CHAPTER X

D. John of Austria's revelations painfully irritated Philip II; but he gave no sign by which his intentions could be divined or in any way modified the pious programme he had arranged for the festivals.

He kept D. John at the Escorial, and together they gained the Jubilee on the 28th, and together also on the same day they witnessed the Jerónomite Fathers take possession of the provisional convent where they were to lodge until the sumptuous fabric of the monastery, then being built, was ready for them.

On the 6th they were present at the consecration of the provisional church, and on the 11th at the profession of a new monk; on that day the King sent a circular to the Superiors of all the convents in Madrid and its neighbourhood, ordering them to offer continual prayers that God might inspire him with skill and resolution in an affair of the greatest importance for the welfare of the kingdom.

It was also noticed that on those days more couriers came and went between Madrid and the Escorial, and that the King had more frequent and longer meetings with the lords of the Council.

On the 15th of January, 1568, D. Philip left the Escorial with his brother and came to sleep at the Pardo. D. Carlos heard of this, and sent an urgent message to his uncle to go secretly to the furze near the Palace with the Prior D. Antonio de Toledo, and that he would go there to speak to him.

D. John and the Prior waited for him in the balcony of the Palace, with the authorisation of the King, and from there saw D. Carlos enter the furze on horseback with five others. They went to meet him, and D. Carlos, with much anxiety, asked if the King was very much displeased at the bad example he had given the Court and town in not gaining the Jubilee on the day of the Holy Innocents.

Then the Prince took D. John apart and told him that Garci álvarez Osorio had got the money together; that everything was ready for the morning of the 18th, and that nothing was wanting but the safe conduct which D. John was to give him to enable him to embark on the galleys at Cartagena, and a document which would oblige D. John, if he did not wish to follow at the moment, to do so at his call when he so ordered.

Driven into a corner, D. John answered that he was starting the next day, the 17th, for Madrid, with the King, and that they could there settle what was best.

D. Carlos went back to Madrid still of the same mind, and, not to lose time, sent to order eight post-horses for the morning of the 18th from the head of the post, Raimundo de Tassis.

Tassis, alarmed, answered the Prince that all the horses were on the road, but when they came he should be served. And he at once informed the King of the demand of D. Carlos, who reiterated his order again a few hours later. The terrified post-master sent all the horses he had out of Madrid, and hurried to the Pardo to tell the King. This happened on the night of the 16th, and Tassis arrived at the Pardo at daybreak on the 17th.

The same day D. Philip went to Madrid with D. John of Austria, without displaying any hurry or anxiety, and, as he always did, went straight to the Queen's apartments to greet her and his daughters.

Princess Juana was also waiting there for him, and, seeing him enter, took her goddaughter, the little Infanta Do?a Catalina, from her governess, Do?a Maria Chacón, and showed her to the King, that he might admire the tiny and pretty tooth which the child had cut during his absence. The Princess adored her godchild with all the enthusiasm and passion of a most devoted mother.

The Queen laughed at her sister-in-law's enthusiasm, and called her the "Portuguese," and presented the little elder Infanta, Do?a Isabel Clara Eugenia, whom the Camarera Mayor, the Duquesa de Alba, then brought. The sad heart of D. Philip softened for a moment with that tenderness towards his daughters which no one would have expected in the severe monarch, and which the learned Gachard has made patent in his studies on these two illustrious Princesses, who did so much to add lustre to the House of Austria.

Do?a Juana also made her brother D. John admire the little tooth, and at that moment D. Carlos came into the room to welcome and kiss the hand of the King, his father.

D. Carlos greeted him with apparent respect and pleasure, which D. Philip received with a good grace, no less well feigned. No one would have suspected, on seeing the royal family in such affectionate harmony, that such a horrible affliction hovered over them.

