The trial of Juan Gil, Bishop of Tortosa, so much alarmed many Lutherans, that they quitted the kingdom. Of this number were Cassiodorus de Beina, Juan Perez de Pineda, Cyprian de Valera, and Julian Hernandez; the three first published catechisms, translations of the Bible, and other works written in the Castilian tongue, in foreign countries[19]. Juan Perez published his at Venice in 1556, and they were soon after introduced into Spain by Hernandez, who was arrested by the Inquisition. The citations and inquiries made in consequence of the trial of Hernandez, in order to discover the religious opinions of the persons with whom he associated, caused an infinite number of trials to be instituted during the fifteen years following, in all the tribunals of Spain, particularly in those of Seville and Valladolid. In 1557 and 1558, the Inquisition arrested a great number of persons distinguished by their birth, their offices, or their doctrine. Some indications found in the writings of the trials, of a vast scheme tending to the propagation of the opinions of Luther, persuaded Philip II. and the inquisitor Valdés that it was necessary to treat all the convicted persons with the utmost severity. Philip wrote to Rome on the subject on the 4th January, 1559. The Pope addressed to Valdés a brief, in which he authorized him to give over to secular justice all dogmatizing Lutherans, even those who had not relapsed, and who, to avoid capital punishment, had given equivocal signs of repentance. If history had nothing to allege against Philip II. and the inquisitor Valdés, but the solicitation for this bull, it would be sufficient to devote their names to infamy. On the 5th of January, 1559, a second bull revoked all the permissions granted for reading prohibited books, and charged the inquisitor-general to prosecute all who should read or keep them in their houses; and as his Holiness was informed that a great number of writings which tended to propagate the Lutheran doctrines were circulating in Spain, the bull commanded the confessors to ask their penitents if they knew or had heard of any persons possessing, reading, or dispersing them; that they should also impose upon them the obligation of communicating such circumstances to the holy office on pain of excommunication; and that the confessors who omitted this duty should be punished as guilty, even if persons they absolved were bishops, archbishops, patriarchs, cardinals, _kings_, or _emperors_. It is easy to perceive how much these measures must have increased the number of accusations; and to encourage the informers, Philip renewed the edict of Ferdinand V., published at Toro in 1505, by which they were entitled to the fourth part of the confiscated property.