Born to a family of forcibly converted Spanish Jews in 1492, Juan fled the Inquisition at 16, never to return. Vives visited England in the 1520s, where he became the tutor to Princess Mary Tudor and a confidante of both Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, playing a dangerous double agent game.

The Alhambra Decree (also known as the Edict of Expulsion; Spanish: Decreto de la Alhambra, Edicto de Granada) was an edict issued on 31 March 1492, by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain (Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon) ordering the expulsion of practising Jews from the Crowns of Castile and Aragon and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year.