Princess Juana spoke of the banquet and ball she thought of giving the next day, the 19th, in honour of the birthday of her son D. Sebastian, the King of Portugal, and wishing, as usual, to draw D. Carlos towards the Court and its circles, and to wean him from the dark and bad ways he frequented, she asked him to arrange with D. John a solemn masquerade for that day, which, besides being the birthday of her son, was also his coming of age.

With the greatest aplomb the Prince promised, and D. John did the same, not being able to do otherwise, and the King gave his consent by nodding his head without saying a word.

They all left the Queen's room together, and then D. Carlos, taking D. John of Austria's arm, took him off to his rooms, which were in the "entresol" of the Palace, looking on the side now called "el Campo del Moro."

D. Carlos ordered the doors to be shut, and no one has ever known for certain what passed between the nephew and the uncle during the two hours they remained there.

At the end of this time the valets heard a noise inside, and the loud, manly voice of D. John of Austria, who shouted indignantly, "Keep there, your Highness."

Frightened, they opened the door, and saw D. John, looking furious, keeping the Prince at bay with his sword, who, livid with rage, was trying to attack D. John with sword and dagger.

The valet's account says that, "after this scene D. John went to his house." Perhaps D. John pretended to do so, to disarm D. Carlos's suspicion, but it is certain that he went straight to D. Philip and told him of the occurrence. The King then feared for D. John's life, and would not let him leave the castle. He sent and had a room prepared, where he made D. John sleep that memorable night.

Meanwhile D. Carlos, fearful that the King would wish to see him alone, went to bed, pretending to be ill. He was not mistaken; for soon afterwards D. Rodrigo de Mendoza brought an order from the King that D. Carlos should go up to his room. D. Carlos gave his pretended illness as an excuse, and, thinking the danger past, got up again at six o'clock; putting on a long overcoat, without dressing, and sitting in the warmth of the fire, he supped off a boiled capon. The mad Prince had not given up his plan for a minute, and more than ever persisted in his project of running away the next day at dawn.

For some time past D. Carlos had taken the most extraordinary precautions for his personal safety, above all while he was asleep. He had sent away the gentleman who, according to etiquette, should have slept in his room at night, and secured his door inside with a curious mechanism which he had had made by the French engineer Luis de Foix; it consisted of a series of springs which prevented the door opening unless D. Carlos pulled a long red silk cord which hung at the head of his bed.

He had also had an extraordinary weapon, which he himself had devised, and the construction of which he superintended, made by the same engineer.

He had read of the deed of the terrible Bishop of Zamora, D. Antonio de Acu?a, who broke the head of the Alcaide of Simancas with a stone which he carried hidden in a leather purse, as if it were a breviary.

Enchanted with the idea, the Prince ordered de Foix to make a book composed of twelve pieces of very hard blue marble, six inches long by four inches wide, covered, as if they were bound, with two plates of steel masked with gold.

D. Carlos always had this disguised arm at hand, ready to break the head of anyone as the fancy might take him, an extra proof of the traitorous and perverse nature of the unlucky Prince.

Besides this, there was always an arquebus at the head of his bed, and an arsenal of powder and shot hidden in his wardrobe.

After supper D. Carlos looked through the letters and papers he had prepared, and went to bed at half-past nine, leaving by the side of his bed a naked sword and a loaded arquebus, and having an unsheathed dagger under his pillow.

Meanwhile all seemed to sleep in the royal castle; nevertheless, within its walls one of the most discussed and terrible events in history was preparing.

The King kept vigil in his room, and after eleven o'clock, one by one, there arrived, cautiously, the Prince de évoli, the Duque de Feria, the Prior D. Antonio, and Luis Quijada. These were afterwards joined by two of the King's gentlemen, D. Pedro Manuel and D. Diego de Acu?a, and to all of them D. Philip spoke "as never man spoke before," according to a document of the period, and showed them the hard and terrible necessity he saw of arresting and shutting up his son Prince Carlos.

