tribunal to assemble, by June 3d it was ready for another auto, held in the courtyard of the archiepiscopal palace. This time it was not bloodless, for two men were executed and a woman was burnt in effigy.[642] No more autos were held in Saragossa for eighteen months. Thus far the people had been passive; they had accepted the action of the Córtes of Tarazona, apparently under the impression that the new Inquisition would be as inert as the old had so long been, but, as they awoke to the reality, an opposition arose which called a halt and Arbués never celebrated another auto. Not only the Conversos but many of the Old Christians denounced the Inquisition as contrary to the liberties of the land. The chief objections urged against it were the secrecy of procedure and the confiscation of estates and, as these were the veriest commonplaces of inquisitorial business, it shows how completely the old institution had been dormant. So many Conversos were lawyers and judges and high officials that they had abundant opportunity to impede the action of the tribunal by obtaining injunctions and decisions of the courts as to confiscations, which they regarded as the most assailable point, believing that if these could be stopped the whole business would perish of inanition.[643] To overcome this resistance, resort was had to the rule compelling all who held office to take the oath of obedience to the Inquisition. On September 19th, the royal and local officials were assembled and solemnly sworn to maintain inviolably the holy Roman Catholic faith, to employ all their energies against every one of whatever rank, who was a heretic or suspect of heresy or a fautor of heresy, to denounce any one whom they might know to be guilty and to appoint to office no one suspect in the faith or incapacitated by law. A few days later the same oath was taken by the Governor of Aragon, Juan Francisco de Heredia and his assessor, Francisco de Santa Fe, son of that Geronimo de Santa Fe the convert, who had stimulated the popular abhorrence of Judaism. Other nobles were subsequently required to take the oath, and it was gradually administered to all the different Estates. Then, in November, followed Torquemada's assembly of inquisitors at Seville, whose instructions were duly transmitted to Aragon for observance, although Aragon had not been represented in the conference. Thus far the tribunal seems to have had no definite quarters, but it was now settled in some houses between the cathedral and the archiepiscopal palace, convenient to the ecclesiastical gaol.[644]