for learning and exemplary conduct, was Doctor John Gil or Egidius, canon magistral (preacher) of the cathedral of Seville, a dignity which, though usually obtained by a public trial, Egidius had received, without this previous step, by the unanimous nomination of the archbishop and chapter, as a testimony of superiority above his contemporaries. The learned canon had, hitherto, been more admired as a profound theologian, than as a powerful orator; but, since his intimacy with Valér, his preaching had assumed a different character. Instead of vapid dissertations, his sermons were the earnest and powerful addresses of his feelings and conviction to the hearts and understandings of his audience. Egidius became the most popular preacher at Seville.

No obnoxious doctrines had hitherto been broached by the pious canon. That the change, which had gained him such extraordinary popularity, was the work of Valér, could not even be suspected by those who were well aware of the immense distance, at which the layman was placed from his friend's learning and talents. Such was, nevertheless, the fact. Va had, during his retirement, learnt by heart a great part of the scriptures, and drawn from that source, a system of divinity, which seems to have agreed, in the main, with that of the northern reformers. Whether a simple report of Luther's opinions, and of his appealing to the scriptures as the only source of religious truth, had given the same direction to the inquiries of the Spaniard; or whether, in the state of men's minds at that period, and, from the prominence of the abuses which fixed the attention of the inquisitive, similar inferences offered themselves to all who impartially consulted the scriptures, we shall not take upon ourselves to decide. But it is a fact, that Valér required no other guide to lay the foundations of a church. at Seville, which was found to be Lutheran in its principal

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No slighter impulse than that of an ardent love of religious truth would have been sufficient to engage any man in the desperate undertaking of propagating Protestant doctrines, under the watchful eye of the Inquisition; now doubly alert from the animosity which their sovereign Charles V was showing against the Lutherans in Germany. But no danger could appal the enthusiastic Valér. Regardless of his personal safety, or, what is still dearer to a man who has enjoyed the respect of his fellows, his character for judgment and sanity of intellect, he appeared at the most frequented places, addressing all that would stop to hear him, upon the necessity of studying the scriptures, and making them the only rule of faith and conduct. The suspicions of derangement, which had been afloat since the period of his retirement, were now fully confirmed, and saved Valér, for a time, from the hands

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hands of the Inquisition. This humane construction of the Holy Tribunal was not likely to be of long continuance; and the lay preacher was soon confined to a solitary prison. His friend Egidius, whose orthodoxy remained unsuspected, appeared before the judges as Valér's counsel; a dangerous act of friendship, considering the vehement zeal which actuated the prisoner. But that zeal found full employment against the Inquisitors, whom he charged with ignorance and blindness, without the least attempt at concealing or disguising his principles. Twice was Valér imprisoned, and made to stand a trial. The first time he forfeited his fortune, the second his liberty, for life. Agreeably to the rules of the tribunal, which make public disgrace one of its most powerful weapons, Valér was conducted every Sunday, dressed in a san benito, or coat of infamy, to the collegiate church of San Salvador to attend high mass, and hear a sermou, which he often interrupted by contradict ing the preacher. Under a strong doubt whether he was really a madman, or courted this suspicion as a means to escape the punishment of fire, the inquisitors came to the final determination, of confining him in a convent, near the mouth of the Guadalquivir, where, deprived of all communication with the rest of the world, he died about the age of fifty.)

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The final sentence against Valér, which was passed in 1540, did not damp the zeal of his friends, however cautions it might make them in the propagation of their doctrines. Egidius lived in habits of great intimacy with Constantine Perez de la Fuente and Doctor Vargas, two very learned and exemplary priests, his early friends at the university of Alcalá de Henares. Many accessions had been made to this knot of friends by the intervention of Valér, whose proselytes in different parts of the town soon became known to each other. By the conversion to protestantism of Doctor Arias, a Hieronymite, the rising church began to feel strong in the number of her learned members. Arias, in spite of his natural fears, which, during the subsequent persecution, betrayed him into the most odious duplicity, disclosed his new views in religion to one of the members of his convent.* This man, who, in ardency and d openness of character, was the very reverse of Arias, addressed himself successfully to his companions, till the whole community, including the prior, had embraced the doctrines of the reformation, The concealed protestants, being mostly divines of great eminence, and highly respected by the people, both for the dignified situations which some held in the church, and the character of superior virtue, to which many among them were entitled, enjoyed a powerful and extensive influence in the town, especially through the

* The convent is within two miles from Seville. It is called San Isidro del Campo.

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confessional. That this influence must have been greatly restrained by apprehensions of danger will be readily conceived; yet the space of about ten years was sufficient for the foundation of two protestant churches, one at Seville, another at Valladolid, whose members, under the direction of appointed ministers, implored the blessing of heaven on the religious work, in which they had engaged at the imminent peril of their lives.

At the head of the protestant church of Seville was Doctor Egidius, its founder. It embraced more than eight hundred members at the time of its extirpation. The house of Isabel de Vaena, allady of illustrious birth, was used as a place of worship.

