In June, also, arrived in Rome Don Diego Lopez de Haro to offer to the Holiness of the Pope the homage and obedience of Spain. These having been accepted, the Orator proceeded to remonstrate with the Pope, in the name of the Catholic King and Queen, regarding the asylum extended to the Marañas who were fled from the Spanish Inquisition to Rome. Thousands of these unfortunates were encamped among the tombs on the Appian Way, and had brought the plague with them. Spain execrated the Papal tolerance, and wondered that the Holy Father, as the Head of Christianity, should protect those whom Spain had driven away as being enemies of the Christian Faith. Further, the Spanish Orator said that the Christian King Charles VIII of France was threatening to invade Italy and to take advantage of the quarrels of the Italian Powers; wherefore he urged the necessity of peace, and an agreement among the sovereigns of whom the Pope was chief. By way of showing that concessions would ensure the unanimity of Italy, he set forth a list of ecclesiastical grievances that needed remedies; grievances “which, since the days of the Council of Constance, had been standing complaints against the Papacy, to be urged in all negotiations for other purposes.” (_Creighton_ iv. 199.) * * * * * Publicly Don Ludovico Maria Sforza-Visconti harped upon the league between Venice, Milan, and the Papacy. Privately he entered into a secret treaty with the Christian King Charles VIII through Belgioso, Orator of Milan. Being an usurper he trusted not even his allies: preferring to have two strings to his bow, he believed that he could consolidate his position only by disturbing the peace of Italy. Publicly, from his fortress of Ostia, that psychic epileptic, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, continued to shout for a General Council to depose his Rival. The abominable character of this cardinal well may be exposed by stating that he was endeavouring to rend the Church and Christendom with a Fortieth Schism, in order to satiate his personal revenge. And, like Gallio, the Pope’s Holiness cared for none of these things—for Spain, for Milan, for the contemptible cardinal. He believed in Himself, and in His Own power to rule. At least, He officially had been saluted as Ruler of the World. The intrigues and invectives of the King of Naples deservedly having failed, his Majesty made the experiment of a hostile demonstration. His second son, Prince Don Federigo of Altamura appeared with eleven galleys at Ostia on Tiber mouth; and rapturously was hailed by that traitor-cardinal-bishop, with the Colonna and Don Virginio Orsini.