He was acute in his
perceptions, had a shrewd knowledge of character, and, though
bred to the cloister, possessed an acquaintance with affairs, and
even with military science, such as was to have been expected
only from one reared in courts and camps.
[Footnote 8: "Finding a lion would not answer, they sent a lamb,"
says Gomara; - "Finalmente, quiso embiar una Oveja, pues un Leon
no aprovecho; y asi escogio al Licenciado Pedro Gasca." Hist. de
las Ind., cap. 174.]
Without hesitation, therefore, the council unanimously
recommended him to the emperor, and requested his approbation of
their proceedings. Charles had not been an inattentive observer
of Gasca's course. His attention had been particularly called to
the able manner in which he had conducted the judicial process
against the heretics of Valencia. *9 The monarch saw, at once,
that he was the man for the present emergency; and he immediately
wrote to him, with his own hand, expressing his entire
satisfaction at the appointment, and intimating his purpose to
testify his sense of his worth by preferring him to one of the
principal sees then vacant.
[Footnote 9: Gasca made what the author calls una breve y copyosa
relacion of the proceedings to the emperor in Valencia; and the
monarch was so intent on the inquiry, that he devoted the whole
afternoon to it, notwithstanding his son Philip was waiting for
him to attend a fiesta! irrefragable proof, as the writer
conceives, of his zeal for the faith.
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