap of writing from the hands of Don John or Escovedo which could be tortured into evidence upon this point, it would have been forthcoming, and would have rendered such fictitious hearsay superfluous.  Perez in connivance with Philip, had been systematically conducting his correspondence with Don John and Escovedo, in order to elicit some evidence of the imputed scheme. “’T was the only way,” said Perez to Philip, “to make them unbare their bosoms to the sword.”—­“I am quite of the same opinion,” replied Philip to Perez, “for, according to my theology, you would do your duty neither to God nor the world, unless you did as you are doing.”  Yet the excellent pair of conspirators at Madrid could wring no damning proofs from the lips of the supposititious conspirators in Flanders, save that Don John, after Escovedo’s arrival in Madrid, wrote, impatiently and frequently, to demand that he should be sent back, together with the money which he had gone to Spain to procure.  “Money, more money, and Escovedo,” wrote the Governor, and Philip was quite willing to accept this most natural exclamation as evidence of his brother’s designs against his crown.  Out of these shreds and patches—­the plot against England, the Pope’s bull, the desire expressed by Don John to march into France as a simple adventurer, with a few thousand men at his back—­ Perez, according to his own statement, drew up a protocol, afterwards formally approved by Philip, which concluded with the necessity of taking Escovedo’s life, instantly but privately, and by poison.  The Marquis de Los Velos, to whom the memorial was submitted for his advice, averred that if the death-bed wafer were in his own lips, he should vote for the death of the culprit.  Philip had already jumped to the same conclusion; Perez joyfully undertook the business, having received carte blanche from the King, and thus the unfortunate secretary was doomed.  Immediately after the arrival of Escovedo in Madrid, he addressed a letter to the King.  Philip filed it away among other despatches, with this annotation:  “the ‘avant courier’ has arrived—­it is necessary to make great haste, and to despatch him before he murders us.”