The church of Valladolid had sprung, it appears, from the same root as that of Seville. Doctor Augustin Cazalla, canon of Salamanca, one of the king's chaplains and preachers, had been educated at Alcalá, when Egidius, Perez de la Fuente, and Vargas, the Sevillian leaders, were at that university. The simultaneous rise of the two churches would justify the supposition that Egidius acted in concert with Cazalla, who, having attended the Emperor to Germany, probably imbibed the first favourable notions of the reformation in that country. But the religious connection of the protestants in the two capitals of old Castile and Andalusia is proved by the fact that the first use which Egidius made of liberty, after a long imprisonment on suspicion of heresy, was to visit his friend Gazallam Numerous females, many of whom were ladies of quality, had embraced the Lutheran faith at Valladolid. The meetings were held in the house of Leonor de Vibero, Cazalla's mother *roma

The history of religious zeal can hardly present an instance of more heroic devotion, or greater disregard of danger than appears in the Spanish protestants. The fierce spirit of persecution which the nation had imbibed during the struggle with the Moors, was now directed againt the German Lutherans; those new enemies of the faith, who, in the conception of the Spaniards, had been marshalled by the power of darkness to take up the interests of his kingdom, just where the final defeat of the Spanish Mahometans had left them. The Emperor Charles V. had employed, for some years, the whole strength of his extensive dominions to oppose the reformation in Germany. The Spaniards, by shedding their blood in that cause, had taken a 'double interest against it. Honour was thus engaged, on the one hand, to deliver up into the hands of justice all such as might be found contriving to spread heresy in the most orthodox of Christian countries; while the mer

The Spanish women do not take the name of their husbands. Even the children of the same parents used, not long since, to bear different surnames, taken from other branches of the family.

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cenary feelings of the lower class, on the other, urged them to the performance of a lucrative duty, which entitled the informer to a share in the spoil of God's enemies. Detection was unavoidable and could not but be foreseen....

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Egidius was the first to fall under a strong suspicion of heresy, which, a few years afterwards, would have cost him his life at the stake. He was confined in the solitary prisons of the Inquisition. His trial was conducted with the slow and perverse adroitness which belongs to the Holy Tribunal. It was embittered by the animosity of Peter Diaz, one of the inquisitors, who, to obviate the imputation of partiality to an old friend, whose opinions he had, at one time, embraced, was now eager to evince uncommon ardour in the defence of orthodoxy. Arias, the Hieronymite protestant, whom Egidius appointed his advocate, basely betrayed his client, for fear of raising suspicions against himself. Yet the prisoner could not be convicted of clear and positive heresy. He was sentenced to three years confinement, and compelled to make a public profession of the Romish faith. It was at the end of this long imprisonment that he hastened to visit the Lutherans of Valladolid. On his return to Seville, in 1556, death snatched him from the general persecution which was then impending. Had he lived longer, he would have expired in the flames, to which his bones were committed in 1560.

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Egidius's trial had led to discoveries, which, being afterwards followed up, put the government in possession of the extensive plan of the Spanish protestants for the overthrow of Papal despotism. Subsequent events confirmed the reports of the informers. Cassiodorus de Reyna, John Perez de Pineda, and Cyprian de Valera, all priests, natives or inhabitants of Seville, had fled out of the kingdom, where they published Spanish translations of the scriptures, and other works of avowed protestant tendency. Julian Hernandez left Seville, pretending commercial speculations, but, in reality, to promote the diffusion of the reformed doctrines by the introduction of books. On his return he was seized, tortured and convicted of having smuggled a great number of works, concealed in double casks, holding a small portion of French wine between an outer and an inner range of staves.

But what appears to have, at once, disclosed the extent of the rising sect, was the declaration of an unfortunate female, who, though a most zealous partizan of the reformation, was doomed to be the involuntary cause of its utter destruction in Spain. Maria Gomez was a widow who lived, as housekeeper, with Doctor Zafra, vicar of the parish of St. Vincent, at Seville. After the death of Egidius, Zafra was among the chief leaders of the e protestants, and Maria, the most constant attendant at the secret meet

ings where her master officiated. Whether the effort which the abjuration of early religious principles had cost her, was such as to impair her health, or the fear of detection had dwelt too long and painfully on her mind, the poor woman became deranged, and it was necessary to confine her. In this state she eluded the vigilance of her keepers, ran straight to the Inquisition, and made a complete disclosure of what she knew. The derangement of the witness was so evident, that Zafra would not confirm her account by a flight, which must have proved destructive to his friends. But the inquisitors, who strictly keep the rule of considering every accusation as true, though the most absurd in appearance, allowed the alarm of the protestants to subside, and prepared themselves, with the assistance of government, to strike a final and decisive blow on a party whose strength they began to fear.

We possess no direct information as to the circumstances which led to the discovery of the protestants at Valladolid. But, as the leaders of both churches were united in sentiments and designs, it is natural to suppose, that the accusations which betrayed the Andalusian Lutherans would implicate those of Castile. So thoroughly did the inquisitors trace the religious conspiracy to its last ramifications, that fifteen years were employed in the minor prosecutions which originated in the two capital towns.

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When the Inquisition had, with the usual secrecy, prepared for the blow which was to root out at once the growing seeds of the reformation, the Catholics of Spain heard, with an awful joy, that not only the prisons of the tribunal were crowded with Lutherans, but convents and private houses had been converted into gaols, for the safe keeping of their heretical countrymen. Few of the accused had been able to escape from the approaching storm. Zafra himself, who had most reason to dread the consequences of the disclosure made by his servant, delayed his flight until he was taken; yet he was so fortunate as to break out of prison and escape his pursuers Six monks of the Hieronymite convent near Seville, and the prior of a similar religious house at Ecija, had quitted the kingdom in time: but one or two being discovered in Flanders, on the point of embarking for England, the Spanish authorities seized them and had them sent back to Spain, where they neither expected nor found mercy.

The Lutherans of Valladolid being secured by a similar and simultaneous proceeding of the local tribunal, Philip II., who had lately ascended the throne, with a resolution to deter his subjects from any attempt to reform the church, applied for a papal bull authorizing the inquisitors to deliver up for execution all persons convicted of heretical opinions, without the benefit of recantation, which all might take, before that period.

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