DON CARLOS: OR, AN HISTORICAL RELATION OF The Unfortunate Life, and Tragical Death of that Prince of SPAIN, Son to PHILIP the TWO d.  
Written in French, Anno 1672. and newly Englished by H. I.  
LONDON, Printed by T. N. for Hen. Herringman, at the Blue Anchor in the Lower Walk of the New Exchange; and John Crump at the Three Bibles in St. Paul's Churchyard, 1674.   

TO THE LADY ELLIS, Wife to the RIGHT WORSHIPFUL Sir WILLIAM ELLIS Baronet.  
Madam;  
BEing lately necessitated to pass some days in a place, where I had but little Company, and less Diversion, I resolved to spend my idle hours in Translating this Relation of the Misfortunes of poor Don Carlos.  
It was Written by a Person of Honour, and one, that pretends to have a particular insight into the Spanish History.  
Yet, lest his Authority should not seem sufficient in some dubious passages, he backs it with that of the most Famous Writers of the last Age.  
His Design (as you may see by his own Advertisement) was chiefly to Vindicate the Queen of Spaine's Virtue, from the Aspersions, that had been cast upon it by some Malicious Pens; and mine is no other, then to divert you, and by this small testimony of my Affection, to Assure You, that I am,  
MADAM, Your most Humble, and most Obedient Servant, H. J.   

Advertisement of the AUTHOR.  
ALl Historians of the last Age, that make mention of the unfortunate Prince of Spain, who is the subject of this Treatise, do also speak of his Love for his Mother-in-Law; and as people are always apt to put an evil interpretation upon things of that nature, his Passion hath done some wrong to the reputation of that virtuous Queen. The Author of this Book having found in divers places the particularities of their History, thought himself obliged to communicate them to the Public, because they justify the memory of that Princess, and make it appear, that there was nothing, but what was very innocent on her side. Though she had done nothing else, but discover the Conspiracy, whereof you shall see the recital, she had well deserved to have some care taken of her glory, because it is certainly true, that without her, the Prince of Navarre had never come to be the greatest King in the world; and (to say something more to his honour) Grandfather to Lewis the Fourteenth.  
This History is taken out of all the Authors, Spanish, French, Italian, and Dutch, which have written of those times in which it happened. The principal are, Thuanus, Monsieur Aubigné, Brantome, Cabrera, Campana, Adriani, Natalis Comes, Dupleix, Mathieu, Mayerne, Mezerai, le Laboureur Sur Castelnau, Strada, Meteren, The History of Don John of Austria, the Eulogies of F. Hilarion de Coste. The Spanish Book of the Deeds and Sayings of Philip the Second. A Relation of the Death and Obsequies of his Son, etc. It is likewise collected out of several Pieces pertaining to History, as well Manuscripts as Printed, and amongst the rest, out of a little Book, entitled, Diogenes, which treats largely of this matter; and a Manuscript written by Monsieur de Peresese, expressly upon that subject. However, for the Reader's farther satisfaction, I have set down in the Margin, of the most particular and extraordinary places, the principal Authors out of which they were taken.   

DON CARLOS: Or, An Historical Relation of the Unfortunate Life, and Tragical Death of that Prince of Spain, Son to Philip the Second.  
WHen the Emperor Charles the Fifth resolved to quit the Government of the Empire, and to retire himself into a solitary way of living; fearing to leave his Son exposed to the good fortune of Henry the Second, of which himself had already felt the effects, he concluded with that Prince a Truce for the five first years of his Son's Reign. Amongst other Propositions for a Peace between the two Crowns, which were made during this Truce, was proposed the Marriage of Don Carlos Prince of Spain, and only Son of Philip the Second, and Mary of Portugal his first Wife, with Madam Elizabeth the Eldest Daughter of France. This Princess was very young, but wonderfully accomplished for a person of her age: And as this Marriage was resolved upon with great joy on both sides, as soon as it was proposed, she could not choose but conceive a very great esteem for him that was destined to be her Husband; her young heart finding in that occasion a suitable object to fix itself upon, did much please itself in the thoughts of it; and she did by degrees insensibly engage herself in an inclination, which, though altogether innocent, did afterwards prove more troublesome blesome to her virtue, than ever she thought it would. The Prince of Spain was no less contented than she with his hoped for happiness; and as all that people said to him concerning Madam, gave him a very lovely Idea of her person, he abandoned himself with pleasure to all those thoughts of love and desire, which that Idea inspired him withal. The Princess' Picture, which, according to the custom, was sent him by the King of France, finished that conquest in him, which the reputation of her beauty had already begun. Those that brought it, said, it was extremely like her; and Don Carlos easily believed them in a thing he so much desired might be true. When he considered this Picture, there was no way that he would not willingly have tried, to let Madam know the thoughts he had of her. He could by no means endure that she should be ignorant of the joy, which the hopes of possessing her filled him with. Sometimes he was even ashamed of the excess of his good fortune, and could almost have been contented to allow himself the time of winning the Princess' heart by his merits and services, rather than to obtain her by the common ways; but knowing that to be an impossible thing, he thought he should be well enough satisfied, if he could but at least acquaint her with the diversity of his thoughts.  
In the mean time, the face of affairs was wholly changed, by a sudden and unexpected breach of the Five years' Truce, the Princes of the House of Lorraine, or those that at the solicitation of Paul the Fourth, brought about this rupture. The Pope's aim was, by raising troubles in Flanders, to free himself from the Duke D' Alva, who had the command of a Spanish Army, and had for some time kept him, as it were, blocked up within the Walls of Rome. One part of his design, which was the diversion of the Spanish Arms, succeeded according to his desire; but in Flanders he found more opposition, where the French lost two Battles, in which the greatest part of their most valiant men were either killed or taken prisoners; and, which reduced their affairs to so ill a a condition, that they resolved speedily to buy a Peace at what price soever. This Peace was the work of the Duke of Savoy, General of the Spanish Army, and of the Constable of Montmorency his Prisoner. The Constable represented to the Duke, That he could never hope to find a fairer occasion of recovering the possession of his Estates, from which his Father had been driven by Francis the First; and the Duke on his side prevailed so far with Philip the Second, that the Treaty was concluded a little while after, at Chateau-Cambresis. It is easy to judge of the grief of Don Carlos at the breaking of the Truce, and how great his joy was when the Negotiation of a Peace was reassumed; and yet this Peace, which seemingly gave such seasonable grounds for his hopes, was that which at last proved their utter destruction.  
During the time of the Negotiation, Philip the Second was made a Widower, by the death of Mary Queen of England, his Second Wife; and being obliged by several weighty considerations to a Third Marriage, he demanded for himself the Princess, that had before been promised to his Son. The French would doubtless much rather have given her to the Heir of the Crown, who was much of the same age with her, then to a Prince old enough to have been her Father, and by whom she could have none but younger Children, and by consequence incapable of inheriting the Crown: but, all things considered, he could not handsomely be refused. Though this news was like the stroke of a Thunderbolt to poor Don Carlos, who was told it at first before a great deal of company, yet he was enough Master of himself, to hinder any body from taking notice of the grief it caused in him; but the violence he did himself, cost him dear, when he was alone. All his thoughts were nothing, but the continual inspirations of Love and Rage. But the trouble he was in not permitting him to resolve upon, nor the present state of his fortune to undertake any thing that might ease his mind, his Despair was insensibly turned into Melancholy; and from thence proceeded that reserved way of living, which rendered him so odious to the King his Father, who never once dreaming of the true cause of his discontent, and judging of his Son by himself, did attribute it to the impatience he thought this young Prince might have of Reigning.  
As for Madam, though what she felt in herself for Don Carlos, was rather a disposition to love him, than a true and well established passion, yet the fear she had that there was something more in it then as yet she apprehended, made her have an unspeakable distrust of herself▪ Till than she had an extreme curiosity to know the effect her Picture had produced upon the Prince; nay, and she had desired sometimes, that his heart, if it were possible, might in that respect enjoy less quiet than her own: But as soon as she knew the change that was happened in their fortune, she feared nothing in the world so much as to be loved by him. What pleasure soever there be to be thought handsome, she wished that what all people said of her charms had been false. In this difference of thoughts, her mind not having all the tranquillity necessary to bring her handsomely off, in an Action so hard for a person in her circumstances, as her first arrival at the Court of Spain was, she stopped her journey as long as she could have the least appearance of an excuse; and though the Duke D' Alva had married her in his Master's name, in the month of June, she did not leave Paris till the end of November. She stayed to see all the fine Houses that were in her way, and did not come into the Province of Aquitane, till the year was ready to expire, as if those delays could have done that in her heart, that her own reason was not capable of doing. When she was at the Pyrenaean Mountains, Fortune, that sometimes pleases herself in bestowing her favours upon those that least expect them, helped her to one stop more, than ever she had hoped for.  
Anthony of Bourbon, King of Navarre was charged with the conduct of the Princess into Spain, and he was to remit her upon the Frontier into the hands of the Cardinal of Burgos, and the Duke De l' Infantado. This King possessed only the lower Navarre, because the Upper had been usurped from his Wives Great Grandfather by the Spaniards; but yet, not to prejudice the right he pretended to upon them both, he would not acknowledge the place that at that time separated his Dominions from those of the King of Spain for the true Spanish Frontier, but he required a declaration from the Deputies, that the Delivery he should make of the Princess in that place, should in no way hurt his pretensions. The Declaration was of too great consequence to be accorded without express order, and therefore they were forced to write to Madrid, and expect His Majesty's answer in the place where they were. Philip would have been glad to have been spared this trouble by the Court of France, and that this Commission had been given to some body else, rather than to the King of Navarre: But the Princes of the House of Guise, at that time the new and absolute Masters of all Affairs, had their particular reasons, for keeping the Princes of the Blood, as much as they could, from approaching the Court or the King's Person, and their design being only to seek out fair pretensions so to do, they were ravished to find so plausible an one, of delivering themselves from him that troubled them the most. In short, the King of Spain saw himself obliged, either quickly to satisfy the King of Navar's demand, or else to bring the business to a Negotiation, to obtain of the Court of France that he might be called back, and another sent in his place. This last way seemed to be of an insupportable length for a Prince, that was in expectation of the most lovely person in the world for his Wife: Wherefore this great Politician satisfied, for that time, his amorous impatience to the prejudice of his Interests, and wrote to his Deputies to grant the King of Navarre his demand. Presently after the Queen began her Journey to Madrid, and was met upon the way by Don Carlos, who was accompanied, besides many other considerable persons, by his Cousin Alexander Farnese the young Prince of Parma, and by Rui Gomez de Silua, Prince of Eboli, his Governor, and the King's great 
* The Father Hila●rois of Coss. Min. in his Elegy of this Queen.  Favourite. At the first news the Queen had of the Prince's coming, such opposite sentiments did raise themselves in her mind, and did agitate her with so much violence, that she fell into a 〈◊〉 in her women's arms, and could not be brought to herself, till Don Carlos was ready to ask leave to salute her. After the first civilities, these two illustrious Persons, taken up with the mutual consideration of each other, left off speaking, and the rest of the company holding their peace out of respect, there was for some time a silence extraordinary enough in such an occasion. 
* Brantome in his Philip the 2 d.  Don Carlos was not shaped according to the exactest rules of Symmetry; but besides the excellency of his complexion, and one of the finest heads in the world, his eyes were so full of fire and life, and his Mien was so softy and martial, that he could not with reason be thought any ways unpleasing. At first, the wonderful beauty of the Queen did even dazzle his eyes; but the consideration of what he had lost in losing her, quickly changed his admiration into sorrow; and foreseeing what he was like to suffer for her, he came by degrees to look upon her with some kind of fear. In the mean time the Duke De l' Infantado thought, that the Queen stayed out of civility, to know when it was Don Carlos pleasure to go, and that the Prince out of respect stayed for the same reason. This made him put the Queen in mind, that it was time to be going; and by that means he drew them both out of a greater perplexity than perhaps he was aware of. The Prince having taken his place in the Queen's Coach, never lifted his eyes from off her all the way; and he had all the conveniency he could desire to consider her, and undo himself. The Queen soon observed it; and a secret Sentiment, of which she was not the Mistress, made her find some kind of sweetness in seeing the disorder Don Carlos was in. Yet she durst not at first seem to observe him too exactly, and he could not look upon her without trembling: But at last their eyes, after having avoided one another's rencontre for some time, not able to do themselves any farther violence, and meeting one another by chance, had not the force to withdraw themselves from the contemplations of so tempting objects. It was by these faithful Interpreters, that Don Carlos told the Queen all he had to say to her. He prepared her by a thousand sad and passionate looks to suffer all the obstinacy and greatness of his passion. The heat of this Prince, burdened by its own secret, and pressed with the grief of its misfortune, could no longer defer to ease itself; and the opinions he conceived by the troubled and discomposed carriage of the Queen, that she was not ignorant of his meaning, gave him so sensible a joy, that it made him forget, for some moments, both the good Fortune of his Father, and his own unhappiness. This little satisfaction gave him a liberty of mind at the first meeting of the King and Queen, which otherwise he could not have hoped for; but the Princess was so intent upon her melancholy thoughts, that the presence of her Husband could not draw her out of them. When they were arrived at Madrid, and that the King had received her at her coming out of the Coach; after the first Ceremonies practised in those occasions, she set herself to look fixedly upon him, without thinking on what she did, as if she had observed whether or no he took notice of the trouble she was in. 
* Brantome in his Discourse of this Queen.  The King, far enough from suspecting the true cause of her disturbance, asked her roughly enough, Whether she were displeased to see that his head was already full of grey haires ● These words were taken for an ill omen by those that stood by, and some judged from that very time that the union between two persons so different in that, as well as upon several other accounts, could never be happy.  
The Court of Spain that had harkened to the wonders that were commonly reported of the Queen's Beauty, as to the ordinary exaggerations given to the good qualities of Princesses, was infinitely astonished when it saw that all that had been reported of her came short of the truth.  
