l\^k;v&^\r x
WHAT POPERY IS
WHEN ARMED WITH POWER,
AND
WHAT TRACT ARIANISM LEADS TO;
SHEWN BY AN ANALYSIS OP
THE INQUISITION,
EXEMPLIFIED BY
SEVERAL TERRIBLE ANNALS
BY EDWARD YATES, B.A.,
BARRISTER- AT-LAW ;
NINETEENTH WRANGLER AND SCHOLAR OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE ;
AUTHOR OF
"A TREATISE ON TACTICS," AND OF "A TREATISE ON STRATEGY."
LONDON:
T. AND W. BOONE, 29, NEW BOND STREET.
Price 6d.
A Copy forwarded to any part of the Kingdom on receipt of Seven
Postage Stamps.
LONDON I PKINTED BY WOODFALL AND KINDER,
ANOKL COURT, SKINNER STREET.
WHAT POPERY IS
WHEN ARMED WITH POWER,
AND
WHAT TBACTABIANISM LEADS TO ;
SHEWN BY AN ANALYSIS OF
THE INQUISITION,
EXEMPLIFIED BY
SEVERAL TERRIBLE ANNALS.
" WHY.'' it may be asked, " since the Inquisition is now in the present
day, compared -with what it was, contemptible in power, tyranny, and
injustice, do you wish to bring before the English public the dark
annals of this tribunal?" I reply Because, as will be briefly shewn
before exhibiting this tribunal, it was essentially the child of Popery ;
the Pope has even been at its head, and, before he called it into exist-
ence, himself executed its office ; nor has the Inquisition by any means
ceased to exist. I shall shew that its Grand Inquisitors, Inquisitors,
and functionaries, were Romish ecclesiastics. I shall shew that the
principles and acts of this tribunal were nothing more than Popery in
its full development ; and since, according to Romanists themselves,
their Church is unchangeable and infallible in its doctrine, actions,
and in aught that emanates from itself, therefore, according to them-
selves, every change, by which their Church and its tribunals have
been affected or altered, proceeded from a cause, over which the Church
had no control ; a cause extraneous to their Church. What possible
cause then is there, either according to Romanists themselves or in
reality according to reason, except the diminution of the temporal
power of the Church of Rome, why the horrors it will be my task to
portray should not still have a daily and actual existence ? There is
none ; since, by the nature of the case, nothing but the diminution of
the temporal and actual power of acting could alter the proceedings
and tribunals of a Church in itself unchangeable and infallible. I may
therefore fairly answer to those who might at first sight object to the
publication of the terrible annals I propose bringing before the public
as uncharitable, I only wish to shew, in the interest of Humanity, the
development which a sufficient accession of temporal power would give
to Popery ; for assuredly, when it had that accession of temporal power
such as I shall shew it to have been, it existed for five long centuries.
When the temporal power of Rome culminated, the Inquisition was at
its height. The Church of Rome can by its very principles lay no
claim to change ; it cannot say, that it has grown wiser and better, as
the science and civilisation it ever retarded have in spite of it pro-
gressed, illustrated and illuminated those holy truths which it, in its
ignorance and folly, imagined they would subvert. No, though St.
Paul corrects St. Peter when evidently wrong, and the latter demurs
in Christian humility to the decision, the Church of Rome changes
not still, as ever, the Church of apparent music, gold, and flowery
wreaths, latent cruelty, fraud, and injustice, the Church of senseless
superstitions, hideous barbarities, forged relics, and forged saints.
Such as this Church will be shewn to have been in a terrible past, it
exists now latent in the present, and such, were it to gain a sufficient
accession of temporal authority, would it assuredly reproduce itself in
the future.
I, therefore, have ventured to lay before the English public these
annals of the Inquisition. Before displaying the Inquisition, in order
that no doubt may be left on the mind of any reader that the Inquisi-
tion is nothing more than Popery backed by power, and Popery at
present nothing less than the Inquisition with its temporal power
diminished, it will be necessary to establish briefly some such proposi-
tion as the following: That before the birth of the Inquisition, the
Pope, cardinals, and Roman ecclesiastics themselves performed those
functions, which it was the future office of the Inquisition to discharge ;
that the Church of Rome, with the Pope at its head, called the Inqui-
sition into existence, and from the first moment of its existence to the
present time, Romish ecclesiastics have filled equally all its important
as well as almost all its unimportant offices, the Pope himself being
always at its head ; that before, as well as after, the birth of the
Inquisition, the Pope used temporal princes as his subordinate Inqui-
sitors ; that at all times, during the existence of the Inquisition, the
Pope was continually urging the Inquisitors to greater severity. It is
not within the scope of this little work to furnish an elaborate proof of
this proposition ; nor is it indeed, at all necessary, for the proposition
IB nothing more than the enunciation of an acknowledged historical
truth. Sufficient quotations will, however, be given, word for word,
from well-known historians of acknowledged veracity, to prove that the
proposition is true ; not so much to confirm a statement which needs
no confirmation, but rather to convey more vividly to the mind of every
reader the conviction that he is dealing with real, solid, and actual
facts with deeds and events which have been acted and chronicled.
