A document to this effect was drawn up and was duly signed by three witnesses, of whom one was a Familiar of the Inquisition, Francisco de Almansa.  It seems likely that Almansa may have suspected that, for the time being, the hours of Luis de Leon’s comparative freedom were already numbered; for, on the following day (March 26, 1572), Almansa was appointed alguacil of the Valladolid Inquisitionary court, was directed to arrest Luis de Leon wherever he might be—­’in church, or monastery, or other hallowed place’—­and was further ordered to sequestrate any arms, cash, jewels, or papers which the prisoner might have about him.[54] Almansa, to whom Luis de Leon was perfectly well known,[55] obeyed instructions, and reached the Valladolid jail with his captive at about six o’clock in the evening of Thursday, March 27, 1572.[56] After being carefully searched, Luis de Leon was lodged in the secret cells of the Inquisition, and there, except for his appearances in court, he was detained for over four years and eight months.[57]

Though he was notoriously in weak health, the prisoner does not seem to have received any special consideration.  On the other hand, it cannot be maintained that, at the outset, his judges treated him with inhumanity.  That Luis de Leon was nervous about himself, and that he believed it possible he might die without warning is the impression conveyed by a fervent act of faith which, though undated, was probably written almost as soon as his imprisonment began.  On March 31, Luis de Leon asked for various things besides four books:  one of them a box of powder with which he was usually provided by a nun named Ana de Espinosa to alleviate his heart-attacks.[58] This petition was granted.  Luis de Leon’s request for a knife to cut his food with was so clearly against all prison regulations that he can scarcely have expected a favourable reply.[59] The Inquisitors met him half-way by ordering that he should at once be supplied with a rounded spoon, sufficient for his purpose, though useless to a prisoner of suicidal tendencies.[60] At this stage, it cannot be said that Luis de Leon was treated with any want of lenity.  There was no reason why he should be.  He was arrested mainly on suspicion of being concerned in the (purely imaginary) Jewish propaganda imputed to his colleagues Grajal and Martinez de Cantalapiedra; the evidence against him was second-hand and meagre.

Before long matters began to take a graver aspect.  A definite charge[61] emerged that some ten or eleven years earlier[62] Luis de Leon had translated from the Hebrew into Spanish the Song of Solomon, to which he appended a commentary, also in Spanish.  This he did at the request of a nun whose name is incidentally revealed as ’Dona Isabel Osorio, monja de Sancti Espiritu de Salamanca’.[63] That Luis de Leon’s proceeding was most imprudent is undeniable.  With characteristic courage and candour, in his first confesion of March 6,