They first provided Antonio Pérez, who with adroit flatteries, in which he was a past master, and with studied confidences as between man and man, made D. John understand how much he was appreciated by the coterie of Ruy Gómez, the great hopes they placed in his bravery and influence, and how much they were trying to work on the King to name him Captain-General of the Mediterranean galleys, as he had already promised. All of which, it is unnecessary to say, assumed a great air of truth in the mouth of the son of Gonzalo Pérez, who through this channel might well know what was happening, since it was intended that he should succeed his father in the appointment. When the ground was sufficiently prepared for such an important personage to step in without danger, Ruy Gómez arranged a meeting, as if by accident, with D. John, and repeated the same things in a different way, adding that his appointment was already settled and that it was a magnificent one, as also was the ship "Capitana," which was being got ready at Barcelona, that it would not be long before his desire of fighting the Turks was gratified at the head of a brilliant squadron, and that was a foregone conclusion. Gonzalo Pérez died this year (1566), and Philip II resisted the efforts of Ruy Gómez to obtain his father's vacant secretaryship for Antonio Pérez, giving as a pretext, not his youth, for he was thirty-two, but the laxity of his life and the depravity of his morals. Taking, however, as a sign of repentance and amendment Antonio Pérez's marriage with Doña Juana de Coello Bozmediano, which was celebrated on the 3rd of January, 1567, D. Philip hastened to bestow on him Gonzalo Pérez's secretaryship, which delighted D. John as much as if it were the summit of his ambitions or the triumph of his interests.