This Princess was born into the World with all the advantages Nature could bestow upon her, and she was then in that flourishing Age which is requisite to make a perfect Beauty. All beautiful persons do not touch all sorts of hearts; but the Queen was equally adored by the People, and in the Court. As often as she showed herself in public, so often she triumphed over the hearts of all those that saw her. It was so hard to see her without loving her, that it is to this day a Tradition in the Court of Spain, 
* Brantome, in her Elegy.  That no wise man would venture to look her long in the Face. In fine, if it be true, that beauty is a kind of Natural Royalty, one may say, That never Queen was more properly Queen than she: It had been hard that her happy husband, possessor of so many perfections, should not have been charmed by them. The smallest actions and gestures of this Princess appeared to him extremely taking. He found always in her an attracting sweetness, equally different from the coy severity of the Spanish Women in Public, and the too extravagant Sallies of their passion when in private. Sometimes in making reflection upon these things, he admired his own happiness, but it was only in himself; for he did not think it becoming his Grandeur to let so young a person know the weakness she was the cause of in him. And if she suspected any thing of it, she had quickly lost that thought, by considering the little trust he seemed to put in her, his severe carriage towards her, and his regularity to shut all his caresses within the bounds of the night, as if he had been afraid lest she should have seen him in some posture less grave than that in which he was usually seen by other People. This way of proceeding, so little obliging in appearance, and so differing from that agreeable unruliness of the passions, that ordinarily accompanies the happy condition of satisfied Lovers, did in no wise answer the Idea the Queen had formed of the life that two Married People, happy enough to love one another, aught to lead. So that she looked upon her Husband as a Man of whom she possessed nothing but the Body, and whose mind was wholly filled with Politic thoughts and ambitious designs. In the mean time, she was so extremely loved by him, that the enjoyment of her, far from diminishing his passion, did but augment it: whether it were that the possession of the object loved, which satisfies so fully the desires of most Husbands, served only to increase his, by discovering to him every day new hidden beauties, or that the secret he made to her of his love redoubled its violence.  
In the mean time Don Carlos was marvellously unquiet to know what thoughts the Queen had of him. And though every time she looked upon him, he thought he discovered in her eyes a secret and passionate languishing, which appeared not there at other times, yet he durst not believe even what he saw: whatsoever impatience he had, to have a clearer knowledge in this point, she being but very seldom alone, during the public divertisements that were made in honour of her Wedding, he was a great while without being able to entertain her in private: but at last, fortune, which pleaseth herself, in furthering those designs, that can have no other than unhappy events, offered him an occasion of so doing, when he the least expected it. The King being come into Spain but a little while before the Queen, had not as yet paid the last honours due to the Body of the Emperor, who then lay in State some day's journeys from Madrid, in the Monastery of the Hieronimites, where He had ended his days. The Queen was well pleased to accompany her Husband in this Voyage, to see a Country that was reported to be the most beautiful part in all Spain. The Convent of the Hieronimites of St. Justus is situate in a Valley at the entrance of Extramadura, which stretcheth itself along the Banks of the River Guadiana, from the Frontiers of Castilia to that of Portugal.  
This Valley is encompassed with hills of an extraordinary height, the least fruitful places of which are covered with those eternally-green Trees, which are not to be found but in those hot Countries. A thousand little Brooks, that have their Springs among these Woods, after many curious turnings and windings cast themselves into the River that crosses the Plain; and the Soil that is made fertile by this great quantity of running water, hath always brought forth an infinite number of Orange-Trees, Lemmon-Trees, and other such like plants that grow under this happy Climate. These Brooks in the hottest days of Summer do maintain in the shady walks of this Desert, a cooleness, which by all the Artifice of Man cannot be produced in another place, and the Greene's which always grow upon their Banks have so lively a lustre, that the pencil of the skilfullest Painter could never compose one so beautiful. The Court being arrived unto this solitude, which Charles the Fifth had rendered so famous by his retreat, the King after having performed the first duties of Piety, would needs see a young Religious Man that his Father had much loved; and among other things he was curious to know the original of this Friendship: he was told, That the Emperor going one morning, when it came to his turn, to wake the other Religious, found this young Man, who was then a Novice, buried in so profound a sleep, that he had much ado to make him rise; that the Novice at last getting up with much discontent, and at best not above half awake, could not keep himself from saying to him, That he might well enough be contented to have troubled the quiet of the World, so long as he had lived in it, without coming to disturb the repose of those that had forsaken it; and that this answer had so taken the Emperor, that he had testified a particular inclination to him ever after. After some other discourses, all the Company separated themselves to take a Walk in this agreeable Wilderness, so that the Queen, who was wearied with the journey, was left almost alone with Don Carlos. And as those that stayed with them were not of a quality to interest themselves in their conversation; Don Carlos ravished to find such an opportunity, proposed to her to go and rest herself in a little Wood of Orange-trees that was behind the Apartment of the Emperor; thither they went, and the Prince who was afraid of being interrupted, presently began the discourse with a liberty made the Queen lose the suspicion she had of his design. At first he conjured her not to disquiet herself for the things he had to say to her, and to believe, that he would never give her any other trouble then that of hearing him. Afterwards he beseeched her to remember the time, when they were destined for each other, and to consider what impression so charming a hope must needs have made upon his heart. You may easily believe, Madam (continued he) that the sight of you, hath not defaced this impression; and I feel but too well, that it will never be defaced in me. The Queen at first could not keep herself from taking pleasure to see a man have so passionate sentiments for her, and such as no body ever yet durst testify to her. But afterwards making reflection on the words of Don Carlos, she comprehended so well their force, and they gave her so sad an Idea of the state of that Prince's mind, that they made her conceive a great deal of pity for him. She confessed to him, That the esteem she had heretofore had for his person, at the time she was designed to be his Wife, did not permit her to see his suffering without grief, nor to deny him those consolations which she could give him without offending her duty. The Prince answered her, That he pretended to no other consolation, then that of seeing her, and speaking to her: But the Queen, who perhaps was afraid of saying more than she had a mind to, rose up at these words, and walking towards the Prince of Parma and Rui Gomez, whom she saw coming towards her, she only told Don Carlos, That if he were wise, and loved her truly, far from seeking her company, he would do what he could to avoid it. Don Carlos was extremely satisfied with the Declaration he had made to her of his passion, and his carriage afterward was as free, as before it seemed to be constrained. The Qneen was one of the first that took notice of this change: and, as there is no form under which love may not be disguised to insinuate itself into a heart, no not so much as that of reason and virtue itself, she thought herself obliged both out of prudence and generosity, to keep secret the passion of this Prince. In this thought she could not hinder herself from letting him know, that she looked upon the change of his humour as an effect of his discretion. Don Carlos, the first time he could find an opportunity of speaking to her in private, after the return of the Court to Madrid, took the liberty to put her in mind of it; and he assured her, with a great deal of pleasure, that there was no sort of humour, nor manner of life so contrary to his natural inclination, but his passion could make him undertake for her sake. After this, they made one another Confidents of as many particularities of their lives as were fit to be related. Don Carlos told the Queen all that had passed in his heart and mind, ever since the first time he had heard her spoken of. And she (when he had done speaking) made him the History of her Infancy, with a thousand little circumstances, which employed as agreeably his intention, as they would have seemed tedious to an indifferent person. Only when she came to that part of her Discourse that touched the resolution of their Marriage, she did not enlarge herself upon the Sentiments she had had on that occasion, with so much liberty as the Prince had done upon his; but the violence he saw she did herself to hide them; told him more than she concealed. In such pleasing Entertainments it was that these two illustrious Persons spent the time they could have to be together; when fortune, already weary of favouring so innocent a commerce, engaged Don Carlos in an adventure, that was the foundation of all his misfortunes.  
Of all the Ladies, in whom the Queen's beauty caused envy and jealousy, there was none that had greater reason to hate her upon that account, than the Princess of Eboli; in wit and beauty she surpassed all the Court, and for this reason, as well as because of the great favour her Husband was in with the King, she held the first rank among the Ladies. She had an equal Love for magnificence and pleasure, and, as she thought, nothing capable of resisting the charms of her person and wit, she had at first formed a design upon the King's heart: but the Queen's beauty having rendered her project fruitless, she attempted to make Don Carlos in Love with her, not thinking to find in the heart of the Son, the same obstacle that had hindered her success with the Father. Rui Gomez, in quality of the Prince's Governor, was lodged in the same Apartment with him; the Princess of Eboli his Wife, besides the conveniency of seeing Don Carlos, had often occasion of obliging him, in reconciling him with her husband, with whom he had some little Quarrels every day. Don Carlos who was very generous, and who saw with what zeal she employed herself for him, was not wanting in gratitude to her for it, and lived very civilly with her.  
These favourable dispositions giving the Princess good hopes concerning her enterprise, she quickly found out the means to bring him to the point she desired. The admiration he had for the Queen, caused in him a certain contempt of all other Women. Besides, it is well known, that most young people of that quality love naturally to divert themselves to the cost of others, and the flattery of those that praise them, accustomes them to those sorts of disobliging Jests, in stead of reproving them for it. Don Carlos, who was not exempt from all the faults of his Age and quality, and the Prince of Parma, yet younger, and more hotheaded than he, having one day played one of their ordinary tricks to some women of the first Quality, who complained of them, the Princess of Eboli had much ado to obtain of Rui Gomez not to speak of it to the King. That very night this Woman being alone in her Closet with Don Carlos, she began to reproach him with the little consideration he had for the Ladies, and after having made him a thousand Railleries' upon that Subject; she concluded, that the friendship she had for him must needs be very strong, to make her pardon those kind of things. The Prince who perceived not her design, and who was obliged in gratitude to profess much affection to her, answered her, laughing; That she had more reason to employ herself for him, than perhaps she thought; because, the little consideration he had for all other Women, came from the Monopoly she had made of all the esteem he was capable of for that Sex. The Princess charmed with those words, which she took for a declaration of Love, answered him in a manner that opened his eyes, and made him perceive his good fortune; At first he was of the mind to make use of it, and, it seemed to him, that never Infidelity was more excusable than that he was going to commit.  
This Princess was of those Women, who, without having all their Features exactly proportioned, have something that touches more than the most regular Beauties. But, how dangerous soever she were, Don Carlos was yet full of the passion he had for the Queen, his imagination represented her to him at that instant, with those graces and that sweetness, that made all other Beauties appear rude and insipid in comparison of hers; and, the force of this Idea made him all on a sudden look upon the Princess with a disdain, which she had no reason to expect from him. Yet he answered her Compliment in the most obliging manner he could, without satisfying her desire: but, she saw well enough that he pretended an affection which really he had not. A Woman, that hath seen herself in this condition, never forgets it, and remembers it with rage, if she hath not cause to remember it with pleasure. We shall see the effects this rage produced in the heart of the Princess of Eboli; in the mean time, Love, that had pity of her Adventure, brought a new Personage upon the Stage of this Court, to repair the fault of Don Carlos.  
It was Don John of Austria, Natural Son of Charles the Fifth, that the King took about that time out of the hands of a Spanish Nobleman, who had brought him up as his own Son; and, though this young Prince had always thought himself to be so, he was as fierce and as ambitious as if he had known his true birth. When this Spaniard who passed for his Father, came to cast himself at his feet, before he presented him to the King, Don John looked upon him in that posture with as much tranquillity, as if he had a long while expected this change. Seeing nothing in the New Rank he was entered into above his courage, he was not at all dazzled with it, and all the Court saw with admiration the Son of Don Lewis Quisciada accustom himself in less than half an hours time to act the Son of an Emperor.  
This new Prince not being of an humour to make use of all precautions necessary to defend his heart against the charms of the Queen, fell in Love with her as soon as he saw her. And whether it were that his passion flattered his vanity, or that he hoped to make it serve to the establishment of his fortune, when he perceived it, he made no attempt to cure himself of it; and as he was naturally a dissembler, it was easy for him to hide the assiduity he manifested about the Queen's Person, under the pretext of the necessi y of his appearance at Court. His overcarefulness soon displeased Don Carlos; and though this Princess would have persuaded him that she was glad of that obstacle, to hinder the freedom of their conversation, that so she might be less exposed to suffer the expressions of his Love, yet she conceived an aversion for Don John, of which she would not examine the reason.  
There is no rencontre in the life of Man where dissimulation is of so great use, as in love, nor any in which it is harder to dissemble. The Prince could not always be so absolutely Master of his passion, when the presence of Don John was troublesome to him, as that this latter did not at length perceive something thereof; And as there is nothing so penetrating as the eyes of a Rival, he had quickly deceived the reason of it. This knowledge gave him an extreme curiosity, to know, whether the Prince's Passion were known to the person that caused it, and whether she answered it or no. To be the better informed of this, he resolved to counterfeit being in Love with a French-woman that waited upon the Queen, who was handsome enough to render this counterfeit probable, and who appeared to be more in her favour then any of her other women. He spared nothing of all he could employ to corrupt her; but it was impossible he could draw from her the secret of her Mistress, because she knew it not; for, the Queen, far from acquainting any body else with it, would have been glad, if she could, to have hid it from herself. He took pretence of talking to this Lady, that so he might leave Don Carlos alone with the Queen, and he became insensibly as commode as till then he had been troublesome. He thought, that if they were of intelligence with each other, he should know nothing of it, by interesting himself in their conversations, because they would then take heed of him, and that his assiduity would but make them hate him the worse, and keep him the more out of their privacy, into which he desired passionately to be admitted. The Queen appeared so reserved, that he despaired of entering into hers: He attempted then to get that of the Prince, whose free and ingenuous nature promised him a greater facility; in this design he changed wholly his carriage towards him; He used no more that familiarity which the quality of an Uncle gave him, and he became the most respectful of his Courtiers. He managed so dextrously the occasions of making People take notice of Don Carlos' good qualities, that this Prince, who suspected not his esteem of flattery, because he knew that he deserved it, came by degrees to think that his Uncle loved him. Don Carlos did in the end, even put a great deal of confidence in him, but as that of a truly generous Man, and who loves really, never extends itself to the secret of his love when he is well used: The Prince at length entrusted all things to his Uncle's knowledge, besides that one he desired to know.  
Don John growing desperate, with not being able to discover any thing, resolved to take Counsel of some body that had more experience than himself in those matters. As he was the handsomest and best proportioned Prince in Europe, he had at first mightily pleased the Princess of Eboli, who knew not that the Queen was to be fatal to all her designs; Yet, she did not wholly spoil this last, as she had done the others. Don John was one of those happy complexions, that are never sensible to beauty, but in view of the pleasures it can give; and that of the Princess of Eboli promising much, touched at least his senses, if it did not reach his heart, as the Queens had done. On the other side, he considered the Princess as a person whose Counsels might serve him very considerably, in a Court, where all things were new to him. He prevented by his officiousness the testimonies of good will which she sought to give him; and appeared so transported with joy at the first Marks he saw of it in her, that she well judged he would answer to greater with much ardour. So that they had soon established a Commerce, by so much the more agreeable, as their hearts were not enough concerned in it to trouble their pleasures by jealousies, and those other too delicate scrupulosities, that great passions use to inspire.  
