truth of which was proved, years afterwards, in the celebrated trial of the secretary. It was in the five front rooms that D. John was lodged; they were furnished with all that was best and richest to be found, and as a perfidious compliment from the false Pérez to the future King of England, he placed canopies and attributes of royalty in each of them. In the first room there was a rich gold and silver tapestry of the sacrifice of Abraham and a canopy of tawny velvet, adorned with plates of gold and hammered silver. In another room, arranged for the times when D. John wished to dine alone, there was a similar tapestry with the story of Joseph, a canopy and chairs embroidered in different colours, and a wooden dais with a rich carpet. Then came the ante-room with gold and silver tapestry, with scenes from the Æneid, and a canopy of gold and silver embroidered in relief in different colours, and inlaid writing-tables with their implements of gold and silver beautifully wrought. The bedroom was next, with tapestry of brocaded green gold (verde auro), a silk carpet, and tables and chairs of silver; the bed was also of silver, with angels on the posts holding tablets with this inscription: "The Lord D. John sleeps. Enter softly." Joining the alcove was a closet, hung with gold and silver tapestry, which did not reach the ground, with a bath with perfumes, a dressing-table of silver, and all the necessary implements of the same metal. All over the house were scent-burners with different sweet perfumes, even the courtyard held two of them, under the care of as many lackeys, who perfumed the cloths of the horses as they came in and out. "And to such lengths," says Luis de Zapata de Calatayud naïvely, "did his luxury and ostentation reach, that there was the wherewithal to clean the shoes of those who entered his house on foot, who did not fail to leave them at the door, as the Moors do on entering a mosque." CHAPTER XII