displace their Portuguese rivals, the Spanish Franciscans not scrupling
to wear a political cloak and thus override the Pope's bull of
world-partition, determined to get a foothold alongside of the Jesuits.
So, in 1593 a Spanish envoy of the governor of the Philippine Islands
came to Ki[=o]to, bringing four Spanish Franciscan priests, who were
allowed to build houses in Ki[=o]to, but only on the express
understanding that this was because of their coming as envoys of a
friendly power, and with the explicitly specified condition that they
were not to preach, either publicly or privately. Almost immediately
violating their pledge and the hospitality granted them, these
Spaniards, wearing the vestments of their order, openly preached in the
streets. Besides exciting discord among the Christian congregations
founded by the Jesuits, they were violent in their language.

Hidéyoshi, to gratify his own mood and test his power as the actual
ruler for a shadowy emperor, seized nine preachers while they were
building churches at Ki[=o]to and Osaka. They were led to the
execution-ground in exactly the same fashion as felons, and executed by
crucifixion, at Nagasaki, February 5, 1597. Three Portuguese Jesuits,
six Spanish Franciscans and seventeen native Christians were stretched
on bamboo crosses, and their bodies from thigh to shoulder were
transfixed with spears. They met their doom uncomplainingly.

In the eye of the Japanese law, these men were put to death, not as
Christians, but as law-breakers and as dangerous political conspirators.
The suspicions of Hidéyoshi were further confirmed by a Spanish
sea-captain, who showed him a map of the world on which were marked the
vast dominions of the King of Spain; the Spaniard informing the
Japanese, in answer to his shrewd question, that these great conquests
had been made by the king's soldiers following up the priests, the work