Don John living in this manner with the Princess of Eboli, resolved fully to acquaint her with all he knew concerning the love of Don Carlos. It is easy to judge of the joy she had at the hearing of this news: she was so taken up with it, that she made no reflection upon the interest Don John took in the Queen's heart: Only she counselled him, continually to observe all things, because how circumspect soever one be, it is impossible not to forget one's self sometimes, when one is truly in love. And as she examined not the interest he seemed to take in this matter, so he was not too curious in searching out the reason of that zeal, with which she promised him to employ herself in it. He thought, without deeper examination, that it was an effect of the complaisance she had for him, and of the curiosity ordinary to those of her sex. It is probable, that two so clearsighted persons would soon have discovered, what they had so much interest to know, if it had not been for an accident which broke all their measures, in absenting Don Carlos from the Court, and which cannot well be understood, without following the Story to its first source.  

* Mr. de Thou, Aubigné Etr.  Among the reports that had run about in the world concerning the Emperor's retirement; the most strange of all was, that the continual negotiations he had had with the Protestants of Germany, had bred in him some inclinations for their opinions, and that he had hid himself in that solitude, only to have the greater liberty of ending his days in those exercises of piety, that were most conformable to his secret disposition. It was said, he could not pardon himself the ill treatment he had made to those brave Princes of that party, that the chance of War had brought into his power. Their virtue, which in the midst of their misfortune shamed his prosperity, had bred in him by degrees some sort of esteem for their opinions. He durst not any longer condemn a Religion, to which so many great persons made it their glory, to sacrifice all that men can have most precious in the world. This esteem appeared by the choice he made of persons, strongly suspected of Heresy, for his Spiritual conduct, as of the Doctor Cacalla his ordinary Preacher; of the Archbishop of Toledo, and above all, of Constantine Pontius Bishop of Drossa, and the Director of his Conscience. It hath been known since, that the Cell where he died at St. Justus, was filled on all sides with little Papers, written with his own hand, concerning Justification and Free Grace, which was not very far from the Doctrine of the Innovators. But nothing confirmed this opinion so much as his Will, there was almost no pious Legacies in it, nor any foundations for Prayers for his Soul; and it was made in a manner so different from those of all zealous Catholics, that the Inquisition of Spain thought it had right to take notice of it, yet it durst not make any noise before the King's arrival. But this Prince having signalised his entry into that Country, by the exemplary punishment of all that were adherents to the new opinion; the Inquisition growing bolder by his example, attacked first the Archbishop of Toledo, afterwards the emperor's ordinary Preacher, and last of all Constantine Pontius. The King having suffered them to be imprisoned all three, the people looked upon his patience as a Masterpiece of his zeal for the true Religion; but all the rest of Europe saw with horror the Confessor of the Emperor Charles (in whose arms that Prince expired, and who had, as it were, received into his bosom his great Soul) delivered to the most cruel and most shameful of all punishments, and that too by the hands of the King his Son. In effect, the Inquisition thinking fit in the prosecution of their Process, to accuse these three persons of having an hand in making the Emperor's Will, had the boldness to condemn them to be burnt with the Will. The King awakened himself at this Sentence as at a clap of Thunder: At first the jealousy he had of his Father's glory, made him find some pleasure in seeing his memory exposed to this affront; but afterwards having considered the consequences of this attempt, he hindered its effect by the most gentle and secret ways he could choose, thereby to save the honour of the holy Office, and make no breach upon the Authority of that Tribunal. As for Don Carlos, at the first news he received of this business, he talked of it only as a matter fit for raillery; but seeing that the Inquisition continued in good earnest its pursuit, he conceived an indignation proportionable to what he owed to the memory of the Emperor. To comprehend the reason of the particular interest he took in that business, we must know, that this great Personage, who, amongst other heroic qualities, did sovereignly possess that of understanding himself in men, had conceived extraordinary hopes of his Grandson. When he retired himself into Spain, he would needs have him along with him: And it was in that excellent School of Wisdom and Magnanimity, that Don Carlos had confirmed himself in his natuaal love for glory, and for all Princely virtues. The desire he had to answer worthily the pains of so illustrious a Preceptor, had in some sort ripened his Wit before the time, and made it bring forth fruits, that were not to be hoped for in so early a season. The Emperor knew how to manage the fiery and violent nature of the Prince with so much artifice and dexterity, that he had visibly moderated it in a short time. But it being to be feared, lest this great ardour of mind should incline him to evil courses, if he had endeavoured utterly to have suppressed it, he gave it all the liberty necessary, by encouraging him in the pursuit of glory, of which one may say, That this wise Governor abandoned all the Beauties to the violence of his Pupil's desires. It is easy to imagine, that this education had imprinted in Don Carlos an extraordinary respect for the Emperor his Grandfather, and that the endeavouring to blot the memory of that illustrious Deceased, was an offence to him in the most sensible part of his Soul. Don John and the Prince of Parma, interressed in this glorious memory as well as he, were not less provoked with the affront. They blamed all three the King's weakness, who did not resist this insolence with all the violence they could have wished, and they conceived for him a contempt, that never ended but with their lives. And as they were yet too young to comprehend, that the most absolute Kings have no rights so sacred in the minds of their people, as those that are taken from the pretence of Religion, they spoke publicly of the attempt of the Inquisition with as great transports of passion, as people of their quality were capable of having, upon so justifiable a subject; nay▪ and they went so far as to threaten, that they would utterly destroy the holy Office, and all its supports. The people, who learned these passages no otherwise, then as the Inquisitors, or those who were employed by them, were pleased to relate them, did testify, how extremely they resented such proceedings. The King fore saw at the very first, the ill consequences that might follow unto the Princes from their indignation, but knowing that they had so far forgot themselves, as to blame some of his own actions, he would not speak to them of it himself, for fear of drawing upon him some disrespectful answer. Rui Gomez, whom he charged with this Commission, acquitted himself of it with all the earnestness, that the importance of the matter seemed to require. Don John and the Prince of Parma, who had naturally more the mastery of themselves then Don Carlos, rendered themselves to his reasons; and Ambition being their predominant passion, they had all the sorrow imaginable, to have put so considerable an obsticle to their fortune, as the hatred of the Inquisitors, which by this means they had brought upon themselves, and by consequence that of the People. The Prince on the contrary, whose nature was to be the more irritated by opposition, could never be brought to confess that he was in the wrong. In the mean time, the Doctor Cacalla was burnt alive, with an Effigies that represented Constantine Pontius, who was dead some days before in the Prison. The King was forced to suffer this Execution, that so he might oblige the holy Office to suffer the Archbishop of Toledo to appeal to Rome, and that the Emperor's Will might be no more spoken of.  
This accommodation of affairs appeased Don Carlos, but it did by no means please the Inquisitors; and that being a sort of people incapable of pardoning, they raised so great murmurings among the people, that what care soever the King could take, there was no way of making the noise cease, but by absenting the Prince from the Court for some time.  
Alcala was then in its greatest lustre, and all the considerable persons that went into Spain▪ failed not to visit so famous an University. The King pretended, that the Princes had the same curiosity; and his pretence to hasten their voyage the more, was, that the Prince of Parma was shortly to leave them, and to go under the conduct of the Count of Egmont into Flanders, where he was to be married. When Don Carlos knew this resolution, and that now he must necessarily leave the Queen, he began to see the precipice into which he had thrown himself, and the interest of his love forced from his mind a repentance of his past carriage, which was more than the interest of his safety and greatness could ever have done. The King, who could by no means endure to be separated from Rui Gomez, obliged the Count of Egmont to take this Favourites place about the Princes during the voyage of Alcala. This Count was one of the most accomplished Captains of of his age, and was covered with the glory he had gotten in the last War at the Battles of St. Quintin and Gravelin, and of so many great men that had been form in Charles the Fifth's School, no one had ever had a greater share than he in the esteem of that Emperor. The Duchess of Parma well foresaw the storm, that since that time was raised in the Provinces, which the King her Brother had entrusted her with, and she judged it convenient to represent to him the inconveniences that were to be feared from those novelties he had a mind to introduce. This Commission demanded a man of the quality and profession of the Count Egmont, and one accustomed to speak to Princes with that noble liberty, which is so useful to them, and of which so few of those about them are capable▪ Don Carlos, who naturally loved all extraordinary men, engaged the Count to entertain him▪ as they road along▪ with a description of the last Battle, in which he had commanded. The Count, who was charmed with his curiosity, satisfied it fully; and Don Carlos made appear an extreme impatiency of seeing himself in a condition to do something like that he heard related; he assured the Count of Egmont, that if ever the troubles in Flanders came to break out in an open War, as the Governess seemed to apprehend they would, nothing should hinder him from coming into those Provinces, there to learn under him his Apprenticeship of War.  
The voyage of the Princes was not long, the Town of Alcala presented Don Carlos with a Horse of great price, but as furious as he was handsome. The Prince having desired to see him mounted, was ill satisfied with all those that road him, and would needs try how he could ride him himself: The Horse, whose mouth was already very much heated, as soon as the Prince began to prick him, took a fright, and ran away with him with so much violence, that Don Carlos thought it his best way to throw himself off; but he did it so unfortunately, that he was left for dead upon the place; and though he came to himself some hours after, yet when the Surgeons had examined the wound he had received in his head, they all despaired of his life. In this extremity, he sent the Marquis of Posa, his Favourite, to carry his last Adieu to the Queen. The Princess of Eboli went to him, at the first report she heard of this accident, to see after what manner he would receive her. The dissimulation of the Queen, who was not prepared for so rude a trial, abandoned her at this news; and though her mouth, accustomed to be silent, did not permit her grief to declare itself by complaints, her silence, and the disorder she was in, discovered more of her thoughts, than all the words in the world could have done. Yet how great soever her affliction seemed to be, there had been always so much friendship seen between her and Don Carlos, that no body was surprised therewith. But the Princess of Eboli, that was a great proficient in the mysterious Sciences of Love, could not comprehend, how so violent a despair in the Queen, should be nothing but an effect of friendship. In the mean time the people, inspired by the Inquisitors, did not seem to discover any great sorrow for this misfortune, but looked upon it as a manifest punishment of God upon Don Carlos for his impiety. The Queen, who thought she had now nothing more to housewife, could not refuse herself the sad consolation of letting the Prince know, the pitiful condition in which he left her. She wrote to him all that love and despair can suggest most tender and most affecting; and she made the Marquis of Posa go back to him, with order presently to bring back her Letter, in case he should not arrive at Alcala till after the death of Don Carlos.  
The joy with which the Prince's soul was filled at the receipt of this Letter was so great, that it restored him his life. As soon as he was out of danger, the King made him be brought back to Madrid, thinking that the animosity of the people would in part be appeased by this cruel adventure. The first time the Queen saw Don Carlos, she asked him for her Letter; but how earnest soever she were to have it back, the Prince, to whom this testimony of her affection was dearer, than the life it had rendered him, persisted always in his resolution to keep it, not thinking that this Letter was once more to decide his destiny. At his return, he found the Princess great with child, and her greatness did provoke his jealousy to a degree, that made him make so odd and unreasonable▪ complaints to her, that any body but she would have thought that he had lost his wits. Whilst his Cure was finishing, she lay in, of the Illustrious arch-duchess of Flanders, who was afterwards Heiress of her Beauty and Wit, as well as of her Name. A little while after she fell dangerously sick of the Small Pox; but the prayers of the people for her were so effectual, that she recovered, not only with a greater degree of health, but also 
* Brantome in his Discourses upon this Queen.  much more beautiful than before. Don Carlos had hardly had the time to testify his joy to her for her recovery, when she was forced to go to Bayonne, whither the Court of France was come to meet her, and where the charms of her conversation, and her prudent and modest carriage did not cause less admiration of her in people's minds, than her beauty caused disturbance in their hearts. Don Carlos saw with all the discontent imaginable these divers hindrances, which Fortune raised up one after another to interrupt his commerce with the Queen, when this last Voyage, after which he thought he should have nothing more to fear, drew upon them an affair, which imbittered the sweetness of their life by some obstacles, that never had an end.  

* Mr. de Thou.  Jeanne de Albret Queen of Navarre, and Widow of the late King Anthony, had a pretty while before this time declared herself of the New Religion; and she was a Princess that governed her Subjects with a Piety, that might well be an example to all her Sect; and with a Justice, whose equal perhaps had never been seen in the Court of any King. Her Son, whom she brought up in the same belief, was looked upon from that very time by the Religionaries of France as their Protector. The Spaniards seeing that the pretensions of that House upon the upper Navarre, fell into the hands of this Child, brought up in an hereditary hatred against them, that was sharpened by the difference of their Religion, and upheld by a party so redoutable, as was that of the Hugonots at that time, to deliver themselves from all these fears, resolved forcibly to take away this young Prince, with the Queen his Mother, & the Princess his Sister, out of the heart of their Dominions, and to carry them into Spain▪ & put them into the hands of the Inquisition. The chief of the Catholic party in France, being of intelligence with the Duke D' Alva, to deprive the Hugonots of so considerable a support, as was that of the House of Navarre, engaged themselves with joy to contribute whatsoever depended on them, for the happy success of this enterprise. An infamous Villain called Captain Dominick, born in the Country of Bearn, was charged with the execution of the business, by reason of the perfect knowledge he had of the Country. Part of the Troops that waited then at Barcelona for a favourable wind to pass into Barbary, were appointed to advance themselves as far as Tarragona. From this Town it was easy secretly to lead a considerable Body of Horse through the Mountains, and so to surprise the Queen and her Children at Pau in Bearn, where they made their residence, and where they had almost no other Guard then the hearts of their Subjects. But though their design were wonderfully well laid, the great Destiny of the young Prince rendered it vain: It preserved him to be one day the Restorer of France to its ancient splendour, and the terror of the Spaniards. A little while before the voyage of Bayonne, Captain Dominick, assisted by some Governors of the French Frontier, that depended upon those who made him act, had disposed all things necessary upon the places appointed for his attempt. After that he was gone into Spain, where he went to receive the Orders of the Duke D' Alva, for the advancement of the Troops destined for its execution. The Duke, who was then at Alva, after some conference with him, sent him back to the King, who held the States of the Kingdom at Mouzon. The Captain fell dangerously sick in going thither, and was forced to stay at Madrid, where he was necessarily to pass. During his illness he was assisted in all things by a French man a servant to the Queen, and who was his Countryman; Not knowing how to testify his gratitude, he chanced one day to say to him, That his life was of greater importance than perhaps he thought, and that the care which was taken of him should be one day magnificently rewarded. These words were pronounced after a manner that might make one judge, they had some extraordinary foundation, and they caused in his Friend the curiosity of penetrating the Mystery they seemed to contain. The Captain could refuse nothing to a Man, to whom he thought he owed his life: And whether it were that the fear of death had inspired him with some repentance of his crime, or that the Disease had disturbed his brain, he paid with this secret the services he had received. This Friend told it the same day to the Queen his Mistress, who was then at Madrid, and who lived in a straight friendship with the Queen of Navarr.  
