It is not true that Constantine Ponce de la Fuente attended the emperor in his last moments, either as his preacher, (which office he had filled in Germany,) or as a bishop, since he did not possess that dignity, as foreign authors have asserted without any foundation, or as his confessor, since he had never directed his conscience, though the emperor had always looked upon him as one of the most learned and respectable priests in his kingdom. Lastly, Ponce de la Fuente could not assist Charles V. in his last moments, since it appears from his trial before the Inquisition of Seville, that he was in the secret prisons of the holy office long before the illness of the emperor. Don Prudent de Sandoval, Bishop of Tui and Pampeluna, speaking of the last circumstances of the life of Charles V., relates that when that prince heard of the imprisonment of Ponce, he said, _Oh! if Constantine is an heretic, he is a great heretic_: an expression very different from that which he used on hearing that a monk named Dominic de Guzman had been arrested in the same city: _They might rather imprison him as a fool than an heretic._ In his codicil, written twelve days before his death, Charles V. thus expresses himself: "When I had been informed that many persons had been arrested in some provinces, and that others were to be taken, as accused of Lutheranism, I wrote to the princess my daughter, to inform her in what manner they should be punished, and the evil remedied. I also wrote afterwards to Louis Quixada, and authorized him to act in my name in the same affair; and although I am persuaded that the king my son, the princess my daughter, and the ministers, have already, and will always, make every possible effort to destroy so great an evil, with all the severity and promptitude which it requires; yet, considering what I owe to the service of our Lord, the triumph of his faith, the preservation of his church and the Christian religion, (in the defence of which I have performed such painful labours at the risk of my life, as every one knows;) and particularly desiring, above all, to inspire my son, whose catholic sentiments I know, with the wish of imitating my conduct, and which I hope he will do, from knowing his virtue and piety, I beg and recommend to him very particularly, as much as I can and am obliged to do, and command him moreover in my quality of father, and by the obedience which he owes me, to labour with diligence, as in a point which particularly interests him, that the heretics shall be prosecuted and chastised with all the severity which their crimes deserve, _without permitting any criminal to be excepted, without any respect for the entreaties, or rank, or quality of the persons_: and that my intentions may have their full and entire effect, I desire him to protect the holy office of the Inquisition, for the great numbers of crimes which it prevents or punishes, _remembering that I have charged him to do so in