The next step of the opponents of Lucero was to recuse Deza as judge and to interject an appeal to the Holy See, leading to an active contest in Rome between Ferdinand and his son-in-law. A letter of the former, April 22, 1506, to Juan de Loaysa, agent of the Inquisition in Rome, described the attempt as an audacious and indecent effort to destroy the Inquisition which was more necessary than ever. Loaysa was told that he could render no greater service to God and to the king than by defeating it; minute instructions were given as to the influences that he must bring to bear, and he was reminded that Holy Writ permits the use of craft and cunning to perform the work of God. The extreme anxiety betrayed in the letter indicates that there was much more involved than the mere defence of Lucero and Deza; it was with Philip and Juana that he was wrestling and the stake was the crown of Castile. On the other hand, Philip, doubtless won by the gold of the Conversos, had fairly espoused their cause and was laboring to obtain for them a favorable decision from the pope. His ambassador, Philibert of Utrecht, under date of June 28th, reported that he had urged Julius II not to reject the appeal of the Marranos but the politic pontiff replied that he must reserve his decision until Ferdinand and Philip had met.[539] Undeterred by the mutterings of the rising storm, Lucero about this time saw in Isabella's death a chance to strike at a higher quarry than he had hitherto ventured to aim at. The Geronimite Hernando de Talavera had won her affectionate veneration as her confessor and, on the conquest of Granada, in 1492, she had made him archbishop of the province founded there. He had a Jewish strain in his blood, as was the case in so many Spanish families; he was in his eightieth year, he was reverenced as the pattern and exemplar of all Christian virtues and he devoted himself unsparingly to the welfare of his flock, spending his revenues in charity and seeking by persuasion and example to win over to the faith his Moorish subjects. Yet he was not without enemies, for he had been the active agent in the reclamation by Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1480, of royal revenues to the amount of thirty millions of maravedís, alienated by Henry IV to purchase the submission of rebellious nobles and, although a quarter of a century had passed, it is said that the vengeful spirit thus aroused was still eager to encompass his ruin.[540]