At the recital of this horrible Plot she could not withhold her tears; and whilst the Captain was curing, and ordering all things with the King that concerned his Enterprise, she made notice of it be given in Bearn, and at Bourdeaux, where the Queen her Mother was at that time. The Attempt having failed in this manner, the Queen, conducted by the Duke d' Alva, went to meet the Court of France at Bayonne: This Court was divided into two Factions, almost as great enemies, one of the other, as they were both one and the other of the Hugonots their common enemies. Although they were both Catholics, one of them did more especially attribute to themselves this quality: It was that which was headed by the Friends of the Duke d' Alva, the first Authors of the Bearnish Conspiracy. And as they were already laying the foundations of the League, that appeared ten years afterwards, they lived in a perfect intelligence with the Spaniards, but it was not so with the other Faction, which was that of the King, and of which Catherine de Medicis was the chief; Arbitraryness, and Independency were the only end of all this Woman's Actions; she knew, that all inward commerce with the Spaniard was but so much slavery, and she put no other trust in the King her Son-in-law, and his Ministers, then that to which she was obliged by necessity, and her Relation to them.  
In the mean time, how reserved soever she were, the Complices of the Duke d' Alva having a familiar intercourse with her upon account of some other intrigues, turned so many Stones, and set so many Spies about her at this Interview at Bayonne, that at last they knew of a certainty that it was the Queen of Spain that had ruined their enterprise; but, they could never comprehend how this enterprise should come to her knowledge.  
The Duke d' Alva could not believe that so young a Woman was capable of venturing upon so bold and delicate an action.  
The familiarity of this Princess with Don Carlos had always been suspected by him, because he knew that Don Carlos naturally hated him.  
He thought she had done nothing without advising with the Prince; and, as there are but few g iefs so sensible, as that one feels for having done a wicked Action to no purpose; He took so strong a Resolution to Revenge himself on them, that at last he brought it about. Yet Don Carlos knew nothing of this Conspiracy before the voyage of Bayonne; but, the thing being afterwards divulged, the Queen confessed the truth to him.  
The Prince amazed at the horribleness of this villainous attempt, could not hinder himself from saying, in the presence of Don John and the Princess of Eboli, That he would one day cruelly punish those that gave such base Counsel to the King his Father.  

* Mayerne Thurquets history of Spain.  The Duke d' Alva was known by all the World to be the Author of the Plot, and the King did nothing without the advice of Rui Gomez, so that this threat could regard none but those two Ministers; and, the Princess of Eboli having told it to Rui Gomez her Husband, this favourite judged it was high time to begin to fortify himself against the Authority which the Prince's age began now to give him.  
These two Ministers did equally share the favour of the Court, only with this difference, that one might say, That the Duke d' Alva was the King's Favourite, and Rui Gomez the Favourite of Philip.  
This concurrence had sometimes bred some difference between them, but their common interest reunited them upon this occasion. The Duke d' Alva, who did Sovereignly govern all Military Affairs, knowing the warlike inclinations of his Prince, feared he would lessen his Authority upon the first beginnings of any War, by taking the management of it into his own hands. And he was persuaded that Don Carlos would never pardon him a business that was passed between them some years before.  

* Cabreras History of Philip the 2d.  The King had Assembled the States of Arragon, there to make his Son be acknowledged lawful Successor to him in the Government of the Spain's.  
In this Ceremony it being come to the Duke d' Alva's turn to swear Fidelity, the Herald called him by his Name three times in vain. A moment afterward he came out of his rank to acquit himself of his duty, and Don Carlos turned him back very disdainfully, but the Duke excusing himself upon the multitude of busivess he was engaged in that day, by reason of his Office of Great Master; the King obliged the Prince to accept his Submission. As for Rui Gomez, who disposed absolutely of the Justice, and of the King's Exchequer, he was afraid lest the Prince, who naturally loved to give, should himself meddle with bestowing Favours, of which nothing should remain to others, but the merit of executing them. He had been Governor to Don Carlos, and he could never satisfy the King (to whose will he was wholly devoted in this employment) without using the Prince with the same rigour, with which he himself used him. And, as this austere carriage was the true cause of Don Carlos his antipathy to his Father, it is necessary here to relate some particularities thereof, though perhaps a little mean and childish 
* Hugo Blasius, Dutchman, in his Acroma.  Don Carlos being hardly entered upon his Age of reason the Queen of Bohemia his Aunt, who lived then in Spain, made one of her Pages, whom he loved above all the rest, be severely chastised for a very light fault, and he being at that very time extremely violent in all his passions, complained to her of it with a great deal of eagerness, and this Princess having threatened to have him whipped, if he would not hold his peace; Don Carlos, whom one could not more sensibly injure, then in using him like a child, was so out of patience at this threatening, that he gave her a box on the Eare. As soon as she had left him, he began to perceive what he had done▪ and was much disquieted about it; when the Steward of his Household presented himself before him, melted into Tears. Don Carlos, to whom all extraordinary objects were susp cious▪ in the condition he was in, asked him the Subject of his Tears, and knew by him that his Father had known his crime, and had condemned him to death: Those that were present with him observed, that he received indeed this News with some astonishment, but yet without any other mark of fear, then ask▪ Whether there were no pardon to be had for him? One went presently to the King to demand it, and came back with this Answer, That he had obtained it: but, that he should not be quit without losing the Hand wherewith he had struck the Queen. It would be a fine thing indeed (cried he briskly at this Answer) to see a one-handed King. He was told, That it was happiness enough for him that the King contented himself with this punishment: But, a person of the Company having represented to him in private, That if he submitted himself to some voluntary Correction, his Father might be touched with some pity for him; he approved that Counsel, and sent to pray the Cardinal Spinosa to come and Whip him; a thing, which without that consideration, he would never have done.  
Some years afterward, just upon his recovery from a Sickness he had had, the King having taken him aside to reprove him severely for some fault, Don Carlos, who thought himself blamed wrongfully 
* Dicos y echos, di Philippe 2.  was so livelily touched with what his Father said to him, that he fell into a relapse of his Fever at that very moment.  
So harsh an Education had accustomed the Prince to see all his Sentiments and Inclinations contradicted; and, as he was of a disposition directly opposite to that of his Father, he did not ordinarily govern himself after such a manner, as the King could have desired. This had often obliged Rui Gomez earnestly to desire that he might be excused from waiting on him any longer; he was afraid that the King would at last, as Fathers ordinarily do, accuse him of the little comfort he had in his Son; but, this Favourite knew not, that those people, who, like his Master, think themselves very wise, and who brag of constancy above all other virtues, would a thousand times sooner condemn their own Children, then blame a Man they have once chosen; and, are not so much afraid of appearing unfortunate in their Families, as unskilful in their judgements.  
Rui Gomez seeing the King's obstinacy, to continue him in his charge, had used Don Carls with all rigour imaginable, as it were to take away all occasion of blaming him for his ill conduct, so that he judged well that he was to fear all things from the resentment of his Scholar; and, being solicited by his Wife, who, under pretence of taking care of her husband's safety, revenged her despised fav urs: He did all things possible to obl ge the Duke d' Alva to join himself with him against Don Carlos, letting him know, how the Prince had threatened them both.  
What earnestness soever the Princess of Eboli showed to have her part in this combination; her Husband, who had some suspicion of the sincerity of all her officiousness, did not think it fit to entrust her with so important a secret. She told him not all she thought she knew concerning the correspondence betwixt Don Carlos and the Queen. But Rui Gamez, who had a very piercing wit, making reflection in private upon what she had told him, had soon divined the rest. But what Idea soever he attempted to make in his mind concerning this correspondence, he could never form so perfect a conception of it, as when he thought there was some love at the bottom. A thousand things upon which he had not reflected at the time when they were done, came then into his memory. He remembered how he had observed, that when the Queen was spoken of in Don Carlos his presence, that Prince looked upon those that spoke of her, as if he had feared, lest they should observe him at that time, and lest that they said of her had been only to try him. In other occasions, where it seemed, that all the company disputed who should praise the Queen best, Don Carlos praised her not at all in his turn, as the others did: and when he must necessarily speak of her, he was always afraid of saying too little, and his mouth not accustomed to disguise the sentiments of his heart, could ill do a thing it was ignorant of. Rui Gomez considered again, that though the Prince had no consideration for all other women, yet he appeared before the Queen with a certain sweetness and complaisance, that never belied itself, and that rendered him uncapable of being known to those that were acquainted with his humour. In fine, it was not hard to believe, that the marvellous beauty of that Princess, from which the most insensible were forced to turn away their eyes, and against which the oldest and wisest men of the Court had much ado to defend their reason, should make upon the heart of a young Prince, who saw her familiarly every day, the impression it made upon all other.  
Rui Gomez was confirmed in his opinion, by communicating it to the Duke D' Alva, from whom he thought not to hide it. And as it ordinarily happens, that when one hath discovered one part of a secret, the desire one hath to know the rest, makes one endeavour to Divine it, they began to doubt at that very time, that the Queen answered Don Carlos his passi n. This passion at first flattered their animosity, they were glad for some moments that they had in their hands an infallible way of revenging themselves upon this Prince, by discovering his Love to his Father: But afterwards coming to make reflection upon the King's jealous humour, and upon his natural cruelty, they considered the strange extremities, to which apparently it would carry him, and were stricken with horror at that thought. How redoubtable an enemy soever they had in the person of Don Carlos, they intended not to attaque his life, nor ever thought themselves capable of such an intent. No body becomes wicked all at once; and it is not for all sorts of Souls to resolve upon a great piece of villainy the first time it comes into their thoughts. Vice is arrived to by degrees as well as Virtue.  
These two Ministers apprehended above all things, lest the Queen should preoccupy her Husband's mind about the affair of Bearn, so that afterwards he would not believe the truth. They judged, that in the inquietude the King was in, to know how this enterprise had been discovered, he would fix himself upon the first opinion should be given him of it. This Prince even desperate with the ill success of his design, looked no more upon the Duke D' Alva with so favourable an eye as he was wont to do, and perhaps meditated in his own heart his open disgrace, thereby to discharge himself of the blame of this conspiracy. To avoid this blow he was forced to discover to him the truth; but because the end of this discovery was to convince the King, that it was not through the Duke D' Alva's fault that their attempt had failed, the Duke did not judge it convenient to speak to him himself. Rui Gomez was not much less suspected th' n he in this affair: he had almost as great a part in it as the Duke. They thought then that they had need of some third person to render them that good office: and finding none so proper for their pu pose as Antonio Perez, the Secretary of State, they resolved to engage him in their intelligence. This man, who had no interest to hurt either the Prince or Queen, appeared to them difficult to be gained. Nevertheless Rui Gomez presumed enough upon his address, to attempt the bringing it about. The thing proved much easier to him then he thought. Perez was passionately in love with the Princess of Eboli, and till than he had never been able to obtain any thing of her. He asked at first whether she were of the secret; and being told that she was not, after all the refusals he knew he must make, he engaged himself to do all they desired of him. This dextrous Lover knew how furious the Princess was; he doubted not but she was almost desperate, that an intrigue of that consequence should lie hid from her, and knew she was capable of doing any thing to gratify him that should discover it to her. Rui Gomez went presently to give an account of his negotiation to the Duke D' Alva, proud of his good success, and the most contented man in the world to have given his Wife's Gallant an infallible way of corrupting her. And Perez knew so well how to make use of his Secret with his Mistress, that he made her buy it as dear as he pleased.  
In the mean time the Queen, who proved great with child at her return from Bayonne, lay in of the Infanta Katherine Michaelle, her Second Daughter, who was since Duchess of Savoy. The Ministers, who knew the power the Queen's beauty gave her over her Husband's mind, thought fit to take the time of her lying in to justify the Duke D' Alva, that so they might give the King the leisure of forming a resolution upon that they, intended he should know, before he could have time to talk with the Queen by herself. The charge Perez had of Foreign Affairs, gave him often opportunity of entertaining his Majesty in private. On the morrow morning he brought in the discourse of the Conspiracy of Bearn, upon this account, that they had heard, that the Queen of France seemed to be very angry at it, and that she began to revenge herself for it in favouring the Rebels in Flanders, who were then in the first Fits of their Fury. At first he confessed to the King, that he had a long time hesitated to discover to him what he knew, concerning the ill success of this enterprise, what obligation soever lay upon him to do it; but that after having well thought upon it, he believed he could not without a crime continue to be silent: After that he recounted to him exactly that which the Duke D' Alva had learned at Bayonne, concerning the manner in which they had been discovered; he added the discourses which Don Carlos had had upon this business, in presence of Don John and the Princess of Eboli, against those that were concerned in it; and he ended, in praying the King to pardon him the secret, he had till then made him of those things, he could not tell him, without offending in some sort the Two Persons of the world, who, after his own, aught to be most sacred in his Subject's hearts.  
This discourse put the King's mind into an extraordinary perplexity; and though as yet he did not suspect the Queen of any thing, his love made him find the union of sentiments, which by this Affair appeared to be between her and Don Carlos, very strange. His mind possessed by this first motion of jealousy. made him look with indifference upon the attempt they had made upon his Authority; and the care of his Grandieur, which was so natural to him upon all other occasions, gave place, for this once, to a more sensible and more delicate consideration. He observed then for the first time his Son's assiduity about his Wife, and he remembered they had been a long while together destined for each other; but he came presently to himself, and considering the virtue and courage of the Queen, he wholly condemned all such weak suspicions. She had already given other marks of the love she conserved for her Country. Some time before, the difference of the Precedency of the Two Crowns having been decided at Rome in favour of that of France, she could not so well dissemble the joy she had of it, but that she let go some small testimony of her mind. Her first Lady of Honour would have represented to her, that she ought to be more concerned in the discontent of her Husband upon this occasion. But the Queen answered her, That as she did not wonder at the King's grief, so neither ought he to wonder at her joy; and that for her part she was glad to have all the world know, 
* Father Hilarion of Cossa, in his Elegy of this Queen.  that the House out of which she was issued, was better than that unto which she had allied herself. The King making reflection upon this discourse, was fully persuaded, that what she had done against the enterprise of Bearn, proceeded from the same principle of affection for her Kindred; and he considered this horrible enterprise, in which Don Carlos seemed to desire to outvie the Queen, as a generosity pardonable in so young a man.  
