Deza gave a new constitution to the Holy Office and prescribed that there should be a general "Inquest" in places not yet visited, and that edicts should be republished requiring all persons to lay information against suspected heretics. He stirred up the zeal of all subordinate inquisitors and was well served by them, especially by one, Lucero, commonly called _el Tenebroso_, "the gloomy," whose savage and ruthless proceedings terrorised Cordova where he presided. He made a general attack upon the most respectable inhabitants and arrested great numbers, many of whom were condemned and executed. Informers crowded Lucero's ante-chamber bringing monstrous tales of heretical conspiracies to reëstablish Judaism and subvert the Church. His familiars dragged the accused from their beds to answer to these charges and the prisons overflowed. Cordova was up in arms and many would have offered armed resistance to the Inquisition, but the more circumspect people, the Bishop and Chapter, some of the nobility and the municipal council appealed to Deza praying him to remove Lucero. The inquisitor-general however turned furiously upon the complainants and caused them to be arrested as abettors of heresy. Philip I, acting for his wife Juana, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, was inclined to listen to the complainants, and suspended both Deza and Lucero from their functions. But his sudden death stayed the relief he had promised, and the tormenting officials returned to renew their oppression. The Cordovese would not tamely submit and appealed to force. A strong body of men under the Marques de Priego attacked the "Holy House," broke open the prison and liberated many of those detained, shutting up the officers of the Inquisition in their place. Lucero took to flight upon a swift mule and escaped. Though for a time Deza continued to keep his influence, he was shortly forced to resign and Cordova became tranquil. Deza's persecution had spared no one. In the eight years during which he held office, one account, probably greatly exaggerated, says that 2,592 persons were burned alive, some nine hundred were burned in effigy, and thirty-five thousand were punished by penance, fines and confiscations.