complained that he had publicly insulted Franco Maler, one of their number, Ferdinand ordered the inquisitor of Barcelona to investigate the matter at once and to inflict due punishment.[522] His whole correspondence shows the untiring interest which he felt in the institution, not merely as a financial or political instrument, but as a means of defending and advancing the faith. He was sincerely bigoted and, when he had witnessed an auto de fe in Valladolid, he wrote, September 30, 1509, to the inquisitor Juan Alonso de Navia to express the great pleasure which it had given him as a means of advancing the honor and glory of God and the exaltation of the Holy Catholic faith.[523] Inquisitors were in the habit of sending him reports of the autos celebrated by them, to which he would reply in terms of high satisfaction, urging them to increased zeal. On one occasion, in 1512, and on another in 1513, he was so much pleased that he made a present to the inquisitor of two hundred ducats and ordered fifteen ducats to be given to the messenger.[524] * * * * * A quarter of a century elapsed before there was, in the Castilian kingdoms, any serious resistance to the Inquisition. The trouble which then occurred was provoked by the excesses of an inquisitor named Lucero at Córdova, which were brought to light only by the relaxation of Ferdinand's stern rule during the brief reign of Philip of Austria and the subsequent interregnum. As this affords us the only opportunity of obtaining an inside view of what was possible, under the usually impenetrable mantle of secrecy characteristic of inquisitorial procedure, it is worthy of investigation in some detail.