r's letters to the king are still preserved in Simancas, and
astonish one by the boldness of their criticisms on the conduct of the
ministers, and even of the monarch himself, whom Lorenzo openly accuses
of a timid policy towards the Reformers.

In a memorial on the state of the country, prepared, at Philip's
suggestion, in the beginning of 1566, Fray Lorenzo urges the necessity
of the most rigorous measures towards the Protestants in the
Netherlands. "Since your majesty holds the sword which God has given to
you, with the divine power over our lives, let it be drawn from the
scabbard, and plunged in the blood of the heretics, if you do not wish
that the blood of Jesus Christ, shed by these barbarians, and the blood
of the innocent Catholics whom they have oppressed, should cry aloud to
Heaven for vengeance on the sacred head of your majesty!... The holy
king David showed no pity for the enemies of God. He slew them, sparing
neither man nor woman. Moses and his brother, in a single day, destroyed
three thousand of the children of Israel. An angel, in one night, put to
death more than sixty thousand enemies of the Lord. Your majesty is a
king, like David; like Moses, a captain of the people of Jehovah; an
angel of the Lord,--for so the Scriptures style the kings and captains
of his people;--and these heretics are the enemies of the living God!"
And in the same strain of fiery and fanatical eloquence he continues to
invoke the vengeance of Philip on the heads of his unfortunate subjects
in the Netherlands.

That the ravings of this hard-hearted bigot were not distasteful to
Philip may be inferred from the fact that he ordered a copy of his
memorial to be placed in the hands of Alva, on his departure for the Low
Countries. It appears that he had some thoughts of sending Fray Lorenzo
to join the duke there,--a project which received little encouragement
from the latter, who probably did not care to have so meddlesome a
person as this frantic friar to watch his proceedings.

An interesting notice of this remarkable man is to be found in Gachard,
Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. II., Rapport, pp. xvi.-1.

[803] "Y por la priesa que dieron en esto, no ubo tiempo de consultarlo
a Su Santidad, como fuera justo, y quiza avra sido asi mejor, pues no
vale nada, sino quitandola Su Santidad que es que la pone; pero en esto
conviene que aya el secreto que puede considerar." Correspondance de
Philippe II., tom. I. p. 445.

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