Yet though he was willing enough to be at quiet in this point, he resolved to have a clearer knowledge of their commerce for the time to come; but he thought there was no other jealousy mingled with this resolution, then that he ought to have of his Authority. He made great changes in the most important Offices of the Court, that so he might bestow upon the Princess of Eboli the first of all those of the Queen's household, without making appear any affectation in his choice. The familiarity this woman had maintained with Don Carlos, ever since her Husband had been his Governor, rendered her fitter than any other to penetrate into his secrets. This consideration, joined to that she had already reported of the threatenings he had made in her presence, contributed as much as the favour of Rui Gomez, to make her be chosen by the King for this employment. Don Carlos, who thought still that she loved him, ever since that which had passed between them, was not in the least disturbed at her new promotion; and the Queen, who knew that her Husband had too many friends in France, to be ignorant of what she had done, was no way surprised by all this change of Offices. She imagined the reason of it at first, and Don Carlos trying to re-assure her, in answering for the Princess of Eboli, the Queen pressed him to tell her, from whence came the great confidence he had in that Woman? but he could never get leave of his modesty to satisfy her demand. Yet he perceived afterwards that he was deceived, when he saw how carefully the Princess of Eboli watched them. And he not daring to complain of the inconvenience he received by her presence, she pleased herself wonderfully in tormenting this poor Prince. She feigned to have more friendship for him then ever. Never failing to wait upon the Queen, wheresoever she were, as soon as she knew that he was with her, and she made as if it had been her that drew her thither. But though this Woman's vigilancy was incredible, the Queen and Don Carlos found a little while after an opportunity of entertaining one another in particular. The King, who was as much busied about his Escurial, as one may imagine, by the fearful expense he was a● for it, invited the Queen to go see the beginnings of the Proud Structure he was raising, to be an eternal Monument of the Victory of St. Quintin. All that renewed in this Princess' soul the remembrance of a Battle, that had been the fountain of all the misfortunes of her Life ought not apparently to be very pleasing to her.  
Nevertheless, she saw the Preparations than were made for immortalising the memory of that unfortunate day, with all the cheerfulness and expressions of contentment the King could have desired of her, or that he had in himself. It was in this place that the Princess of Eboli left the Queen and Prince alone with the King, and that the King having also left them, to give his order to some of his Builders. Don Carlos, who could not longer live in such a constraint, took that time to conjure the Queen to give him some assured means of talking with her in private, when it should be necessary for their common interest so to do. He pressed her to it in so touching a manner, that she consented to him at the very first, seduced by that poor Prince's despair; So that they set themselves to find out some probable ways, but they all appeared so dangerous to the Queen, that she resolved never to make use of them, how easy soever Don Carlos would make her believe they were. The state of Affairs stood thus, when the Marquis of Bergh, and the Baron of Monteigni, Deputies from Flanders arrived at the Court. And as their Commission was very dangerous, they had founded their principal hopes upon the report of the Prince's generosity, and the good nature of the Queen. To be unhappy, was enough to deserve the Protection of that Princess, and he that was virtuous had merit enough to pretend to the friendship of Don Carlos. The Deputies represented to them the sad condition of the Nobility of Flanders, since the ill Offices that the Cardinal of Cranvella, the principal Minister of the Duchess of Parma their Governess had done them with the King. They exaggerated their innocence and fidelity in the past troubles. They particularly conjured the Prince not to abandon so many of the Emperor's bravest Servants, and the most dear objects of his tenderest affections to the violent and precipitate counsels that the jealousy of their Virtue, and the envy of their Glory inspired the Duke d'Alva with, and, they assured him▪ that the report of his courage was the only consolation they had in their misfortune.  
Don Carlos, whose natural inclination for the War had till then been suspended by the violence of his love, was extremely ashamed at the hearing of this discourse, that he had never yet done any thing for the getting of Glory; he was yet more animated by the Letters which the Deputies presented him from the Count of Egmont: This Count summoned the Prince to make good the Promise he had given him heretofore, to go in person into Flanders as soon as the War should be there kindled. He represented the Affairs of those Provinces in so favourable a disposition for Don Carlos, that the Prince resolved to make the Government of them to be given to him, and hoped, when he should be there, quickly to put himself into a condition of undertaking all that his valour and ambition should counsel him, after that the troubles should be once appeased by his presence. He had hardly well form this resolution, when the Image of the Queen presented itself to his imagination more lovely and charming than he had ever yet seen her, and made him doubt whether he should ever have the force to leave her or no; but, making a serious reflection upon the State of his Affairs, he plainly saw, that all things ought to confirm him in his first resolution.  
At the beginning of their affection the extreme tenderness of the Princess' Age, had not permitted her to hide from Don Carlos the esteem and pity she was touched with for him; but afterwards, time having made her wiser, and perceiving that the testimonies of Friendship she gave him, as innocent as they were, did yet nourish his Love; she represented to him upon all occasions the ill consequences of this Passion, and the miseries to which it would expose them both. How much soever he were possessed with it, he could not hinder himself from acknowledging that she was in the right, and he durst not seem to take it ill that she lived with him for some days after a more reserved manner then ordinary. In so cruel a disturbance of mind, he thought, that he ought to make one generous effort upon himself, to deliver this Princess from an unfortunate Passion, that gave her so just causes of inquietude; And that he could not better rid himself of it, then by a long absence, and a great deal of business; He thought so indeed at first, but he quickly changed his mind at the presence of the Queen and considering what was the pleasure of seeing her, he well perceived he should never resolve to see her no more. In this thought he went and gave her an account of what had passed between the Deputies and him, and of the project he had form. He asked her pardon a thousand times over, for being able to think for some moments that he could live absent from her; but, the Queen, who aimed at nothing but to cure him of his passion, obliged him▪ notwithstanding his resistance to pursue his design of the expedition into Flanders, and to make him resolve upon it the more easily, she represented to him, That this Voyage would dissipate the ill-humour the King was in, through his suspicion of their affection; and that, so being less observed at his return, and more considerable and absolute, by reason of the glory he would doubtlessly acquire, they might live together with less inquietude. Don Carlos partly persuaded by these reasons, but much more by the blind obedience he had sworn to the Queen in all things, declared himself openly in favour of the Nobility of the Low-Countries, to the great scandal of the Inqu sitors, who held them to be almost all infected with Heresy, and who had not yet forgotten the business of Charles the Fifth's Will. He made the King be told, That if he would give him the Government of these Provinces, he would be an werable to him upon his Life for their O edience. It would be difficult to express to what a degree Rui Gomez and the Duke d'Alva were alarmed at this design.  
The Authority that an employment of that consequence was like to give to the Heir of the Crown, appeared to them to be their evident ruin. They judged, That at his return from this expedition, in which he would infallibly have good success, this Prince would be his Father's first Minister, and that by consequence they must depend upon him.  
The Duke d'Alva above all, who had the same pretensions with Don Carlos, engaged Rui Gomez, who was more familiar with the King than he, to make him consider, How much this enterprise would raise his Son above him in the hearts of the Flemings.  
Perez, without seeming to act by consent with them, put him also in fear of the straight League which Don Carlos would doubtless make with France, by the means of the Queen, if he were once Master of the Low-Countries.  
These Advertisements made all the impression they were capable of making upon the mind of a Prince naturally jealous of his Authority, and fearful of his Son's Ambition.  
The King thought no more of any thing, but how to refuse Don Carlos with a good grace; and so, that he might not take his refusal for an affront.  
He made him be told, That he granted his Request; and, that he was ravished that they had both happened upon the same intention, but that he was resolved to go himself, & establish him in Flanders, and that they would shortly go away together for that design: that it would not be handsome for him to live securely in Spain and in the mean time to expose his only Son to the accidents of so fu ious a Rebellion; and that he would share the danger with him, and afterwards let him reap all the Glory.  
The noise of this Voyage was immediately spread abroad into all parts, by reason of the preparations the King made for it to deceive Don Carls; yet no body could believe it.  
In the mean time, how groundless soever this noise appeared, it filled the minds of the Rebels, yet wavering with terror; and the King, to confirm it more and more, made so considerable an Expense in Equipages, that even Bergh and Monteigni, who had laughed at it till then, cum saint no longer doubt of its t uth. The Queen and Don Carlos were at first cheated by appearances, as well as the others, but they undeceived themselves sooner than any.  
When the Equipages were finished, the King, who saw that people would soon be disabused, if he began not his Journey, could find no other expedient to excuse his stay, but the feigning to be sick. This pretence wrought its effect pretty well in the Countries afar off; but, what care soever he took to make his sickness be believed in his Court, and what constraint soever this poor Prince brought himself under, to live after a manner, that might confirm the opinion, he had a mind to give of himself, he could never deceive his Wife, and his Son.  
In this conjuncture, one day that a great deal of company that had been with the Queen, and had discoursed a long time about the King's Voyage into Flanders, were gone out, Don Carlos, Don John, and the Princess of Eboli being left alone with her, at first they made an observation altogether, How Courtiers do often torment themselves to divine the Causes, and effects of that which shall never be. After having some time laughed at those that had spoken of the Voyage, Don Carlos came insensibly to laugh at the Voyage itself, and at the violence the King did himself to counterfeit the sick Man; He said, That Charles the Fifth had made Voyages enough for himself, and his Son too, and that the King would repose both for himself, and his Father. The Queen did not hear these words, because she was obliged to talk privately with some persons that had business with her.  
In the mean time, while Don John, and the Princess of Eboli talked softly together, Don Carlos in a pensive posture set himself to make a little Book, in which he wrote these words in Capital Letters upon the first page, 
* Brantome in his Philip the 2d.  The great and admirable Voyages of King Philip; and in every one of the other pages of the Book he wrote one of the following Titles, The Voyage from Madrid, to the Escurial, The Voyage from the Escurial to Toledo, from Toledo to Madrid, from Madrid to the Aranjuez, from the Aranjuez to the Pardo, from the Pardo to the Escurial. And after this manner, he filled the whole Book with the King's Voyages to his Houses of Pleasure, and to some of the greatest Towns in Spain. The Queen could not keep herself from laughing at this imagination of the Prince, how dangerous soever she thought it; but as she read this paper, one came to tell her, that the King was newly fallen into a swoon, and that he was very ill. At this news she had only the leisure to recommend the Book to Don Carlos. The Prince, who would needs follow her, as soon as might be, contented himself to throw it into a little Closet, of which he shut the door after him. He knew not that the Princess of Eboli had false Keys to all the Queen's Locks. He was hardly out of the room, but she seized upon his writing; and when she had seen what it was, she was extremely glad to have in her hands so considerable a means of prejudicing him in the King's mind. The first thing she thought of, was, how she might do to keep this Paper without any one's knowing that she had it. She doubted not, but the Queen had seen the consequence it might be of, and that she would seek it, as soon as she should be come back. For this purpose, without losing a moment of time, she caused another little Book to be made, in all points like that of Don Carlos', and which contained the same things. She made the Prince's writing to be perfectly well counterfeited, and put that false Book in the place of the true, which she gave her Husband. The Queen, at her return, having found this counterfeit writing in the same place, that Don Carlos had told her, was in so great haste to burn it, that she threw it into the fire, almost without reading any thing in it, no wise doubting this cheat.  
In the mean time, the King's dissembling was turned into a reality. At his coming to himself out of the swoon he had been in, he was found to have a strong Fever, which soon changed itself into a regular Tertian Ague: but people gave less credit to his sickness when it was true, than they had done, whilst it was but feigned. The Rebels of Flandeos seeing that this report had lasted so long, doubted no more but that it was a trick of that Prince's policy. And in that opinion they pursued their designs with more heat than before. This news redoubled both the Kings melancholy and his sickness. Don Carlos seeing that the instances he should make to be sent into Flanders would but disquiet him more and more, would not renew them; but his Father, who thought him not so discreet, and who saw him uncessantly by his bedside, took his assiduity for a dumb solicitation; yet this assiduity had other reasons: The Queen never abandoning the sick man, Don Carlos could not see her any where else but living in his presence with great circumspection, and not daring almost to speak to one another before him. Don Carlos suffered very much by this constraint, and their interests received a considerable prejudice by it: In so delicate a conjuncture, they had a great many advices to give one another, and a great many measures to take by consent. There was no hopes that the King would be cured of a long while, and the Physicians assured them, that his Ague would be of a great length. The Queen and Don Carlos judging, that there would be too much danger in writing to one another, resolved to choose some faithful person, to whom they might safely tell what they would have one another know. The Prince, who thought that his Uncle Don John had been their very good friend, cast his eyes upon him, to honour him with this confidence: But the Queen thought, she had seen divers times in the eyes of this Uncle, something that spoke to her of Love; and she had observed some kind of officiousness in the Princess of Eboli for this same Don John, that showed there was some intelligence between them. These considerations obliged the Queen to make Don Carlos change his design, yet without acquainting him with her reasons. The Prince had not dared to propose to her the Marquis of Posa, his Favourite, because she knew him not so particularly as she did Don John. This Favourite was the most accomplished of all the Noblemen, who had been bred up in the quality of Children of Honour, or Companions to the young Princes. Although he had a great deal of vivacity, he was one of those naturally regular Souls, equally capable of force and moderation. Don Carlos, who had an excellent faculty of discerning, had at first remarked a character of mind, so rare amongst young people. The Marquis was no less charmed with the ardour that Don Carlos testified for all great and noble things; and they had form for one another an affection, hardly enough to be found between a Prince and a Courtier, because it was founded upon nothing, but the mutual admiration of each others virtue. And as there is no Personage at Court more hard ot dangerous to act, then that of Favourite to the Heir of the Crown, the Marquis had entreated Don Carlos to make the least noise he could of the privacy, wherewith he was pleased to honour him. So that though they lived in a perfect union, there appeared almost nothing of it in public, only that the Prince found his conversation much more agreeable than that of other people, and all the world did the like. The mystery they made of their friendship, rendered this Favourite more fit to serve the Queen and Don Carlos upon this occasion. And not being known to be so much devoted to the Prince, as indeed he was, the discourses he should have with the Queen would be much the less suspected. But she, knowing that Don Carlos was easily to be deceived, would haet self examine the Marquis of Posa, before she would open self to him. The first time she met him, at the King's Apartment, under pretence of some command she had to lay upon him, she found the means of engaging him in a particular conversation. His prudence appeared to her so great, that she was even charmed therewith. He was not less taken with the Queen's wit; and his natural moderation was never of so great use to him, as upon this occasion. Considering the manner in which this Princess made herself known to him in this discourse, which was heightened by the lustre of her beauty, and her charming sweetness, any other man, that had not been so absolutely Master of himself as he was, would doubtless have fallen in love with her. But though he did not do so, they could not hinder one another in the rest of the commerce they had together, from conceiving for each other all the esteem and friendship they both merited.  
