"Some movements having occurred in Flanders, the King gave orders to proceed there, and the court, including Francesco Maria, made preparations to attend him. But the latter, wishing to see France, asked permission to take that route by land, and so to rejoin his Majesty, who was to go by sea. The King, desiring his attendance on his person, refused his request, and so the opportunity was lost, to his great mortification, and perhaps to the no small loss of his Majesty. Subsequently occurred the imprisonment of Don Carlos, which was thus effected by order of his own father. An hour after midnight, the King, in his dressing-gown, holding a candle in his hand, having gone down to the Prince's room with his council of state and but one gentleman of his chamber, found him in bed. The Prince on seeing them tried to reach the corner, where were his sword and a pair of arquebuses, which he kept there always ready; but this was prevented by the Duke of Feria, who had already secured these arms. Then, rushing to his father, he exclaimed, 'So you are come to kill me?' To this his Majesty replied, 'Not so, but because you must live as becomes you, so be calm;' and never addressed him again. The Prince then said, 'I see that I am taken for a madman, which I am not, though a desperate one.' The King, having seen the doors and windows nailed up, leaving only a shutter open for light, and having desired the arms and all such things to be taken away, returned to his apartment, leaving with Don Carlos his major-domo Ruggo Mez de Silva (?) with several chamberlains and other officers of his household, a guard of Germans being stationed outside of his door; and the court was greatly vexed thereat." These details are curious, in illustration of the mysterious fate of Don Carlos, eldest son of Philip II. It seems agreed that he was of a most unhappy temperament, perverse, wilful, and violent, possibly insane. The immediate cause of the unnatural scene here described has never been satisfactorily explained. It is generally stated that he was discovered in treasonable correspondence with the Dutch; though others have attributed the behaviour of his father to jealousy of an old attachment between his wife Elizabeth of Valois, and the Prince, to whom she was said to have been previously promised. The Prince's arrest occurred in January 1568: it was followed by no trial or public investigation, but in the following July he ceased to live. His death was understood to have taken place under some judicial sanction, but whether by poison or the sword was never known. The entombment of his head separate from his body renders the second supposition more probable.