to submit to this interdict without an order from his bishop. The king and the Pope were at last obliged to interfere, they re-established the bishop in his rights; but this act of justice did not destroy the cause of the evil which was complained of. In the same year, the Inquisitors of Toledo excommunicated the sub-prefect of that city, who had seized and sentenced a butcher as a thief, and convicted him of having sold bad meat with false weights: the inquisitors pretended that the culprit came under their jurisdiction, because he furnished the holy office with meat, and they accordingly required that the prisoners and the writings of the trial should be given up to them. Their demand was refused, because the offence was committed in the exercise of a public profession. The inquisitors then published the excommunication in all the churches of Toledo; they imprisoned the usher and the porter of the sub-prefect for having obeyed their master, and they remained in prison several days; they were then subject to the punishment of having their beards and hair shaven, which was at that time considered infamous, and to appear in the chamber of audience without their shoes and girdles; they were examined on their genealogy, to discover if they were descended from the Moors or Jews; they were made to repeat the catechism as if they were heretics, and were then condemned to perpetual banishment; the inquisitors even refused to give them a certificate, to show that they had not been condemned for heresy. The compassion excited by the fate of these unfortunate men was so general, that the people rose against the Inquisition; but some persons of high rank, and who were devoted to the public good, succeeded in appeasing the tumult. The king being informed of what had passed by the Council of Castile, appointed an extraordinary commission of eleven members selected from his councils; they passed several resolutions against the inquisitors, which had only the effect of correcting the present disorder, without entirely destroying the evil. In the following year, the Inquisitors of Grenada excommunicated Don Louis Gudiel de Peralta, and Don Mathias Gonzalez; the first a member of the royal civil court, and the other the king's procurator in the same court. They condemned as heretical two works of these excellent jurisconsults, in which they defended the rights of the royal jurisdiction in all cases of _competence_. The Council of Castile respectfully remonstrated with the king, and showed that the inquisitors acted in opposition to _Instructions to the holy office of 1485_, which directed them to consult the king in affairs of this nature. In order to remedy this abuse, a committee was appointed in 1625, to decide upon all difficulties which might arise on this subject. This committee did not exist long, but it was re-established in 1657.