The King’s confessor, as keeper of the royal conscience, had already in Ferdinand’s time been prevailed upon to explain to his Majesty the grave responsibility he incurred in tolerating a state of things so contrary to divine and natural laws. Now Las Casas, in his extremity, turned to the court preachers, who were eight in number, laying before them the entire case as a problem in morals, upon which it was within their duty as the spiritual instructors of the sovereign to pronounce. The part which these ecclesiastics took in the matter was brief but not unimportant nor without results Two of them were secular priests, the brothers Luis and Antonio Corodele, both religious and learned men, doctors of the University of Paris; another was Fray Miguel de Salamanca, also a doctor of Paris; there was Father Lafuente of the University of Alcalá, a Franciscan, Fray Alonso de Leon, an Augustinian, Fray Dionisio, and two others whose names Las Casas was not able to recall when writing his history some forty years after these events occurred. This body of learned men represented everything that was most authoritative in theological and canonical opinion of the times and constituted a most formidable ally against the Bishop and Council. Meetings of the eight preachers and Las Casas were held in the convent of Santa Catalina, at which several other men of importance assisted, one of whom was Fray Alonso de Medina, of the Dominicans; while another, a Franciscan friar who had spent much time in the Indies, is described as a brother of the Queen of Scotland. These meetings, which were secret, were held at the same hour of the day as the sittings of the India Council.