Yet, as though still more effectually to deprive the system of all excuse, the confession obtained at such cost was practically admitted to be in itself worthless. To legalize it, a ratification was required, after an interval of at least twenty-four hours, to be freely made, without threats and apart from the torture-chamber. This was essential in all jurisdictions, and the formula in the Inquisition was to bring the prisoner into the audience-chamber, where his confession was read to him as it had been written down. He was asked whether it was true or whether he had anything to add or to omit and, under his oath, he was expected to declare that it was properly recorded, that he had no change to make and that he ratified it, not through fear of torture, or from any other cause, but solely because it was the truth. Such ratification was required even when the confession was made on hearing the sentence of torture read or when placed _in conspectu tormentorum_.[72] This was customarily done on the afternoon of the next day, to allow the full twenty-four hours to expire, but there was sometimes a longer interval. Thus, in the case of Catalina Hernández, at Toledo, who confessed on being stripped, July 13, 1541, it was not until the 27th that her ratification was taken, the inquisitors explaining that press of business had prevented it earlier.[73] The declaration in the ratification, that it was not made through fear of torture was a falsehood, for, in all jurisdictions, a retraction of the confession called for a repetition of torment, and in fact we sometimes find that when the confession was made the prisoner was warned not to retract for, if he did so, the torture would be "continued."[74] This was possibly to evade a singularly humane provision in the Instructions of 1484, to the effect that, if the confession is ratified, the accused is to be duly punished, but if he retracts, in view of the infamy resulting from the trial, he is to abjure publicly the heresy of which he is suspect and be subjected to such penance as the inquisitors may compassionately assign. The mercy of this, however, is considerably modified by a succeeding clause that it is not to deprive them of the right to repeat the torture in cases where by law they can and ought to do so.[75] Still, it was probably the first portion of the provision that guided the Toledo tribunal, in 1528, in the case of Diego de Uceda, on trial for Lutheranism. At the sight of the torture-chamber he broke down and admitted all that the witnesses had testified, but could not remember what it was. As this was evidently inspired by fear, the torture went on when, at the first turn of the garrote, he inculpated himself so eagerly that he was warned not to bear false-witness against himself. He declared it to be the truth and was untied. Before he was called upon to ratify, he asked for an audience in which he ascribed his confession to fear and declared himself ready to die for the faith of