The necessity of keeping the mind of the reader throughout vividly
impressed with the conviction, that he is perusing facts, not fables, is
well indicated by a statement made by an author of distinction (La-
vallee, a president of the Polytechnique of Paris), when writing on this
subject. " One doubts," says he, " when reading of such barbarity
and injustice, whether one can be awake." The following facts, also,
cannot, in perusing these pages, be kept too steadily and vividly before
the mind. That the Church of Rome is, according to itself, unchange-
able and infallible ; and that, as far as its infamy is concerned, reason,
in contemplating its writers and organs and history, in detailing its
deeds alike prove it to be so. And the deduction from this, that such
scenes of stupendous cruelty, injustice, and barbarity, as it caused to
be acted in foreign countries not so very long ago, such, had it the
power, it would to-day cause to be acted here in England. It may as
well, too, be remembered, that every citizen of London resides within
two miles of Smithfield ; and it is also wished to call the attention of
the reader to the fact, that almost every word which will be found in
the following pages, will unavoidably prove that any measure or act,
levelled against Popery, and its subordinate, Puseyism, is not an
attack on religious freedom, but a defence of civil liberty.
It is now necessary to prove briefly, and illustrate the above-men-
tioned proposition. Its first part is, that before the birth of the
Inquisition, the Pope, cardinals, and priests executed its future offices,
and made temporal princes their subordinate Inquisitors. The histo-
rian Limborch, speaking of the year A.D. 1055 and those following,
says " In the following ages the affairs of the Church were so
managed, under the government of the Popes, and all persons so
strictly curbed by the severity of the laws, that they durst not so much
as whisper against the received opinions of the Church." " If any one
dared," continues he, " in the least to contradict the ecclesiastics, he
was sure to be punished immediately." Again Limborch says " The
entire study and endeavour of the Popes was, to crush in its infancy
every doctrine which in any way opposed their exorbitant power."
Speaking of the persecution of the Albigenses and Waldenses, A.D.
1163, Limborch quotes the following from a papal message: "As
many heretics as can be found, let them be imprisoned by Catholic
princes, and punished by the forfeiture of their goods." Perga states
that Ildefonsus, king of Arragon, put forward the following edict at the
instigation of the Pope : " If any person shall receive these Wal-
denses and Albigenses, or other heretics, into their houses, or give
them food, or do them any kind office whatever, let him know that he
shall incur the indignation of Almighty God and ours, and shall forfeit
all his goods without appeal, and be punished as though guilty of high
treason." The good king then proceeds " If any person shall find
one of these heretics, every evil, disgrace, and suffering that he shall
inflict on such person, except death or maiming, will be very grateful
and acceptable to us." Then the king concludes " After All Saints'
day the heretics shall be plundered, whipt, beat, and treated with all
manner of disgrace and severity." The way in which the Pope and
the proud churchmen, his emissaries, just before the founding of the
Inquisition, excommunicated Raymond, the Count of Thoulouse, then
made war on him, and afterwards caused him to walk to church in his
shirt and stockings, and to be beaten with rods, and this because he
would not persecute his Protestant subjects, the Albigenses, is so
notorious an historical fact that it would be ridiculous to give any
authority for its truth.
These quotations shew that before the Inquisition existed, the
Church in general performed similar functions ; and, like it, made tem-
poral princes subordinate Inquisitors.
The second part of the proposition is, that the Church of Rome,
with the Pope at its head, called the Inquisition into existence ; and,
from the first moment of its existence to the present time, Romish
ecclesiastics have filled equally all its important as well as almost all
its unimportant offices, the Pope himself being always at its head.
From Limborch, cap. 10. "Thus far we have considered the
method of proceeding against heretics while committed to the bishops,
to whom the government and care of the churches were intrusted.
