Saint Aldegonde hastened to lay the result of this examination before the Duke of Anjou.  Information was likewise instantly conveyed to the magistrates at the Town House, and these measures were successful in restoring confidence throughout the city as to the intentions of the new government.  Anjou immediately convened the State Council, issued a summons for an early meeting of the states-general, and published a proclamation that all persons having information to give concerning the crime which had just been committed, should come instantly forward, upon pain of death.  The body of the assassin was forthwith exposed upon the public square, and was soon recognized as that of one Juan Jaureguy, a servant in the employ of Gaspar d’Anastro, a Spanish merchant of Antwerp.  The letters and bills of exchange had also, on nearer examination at the Town House, implicated Anastro in the affair.  His house was immediately searched, but the merchant had taken his departure, upon the previous Tuesday, under pretext of pressing affairs at Calais.  His cashier, Venero, and a Dominican friar, named Antony Zimmermann, both inmates of his family, were, however, arrested upon suspicion.  On the following day the watch stationed at the gate carried the foreign post-bags, as soon as they arrived, to the magistracy, when letters were found from Anastro to Venero, which made the affair quite plain.  After they had been thoroughly studied, they were shown to Venero, who, seeing himself thus completely ruined, asked for pen and ink, and wrote a full confession.

It appeared that the crime was purely a commercial speculation on the part of Anastro.  That merchant, being on the verge of bankruptcy, had entered with Philip into a mutual contract, which the King had signed with his hand and sealed with his seal, and according to which Anastro, within a certain period, was to take the life of William of Orange, and for so doing was to receive eighty thousand ducats, and the cross of Santiago.  To be a knight companion of Spain’s proudest order of chivalry was the guerdon, over and above the eighty thousand pieces of silver, which Spain’s monarch promised the murderer, if he should succeed.  As for Anastro himself, he was too frugal and too wary to risk his own life, or to lose much of the premium.  With, tears streaming down his cheeks, he painted to his faithful cashier the picture which his master would present, when men should point at him and say, “Behold yon bankrupt!” protesting, therefore, that he would murder Orange and secure the reward, or perish in the attempt.  Saying this, he again shed many tears.  Venero, seeing his master thus disconsolate, wept bitterly likewise; and begged him not to risk his own precious life.  After this pathetic commingling of their grief, the merchant and his book-keeper became more composed, and it was at last concerted between them that John Jaureguy should be entrusted with the job.  Anastro had intended—­as he said in a letter