We are always apt enough to believe, that people divine those secret sentiments, that are truly ours; but we fear not being suspected of those we have not. The Queen, who troubled her head about nothing, but hiding those that Don Carlos had for her, and who had none for the Marquis of Posa, but what were very consonant to reason, took not so much care as she ought to have done to conceal them. She feared not being suspected of having any criminal ones for that Favourite. The Marquis, that he might answer her goodness as he ought, was often engaged to show more eagerness for her service, than the exact rules of Prudence would have permitted to be seen. And as they we e neither of them without enemies, this carriage quickly made a noise in the world. But they not imagining it would so do, because they were conscious of their own innocency, hardly took any notice thereof.  
In the mean time the King was cured, and the Queen proved with child. At first he was extremely glad of it, whether it were out of the hopes of having another Son besides Don Carlos, or that as yet doubting of the perfect establishment of his health, this greatness appeared to him to be an assured mark of it; but his joy was not of long continuance.  
The Ministers, who were afraid of the secret favonr of the Marquis of Posa, ordered the matter so, that the Queen's commerce with this Marquis came quickly to the knowledge of the King. This suspicious Prince, at the very first notice thereof, had his mind troubled with jealousy; and not finding his reckoning in some account of time, he was pleased to make upon the state of his Wife's greatness, 
* Mayerne Turquett, in his History of Spain.  did not stick to think the Marquis guilty of a crime, that would have drawn upon him more envy than all his virtues. This thought made a strange disorder in his heart. All the graces both of body and mind, that nature had so liberally bestowed on this unfortunate Favourite, and that were capable of touching the most barbarous Soul, rendered him by so much the more odious to the King, as that Prince considered no more all those precious Talents, but as so many criminal charms, that had seduced his Wife's heart. Nevertheless, how dangerous soever this disposition of the King's mind were, perhaps his reason would have returned to him, had it not been for a thing that happened at that very time, and which made him fully believe, what he did but suspect before.  

* Mr. Mezeray, in his Great History.  Among other public testimonies of joy, that were made for his recovery, there was a magnificent Tournament, in which every Cavalier was obliged to declare himself for some Lady of the Court, and to wear her colours. The evening before this great day, the Marquis of Posa happening to be in the Queen's chamber, which was full of company, she made him name to her all the Ladies, that had Knights to defend their beauties. The Prince and Don John were the only men that could declare themselves to be hers; and they not having done it, perhaps through fear of discovering something of what they had in their Soul, it so fell out, when they had done speaking, that the Queen was the only person that had no body to run for her. She observed it herself, and complaining of it in a Jesting way, the Marquis, who knew he might use any sort of pleasantry with her, told her with a wonderful serious look, That she must blame Nature for it; and, that if she had been Beautiful like the others, she would doubtless have found some Knight▪ as they had done.  
All the Company applauded this Raillery, and the Queen answered him as seriously, as he had spoken, That, to punish him for his insolency, she commanded him to be her Knight, that so he might have the shame of serving the least beautiful of all the Ladies.  
This Gallantry was public, and all the People of the first quality at Court were witnesses of it.  
Yet the King could not keep himself from thinking, that there was some Mystery in it, and that this conversation was an Artifice of the Queen, to give her Lover an assured means of declaring himself for her with impunity: Yet, he was not at first fully confirmed in this opinion; but on the morrow morning, when he saw the Marquis enter into the Lists, carrying for his Device upon his Shield a Sun in its highest elevation, with these words, Nothing can see me without being burnt.  
This Prince was fully persuaded of the sad thought that stuck in his mind: The unfortunate Knight won the Prize of the first Courses, and though that were ordinary enough with him, the King at this time took his address for an effect of his Love; and, this imagination touched him so to the quick, that he could not endure to let the just be finished: And he feigned that he found himself ill, to have a pretence of breaking them off, and to hinder People from perceiving the fury into which this innocent Spectacle had put him.  
At first he resolved to give the Marquis of Posa his death in such a manner, that neither he nor the Queen could be ignorant of its cause; but Rui Gomez, whom he consulted about it, made him see the consequences of a business of that nature, and that was like to make so much noise. He let him know the straight Friendship that was between Don Carlos and this Marquis, and made him comprehend that there was nothing that was not to be feared from the resentment of the Prince, for the loss of a Person so dear to him, if once he came to know the Authors of it.  
He contented himself 
* Mayern Turquet.  to have the Marquis Stabbed some time afterwards, one night in the Streets, as he was retiring himself from Court; the better to keep the truth of the business from being inspected, when the Assassins saw him dead, they feigned in the presence of his Attendants, that they had taken him for another Man. The Queen resented, as she ought, the loss of so perfect a friend, and she saw, at the very first, all she was consequently to suffer by it. As for Don Carlos, he could not at first discover the true cause of it, but afterwards he considered the little appearance there was, that a Man so well known, as the dead Man was, should be taken for another: On the other side, he saw, that there was no body but his Father that durst undertake such an attempt, so that he did not hesitate no more than the Queen, to divine, who was the Author of it. In the mean time they neither of them mistrusted, that it was of the Marquis that the King had been Jealous, and imagining rather that which was like to have been, then that which really was; they thought that this Favourite had been killed as a Confident, and not as a Lover, and that they were discovered. In this opinion, considering the King's unmeasurable passion for his Wife, his aversion for the Prince, and his natural inclination to shed blood, they judged themselves lost.  
And they thought, that the King being well assured that they could not escape his vengeance, had begun by this Assassinate, that so he might make them feel it the longer.  
There is nothing so secret in Princes Courts that is not discovered by some people, which one doth not distrust. Don Carlos much about this time, sitting down one day at the Table, found under his Plate a Paper, which contained these words.  
There are some very just Counsels which yet are not given, but one comes not out of desperate affairs, without extraordinary resolutions. Those, in whom Heaven hath put such qualities, as are to render a great many others happy, besides those that possess them, are obliged to accomplish their destiny, which prevails over all other Obligations. Generous Souls perish not but for want of having an opinion bad enough of the wicked. That Patience, which abandoneth the days of a Gallant Man to the violence of his Enemies, is weakness, baseness of heart, crime, and not virtue. Humanity for those that have none, is the most dangerous sort of folly.  
In the mean time the Prince resolved to try one innocent way, before he would have recourse to the utmost extremity. This way was, to renew with great earnestness the request he had made to be sent into Flanders, where the state of Affairs demanded a more present, and speedy remedy then ever; He did it in terms, that made the King comprehend, that he would have what he desired, and that there was no safety to refuse him; He judged it his best way to express his mind in this absolute manner, for he thought, that if he were discovered, he had nothing more to Husband, and if he were not, it might happen that the King, solicited by his jealousy, and affrighted by this imperious way of proceeding, would grant him any thing in the World to be rid of him.  
This unfortunate Father, whose mind was more free to see the consequences of his Cruelty, after he had satisfied it, was again fallen into his natural timidity: He saw plainly that he must necessarily send an Army into Flanders, and he was afraid of irritating Don Carlos his resentment, yet fresh for the death of his Friend, if he refused him the Command of this Army, which he demanded in such high terms.  
Rui Gomez, who had found the King so resolute in the business of the Marquis, was not a little astonished to see him so unresolved in an occasion of much greater importance. The Interest which this Minister had in his Master's welfare, made him look with dread upon the weakness of that Prince, who was going to put the Arms into his Sons hands, wherewith he was like to have his own Throat cut the first.  
As there is no Reason so strong, as fear, to oblige the most unstable spirits to determine themselves, the King was ready to resolve himself in favour of Don Carlos.  
Rui Gomez, who saw it well, knew not how to hinder it, but having a very present wit, he be thought himself all of a sudden of that Book of the King's Voyages, which his Wife had found in the Queen's Closet, written with Don Carlos his hand, and which he had looked upon ever since as a Toy, which might yet prodnce some great effect, if it were employed with discretion; And, now he thought he had found the occasion of using it.  
He told the King, That he thought himself obliged to let him know a little thing, that till then he had not thought worthy of acquainting him with, but which in the present conjuncture, would help him much the better▪ to guests at the Genius and Sentiments of his Son.  
The King▪ to whom this affair appeared of greater consequence than Rui Gomez made show of thinking it, would needs examine the Book himself; and, knowing it to be of his Sons own Writing, he entered into a profound thoughtfulness, in which this Minister thought it best to leave him.  
After that he was a little come to himself, from the first trouble of Mind, into which so bloody a Raillery, made by two persons so dear unto him, had at first cast him; his ancient suspicions of Don Carlos, his love for the Queen, awakened themselves in his Soul with more violence than ever. He could not comprehend that a Wife and a Son should divert themselves in that manner, at the cost of a Father and a Husband that was their King, without living in the most Criminal Familiarity: But, the Marquis of Posa coming presently into his Mind, he could not believe that the Queen was in Love with them both, especially, Don Carlos and the Marquis being so united as they were; and, he concluded, that it must necessarily be, that one was the Lover, and the other the Confident: yet, what effort of wit soever he could make, he could never determine in himself which was the Lover. But, which soever of the two it were, he still found that the death of the Marquis was but too just, and that Don Carlos was equally culpable.  
However the matter went, he would not authorise the Railleries' his Son made upon his manner of life, by giving him the means of leading so different a one in Flanders.  
If this Prince, who had yet done nothing, had the boldness to treat his Father with so much contempt, what would he not have dared to have done, if Fortune had been favourable to his ambition?  
The King made him be told, That in the fearful disorder in which Flanders was, he thought he could not send him thither, without exposing his life to inevitable danger; but, that the Duke d' Alva should go thither with a powerful Army within a short time, and that as soon as this Army should have rendered his side the strongest, he should be free to do whatever he would desire.  
This refusal fully confirmed the Prince in the opinion he had, that his ruin was resolved upon, so that he rendered himself to the instances that the Rebels of Flanders had been a long time making to him by the Count of Egmont and their Deputies, to go and put himself at their head. They promised him, That if he would grant them a few things, that were very reasovable, they would obey him with more fidelity, than the Catholics obeyed the King.  
Don Carlos doubted not, but that if he were once Master of this Revolted People, the King would abandon to him the rest of Flanders, though it were but to hinder him from possessing himself of it by force, as it would be easy for him to do.  
The Marquis of Bergh and Monteigni had several Conferences with him upon this Project, and they took together so just and so solid Measures for the executing of it, that they could not fail of success, provided, that the Prince conserved to himself the liberty of Acting. It was that to which they exhorted him principally, and if he had taken their Counsel, he had began his journey at that very time. But, Don Carlos judged, that there would be too much rashness in declaring himself after that manner, before he had established the correspondency that were necessary for him: but, he promised them, that in the mean time, he would make use of such powerful precautions for the safety of his person, that he should be able to give them a good account of it. 
* Mr. de Thou.  Besides, a Coffer filled with Fire Arms, which he made be set at his Beds-head; he caused some little Pistols to be made, of a new Invention, to carry always about him, without being seen. And that he might hinder himself from being surprised in his sleep, he commanded a famous French Artist, who worked at the Escurial, to make a kind of Lock for his Chamber that could not be opened but on the inside, and he put every night under his Bolster two Swords and a Case of Pistols.  
Whilst this unfortunate Prince hastened perhaps his undoing, by the sole opinion he had that he was undone; his Enemies forgot nothing to take from him all ways of reconciling himself with his Father. The King had not yet seen the Queen in private, since the death of the Marquis of Posa, and they feared that all their labour would prove to be in vain, if he saw her again, and that she would easily take out of his heart all that which they had put into it. Although it might happen that what they feared should not come to pass, yet it was possible that it might come to pass: And considering the consequence of which the thing was to them, they ought not to put any thing to the hazard.  
To take from this Princess the occasion of undoing in one night, that which had cost them so much care and time, they bethought themselves of a means which would appear ridiculous, if it had not succeeded.  

* Mayerne Turquet, La Planches History; Lafoy Places Memoire; Monsieur de Mezerai; Le Laboureur; Diogenes, etc.  At the Voyage which the Court of France made along the River of Loire in the time of Francis the Second, there ran a report, That his Servants sought out little Children to bathe that young King in their blood, whom they feigned to be troubled with the Disease which is cured by this strange remedy: Nay, and there were some persons that went some day's journeys before the Court, and who examined carefully the children of the places where it was to pass, to observe those that they found fit for the use which the Physicians were to make of them. These unknown persons spread so general a fear in all their way, that all the people thought no more of any thing, but how to hide from them that which they pretended to seek. The Queen-Mother having discovered the Authors of this horrible report, made some of them be taken; They discovered at their death by whom they had been set on; but, those which received their Confession, judged it not safe for them to divulge it.  
If the continual infirmities of the King made so extravagant a calumny be so easily believed among his own People, it is not hard to judge of the effect it produced in Foreign Countries, where those sorts of News always find more credit than in the places where they are done. The King of Spain testified a great deal of trouble about it. He was afraid that his Wife had some secret disposition to this same illness, which is often an hereditary distemper. The Small pox which she had had since that, was accompanied with some equivocal accidents that were common with that infirmity. They resolved to make the King believe, That she had had some others, much more dangerous than the former at this last greatness. And as he had a mind very easy to be wrought upon in that which concerned his health, they thought that if they strengthened this story by the testimony of some persons not to be suspected, it would be enough to hinder him from ever seeing his Wife again in private. The Princess of Eboli was to give him the first notice of it▪ she was obliged so to do, by the fidelity she had promised him, in the employment she had about the Queen. And that same French-woman for whom Don John had formerly made appear some inclination, was to confirm that which the Princess should say. This young woman was one of those meddling spirits, born for the management of an intrigue; and she was inconsolable, that all the favour she had with her Mistress, had never been able to interest her in any important confidence. The Princess of Eboli commanded Don John to counterfeit the Lover a second time, by that means absolutely to gain to them this dangerous Person. This Prince, who found some sweetness in troubling the King's happiness, obeyed with great eagerness. But the young woman, much offended by the coldness he had had for her, would not believe him except he gave her some extraordinary assurances. Don John, in haste to finish his business, did not stick to make her a promise of Marriage▪ upon condition that she should tell the King whatsoever they would have her. The thing succeeded much more easily than they had hoped. The King▪ whose Love was already changed into indignation, ran blindly into the Snare they had laid for him. The Duke d' Alva who had deferred his Voyage, to attend the Success of this Artifice, went away for Flanders the day after. He took leave of Don Carlos in terms that were conformable to the answer which the King had made to that Princes last requests: And Don Carlos treated the Duke very ill for fear of having his designs suspected, if he had appeared too calm in an occasion, which ought to touch him so sensibly.  
