of Castile on the earliest opportunity (August 14, 1591) that presented itself.  Santa Maria further states that Luis de Leon took the King’s annoyance so much to heart that his death was hastened in consequence.  No evidence is produced to support a story so innately improbable.  This legend evidently throve in credulous opposition circles, for something of the same sort had been set about earlier by Fray Jose de Jesus y Maria, a Carmelite historian who, unaware that Luis de Leon had declined an archbishopric, added a calumnious insinuation that the editor of Saint Theresa’s works was a disappointed aspirant to episcopal honours.[253] Santa Maria, not knowing that Philip II highly esteemed Luis de Leon, seems to have been content to report such gossip as filtered down to him.

The correspondence connected with the papal brief dragged on till January or February 1591.[254] To all who saw Luis de Leon at this time it must have occurred that his career was drawing to a close.  He had never been robust; his sedentary habits, his ascetic practices, and his prolonged imprisonment combined to wear him down.  His last years were packed with troubles.  The Inquisition watched him with suspicious eyes; he had always regarded the Dominicans and Jeromites as his enemies; he had contrived to increase the forces hostile to him by alienating the Carmelites.  Doria was not without the power to make his resentment felt; a few well-meaning Augustinians did Luis de Leon more harm than good by suggesting that he had extorted from the Inquisition the admission that his doctrinal teachings were correct;[255] he was deeply affected by the enmity of other Augustinians whom he (perhaps too hastily) denounced by name to the Inquisitors.[256] Many of his colleagues at Salamanca stood aloof from him; some were openly opposed to him; one or two carried their spite so far as to suggest that he should be deprived of his University chair.  His constant absence from Salamanca gave his foes a handle; it is conceivable that they might have succeeded in ousting him from his chair had his life been prolonged.  Apart from public business, connected with his own order and with the proposed reform of the Carmelite nuns, Luis de Leon was retained in Madrid by his failing health.  On January 11, 1591, he was examined by Doctor Estrada, who reported that his patient was suffering from a cystic tumour of the kidney.[257] This is a malady which might last many years.  No doubt Luis de Leon had had the tumour for a long while; it is extremely likely that at the end the growth became malignant and that he died from it.  It has been alleged that Luis de Leon’s end came suddenly.[258] This is not so.  His death was lingering.  For all but himself this was fortunate, and, even for himself the pause before the end was convenient, for it enabled him to discharge certain duties.  As editor, he was naturally in possession of many of Saint Theresa’s papers; these he had time to make over to Doctor Sobrino, Professor of Theology