The case promised to be as interminable in Rome as it had been in Spain. The anxiety of Pius for a thorough investigation caused endless delays, which were skilfully improved by the agents of the Inquisition. The enormous mass of papers reached Rome in the utmost confusion and some portions were lacking which had to be sent for. Then they had to be translated, as well as the voluminous Commentaries, which consumed a year. Philip was frequently sending new opinions and statements and Pius ordered all of Carranza's writings, and even notes of his lectures taken by students, to be searched for and brought to Rome. He formed a special congregation of seventeen consultors, including four of the Spaniards who had been concerned in the case, with Ramírez as the fiscal. When all was ready the congregation met weekly under the presidency of the pope; the Spaniards insisted on his presence and, as his other duties frequently prevented this, the affair dragged on from year to year. Philip followed it with intense anxiety, as shown in his correspondence with Zuñiga. Thus a long letter of instructions, June 6, 1570, tells the ambassador to assure the pope that everything had been done in Spain with the most minute deliberation; there is an almost childish insistence on the opinions of some obscure theologians as to Carranza's guilt, and it is pointed out that, if he is acquitted, he will teach and preach with greater authority than before and the whole prosecution will have been a blunder. All this, he says, should have weight with the pope, who is moreover to be threatened with what the king may find it necessary to do if the sentence is warped by personal considerations. Foolish communications of this kind were reiterated until, August 12, 1571, Pius, in an autograph letter, alluded to the repetition of these insinuations, which he declared to be groundless and, in dignified terms, warned Philip not to let his pious zeal get the better of his discretion.[222] [Sidenote: _ARCHBISHOP CARRANZA_]