But because their number did not seem sufficient to the Court of Rome,
or because they were too negligent in the affair, and did not proceed
with that fury against heretics which the Pope would have them,
therefore, about A.D. 1200, he founded the orders of Dominicans and
Franciscans, that they might preach against heretics. These, with
Saints Dominic and Francis respectively at their heads, were com-
manded by the Pope to excite the Catholic princes and people to
extirpate heretics. They were also to transmit accurate accounts to
Rome of the number and quality of heretics, and of the zeal of the
bishops and princes in punishing them. Hence, they were called In-
quisitors." The Inquisition now began, under Pope Innocent III.,
and Dominic was appointed the first Inquisitor in Gallia Narbonensis,
A.D. 1212. Father Dominic first discoursed of his design to introduce
this celebrated tribunal, the Inquisition, to Arnaldus, Abbot of Cis-
treaux, who was at that time Apostolic Legate in France. The Abbot
appointed him Inquisitor, at the same time referring the matter to the
Pope. After this, Dominic was made a Cardinal Legate of France ;
and in A.D. 1216, he was confirmed as Inquisitor by the authority of
the Pope's letters. " When Dominic had received these letters, upon
a certain day, in the midst of a great concourse of people, he declared
openly, in his sermon in the church of St. Prulian, that he was raised
to a new office by the Pope ; adding, that he was resolved to defend
with his utmost rigour, all the doctrines of the faith, and that, if the
spiritual and ecclesiastical arms were not sufficient to this end, it was
his fixed purpose to call the assistance of the secular arm to excite and
compel temporal princes and people to punish and extirpate heretics."
On the authority of Lavallee, and all the historians on the subject of
the Inquisition, the Pope was chief of the Inquisition, which was called
at Rome the Holy Office. He named all the Cardinals of whom this
convention was composed. All the Inquisitions of Italy, that of Venice
being excepted, were immediately subordinate to the Holy Office. The
Pope also named all the presiding Inquisitors of these secondary tri-
bunals ; he could recall them without any legal form, and even without
communicating to them the motive or reason of their disgrace. The
Holy Office, with the Pope at its head, had supreme authority over all
the several Inquisitions of Italy; they were obliged to render an
account to it of all their important transactions ; to consult it on all
principal questions, and await its answers ; to conform themselves to
these without reply or petition, and scrupulously to obey its orders
whatever they might be.
The fact that Romish ecclesiastics filled all the important, as well as
almost all the unimportant offices, is to be gathered from every page of
every writer on the Church of Rome.
From this second part of the proposition, we see that the introduction
of this tribunal was nothing more than the greater organising and
systematising on the part of the Church of Rome, of the persecutions
she had always previously carried on.
The third part of the proposition is, that at all times during the
existence of the Inquisition, the Pope was continually urging the
Inquisitors to greater severity.
8
The following is from Paramus and other historians : In Italy, the
Pope took all possible means and measures that the Inquisition should
discharge its office with all possible rigour. For, when in the year
A.D. 1530, the Vicar-General of the order of the preaching friars
signified to Clement VII. that the Lutheran heresy prevailed in Italy, to
the great detriment of the Catholic faith, this Pope published a bull,
beginning " Cum sicut ex relatione." And, lest this heresy should
spread like that of Arius, he commanded the Inquisitors to proceed
against all, even the regulars of every order. He then commands the
bishops that they should favour and support the Inquisition. Before
this, the Inquisitors were often forced to go to Rome to consult the
Pope on more difficult affairs, and so, lest the office of the Inquisition
should be interrupted by the absence of the Inquisitors, Pope Urban IV.,
A.D. 1263, created John Caetenus Ursinus, Cardinal of St. Nicholas,
general and protector of all the Inquisitors, that there might be no
need of wasting time by going to the Pope, except in those very
weighty matters the Cardinal could not decide.
And again, in the year 1542 A.D., Pope Paul III., by a constitution
beginning " Licet ab initio," deputed six Cardinals Inquisitors-General
of heretical pravity in all Christian nations whatsoever, as well on this
side, as on the other side of the Alps, and gave them siuthority to pro-
ceed against all heretics, suspected heretics, their accomplices and abet-
tors, of whatsoever state, degree, order, condition, or dignity, punish
them and confiscate their goods. He also gave them authority to call
in the assistance of the secular arm, in order to restrain and curb all
opposers, and to do anything else they should deem necessary ; and to
substitute everywhere, Inquisitors with the same, or more limited
powers. Then the Pope adds, " That whosoever shall presume to
interrupt his Inquisitors shall incur the indignation of Almighty God,
St. Peter, St. Paul, and himself." In the year A.D. 1564, Pius IV.
enlarged the power of these Inquisitors of heretical pravity.
From this, we see that as soon as the Church of Rome had esta-
blished her Inquisition, she was continually aiding, abetting, and
inciting the Inquisitors to that enormous injustice, intense cruelty,
absurd folly, and tremendous blasphemy, some particular cases of which
it is my purpose to relate.
It is, then, already tolerably clear from what has been said, that the
Inquisition, though now fallen into decay from the progress of Pro-
testantism, and more especially of liberal opinions, tending to
Protestantism, was as much a part of the Church of Rome, as the arm
of a great tree is of the tree of which it is the arm ; the arm of a tree
being the necessary and natural consequence of a particular degree of
power and maturity in the parent stock. That this is a fact can be
proved by the most direct and overwhelming historical testimony of
Roman Catholic authors and historians themselves. The partial proof
and illustration of this which was promised has been given. The only
shadow of a plausible reason which can be adduced to the contrary
(and I own I do not think the worst Jesuit the world ever produced
would presume to bring such a shadow forward) is, that whereas the
Inquisition has ceased to exist, the Church of Rome still continues.
