The first step towards her revenge was to get a new Grand Inquisitor in her interest, and she pressed the King to appoint her friend Folch de Cardona. He refused, no doubt prompted by his confessor Froilan, and, notwithstanding the Queen's passionate protests, appointed a second son of one of the noblest houses in Spain, Cardinal Cordoba, to whom the King unburdened himself completely, and Froilan told the whole story of the exorcism from beginning to end. From these confabulations a most extraordinary resolution was arrived at. Probably the Queen herself was too high game to fly at, so the new Grand Inquisitor and his friends decided that the Devil and the Admiral of Castile, the late Prime Minister, were at the bottom of all the King's trouble, and they ordered the Admiral with his papers to be secretly seized and imprisoned by the Inquisition of Granada, whilst all his household were incarcerated in another prison. They had no doubt, they said, that he would confess all, even if his papers did not incriminate him. No action, however, could be taken until the new Grand Inquisitor's appointment was ratified by the Pope; but on the very day the bull of ratification arrived the Cardinal Grand Inquisitor died of poison, and the Queen once again urged her nominee for the place, but without success as before. She then cast about for an ambitious man who was unobjectionable to her opponents, but who might nevertheless be bought over by her. She found {317} him in the person of Mendoza, Bishop of Segovia, to whom she promised her support and a cardinal's hat if he would serve her. He was appointed Grand Inquisitor, and the Queen had now the whip-hand of her enemy, the confessor. First the German monk was netted, and under torture by the Inquisition made a clean breast of his exorcism in the Calle del Olmo, when Froilan was present. Then a monk of the Atocha, who had been sent by the Provincial to investigate the strange doings of Friar Argüelles at Cangas, produced the letters from the "friend and the master," and told the story of the conjurations. This was quite enough evidence to ruin Froilan, and he was apprehended. He refused to answer any questions, as all he had done had been by the King's own orders, and as the confessor of his Majesty his mouth was closed. He was at once dismissed from his offices, and the Grand Inquisitor appealed to the King to allow all privileges to be waived, and his confessor punished. Poor Charles the Bewitched was dying in good earnest now, and could only mumble out that they might do justice. But Froilan had powerful friends both at Court and in the Council of the Inquisition, and before the blow fell he retired, ostensibly to his monastery, but thence fled to the coast, and so to Rome. But he was not safe even there, for the Grand Inquisitor had him seized for heresy by the Papal officers and brought back to Spain. Then came the long struggle between the Inquisition and its head.