PEREZ, ANTONIO (c. 1540-1611), for some years the favourite minister of Philip II. of Spain and afterwards the object of his unrelenting hostility, was the natural son of Gonzalo Perez, secretary both to Charles V. and to Philip II. Legitimated by an imperial diploma issued (1542) at Valladolid, Perez became secretary of State in 1567, protonotary of Sicily, and at the death of Ruy Gomez de Silva, prince of Eboli, in 1573, head of the "despacho universal," or private bureau, from which Philip gov erned by correspondence the affairs of his dominions. Juan de Escovedo, another of the king's secretaries, attached after 1574 to Don John of Austria to check the latter's ambitious schemes, was sent by John to Rome to obtain the pope's consent to his plan for making himself master of England by marrying Mary Queen of Scots. Perez was shown the pope's letter by his nuncio in Spain; he informed Philip who authorized him to arrange for the murder of Escovedo. After several unsuccessful attempts to poison Escovedo, Perez had him assassinated in a street of Madrid on March 31, 1578. A prosecution was set on foot by the repre sentatives of the murdered man. Philip appeared at first willing to protect his accomplice; ultimately he was the secret instigator of those who sought his ruin. Perez was arrested on July 28, 1579. The process dragged on until 1589 when, on the eve of being condemned, Perez escaped to Aragon. An Aragonese by birth, by the ancient "fueros" of that kingdom, he could claim a public trial and so bring into requisition documentary evidence of the king's complicity in the deed.
To avoid this, Philip ordered Perez to be transferred from the civil prison in Saragossa to that of the Inquisition, on a charge of heresy arising from certain blasphemous expressions used by Perez. A popular tumult broke out, Perez escaped across the Pyrenees, and Aragon was punished by losing its ancient "fueros" altogether (1591) after a crushing defeat from Philip's armies. Perez was well received at Pau by Catherine de Bourbon, passed on to the court of Henry IV. of France, and both there and in England, his talents and diplomatic experience, as well as his well-grounded enmity to Philip, secured him at first much popu larity. In England he became intimate with Francis Bacon, and was also much in the society of the earl of Essex. After the Peace of Vervins (1598) he lost all political importance; his efforts to obtain pardon from Philip III. proved vain and he died in poverty and obscurity in Paris on Nov. 3, 161i.