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Manifestly Diego de Leon did not venture to remove the original manuscript from its resting-place; it was still in Luis de Leon's monastery-cell on November 7, 1573. Search being made for it, the version was found, handed over to the Inquisitionary authorities, and retained by them when judgement was pronounced.
These men were the soul of the opposition to Luis de Leon in his second encounter with the Inquisitionary tribunal; inasmuch as they had all three been beaten in open contest by Luis de Leon, their motives were not altogether free from some suspicion of personal animus; but their united hostility was undoubtedly formidable.
In several particulars he was enabled to correct the version of Santa Cruz, which was admittedly second-hand in part. He must have thought of 'old, unhappy, far-off things' as he entered the Court and recognized the Inquisitionary secretary with the singular name of Celedon Gustin; these remembrances probably led him to take additional precautions.
All this while, Medina and Castro were free to go about sowing tares, making damaging suggestions, and collecting such corroborative evidence as could be gleaned from ill-disposed colleagues and garrulous or slow-witted students. Evidently the matter was regarded as urgent: for, on December 17, the Inquisitionary Commissary opened his preliminary inquiry at Salamanca.
If Luis de Leon's opponents expected to overwhelm him by the suddenness, vehemence, or volume of their attack, they must speedily have been disillusioned. The mystic poet proved to be a formidable fighting-man. Before very long it must have dawned upon the Inquisitionary deputies at Valladolid that they had caught a Tartar.
A refined love of making others suffer has led them to vent inquisitionary tortures on insects, and the mania for pulling off the legs of flies and roasting beetles under spyglasses has been gradually extended to drowning mice in cages and seeing pigs killed.
In other matters, less urgent but not less important from an orthodox point of view, the Inquisitionary judges at Valladolid made no concession to the prisoner. He asked to be allowed to go to confession, and to say Mass once a fortnight in the hall where his case was heard. Apparently a deaf ear was turned to his entreaties.
Up to this point Luis de Leon would seem not to have been officially implicated by name, though he was clearly aimed at, especially by Castro who appeared before the Inquisitionary Commissary at Salamanca, and reiterated Medina's charges with some wealth of rancorous detail.
Nearly six months had been wasted owing to want of tact on the part of the Inquisitionary officials. As the event proved, the prisoner's protests in this matter were thoroughly justified. It is easy to perceive this now. We cannot be sure that we should have taken the same view had we been contemporary spectators.
Manifestly, Luis de Leon must have known that something perilous was afoot when he handed in a most respectfully-worded written statement on March 6, 1572. By about this time there had arrived in Salamanca Diego Gonzalez an experienced official, whose conduct of the Inquisitionary case against Bartolomé de Carranza, the Archbishop of Toledo, has earned him an unenviable repute.
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