The young Spaniard had now ruined himself with the doctor. The affection which Malvenda had felt for him gave place to implacable hatred, and as he had not succeeded in gaining him over, his only thought now was to ruin him. With this view he applied to the confessor of Charles the Fifth, of whose influence he was aware. 'There is now at Ratisbon,' he wrote, 'a young Spaniard whom I once knew at Paris as an obedient son of Rome, but who now avows himself an enemy of the church and a friend of the Lutherans. If such things are permitted, Spain is lost, and you will see her claiming to shake off her shoulders the burdens with which she will profess to be overwhelmed. I implore you to avert such a calamity, even if necessary by a violent remedy.' Malvenda was not content with writing one letter. As the confessor gave no answer, he wrote other letters, 'far more harsh and violent than the first.' De Soto had not answered at once because he was perplexed. He was quite capable of feeling the worth of such a man as Juan Diaz; and, whatever the chroniclers may have said, he had previously been struck with the excellencies of Enzinas, and had winked at his escape. Moreover, the case was one of real difficulty. Diaz, being one of a deputation sent to a colloquy approved by the emperor, was protected against violent measures, except at the cost of a renewal of the breach of faith of which John Huss had been the victim. Just at the time when the confessor received from Malvenda his last violent letter, he had with him another Spaniard, named Marquina, who was entrusted with a mission for Rome, respecting which he was conversing with the confessor. 'See,' said De Soto, 'what trouble our Spaniards give us,' and he read to him Malvenda's letter. Marquina, who was an old friend of Juan Diaz, had always looked upon him as a model of honesty and piety. He therefore said to De Soto: 'Put no faith in Malvenda's statements. He is no doubt impelled by some private ill-will. Believe, rather, the public testimonies of good men, who have at all times approved the character and the doctrine of Diaz.' But De Soto was not convinced. 'We must,' he said, 'either convert him, or get him put out of the way.' Did he mean that he was to be imprisoned or put to death? The latter seems the most probable conclusion. Nevertheless De Soto was not so black as Protestant writers depict him. In 1560 he was prosecuted by the Inquisition of Valladolid, on suspicion of Lutheranism.[174] His intercourse with such men as Enzinas and Diaz might well tend to make him afterwards more just towards a doctrine which he had at first condemned. Marquina set out for Rome. [Sidenote: ALONZO IN GERMANY.]