The edict of 1540 confesses as much while providing new and sterner penalties against those who even interceded for heretics.

The fact is that the inquisition as directed against Lutherans was thoroughly unpopular and was resisted in various provinces on the technical ground of local privileges.

The Protestants managed {245} to keep unnoticed amidst a general intention to connive at them, and though they did not usually flinch from martyrdom they did not court it.

The inquisitors were obliged to arrest their victims at the dead of night, raiding their houses and hauling them from bed, in order to avoid popular tumult.

[Sidenote: 1543] When Enzinas printed his Spanish Bible at Antwerp the printer told him that in that city the Scriptures had been published in almost every European language, doubtless an exaggeration but a significant one.