The martyrs of Spain Author:Elizabeth Rundle Charles Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER VII. IT remains only for me to collect such further fragments of information as reached us at various times, by various means, of the crushing of the ... more »Reformed churches in other parts of Spain. The four Avtos-da-fe which gave the deathblow to the Reformation in Spain, were those in May and October, 1559, at Valladolid, of which I have spoken; and two great autos at Seville, in September, 1559, and December, 1500. Besides these, tidings were brought to us of some of our brethren who perished at many smaller autos in Arragon, Valencia, Murcia, and Old Castile. In some cities these terrible spectacles became for a time an annual celebration. But the number of Lutherans who appeared in them gradually diminished, until after 1571 we scarcely heard of one. The work of the Inquisitors in this respect was accomplished. The prophets sent to Spain were killed or banished ; and the love w;hich would have gathered her children beneath its shelter was, for our generation at least, effectually repelled. But let me relate first what I have learned of our brethren at Seville. Of the four first teachers of the evangelical doctrine at Seville in 1558, (that fatal year to us,) only one remained. Rodrigo de Valero had died in the monastery at San Lucar; Master Vargas also was dead ; JEgidius had sunk beneath the pressure of his sufferings and his regrets. Only Constantine Ponce de la Fuente was left. Suspected indeed he was " violently" of Lutheranism, and had been for many years, and detested by the Inquisitors. But he was too great and too popular a man to be arrested without a show of justice, and evidence was difficult to find. The Emperor Charles held him in high esteem. His Protestant friends would have died rather than betray him ; and his own keen insight into character had...« less