Younger than paterno by only four years, Rizal showed himself to be of an entirely different temperament. He was only eleven years old when the priest-martyrs Gomez, Burgos and Zamora were executed in 1872, but as his Spanish novels would reveal, he was sensitive to the forces that were building up in Philippine society as the clamor for reforms was met with repression that in turn generated a more insistent clamor for change.