Don Diego Deza, a Dominican, succeeded Torquemada as Inquisitor-general in December 1498. No less cruel than his predecessor, Deza, during the period of eight years, punished thirty-eight thousand four hundred and forty individuals; two thousand five hundred and ninety-two of whom were burnt in person, eight hundred and ninety-six in effigy, and thirty-four thousand nine hundred and fifty-two were condemned to different penances. The audacity of this tyrant rose at length to such a height, that Philip I. who then filled the throne, ordered Deza, in 1506, to retire to his archbishopric of Seville, and to invest another in his room. But unhappily for Spain, the death of the king that same year, restored Deza to his office, which so terrified the inhabitants of Cordova, that they rose in a tumult, broke open the prisons of the Inquisition, and liberated an immense number of prisoners. These events alarmed the Inquisitor-general to such a degree, that he resigned his office, which immediately restored tranquility in Cordova.
Two new Inquisitors were now appointed, namely, Ximenes de Cisneros for Castile, and Don Juan Enguera for Arragon. The former of these prelates, considering it unnecessary to have as many Inquisitorial tribunals as there were bishoprics, "established the Inquisition at Seville, Cordova, Jaen, Toledo, in Estremadura, at Murcia, Valladolid, and Calahorra, and appointed the extent of territory for the jurisdiction of each tribunal; he also sent Inquisitors to the Canary isles. In 1513, the Inquisition was introduced at Cuença; in 1524, at Grenada; under Philip II. at Santiago de Galicia; and under Philip IV. at Madrid. Cisneros also judged it necessary, in 1516, to have a tribunal at Oran, and soon after in America. The Inquisitor-general of Arragon adopted the same system, and sent Inquisitors to Saragossa, Barcelona, Valencia, Majorca, Sardinia, and Sicily." Ximenes was eleven years at the head of the Inquisition, during which period, fifty-two thousand eight hundred and fifty-five persons were condemned; three thousand five hundred and sixty-four of whom were burnt in person, one thousand two hundred and thirty-two in effigy, and forty-eight thousand and fifty-nine suffered various other kinds of punishment.