or papers which the prisoner might have about him.[54] Almansa, to
whom Luis de Leon was perfectly well known,[55] obeyed instructions,
and reached the Valladolid jail with his captive at about six o'clock
in the evening of Thursday, March 27, 1572.[56] After being carefully
searched, Luis de Leon was lodged in the secret cells of the
Inquisition, and there, except for his appearances in court, he was
detained for over four years and eight months.[57]

Though he was notoriously in weak health, the prisoner does not seem
to have received any special consideration. On the other hand, it
cannot be maintained that, at the outset, his judges treated him with
inhumanity. That Luis de Leon was nervous about himself, and that he
believed it possible he might die without warning is the impression
conveyed by a fervent act of faith which, though undated, was probably
written almost as soon as his imprisonment began. On March 31, Luis de
Leon asked for various things besides four books: one of them a box of
powder with which he was usually provided by a nun named Ana de
Espinosa to alleviate his heart-attacks.[58] This petition was
granted. Luis de Leon's request for a knife to cut his food with was
so clearly against all prison regulations that he can scarcely have
expected a favourable reply.[59] The Inquisitors met him half-way by
ordering that he should at once be supplied with a rounded spoon,
sufficient for his purpose, though useless to a prisoner of suicidal
tendencies.[60] At this stage, it cannot be said that Luis de Leon was
treated with any want of lenity. There was no reason why he should be.
He was arrested mainly on suspicion of being concerned in the (purely
imaginary) Jewish propaganda imputed to his colleagues Grajal and
Martinez de Cantalapiedra; the evidence against him was second-hand
and meagre.