In the mean time this Prince received from all parts the best news he could have wished for. The Prince of Orange and the Admiral de Chatillon, with whom he was to consult upon all he had to do, encouraged and hastened him by their Letters, whether it were to serve him or to undo him, God knows. The revolted party in the Low-Countries, absolutely confiding in his generosity, demanded of him no conditions. But that which perfected his resolution, was, the assurance of a considerable Fleet, which the Grand Signior was to send upon the coast of Flanders, to favour all his designs. But as his principal hope was founded upon this assistance, it is necessary to consider this business in its first beginnings.  

* Mr. de Thou, Strada, etc.  At the time that Queen Mary was Governess of the Low-countrieses for the Emperor her Brother, a certain Jew, that was a Portuguez by birth, named John Miquez, for whom she had a very particular esteem, ravished in her Court a young Lady of the first Quality, and of an extraordinary beauty. The King of Spain, who protected the kindred of this fair person, having made the Ravisher be driven out of all the States of Christendom, where he sought for a Sanctuary, he retired himself to Constantinople, and from thence into Caramania, to the Court of Selimus, eldest Son of Soliman the Magnificent. This young Prince, who was confined to that Country by his Father, according to the custom of their House, had no other care then how to pass the time as well as he could in the midst of pleasures and divertisements, in expectation of the Empire. Miquez, amongst other Talents, possessed the Art of diversifying these pleasures after a hundred several manners, of which every one had a new and particular charm. He knew how to give them that sweet point, which makes them be felt with so much delight, and which is so easily blunted by an unskilful hand. And having cultivated, by a long and curious exercise, the Genius he had for that Science, he had carried it to a perfection infinitely beyond the imagination of Vulgar. Swelled with pride for his skill in these rare Arts, he doubted not, but he should in a short time have the first place in the favour of a Prince like Selimus, who understood perfectly the worth of voluptuousness. This man knew, that those services which make the greatest noise, are not always those that are most sensible to the hearts of Sovereigns. It seems, that those one renders them in public, are sufficiently recompensed by the glory that follows them; but they alone can recompense those which are known by no body but themselves. The success surpassed Miquez his hopes, and Solyman dying in this conjuncture, the Jew saw himself by these glorious ways the declared Favourite of the greatest Prince upon earth. This high degree of power quickly gave him the occasion of satisfying the desire of revenge, which the persecution that he had suffered had engraven in his heart against the King of Spain. One day as he was in a debauch with the Sultan, that Prince having admired the excellency of the Wine of Cyprus, the Jew fell a laughing at him, for the passion he showed for a Liquor that grew out of his Empire; and he told him that he ought to spare it more than he did, because he bought it. Selimus a little nettled with this raillery, swore that he would take Cyprus that very year; and he added, striking the Jew upon the shoulder with his hand, that because Miquez loved that marvellous Wine no less than he, he declared him, from the time they were speaking, King of that Island, which yet, he said, was but a small part of the gratitude he owed him.  
At the time that all things disposed themselves for this enterprise, the Moors of Granada were preparing that famous rising, which broke forth soon afterwards. They sent their Deputies to the Ottoman Court, to beg its assistance. Miquez preferring the pleasure of revenging himself, before that of making himself a King, undertook their business with so much heat, that he made his Master resolve to send to their succour the redoubtable Navy that was then Equipping, for the conquest of the Kingdom that was destined to be his. He had conserved great correspondencies in Flanders, and he presently gave advice to the Consistory of Antwerp of this important diversion. This Consistory, which was the principal Council of the Rebels, having received at the same time the news of Don Carlos his Engagement in their favour, sent word thereof to Miquez: and to testify how much trust they put in the Prince, they sent him the Jews Dispatches, and his Cipher, that so he might himself negotiate with him at Constantinople, if he thought it useful for the common interest so to do. Don Carlos desired, for the greater surety, that this Fleet, which was to take Land upon the Coast of Granada, might be landed in Flanders. He wrote of it to the Ottoman Court, and Miquez answered him, that the Bashaw of the Sea had a secret Order to do whatsoever the Prince should command; whether it were that the thing were true, or that they had only a design to make it believed, thereby to engage Don Carlos, at what price soever it were.  
About this time, one night, as he was at play with his Uncle, at the Queen's Lodgings, they had some difference between them, in which Don John, who was vexed at his loss, was carried by his passion to say some things against the Prince, beyond the bounds of liberty that his Play could give him with the Son of his King. Don Carlos, who knew himself sufficiently, answered him in few words, with moderation enough; but yet in terms that seemed to reproach him with the defect of his birth, to make him remember his duty. Don John touched in so sensible a part, was outraged therewith to the point of answering the Prince, 
* Brantome in his Discourse of Philip 2d.  That it was true indeed that he was a Bastard, but that which comforted him for it, was, that he had a better Father than he. This word drew out all Don Carlos his patience: he treated his Uncle so rudely, that on the morrow morning there ran a report, that he had given him a box on the ear. The Queen and the Princess of Eboli, who were present, had much ado to hinder them from coming to blows. The Queen especially, who was frighted with every thing in this conjuncture, and as if she had had some secret presentiment of the consequences of this quarrel, employed all her Authority to oblige them to make up the difference upon the place: but it was not done with an equal sincerity on both sides.  
The King, to be faithfully instructed of whatsoever passed at the Queen's apartment, had linked himself in a straight commerce with the Princess of Eboli: This woman had obliged Don John to observe the Prince's actions more narrowly then ordinary, ever since the death of the Marquis of Posa.  
It was easy to Don John to acquit himself of this Commission. The Prince, who though him his best friend, had told him something of his design in general terms; but though Don John had forgot nothing to know the particulars of it, he had not as yet been able to learn any thing of them. Yet since their difference, the desire of revenge had made him so clearsighted, that what care soever Don Carlos took to furnish himself with Arms in secret, Don John, 
* Historia de D. Juan d' Austria.  what by address, and what by money, discovered it at the end. The King judged well, that the Prince did not take all these precautions, to have them always about him, he comprehended presently, that his Son must either have some design to steal away, or to do him some violence. He knew not which of the two to think, when Don Raimond de Taxes, Master of the Post-Office, came to advertise him, that a Frenchman belonging to the Queen, had demanded of him very secretly three Horses, to be ready to go away at the beginning of the night. This advice drawing the King out of the doubt in which he was, cast him into a greater, which was, whether he should content himself to make the Prince be watched, so that he could not possibly escape; or whether he should all of a sudden make him to be arrested. But Perez bringing to him at the same time the news of the Moors rising, which he had newly received; the King affrighted by so many unhappy conjunctures, resolved to assure himself of his Son's person.  
It was true, that the Prince's departure was resolved upon for that night: he had received a few days before some news out of Flanders, that permitted him no longer to delay. The Counts d' Egmont and the Horn, trusting to the innocence of their intentions in their past carriage, and to the merit of their serve ces, had delivered themselves into the hands of the Duke d' Alva, who made them be put in prison, and a little while after cut off their heads. So manifest a piece of treachery had cast the Rebels into despair, and their Leaders, seeing there was no more safety for them but in their Arms, made Don Carlos easily see, in acquainting him with these things, that it would shortly be too late to help them. He wrote forthwith to Don Garcia Alvartz O●orio, who was to be the companion of his flight, to come incontinently to him. The Prince had sent him to Sevil, there to receive a considerable sum of money; but not having time to make use of all the diligence requisite, he brought him 
* Cabrera's History of Philip 2d. Historia de Dom. Juan d' Austria.  but an hundred and fifty thousand Crowns. As Don Carlos retired himself from the Queen's lodgings, Rui Gomez walked with him, to give him an account on the King's part of the news they had received from Granada. This Minister entertained him so late, that the Prince seeing he had not night enough left to go so far as he desired, before his flight could be discovered, thought it his best way to put it off till the morrow. Rui Gomez retired himself, after he had seen him in bed; but being ignorant of the change of his 
* Mr. de Thou, Mayerne, etc.  resolution, he set some of his most faithful and resolute men at all the avenues of the Prince's apartment. It had been to be wished for the King's justification, that Don Carlos had been taken in attempting to escape.  
But when they had waited two or three hours, without seeing any appearance of his coming out, the King resolved to pass on, not thinking that he ought to hazard all things for a formality. Don John had observed the manner in which his chamber door was shut, and whilst Don Carlos was yet at the Queen's chamber, the King had commanded the maker of that extraordinary Lock, to spoil the spring of it some how or other, that so it might no more shut so close, but that it might be opened on the outside. Whatsoever this Workman could do, the spring made a great noise in opening; but the Count of Lerma, whom the King made enter first into the room, found the unfortunate Prince sleeping so sound, that he had the leisure to take away the Swords and Pistols that were under his bolster, without waking of him. After this, the Count sat down upon a Coffer that stood by his bedside, and in which Don John thought the Fire-arms were kept. Then the King judging by the Count of Lerma's silence, that he had done what he ought to do, entered himself into the Chamber, preceded by Rui Gomez, the Duke of Feria, the Great Commander, and Don Diego de Corduba, all armed with Swords and Pistols. The Prince being awakened with much ado by Rui Gomez, as soon as he had opened his eyes, cried out that he was dead. The King told him, That all they did was for his good. But Don Carlos seeing that he seized on a Box full of Papers, that was under his bed, entered into so furious a despair, that he was going to throw himself, all naked as he was, into a great Fire▪ pan full of Coals, which the extremity of the cold had obliged his servants to leave lighted in his chimney. They were fain to draw him from it by force, and he appeared inconsolable, that he had not had the time to smother himself in it. They presently unfurnished his Chamber, and in stead of so many magnificent things, which they took out of it, they put into it, for its only furniture, a scurvy Groundpallet. None of his Officers after that time ever appeared in his presence. His Guards never let him go out of their sight▪ 
* Matthien his History of France. Mr. de Thou, etc.  They caused a mourning Suit to be made for him, and he was no more waited upon, but by men clothed in the same dress, and who were unknown to him. This unfortunate Heir of so many Crowns saw no more any thing about him, which did not represent to his eyes the frightful image of death.  
In the mean time the King saw the designs and intelligence of his Son by the Papers which he had seized. He was astonished at the greatness of the danger he had run; but, he was yet more touched, when amongst several Letters 
* Mayern's History of Spain, Duplex's History of France, etc.  of the Queen's Handwriting he found one, which appeared to him the most Passionate and most Amorous in the world. It was that which the Marquis of Posa had carried to Alcala, and which Don Carlos would never be persuaded to restore. As the Queen had written it in the first transport of her grief, for the Mortal Accident that had befallen that Prince, she did not think any consequence could be drawn from what she could say to a Man, whose life was despaired of; or, that it could produce any other consequence then to make him die more contentedly. So that she had abandoned herself to all her tenderness in writing it, and had in it expressed the dearest and most secret Sentiments of her heart, with all the violence that so lamentable an occasion could inspire. Yet it was without any Passionate expressions that could interest her honour, or so much as offend her Duty.  
But the King drew very different consequences from it: The fury he conceived for it was at first accompanied with so lively a grief, that it would perhaps have bereft him of his Life, if the desire of revenge (so natural in those occasions) had not preserved it.  
But reflecting presently in himself, That he was Master of those that had so cruelly offended him, this agreeable thought made a barbarous joy succeed to the rage he had in his Soul, which changed his tormenting despair into a tranquillity full of horror. The same day Monteigni was clapped in prison, to leave some time after his head upon a scaffold, and the Marquis of Bergh in favour of Rui Gomez his ancient friend had leave to poison himself. The intimacy of these Two Noblemen with Don Carlos was known to all the world. They were both, as well as he, declared enemies of the Cardinal Spinosa Inquisitor General, and this Enmity was enough in Spain to make a man suspected for his Religion. They accused this Prelate to be the Author of all those violent Counsels that the King had taken against their country, but the Cardinal accused them themselves of having made several Packets of Calvin's Catechisms he brought out of France, by the help of a Passport from Don Carlos. All the passionate proceedings of this Prince, against the Inquisitors about the will of Charles the fifth were not as yet forgotten. All these things joined together did strangely dispose the people to believe the Innocent Prince engaged in the new opinions, of which he had never so much as heard any body speak; The King saw well that there was nothing but Religion that could make so strange an action, as that he had done be endured. He doubted not but that with these favourable dispositions, and the proofs he had of his Son's intelligences, he could, if he would, Sacrifice him with impunity to his revenge. In this belief, he put into the hands of the Cardinal Spinosa all the Originals he had found in Don Carlos his Cabinet, excepting only the Queen's Letters. He established the Inquisitors, Sovereign Judges between his Son and him; and he protested, he would wholly refer himself to their Judgement. He knew that the choler of that sort of people never dies, and that he should find their resentment against the Prince as violent, after several years of interval since their quarrel, as if it had been but a week before.  
