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It is singular that the anecdote should reach Spain from abroad, and that it should not be printed till forty-six years after it is supposed to have occurred; that is to say, till Luis de Leon had been thirty-two years in his grave. It does not necessarily follow that the story is untrue. Nobody imagines that Cruesen deliberately invented it.
The earliest mention of the incident occurs apparently in the Monasticon Augustinianum by the once well-known Nicolaas Cruesen, whose work appeared at Munich in 1623. The picturesque narrative soon struck the popular imagination, and it has been repeated times innumerable.
Though Flemish by blood, Cruesen was technically a Spanish subject; he was in full sympathy with the politico-religious aims of Spain in the Low Countries, and during the Spanish occupation he must have had opportunities of meeting and questioning men who were Spanish by race.
Moreover, it seems to be established that, though the story concerning Luis de Leon's remark did not appear in print till 1623, the chapter containing it was written previous to 1612. If this be so, the account given by Cruesen must be dated thirty-five years after the alleged occurrence and twenty-one years after Luis de Leon's death. Further, Cruesen, who knew Spanish, travelled in Spain.
So far as appears, Cruesen was an absolutely upright man who recorded with fidelity such information as he could obtain. He was not ill-placed for obtaining information. Himself an Augustinian, he was something of a cosmopolitan.
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