In fact, when we consider the popular detestation of the Conversos and the invitation to attack afforded by their Judaizing tendencies, the postponement in establishing the Inquisition is attributable to the all-pervading lawlessness of the period and the absence of a strong central power. The people gratified their hatred by an occasional massacre, with its accompanying pillage, but among the various factions of the distracted state no one was strong enough to attempt a systematic movement provoking the bitterest opposition of a powerful class whose members occupied confidential positions in the court not alone of the king but of every noble and prelate. Earnest and untiring as was Fray Alonso's zeal it therefore was fruitless. In August, 1461, he induced the heads of the Observantine Franciscans to address the chapter of the Geronimites urging a union of both bodies in the effort to obtain the introduction of the Inquisition. The suggestion was favorably received but the answer was delayed, and the impatient Fray Alonso, with Fray Fernando de la Plaza and other Observantines, appealed directly to King Henry, representing the prevalence of the Judaizing heresy throughout the land and the habitual circumcision of the children of Conversos.[435] The zeal of Fray Fernando outran his discretion and in his sermons he declared that he possessed the foreskins of children thus treated. King Henry sent for him and said that this practice was a gross insult to the Church, which it was his duty to punish, ordering him to produce the objects and reveal the names of the culprits. The fraile could only reply that he had heard it from persons of repute and authority, but, on being commanded to state their names, refused to do so, thus tacitly acknowledging that he had no proof. The Conversos were not slow in taking advantage of his blunder and, to crown the defeat of the Observantines, the Geronimites changed their views. Their general, Fray Alonso de Oropesa, who himself had Jewish blood in his veins, was a man deservedly esteemed; under his impulsion they mounted the pulpit in defence of the Conversos and the Observantines for the time were silenced.[436] While the labors of the fiery Fray Alonso were unquestionably successful in intensifying the bitterness of race hatred, their only direct result was seen in the Concordia of Medina del Campo between Henry IV and his revolted nobles in 1464-5. In this an elaborate clause deplored the spread of the Judaizing heresy; it ordered the bishops to establish a searching inquisition throughout all lands and lordships, regardless of franchises and privileges, for the detection and punishment of the heretics; it pledged the king to support the measure in every way and to employ the confiscations in the war with the Moors and it pointed out that the enforcement of this plan would put an end to the tumults and massacres directed against the suspects.[437] Under this impulsion some desultory persecution occurred.