She perceived how waterfall after waterfall was quenching the flames which burned in Don John’s honest soul for the supposed welfare of the nation intrusted to him.  He was reaping hatred, scorn, and humiliation wherever he had hoped to win love and gratitude in the Netherlands.  His royal brother left him in the lurch where he was entitled to depend upon his assistance.  But when Philip let the mask fall and showed openly how deeply he distrusted the glorious son of his dead father, and to what a degree his ill will had risen—­when he committed the cruel crime of having Escovedo, the devoted, loyal friend and counsellor of the victor of Lepanto, assassinated in Madrid, where he had come to labour in his master’s cause—­the most ambitious and sensitive of hearts received the deathblow which was to put an end to his famous career and his young life.

Scarcely two years after Barbara’s meeting with Don John, the Emperor Charles’s hero son died.  Even in the Netherlands he had remained to the last victor on the battlefield.  Alessandro Farnese, his dearest friend, his companion in youth, in study, and in war, had valiantly supported him with his good sword; but his faithful friendship had been unable to heal the sufferings which wore out Don John’s strong body and brave soul when, to the severest political failures, was added the bloody treachery of his royal brother.

The death of this son doubtless first taught Barbara with what cruel anguish a mother’s heart can be visited; but her John had not really died to her.  Accustomed to love him from a distance, she continued to live in and with him, and in her thoughts and dreams he remained her own.

At first, without leaving the lay condition, she had joined the Dominican Sisters in the Convent of Santa Maria la Real at Cebrian; but even the slight constraint which life behind stone walls imposed upon her still seemed unendurable, so she retired to the little city of Colindres, in the district of Loredo.  There stood the deserted house of Escovedo, the murdered friend and counsellor of her John and, as everything under its roof reminded her of the beloved dead, it seemed the most fitting spot in which to pass the remnant of her days.  In it she led an independent but quiet, secluded life.  She spent only a few maravedis for her own wants, while she used the thousands of ducats which, after her son’s death, King Philip awarded her as an annual income, to make life easier for the poor and the sick whom she affectionately sought out.

With every tear she dried she believed that she was showing the best honour to her son’s memory.

She was denied the pleasure of placing a flower upon his grave, for King Philip had done his dead brother the honour which he withheld from him during life and, though only as a corpse, received him among the members of his illustrious race.  His coffin had been entombed in the cold family vault of the Escurial, where no sunbeam enters.