D. Philip did even more; he was at the Escorial, where he had spent the summer with his family, and he prolonged his stay later than usual, in order not to be in Madrid when D. John arrived, bidding Antonio Pérez receive and lodge him in the latter's celebrated country house "La Casilla." This is how Antonio Pérez refers to this remarkable incident in the "Memorial": "And truly I must add here, without waiting to go into details, that the reason why Antonio Pérez was the host of D. John in his "Casilla" for a few days was, that the King did not wish to concede the title of Infante, or refuse it, because hope would give D. John better heart to settle things in Flanders. It is a usual habit of princes to obtain fruit from hopes, as it is found in those inspired by them and is generally wanting when the favour has been granted. And since D. John had naturally to be in Madrid for his own private affairs and did not wish to be in a hired house, but in the Palace, as a beginning of his treatment as Infante, the King resolved not to return to Madrid until D. John had left for Flanders, so that in this way and at Antonio Pérez's expense the blow to D. John's hopes should be disguised." Accordingly Antonio Pérez set out to meet him, going as far as Guadalajara, where the Duque del Infantado already awaited D. John, together with the Duque's brothers D. Rodrigo and D. Diego, the Conde de Orgaz, the Duque de Medina de Rioseco, and other intimate friends, who escorted him all that day's journey until they left him at Antonio Pérez's "Casilla." This was the celebrated villa, the wonder of the Madrid of that day, which stood on the site at present occupied by the convent of St. Elizabeth, in the street of the same name. It is now hardly possible to imagine that it was then surrounded by shady gardens, big orchards, and by a green, dark wood more than a league in circumference. The house was large and square, with four towers at the corners, and its big windows with their beautifully wrought gratings opened in two symmetrical rows; the entrance was by a great paved courtyard, in which were rough-stone seats and two cisterns of granite and many iron rings, in the form of heads of wild beasts, horses and dogs, fixed in the wall for tieing up animals. The dining-room and rooms for gaming and diversion were on the right hand; on the left were the guest chambers, and the front of the house was taken up by a suite of saloons, furnished as no house belonging to a Grandee in Madrid, was, with pictures, tapestries, Venetian glass, furniture of precious woods and massive silver, and thousands of other valuable things which made the house an object of wonder and gossip for the whole Court: they asked each other how Antonio Pérez could afford luxury greater than that displayed by the most powerful Grandee, as he had no fortune either acquired or inherited, and they whispered about, and even plainly mentioned, bribes, falsehoods, intrigues, and infamous mean acts, the