The Cardinal Quiroga, and the Council of the Inquisition, treated the Sovereign Pontiff, Sextus Quintus, with little respect. This Pope published a translation of the Bible in Italian, and prefaced it by a bull, in which he recommended every one to read it, saying, that the faithful would derive the greatest advantages from it. This conduct of the Pope was contrary to all the regulations from the time of Leo X. All doctrinal works had been forbidden to be in the vulgar tongue for fifty years, by the expurgatory index of the council, and by the inquisitions of Rome and Madrid. The Cardinals, Quiroga at Madrid, and Toledo at Rome, and others, represented to Philip II., that great evils would arise from it, if he did not employ his influence to induce the Pope to relinquish his design. Philip commissioned the Count d'Olivarez to expostulate with the Pontiff; the Count obeyed, but at the peril of his life, for Sextus Quintus was on the point of depriving him of it, without respect for the rights of nations, or for the privileges of Olivarez as an ambassador. This formidable Pope died in 1592, and Philip was suspected of having shortened his days by slow poison. After this event, the Inquisition of Spain having received witnesses to prove that the _infallible_ oracle of the law was a favourer of heretics, condemned the Sextine Bible, as they had already condemned those of Cassiodorus de Reyna, and many others. A preparatory instruction was commenced against Don John of Austria, a natural son of Philip IV., but the proceedings were suspended by the king. This event was caused by the intrigues of the inquisitor-general, John Everard Nitardo, who was the mortal enemy of Don John; and some persons were found base enough to accuse the king's brother of Lutheranism, in order to flatter him. The Grandees of Spain may be numbered among the princes, since Charles V. declared them to possess that title, and that they were equal in rank to the sovereigns of the Circles of Germany; they had likewise the privileges of being seated and covered in the presence of the king, as, for example, when the emperor was crowned. Among the princes humiliated by the Inquisition, the following persons must be included. The Marquis de Priego, the grand-master of the military order of Montesa, the Duke de Gandia, St. Francis de Borgia, the blessed Juan de Ribera, the venerable Don Juan de Palafox, and many others, among whom were several ladies. None of these trials had any serious result; the denounced persons only received a severe remonstrance, except in the case of the Dowager Marchioness d'Alcanices, who was imprisoned in the Convent of St. Catherine, at Valladolid. These persons were all innocent; the only foundation for the accusations was their intimacy with the Doctors Pedro and Augustine Cazalla, Fray Dominic de Roxas, and Don Pedro Samiento de Roxas: they were also accused of having heard conversations on justification, and of not having denounced them.