This severe punishment effectually checked the appearance of any fresh impostors in Portugal itself, and the populace, though firmly convinced that Dom Sebastian would one day appear again, were not to be deceived by any more pretenders. But these stories had spread far beyond the limits of Portugal, and two more attempts to personate the deceased monarch were made in Spain and Italy. The first of these impostors was a handsome young man named Gabriel Espinosa, who bore a striking resemblance to the King of Portugal, and who was given out as Dom Sebastian by a Portuguese Jesuit, named Madujal, who introduced him to Donna Anna, a natural daughter of Don John of Austria, and induced her to believe in him. The whole scheme partook rather of the nature of a personal intrigue than of a political plot. Donna Anna, who was very wealthy, showered favours on the young man and his sponsor, and even advocated his claims to Philip II. The deception was, however, too obviously absurd to gain many supporters, and Espinosa and his clerical adviser were both executed in 1594. Far more curious is the story of Marco Tullio, a poor Calabrian peasant, who could not speak a word of Portuguese, but who nevertheless asserted that he was Dom Sebastian in 1603, twenty-five years after the disaster of Alcacer Quibir. His story was most carefully worked out, and his imposture ranks among the most extraordinary on record. He asserted that he was the king, and had saved his life and liberty by remaining on the battle-field among the dead bodies; that he had made his way into Portugal, and had given notice of his existence to the Cardinal-King Henry, who had sought his life; that he then returned to Africa, because he was unwilling to disturb the peace of the kingdom by a civil war, and travelled about in the garb of a penitent; that he next became a hermit in Sicily, and was on his way to Rome to declare himself to the Pope, when he was robbed by his servants, and obliged to find his way to Venice. When he told this elaborate tale at Venice, he got a few Portuguese residents there to believe in him, and was soon arrested in that city at the demand of the Spanish ambassador as an impostor and a criminal. He was several times examined, but stuck to his story so cleverly, and with such obstinacy, that the authorities, who were not sorry to embarrass the Spanish Government, refused to punish him as an impostor. The story of his claim spread so widely abroad, that the enemies of Spain became anxious to prove it true, and to set him up as a thorn in the side of Philip III. The Prince of Orange went so far as to send Dom Christovão, son of the Prior of Crato, to request the Venetian authorities to make further inquiries; but those prudent governors only held a solemn public examination, when the Calabrian told his tale again, and then expelled him from their dominions without expressing any opinion as to its truth. From Venice he went to Padua in the disguise of