The tribunal consulted the Suprema and was ordered to execute the sentence. Another attempt was made on March 29th, but Villanueva refused to abjure and this was repeated on several subsequent occasions, in spite of warnings of the excommunication that would follow persistent obstinacy. At length, on June 7th, he offered to abjure under a protest, which he presented in writing, to the effect that he did so through fear of the censures and without prejudice to his appeal or other recourse that he might take and, on this protest being publicly read, he made the abjuration.[374] He was not set at liberty, but was transferred from the secret prison to the Franciscan convent, the tribunal giving as a reason his outcries and the disturbance that he made. This leniency the Suprema disapproved and, in a few days, he was remanded to the secret prison, where he was treated with much rigor. On June 18th he was notified that the fiscal accused him of contumacy for not complying simply with his sentence and, on July 18th, he made the abjuration and was released. There is an intimation that he withdrew the recusation and appeal, but the statement is not clear, though it is quite possible that means were found to effect it. John Huss was burnt for refusing to abjure; a bull of Martin V, quoted by the Inquisition, authorized the prosecution and relaxation of suspects who refuse to abjure and there is probably truth in a contemporary statement that the fiscal of the Suprema went to Toledo and threatened Villanueva that he would be publicly stripped of his habit as a knight of Calatrava and be relaxed to the secular arm for burning.[375] He was helpless in the hands of those who would shrink from nothing to accomplish their ends; they had gone too far to hesitate now and his power of endurance was exhausted. [Sidenote: _VILLANUEVA'S CASE_]