Dealing with the Jews, open or secret, was now almost the principal activity of the government. All the gaols were full. Tens of thousands were under house arrest and often starving. Despairing of ending contact between conversos and Jews by the conventional means of inquisitorial investigation, egged on by rapacious followers anxious to loot, the reyos determined on a gigantic act of will to produce a ‘final solution’. On 31 March they signed an Edict of Expulsion, promulgated a month later, physically driving from Spain any Jew who would not accept immediate conversion.
