The current of his adventurous career was not, however, destined to run thus smoothly.  It is true that the estates had not yet entirely lost their confidence in his character; but the seizure of Namur, and the attempt upon Antwerp, together with the contents of the intercepted letters written by himself and Escovedo to Philip, to Perez, to the Empress, to the Colonels Frondsberger and Fugger, were soon destined to open their eyes.  In the meantime, almost exactly at the moment when Don John was executing his enterprise against Namur, Escovedo had taken an affectionate farewell of the estates at Brussels for it had been thought necessary, as already intimated, both for the apparent interests and the secret projects of Don John; that the Secretary should make a visit to Spain.  At the command of the Governor-General he had offered to take charge of any communication for his Majesty which the estates might be disposed to entrust to him, and they had accordingly addressed a long epistle to the King, in which they gave ample expression to their indignation and their woe.  They remonstrated with the King concerning the continued presence of the German mercenaries, whose knives were ever at their throats, whose plunder and insolence impoverished and tortured the people.  They reminded him of the vast sums which the provinces had contributed in times past to the support of government, and they begged assistance from his bounty now.  They recalled to his vision the melancholy spectacle of Antwerp, but lately the “nurse of Europe, the fairest flower in his royal garland, the foremost and noblest city of the earth, now quite desolate and forlorn,” and with additional instructions to Escovedo, that he should not fail, in his verbal communications, to represent the evil consequences of the course hitherto pursued by his Majesty’s governors in the Netherlands, they dismissed him with good wishes, and with “crowns for convoy” in his purse to the amount of a revenue of two thousand yearly.  His secret correspondence was intercepted and made known a few weeks after his departure for that terrible Spain whence so few travellers returned.

For a moment we follow him thither.  With a single word in anticipation, concerning the causes and the consummation of this celebrated murder, which was delayed till the following year, the unfortunate Escovedo may be dismissed from these pages.  It has been seen how artfully Antonio Perez, Secretary of State, paramour of Princess Eboli, and ruling councillor at that day of Philip, had fostered in the King’s mind the most extravagant suspicions as to the schemes of Don John, and of his confidential secretary.  He had represented it as their fixed and secret intention, after Don John should be finally established on the throne of England, to attack Philip himself in Spain, and to deprive him of his crown, Escovedo being represented as the prime instigator and controller of this astounding plot, which lunatics only could have engendered, and which probably never had existence.