opposition. Already, by May 16th, he was able to report that his mission was accomplished and that his presence was no longer needed. On May 21st he writes that the duke has come humbly to the inquisitor to beg for release from prison and sanbenito of two penitents, which was granted, seeing that they had already been compelled to abjure publicly. As the pope had rewarded Campeggio with the bishopric of Sutri and Nepi, the duke had at once begged that the place might be filled by Fra Angelo, the vicar of the Inquisition, to all of which the cardinal points triumphantly as showing how the ducal temper had changed. Possibly some explanation of this may be sought in a request from the duke that the confiscations should be made over to him, which Borromeo was willing to meet in so far as to suggest that he be allowed one half. Another reason may perhaps be discerned in his apprehension of an attack by the Duke of Savoy, for, on June 4th, Borromeo writes that he had asked for the support of the papacy in such contingency. Be this as it may, Borromeo was able in June to return to Milan, leaving the Inquisition firmly established in Mantua.[253] It is an indication of his predominating zeal for the extirpation of heresy that when, on May 16th, he begged permission to return to Milan, the reason he assigned was that he was wanted there for the long-protracted trial of Nicholas Cid. This was a case which had for years been occupying the Milanese Inquisition. The accused was treasurer-general of the Spanish forces, in whose favor Cesare Gonzaga wrote, November 2, 1565, to the cardinal, repeating what he had frequently stated before, that it was a persecution arising from malignity.[254] This ardor for the purity of the faith did not diminish with time. In his second provincial council, held in 1569, the first decree requires the bishops to promulgate an edict to be read in all the parish churches, on the first Sundays in Lent and Advent, calling upon all persons, under pain of excommunication, to denounce within ten days, to the bishop or inquisitor, any case of heresy or of reading forbidden books that may come to their knowledge. His own formula for this, in 1572, is very stringent, insisting on the denunciation of every heretic act or suspicious word.[255]