The best way of carrying this out, without scandal or dangerous resistance, was then discussed, and the King proposed his plan, which was naturally accepted. At midnight they all descended by an inside staircase, on tiptoe, in the dark, cautiously, not to arouse the guard, almost trembling, as justice has to tremble sometimes, to prevent and surprise crime.

The Duque de Feria went first, with a dark lantern in his hand; the King followed, very pale, a cuirass under his clothes, a naked sword under his arm, and an iron helmet on his head. Behind him came all the rest, with naked swords, more to inspire terror and respect than because there was need to use them. Two of the King's servants, Santoyo and Bernal, with nails and hammers, and twelve guards with their lieutenant, also came.

In the Prince's ante-room they met his two gentlemen, D. Rodrigo de Mendoza and the Conde de Lerma, who were on duty, and the King gave them orders to let no one pass.

The door of the room opened without resistance, because the King had ordered the engineer de Foix secretly to make the Prince's springs useless.

Ruy Gómez and the Duque de Feria approached the bed of D. Carlos with much caution; he was sleeping soundly, and without his knowing it they were able to put the arquebus and the unsheathed sword out of reach of his hand; the dagger they did not find.

D. Carlos then woke, and, sitting up frightened, called out in a sleepy, startled voice:

"Who goes there?"

"The Council of State," replied Ruy Gómez.

The Prince then threw himself out of bed with great violence and wished to grasp his weapons; with this movement the dagger slipped down, and Ruy Gómez picked it up from the ground. At the same time the Duque de Feria opened his lantern, and the Prince found himself face to face with his father.

He threw himself back and cried, all beside himself, putting both hands to his head, "What is this? Does Y.M. wish to kill me?"

The King answered very quietly that he wished to do the Prince no harm, but that he wished him and all the kingdom well. Then he ordered the servants to bring lights, to nail up the windows, and take away all arms, even to the fire-irons.

The Prince then realised that he had let himself be arrested, and in his shirt, as he was, he threw himself on the King, crying, "Kill me, Y.M., but do not arrest me, because it is a great scandal for the kingdom; and, if not, I shall kill myself."

To which the King answered, "Do not do this, which would be the act of a madman."

"I shall not do it as a madman, but because I am desperate at Y.M. treating me so ill."

Tearing out his hair, and gnashing his teeth in a way horrible to hear, he tried to throw himself headlong into the fire. The Prior seized his shirt, and between them they once more placed him in his bed, "and many other arguments passed," says the valet's account, "none of them were ended, it not being the time or place for this."

Meanwhile the King ordered that the papers of D. Carlos should be sought for and collected. Then appeared the steel casket with the prepared letters inside, the book of travels, the list of friends and enemies, and other documents, some silly, some culpable, all compromising.

The King then retired, taking the papers with him, having ordered and arranged, with the most scrupulous exactitude, everything referring as much to the service and care of the Prince as to his most strict restraint.

The consternation of the people of Madrid, on hearing the next day of the imprisonment of the Prince, knew no bounds.

"The most sane looked at each other," says Luis Cabrera de Córdoba, "sealing their lips with a finger and silence: and breaking it, some call (the King) prudent, others severe, because his laugh and his sword went together. The Prince, unlucky youth, had thought ill and talked with resentment, but had done nothing; without such extremes he could have punished his unwarned heir, as they do in other countries. Others say that he was a father, and very wise, and that much force drove and obliged him to this determination. Others, that princes are jealous of those who are to succeed them, and that cleverness, bravery, and great, generous natures displease them in their sons; and that if the King fears them, the subjects will fear them more, and that to secure them they should give them a share in the government with moderation. Others, that by a bad instinct heirs are spurred on by the desire to reign and be free, and that few loyal acts come from discontented heads, as the Prince wished to be with the Flemings."

The distress of the Queen and Princess Juana was very great, and in vain they both implored the King, over and over again, to be allowed to visit the Prince. D. John came that evening to the Queen's apartment, dressed carelessly in dark clothes, as a sign of mourning, but the King reproved him, and ordered him to attire himself as usual.