No fewer than eighty individuals, professing the Protestant religion, having been discovered in Seville, were all committed to the flames, in companies of fifteen or twenty. In 1560, the same punishment was inflicted on many other eminent persons, who, at the place of execution, justly upbraided their judges with their ignorance and hardness of heart, and "resisted even unto blood," all the efforts of their persecutors to bring them again under the yoke of antichristian bondage. Among the sufferers on this occasion were eight females, of irreproachable character, and some of them distinguished by their rank and education, who were condemned to the most cruel death by their unhallowed judges. The most distinguished of these martyrs was Maria Gomez, who appeared on the scaffold along with her three daughters and a niece. After the reading of the sentence which doomed them to the flames, one of the young women went up to her aunt, from whom she had imbibed the Protestant doctrine, and, on her knees, thanked her for all the religious instructions she had received from her, implored her forgiveness for any offence she might have given her, and begged her dying blessing. Raising her up, and assuring her that she had never given her a moment's uneasiness, the old woman proceeded to encourage her dutiful niece, by reminding her of that support which their Divine Redeemer had promised them in the hour of trial, and of those joys which awaited them at the termination of their momentary sufferings. The five friends then took leave of one another with tender embraces, and words of mutual comfort. The interview between these devoted females was beheld by the members of the "holy tribunal" with a rigid composure of countenance, undisturbed even by a glance of displeasure; and so completely had superstition and habit subdued the strongest emotions of the human breast, that not a single expression of sympathy escaped from the multitude at witnessing a scene which in other circumstances would have harrowed up the feelings of the spectators, and driven them into mutiny. These, and numerous other sufferers, not only in Spain, but in every country of Europe where this tribunal had been erected, "counted not their lives dear unto them," but rejoiced, amidst torments the most agonizing, and in a death the most dreadful, that they were "considered worthy to suffer" for their Redeemer's sake. The zeal of Philip was equally conspicuous in Portugal. Having ascended the throne of that kingdom in 1580, at a period when the office of Inquisitor-general was vacant, Philip wished to place the Inquisition of Portugal under the dominion of that of Spain. Though this attempt was unsuccessful, yet numerous acts of cruelty were committed during the reign of that monarch, on those who dissented, or were suspected to dissent, from the received doctrines of the Popish Church.