Constantly were his arguments--all founded upon the love of Christ--poured into the ears of the Sovereigns, and to prove the soundness of these arguments he was able to bring forward concrete facts--or, at least, matters upon which the courts of the Inquisition had pronounced--prominent among which would be the affair of La Guardia. And what Torquemada was doing by the Sovereigns, the brethren of his order were doing by Spain. Popular indignation against the Jews, so easy to arouse, already inflamed by the outrage at Casar de Palomero and the crucifixion at La Guardia, was further and unscrupulously excited by false stories that were set in circulation. It was even alleged that the illness of the Prince Don Juan was the result of Hebrew infamy, and to explain this a foolish, wicked story was invented, put about and universally accepted. Llorente quotes this story from the “Anonymo de Zaragoza.”[229] It is to the effect that the prince coveted a golden pomander-ball worn by his physician, who was of a Jewish family, and this gewgaw the physician ended by relinquishing to his patient. One day, moved by youthful curiosity, the boy wished to see what the pomander contained. Opening it, he discovered an indecent and blasphemous picture, insulting to the divinity of Christ. The sight of it inspired the princeling with such horror and grief that he fell sick. Nor would he divulge the origin of his illness until the instances of his father succeeded in drawing the secret from him, whereupon “it was resolved to take proceedings against the physician and to sentence him to the fire.” This trivial, scurrilous, and obviously untruthful story would not be worth repeating did it not serve the purpose of showing the sort of rumours that were being propagated to the hurt of the Israelites. Another story that was circulated alleged that in Valencia there had also been an attempt by a number of Jews to crucify a Christian boy. This is recorded in that scurrilous, infamous publication, “Centinela contra Judios,” by Frey Francisco de Torrejoncillo. We have already referred to it more than once. It was first printed in 1676, and is the book of a friar of the Order of St. Francis, a disgraceful work which proves its author to have been as barefaced as he was barefooted. It is a collection of stupid lies and forgeries, and, it is scarcely an exaggeration to add, obscenities; it may be another instance of those frauds termed pious, but it is scarcely to the credit of a Church exercising, by means of the “Index Expurgatorius,” a censorship of the press--to have permitted the circulation of a work of this order from the pen of a churchman. This, however, is by the way.