It was singular, considering the character of Mendoza, that he should have recommended so ill-advised a measure as that relating to the arms of the Moriscoes. The ordinance excited a general indignation in Granada. The people were offended by the distrust which such a law implied of their loyalty. They felt it an indignity to be obliged to sue for permission to do what they considered it was theirs of right to do. Those of higher condition disdained to wear weapons displaying the heraldic bearings of the Mendozas instead of their own. But the great number, without regard to the edict provided themselves secretly with arms, which, as it reached the ears of the authorities, led to frequent prosecutions. Thus a fruitful source of irritation was opened; and many, to escape punishment, fled to the mountains, and there too often joined the brigands who haunted the passes of Alpujarras, and bade defiance to the feeble police of the Spaniards.[15] [Sidenote: THE MINISTER ESPINOSA.] These impolitic edicts, as they were irritating to the Moriscoes, were but preludes to an ordinance of so astounding a character as to throw the whole country into a state of revolution. The apostasy of the Moriscoes,--or, so to speak more correctly, the constancy with which they adhered to the faith of their fathers,--gave great scandal to the old Christians, especially to the clergy, and above all to its head, Don Pedro Guerrero, archbishop of Granada. This prelate seems to have been a man of an uneasy, meddlesome spirit, and possessed of a full share of the bigotry of his time. While in Rome, shortly before this period, he had made such a representation to Pope Pius the Fourth as drew from that pontiff a remonstrance, addressed to the Spanish government, on the spiritual condition of the Moriscoes. Soon after, in the year 1567, a memorial was presented to the government, by Guerrero and the clergy of his diocese, in which, after insisting on the manifold back-slidings of the "New Christians," as the Moriscoes were termed, they loudly called for some efficacious measures to arrest the evil. These people, they said, whatever show of conformity they might make to the requisitions of the Church, were infidels at heart. When their children were baptized, they were careful, on returning home, to wash away the traces of baptism, and, after circumcising them, to give them Moorish names. In like manner, when their marriages had been solemnized with Christian rites, they were sure to confirm them afterwards by their own ceremonies, accompanied with the national songs and dances. They continued to observe Friday as a holy day; and what was of graver moment, they were known to kidnap the children of the Christians, and sell them to their brethren on the coast of Barbary, where they were circumcised, and nurtured in the Mahometan religion. This last accusation, however improbable, found credit with the Spaniards, and