gs or his
conversation. Some plausible ground was afforded for this from the fact,
that, although Carranza, as his whole life had shown, was devoted to the
Roman Catholic Church, yet his long residence in Protestant countries,
and his familiarity with Protestant works, had given a coloring to his
language, if not to his opinions, which resembled that of the Reformers.
Indeed, Carranza seems to have been much of the same way of thinking
with Pole, Contarini, Morone, and other illustrious Romanists, whose
liberal natures and wide range of study, had led them to sanction more
than one of the Lutheran dogmas which were subsequently proscribed by
the Council of Trent. One charge strongly urged against the primate was
his assent to the heretical doctrine of justification by faith. In
support of this, Father Regla, the confessor, as the reader may
remember, of Charles the Fifth, and a worthy coadjutor of Valdes,
quoted words of consolation employed by Carranza, in his presence, at
the death-bed of the emperor.[454]

The exalted rank of the accused made it necessary for his enemies to
proceed with the greatest caution. Never had the bloodhounds of the
Inquisition been set on so noble a quarry. Confident in his own
authority, the prelate had little reason for distrust. He could not ward
off the blow, for it was an invisible arm stronger than his own that was
raised to smite him. On the twenty-second of August, 1559, the
emissaries of the Holy Office entered the primate's town of Torrelaguna.
The doors of the episcopal palace were thrown open to the ministers of
the terrible tribunal. The prelate was dragged from his bed at midnight,
was hurried into a coach, and while the inhabitants were ordered not so
much as to present themselves at the windows, he was conducted, under a
strong guard, to the prisons of the Inquisition at Valladolid. The
arrest of such a person caused a great sensation throughout the country,
but no attempt was made at a rescue.

The primate would have appealed from the Holy Office to the pope, as the
only power competent to judge him. But he was unwilling to give umbrage
to Philip, who had told him in any extremity to rely on him. The king,
however, was still in the Netherlands, where his mind had been
preoccupied, through the archbishop's enemies, with rumors of his
defection. And the mere imputation of heresy, in this dangerous crisis,
and especially in one whom he had so recently raised to the highest pos