It is perhaps not without interest to note the advanced age to which some of these soliciting confessors retained the ardor which impelled them to the offence. Cases of septuagenarians are by no means rare. The Dominican, Fray Antonio de Aragon, sentenced, July 24, 1734, at Toledo, was 78 and the Observantine, Fray Miguel Granado, denounced, in 1786, to the Cuenca tribunal, was 80. In the former case the punishment was mitigated in consideration of his years, though a less sympathizing court would have heightened its rigor, in view of the evil which such a sinner must have wrought during so prolonged a career.[244] * * * * * When, in 1561, the Inquisition obtained jurisdiction over solicitation, it had no precedents on which to frame its procedure or to regulate the penalties. The episcopal courts had been inert and merciful, and the fact that the offence had been transferred from them inferred that the new jurisdiction was expected to be vigorous and rigorous. Its first care, however, was to preserve secrecy and avert scandal, so that no layman should be admitted to knowledge of clerical delinquencies. The earliest utterance is a carta acordada of 1562, prescribing that, when the denunciation affords conclusive evidence, it shall be considered by the inquisitors and Ordinary, without calling in the usual consultors, and the arrest shall be made with the utmost circumspection; the accused is to be admitted to bail; when the case is concluded, if he is a fraile he is to be confined in his convent with orders not to preach or hear confessions, or to have active and passive voice; if he is a secular priest, he is to be confined somewhere else than where the offence was committed, he is not to exercise his functions and the final disposition of the case is to rest with the Suprema.[245] In 1572, consultors were admitted to examine the evidence before arrest, but they were to be exclusively clerics, and the result was to be submitted to the Suprema before action. It made little difference that the heinousness of the offence was emphasized, and the necessity of exemplary punishment, when the culprit was treated with this exceptional tenderness.[246] In 1600, even the Ordinary was excluded from the preliminary deliberations and the Suprema was to be consulted before any action was taken.[247] The same precautions as to publicity were to be observed with regard to the sentences, which were to be read in the audience-chamber with closed doors, the only witnesses present being a prescribed number of the brethren of the culprit--members of his Order if he was a fraile, or curas and rectors, if a secular priest.[248] The care taken to avert attention from these delinquencies is illustrated in the case of Fray Antonio de la Portería, in 1818; he was resident in the convent of Mondonedo, and the guardian was ordered to send him on some pretext to the house of the Order at Santiago, where he was duly tried.[249]