ABSTRACT
Spain was the only country touched by the Reformation that had in place the machinery to seek its adherents out systematically and by various means eliminate them. The spiritual ferment that was affecting Europe in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, prompting people to desire a form of Christianity purified from abuses, corruption, and the accretions of the past, was evident in Spain as much as anywhere. This chapter provides some of the better known victims of anti-Protestant activity in and by Spain, who, although often ignored, are part of the noble army of martyrs and confessors of the Christian faith, since for some the suffering was that of long exile from their homeland. It then shows how their sufferings, often related by those who escaped, were used in their day for their own ends by Protestant nations to construct the so-called Black Legend.
