Llorente and Bernaldez relate some sickening details of the savage modes of torment imposed upon the victims of the Inquisition in Seville. It is not necessary that the tales of horror should be retold here. The first _auto-da-fé_ celebrated in the city was in 1559, when Don Juan Ponce de León and several other apostates were committed to the flames in one of the chief plazas. Ponce de León was described as 'an obstinate Lutheran heretic.' The heroic Doctor Juan Gonzalez, of Moorish ancestry, was burnt upon the same day for preaching Protestant doctrines. We see him leaving the Triana gaol on the morning of execution, 'cheerful and undaunted,' though he was accompanied by his two sisters, both of whom were condemned to the stake, and had left behind in the prison his mother and two brothers. The Doctor sang the 109th Psalm, and attempted to console his sisters, whereupon a gag was thrust into his mouth. 'When they were brought to the place of execution,' writes M'Crie, 'the friars urged the females, in repeating the creed, to insert the word _Roman_ in the clause relating to the Catholic Church. Wishing to procure liberty to him to bear his dying testimony, they said they would do as their brother did. The gag being removed, Juan Gonzalez exhorted them to add nothing to the good confession which they had already made. Instantly the executioners were ordered to strangle them, and one of the friars, turning to the crowd, exclaimed that they had died in the Roman faith.' Doctor Christobal Losada, the pastor of the Protestant church in Seville, suffered death courageously upon the same day. Isabel de Baena, who allowed meetings of the Protestants in her house, and Maria de Bohorques were among the women of high birth who were burned in Seville. The story of the last-named lady has been told in a romance by a Spanish writer, entitled _Cornelia Bororquia_. Maria de Bohorques came into the grip of the Holy Office before the age of twenty-one. She was a pupil of Egidius, and a diligent student of the Scriptures. When seized and tortured by the Inquisition, she refused to name those of her friends who shared her belief. Doña Maria was then sent to the stake.