before the Inquisition by Luis de Leon, Villavicencio thought it his duty to tell his correspondent to mind his own business, to cease denouncing tyranny, and to understand that his action, while it did good to nobody, was a source of annoyance to many.[232] Manifestly Luis de Leon’s passion for fair play was altogether incomprehensible to his opponents, and it may be that he made no great effort to win their support.  If, however, his experience of the Inquisition had made him more cautious in his dealings with it, the Inquisition had learned a lesson from its previous experience with Luis de Leon.  He was not arrested, but was allowed to go about his business as usual; no prosecuting counsel was appointed, and when the Supreme Inquisition at Madrid called upon the Valladolid judge to make a report,[233] Juan de Arresse confined himself to suggesting that Luis de Leon should be severely reprimanded, and should be called upon to express publicly from his University chair his regret for having described as heretical opinions which were not his.[234] This must have been signed shortly after August 7, 1582, the date on which the request of the Supreme Inquisition reached Valladolid.  Mitigated as it was, the suggestion of the Valladolid judge seemed too severe to the Supreme Inquisition.  For reasons which are unknown the case was not ended till February 3, 1584.  On this date Luis de Leon was summoned to Toledo and was there privately reprimanded by the Grand Inquisitor, Cardinal Gaspar de Quiroga, to whom in 1580 he had dedicated his In Psalmum vigesimum sextum Explanatio, a work written during the tenth month of his imprisonment at Valladolid.  Luis de Leon appears to have thought that he had a friend in Quiroga, but for whose intervention his imprisonment at Valladolid would have been still further prolonged.  As Quiroga became Grand Inquisitor on April 20, 1573, and as the prisoner in the Valladolid cells was not released till the month of December 1576, Luis de Leon’s gratitude has been thought excessive.[235] However, he knew the facts better than anybody else, and Quiroga’s attitude at Toledo was benignant.  Instead of giving the severe reprimand which was suggested by the Valladolid Inquisitors, Quiroga ‘charitably and kindly’ rebuked the Augustinian in private and dismissed him with a solemn warning not to uphold such views as he was alleged to have defended.[236] It has been held that the Inquisition proceeded against Luis de Leon a third time.[237] No evidence to support this view has been hitherto produced.

Meanwhile in 1583 appeared Los nombres de Cristo and La perfecta casada.  The theologian, philosopher, and poet was also a man of affairs.  That he was so esteemed by his colleagues is proved by the fact that he was nominated by them to take in hand, and settle, a long-standing suit between the University of Salamanca and the Colegios Mayores which had secured from Rome two concessions that were