Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846Various
History
Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
"It was during the leisure of this his first residence in London
that Perez published, in the summer of 1594, his _Relaciones_,
under the imaginary name of _Raphael Peregrino_; which, far from
concealing the real author, in reality designated him by the
allusion to his wandering life. This account of his adventures,
composed with infinite art, was calculated to render his ungrateful
and relentless persecutor still more odious, and to draw towards
himself more benevolence and compassion. He sent copies of it to
Burghley, to Lady Rich, sister of the Earl of Essex, to Lords
Southampton, Montjoy, and Harris, to Sir Robert Sidney, Sir Henry
Unton, and many other personages of the English court, accompanying
them with letters gracefully written and melancholy in spirit. The
one which he confided to the patronage of the Earl of Essex was at
once touching and flattering:--'Raphael Peregrino,' said he, 'the
author of this book, has charged me to present it to your
Excellency. Your Excellency is obliged to protect him, since he
recommends himself to you. He must know that he wants a godfather,
since he chooses such as you. Perhaps he trusted to his name,
knowing that your Excellency is the support of the pilgrims of
fortune.'"
The dagger of the assassin continued to track his wanderings. And it is,
probably, not commonly known, that upon one of the city gates of London,
near St Paul's, there might be seen, in 1594, the heads of two Irishmen,
executed as accomplices in a plot for the murder of Antonio Perez.
In England, where he was supported by the generosity of Essex, he did
not remain very long, having been recalled, in 1594, to France by Henry,
who had recently declared war against Philip. At Paris, Perez was
received with great distinction and the most flattering attentions,
being lodged in a spacious mansion, and provided with a military
body-guard. The precaution was not superfluous. Wearing seemingly a
charmed life, the dusky spectre of premature and unnatural death haunted
him wherever he went or sojourned. Baron Pinilla, a Spaniard, was
captured in Paris on the eve of his attempt to murder Perez, put to the
torture, and executed on the Place de Greve--thus adding another name to
the long catalogue of people, to whom any connexion with, or implication
in, the affairs of Perez, whether innocently or criminally, for good or
evil, attracted, it might be imagined as by Lady Bacon, from an angry
Heaven the flash of calamitous ruin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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