Preachers were as liable as professors to prosecution for their utterances, and Spanish pulpit eloquence, as we have seen it illustrated in the case of Fray Joseph de Sigüenza, afforded ample field for censure. The auditor who took exception to anything heard in a sermon had only to denounce the speaker and, if the proposition was exceptionable, prosecution followed. Thus, in 1580, Fray Juan de Toledo, a Geronimite of the convent of Madrid, was denounced to the Toledo tribunal for having, in a sermon before Philip II, asserted that the royal power was so absolute that the king could take his vassals' property and their sons and daughters to use at his pleasure. Possibly this exuberance of loyalty might have escaped animadversion, had not the preacher called attention to the enormous revenues of the bishops, squandered on their kindred, and urged that the king and pope should unite to reduce them to apostolic poverty. On trial he admitted his remarks in a somewhat less offensive form; he attempted to disable the witnesses and presented evidence of good character without much success. The consulta de fe voted in discordia, and the Suprema sentenced him to abjure _de levi_, to recant, in the pulpit on a feast-day, the propositions, in a formula drawn up for him, to be recluded in a convent for two years, to be suspended from preaching for five years, and to perform certain spiritual penances.[371] The severity of this sentence shows how little ceremony there was in restraining the eccentricities of the Spanish pulpit, even when it would be difficult to discern where suspicion of heresy came in. The formula of retraction prescribed rendered the humiliation of the ceremony most bitter. There were forms suited for the different characters of propositions, but all bore the essential feature that the culprit in the pulpit admitted having uttered the condemned expression; that the inquisitors had ordered him to retract it; that he recognized that it ought to be retracted and, as an obedient son of the Church and in fulfilment of the command, he declared, of his own free will, that he had uttered a proposition heretical and contrary to express passages of Holy Writ and, as such, he retracted and unsaid it and confessed that he did not understand it when he said it nor, for lack of knowledge, did he understand the evil contained in it, nor did he believe it in its heretical sense, nor understand that it was heresy and, as he had spoken evil and given occasion to be justly suspected that he said it in an heretical sense, he was grieved and begged pardon of God and the holy Roman Catholic Church, and begged pardon and mercy of the Holy Office. A notary with a copy followed his words and, if the performance was correct, made an official attestation of the fact.[372]