Although the King had made rigorous prohibitions 
* Cabrera's History of Philp 2d. Hist. D. Juan.  to write of the imprisonment of Don Carlos into Foreign Countries, the news of it was soon spread abroad. The most part of the Princes of Christendom begged his pardon; the Empress especially wrote concerning it to the King her Brother, with all earnestness imaginable. Her eldest Daughter had been promised a long while before to the Prince of Spain. The King, who feared all that might give more liberty and credit to his Son, had always deferred the accomplishment of this Marriage. Amongst other pretences of this delay, he made a report be spread, that since Don Carlos his fall at Alcala, the Physicians did not think he could ever have any children. This report passed for an Artifice, and the Empress herself did in no wise believe it. In the mean time, it was so much the easier to the King to draw this Alliance out into length, because Don Carlos did not press it so much as he might have done. How advantageous soever it were for his designs, he made a scruple of marrying a Princess that he could not love. The Empress, who knew not the secret of his heart, could find but this one Match worthy of her eldest Daughter: and not thinking the Queen of Spain's death so near as it was, she did not foresee, that this Daughter was to take the place of that unfortunate Queen, and that the King her Brother, as it were by a kind of fatality, was to marry all the Princesses, that had been promised to Don Carlos. The King, who saw further than she, took a particular care to manage her upon this occasion, 
* Crabrera's History of Philip 2d.  and to justify himself in her opinion. In the mean time this news cast the Rebels of Flanders and Granada into a despair, that produced very bloody effects: and they would yet have been more cruel, if the Turks had kept their word; but Miquez judged not, that without the support of the Prince of Spain, he ought to hazard the Ottoman Fleets in places so far from all possibility of help, in case of disadvantage. He yielded himself to the opposition, that other Ministers of that Court made against the continuation of his enterprise; and it was changed into that of Cyprus, where he made known, by the marvellous services he rendered, 
* Cabrera's History of Philip 2d. Mr. de Thou, Strada, etc.  that all his Genius was not shut up within the Walls of the Seraglio; and that the love of pleasure doth not always render those that are possessed with it, incapable of great actions.  
In the mean time the Inquisitors form the Process of the unfortunate Don Carlos, with an incredible affection and diligence. Their ancient animosities against him appeared so openly, that nothing but the interest of Religion, which was mingled with them, could have made them be supported. 
* Cabrera Hist. de D. Juan.  They sent to look among the Archives of Barcelona, for the criminal process that Don John the second of that name, King of Arragon▪ had caused heretofore to be made against Don Carlos Prince of Viana, his eldest Son. They made this Process be translated out of Catalonian into Castilian, to serve them all at once, both for a Model and a Precedent. The business was proposed to the Inquisition, under the species of Lewis the Eleventh, Dauphin of France, and King Charles' the Seventh his Father. And all their opinions being the same, one may judge of them by that of the famous Doctor Navarra, which is inserted 
* Cabrera in the History of Philp 2d.  in the History of Philip the Second. He decides, that a King, who discovers, that the presumptive Heir of his Crown will go out of his States, aught to make him be stopped by force, if his evasion can be a subject of division in the Kingdom, and that the enemies of the State are in a capacity of drawing any considerable usefulness from it; but especially if those enemies are Heretics, and that there be the least reason to fear or suspect that this Prince favours them. The Sacrifice that the King made of his natural affection, to the repose of the State, was preferred by the Inquisitors▪ before the obedience of Abraham, 
* Mr. le Laboureur upon Castalnau, in his Ch. of Don Carlos.  They compared, all with one voice, this Prince to the Eternal Father, who had not spared his own Son for the salvation of Mankind.  
His Trial could not be long before Judges that were so well disposed. The sole Letters of the Admiral de Chatillon, the Prince of Orange, the Count of Egmont, the Consistory of Antwerp, and of John Miquez were sufficient to form his Sentence; and Don Carlos was Condemned to perpetual Imprisonment. The resentment he testified for this made all those tremble that had given the King such Counsel, or that approved it. They thought that they should never escape his vengeance, if he recovered one day his Liberty, and they had no rest till they had utterly completed his ruin.  
The Cardinal Spinosa remonstrated to the King, That there was Cage strong enough for this Bird, 
* Campana and Cabrera's Hist. Phil. 2d.  and that he would quickly be necessitated, either quite to rid himself of him, or else let him fly.  
The People, in whose opinion to be justified it is enough to be unfortunate, testified every day more and more their Passion for the Princes being set at Liberty. The King, who was afraid of some Sedition, durst no more absent himself from Madrid; He judged, after a mature deliberation, that there could not be any safety, neither for him nor his Ministers, in setting the Prince at Liberty; and, that he could no way avoid all that he had reason to fear from him, but by putting him to death. During some time, 
* Mr. de Thou, le Laboureur Mayerne, Duplex, etc.  they mingled in all he took a slow Poison, that was speedily to cause in him a mortal languishing; they spread some of it upon his wearing clothes, upon his Linen, and generally upon all things that he could touch; but, whether it were that his youth and good constitution were stronger than the Poison▪ or that those persons that interested themselves in his life, obliged him to make use of preservatives, this way did not succeed. They must then explain themselves more clearly, and the unfortunate Prince was told, 
* Matt. Hist. of France.  That he might choose what kind of death he pleased. He received this strange news with the indifferency of a man, who loved something else more than his life, and who feared the same destiny for the person he loved.  
Though the Spanish Historians have spoken of the weaknesses and passionate expressions of this Prince, thereby to blot his memory, and to justify his Father; yet it is certain that there never came but one thing out of his Mouth that could pass for a Complaint, which was, that the Queen having by force of Money found the means of making him be commanded, on her behalf, to ask leave that he might see the King; as one of his Guards came to him, to tell him, That his Father was coming; Say my King (answered he) and not my Father. 
* Mr. de Mezerai in his great Hist.  The submission he had for the Queen's Orders, made him resolve to fall upon his knees before the King, and tell him, That he beseeched him to consider that it was his own blood he was going to shed. The King answered him coldly; That when he had bad blood, he gave his Arm to the Chirurgeon to draw it from him. Don Carlos even desperate to have done a baseness without effect, rose up briskly at these words, and asked his Guards Whether the Bath in which he was to die were ready.  
The King, whether it were the longer to feed his eyes with this barbarous Spectacle, or that perhaps he was a little shaken, and sought how he might handsomely render himself, asked him, If he had nothing else to say to him. The Prince, who would willingly have redeemed what he had done at the price of a thousand other lives, well perceiving that it was now too late to husband any thing, either for him or the Queen, could not forbear answering once for all, with all his natural fierceness; If some persons (said he) for whom my Complaisance ought not to end but with my life, had not obliged me to see you, I should not have been guilty of the Cowardice of ask you pardon, and I should have died more gloriously than you live. The King retired himself after this Answer, without showing any disturbance. Don Carlos put himself in the Bath, 
* Duplex Hist. of France.  and having caused the Veins of his Arms and Legs to be opened, he commanded all that were present to withdraw. Afterwards taking into his hand a Picture of the Queen in Miniature, which he always wore about his neck, and which had been the first occasion of his Love, he remained with his eyes fixed upon that fatal Image, till the cold convulsions of death surprised him in that contemplation, and his Soul being already half gone out of his body, with his Blood and Spirits, he lost insensibly his sight, and then his life.  
The time of his death is not precisely known: It is only known, that it arrived a great while before it was published. There was a long Relation of his Sickness printed, which they said was a Malignant Dysentery, caused by his disorders▪  
The Grief of the People, and the despair of the Prince's Domestics broke out so loudly, that the most passionate Historians 
* A Relation Printed at Madrid in Spanish, and since at Venice in Italian. Campana Cabrera's Hist. of Phil. 2d, etc.  have not dared to dissemble it. The Count of Lerma, whom the King had entrusted with the oversight of Don Carlos, whilst he was in prison, had conceived so extraordinary a Friendship for him, that he appeared inconsolable to the eyes of all the Court. The King, to whom these regrets were but so many reproaches▪ took that way he thought most certain to make them cease; He recompensed magnificently all Don Carlos his Servants: He gave the Government of Calatrava to the Count of Lerma, and made him Gentleman of his Bedchamber. It was well seen that these Liberalities were not grounded upon any gratitude for the affection they testified for Don Carlos; nevertheless the People diminished nothing of their eagerness to honour this Prince's Memory. And it being known that the King designed to make his Obsequies with an extraordinary Magnificence, the Town of Madrid demanded, that they might be permitted to be at the Expense of them, and that all the care of performing them might be left to them. Though the King foresaw that this Funeral would be accompanied with Elegies, which would not be very honourable for the Enemies of the dead Man, he durst not refuse their Petition. 
* Cabrera's History of Philip the 2d.  The Historians of his time do particularly extol the tranquillity of mind, that he made appear upon the day of that Pomp, when looking from a Window of his Palace upon the disposition, and march of the Ceremony, he decided, upon the place a difficulty, that was raised concerning the Precedency of the different Councils of State that were there present. The two Sons of the Emperor that were then at the Court of Spain were the close Mourners. When they were come near the Church, 
* Cabrera's Hist. of Don John.  the Cardinal Spinosa who went before them, immediately after the Body, took leave of them, and retired himself, under pretence of a pain that took him in his head. But as he was known for the most dangerous, and most irreconcilable Enemy Don Carlos had ever had, there were several Voices heard crying round about him, 
* Cabrera's Hist. of Don John  That he could not suffer the presence of the Prince, neither dead nor living. The first thing exposed to sight, was that famous Encomium of the Scripture for a dead Man, 
* Wisdom.  which was written in great Letters of Gold over the Church-porch. He hath been ravished from us, for fear lest the Malice of the Age should have changed his heart, and lest his mind should have been seduced by flattery. All that an ingenious grief can invent to ease itself, was employed in the proud Mausoleum where this Prince was Interred. But, as all those Ornaments had a reference to the Latin Inscription that served him for an Epitaph, it sufficeth to give the sense of that Inscription, to make the Invention and design of the whole Pomp be comprehended: 
* Relazion de la Muerte y essequias del prencipe Dom Carlos.  To the eternal Memory of Charles Prince of the Spain's, of both the Sicily's, of the Gauls, Belgic and Cisalpine, heir of the New World, incomparable in greatness of Soul, in Liberality, and in love for the Truth. Thus it was that the elevated Genius, and heroical inclinations of the unfortunate Don Carlos, were at last represented under their proper names of Virtues, after having been so long disguised by his enemies, under those of Vices.  
During the time that the King kept Don Carlos his death secret, he resolved to make the news of it be told to the Queen at the time she should be in Travel: He hoped, that so sensible a trouble of mind, joined to that of her body, in the condition she was in, would finish his revenge; but he quickly knew, that she was better informed than he desired. And as she could not be ignorant that Don Carlos had been sacrificed to his Father's jealousy, 
* Mr. le Laboureur, upon Castelnau, in his Ch. of Don Carlos. Mayerne, etc.  she did not at all constrain herself to hide the resentment she had of it. Her just anger cast her Husband into new inquietudes. He thought, he had much to fear from her wit and courage, but yet more from the extraordinary consideration the Court of France had for her, and the straight correspondence she held with the Queen her Mother.  
A few months after the Prince's death, the Duchess d' Alva, who had one of the chiefest Offices in the Queen's House, came one morning into her chamber with a Potion in her hand. 
* Mr. le Laboureur. Mayerne▪ MS. of Mr. Peirese, etc.  The Queen told her, That she was well, and would not take it. But the Duchess going about to force her to it, the King, who was not far off, came in at the noise of their contest: At first he blamed the Duchess for her peremptoriness; but this woman having represented so him, that the Physicians judged this remedy necessary for the Queen's happy lying in, he rendered himself to their authority. He told the Queen with great sweetness, that because this Medicine was of so great importance, she must needs take it. Because you will have it so (answered she to him) 
* Mr. de Mezerai, in his gr. Hist.  I am contented. He went immediately out of the Chamber, and some time after came back, 
* 
Mayerne Furqueit's History of Spain.  
M. S. of Mr. Peirese, etc.   clothed in deep Mourning, to know how she did. But whether it were, that there was some mistake in the Composition of the Drink, or that the extraordinary disturbance the Queen was in, and the violence she did herself to take it, gave it a malignity which it had not in its self; she expired the same day in the midst of violent pains, and after several great fits of vomiting. Her Child was found dead, 
* Mr. le Laboreur.  with its skull almost quite burned away. She was then at the beginning of the four and twentieth year of her age, as well as Don Carlos, and in the greatest perfection of her beauty.  
Fortune did so exemplarily revenge the death of these two persons, that it would be unjust to keep the knowledge of it from posterity. The beauty of the Princess of Eboli soon changed the confidence the King had in her, into a violent love. Rui Gomez her Husband, as jealous of the confidences the King made to his Wife, as of the favours she did the King, resolved to rid himself of her; but the Princess having discovered his design▪ prevented it, by ridding herself of him. S nce that▪ she kept Don John at a distance from the Court, under pretence of divers employments, but in effect, because he would have treated her with that authority, that their long and familiar commerce had given him over her; She made the Government of Flanders be given him, in hopes that he would perish there; as he had done, if the courage and conduct of the Prince of Parma had not saved him▪ In this conjuncture she was told, that he had discovered the ill offices she had done him. The fear she had that he would ruin her▪ in letting the King know all that▪ had passed between them, made her resolve to show him some Letters of the Prince of Orange, that were of an extraordinary consequence. They imported, That the marriage of Don John with the Queen of England was concluded▪ and that the Rebels of Flanders had engaged their word to acknowledge him for their Sovereign, as soon as this marriage should be consummated, and that without any other condition, than Liberty of Conscience. These Letters were given by Perez to the King, who presently knew the Prince of Orange his writing; and as he abandoned himself to his fear in the Princess of Eboli's presence, she took that time to tell him the answer that Don John had heretofore made to Don Carlos, when he called him Bastard: She also put the King in mind of the Pride▪ with which this same Don John had received the acclamations of the Army of Granada, where the Soldiers, charmed with some great action that he had done, cried out in his presence, This is the true Son of the Emperor, She added his obstinacy to make himself King of Tunis, and the loss of the Goulette, which he had suffered to be taken, to revenge himself upon the King, for not favouring his designs. These divers reflections, joined to the pressing danger of the pretended Match with England, did penetrate so far into the King's mind, that thinking he had not the least time to lose, he found a way of making a pair of perfumed walking Boots be sent to Don John, which cost him his life. Some time after it was discovered, that the Princess of Eboli had on purpose made the Prince of Orange write those Letters, which she said were intercepted, and which had been so fatal to Don John. The King conceived so great a horror for this wickedness, that it extinguished his Love. The Princess and Perez were confined to a Prison, there to end their days. Perez afterwards making his escape, spent the rest of his life very miserably, in wand'ring through all the Prince's Courts in Europe. And last of all, Philip the Second himself, after he was grown old, among the griefs caused him by so many disasters, was stricken with an Ulcer, which bred an incredible quantity of Lice, by which he was even eaten up alive, and stifled, when they found no more wherewithal to nourish themselves upon his body. After this manner were expiated the ever to be deplored deaths of a magnanimous Prince, and of the most beautiful and most virtuous Princess that ever was. And thus it was, that their unfortunate Ghosts were at last fully appeased by the Tragical Destinies of all the Complices of their Death.  
FINI●