The arm of a great tree may, in times of drought, wither and decay,
but it is no less true, that unless an organic change has taken place,
either in the tree or its arm, when a more genial season returns, the
arm will revive and flourish.
We may then, now, by means of the Inquisition, proceed to the
spectacle of Rome supported by power, and of Popery in its full
development.
Before proceeding to the annals of the Inquisition, it will be neces-
sary to glance at the principles on which its jurisprudence was based,
at the organisation and construction of the tribunal itself, at the crimes
of which it took cognisance, at certain of its laws and rules, at its
prisons and tortures, and the ordinary course of the trial of an accused
brought before it. For the principles on which the jurisprudence of
the Inquisition was based, I shall not be accused of unfairness if I con-
sult a received organ of Rome itself on this subject. Nicholas Eymeric
was a celebrated received organ of Rome, and the following is the prin-
ciple which he, himself a Romish ecclesiastic, enunciates as the basis
of the jurisprudence of the tribunal.
" That it is better to cause one hundred irreproachable Catholics to
perish than to suffer one heretic to escape ; because in conducting to
death an innocent Catholic, one does no more than secure to him
paradise, whereas if one heretic be allowed to escape, he might destroy
and infect a great number of souls."
The plain precept of the New Testament relative to burning for
heresy is, I think, contained in the parable of the sower: "Let both
grow together till the harvest." "The harvest is the end of the
world."
To show how closely the actual proceedings of the Inquisition were
in accordance with this principle, I shall quote .Lavallee. To give this
assertion of Lavallee due weight, it is necessary to say, that, being a
Roman Catholic himself, he would be biassed, if at all, in favour of
Popery ; and to vouch for his respectability, he was chief of the Chan-
10
eery of the -Legion of Honour, president of the Polytechnique, an officer
of the Legion of Honour, and a member of every leading philosophical
society in Europe. " I avow," says Lavallee, speaking of some acts of
the Inquisition and Church of Rome, " that these deeds have such a
degree of atrocity and calm premeditated wickedness, that, notwith-
standing the incontestable authority on which they rest, one w r ould be
tempted to doubt them, if one did not see that they are the inevitable
result of the principles contained in their authors." So we see, that
their practice was a proof of their principles and theory, and their prin-
ciples became in turn a proof of their practice.
The organisation of the Italian Inquisition has been already given in
one of the quotations adduced, to shew that the Inquisition and Church
of Rome are identical ; that of those of Spain, Portugal, and France
was similar, the Grand Inquisitor (whose appointment was, as has been
seen, ratified by the Pope) supplying the Pope's place at the head, and
the Grand Council that of the Holy Office. The Spanish had nineteen
courts situated in nineteen principal towns, the Italians had probably
as many, and the Portuguese had two-thirds of that number. Each
court of the Spanish consisted of three inquisitors, three secretaries,
three councillors, and a vast number of gaolers and subaltern officers,
or, to use their own term, " familiars." An Italian court differed ; it
consisted of one inquisitor, one vicar, a notary, and several councillors.
The Inquisition had jurisdiction over the following persons: heretics,
suspected heretics, those who favoured heresy in any way whatsoever,
magicians, sorcerers, enchanters, blasphemers, those who had resisted
the officers or interfered with the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, poly-
gamists, &c.
Heretics were those who had written, taught, or preached anything
contrary to the traditions of the Church, the Holy Scriptures, the
articles and emblems of the Church. Also, those who thought any one
might be saved who acted consistently with his belief, whatever that
belief might be. Those who taught or said anything contrary to the
unlimited and sovereign authority of the Pope ; those who scribbled
" No Popery" in chalk on any wall or building; and those who dis-
sented even in the slightest degree from anything emanating from the
Pope.
To be a favourer of heretics, it was only necessary to have the re-
motest possible dealings with heretics : such as buying from a heretic,
selling to a heretic, receiving a letter from a heretic, carrying a heretic
in any public conveyance, &c. &c.
Hence it is clear, that since several of the crimes of which the In-
11
quisition took cognisance never had and never could have any real
existence, they might be equally charged on any individual whatever,
and heresy and the favouring of heresy being thus loosely defined, it
was possible for any ecclesiastic, induced by any motive whatever (and
there is a very wide range of presumable motives), to accuse any one
before this tribunal.
Several of the acknowledged laws, and the reasons assigned by the
organs of Rome for their existence, were as follows :
Law 1 . Whatever crime any officer (however subordinate) might
commit, secular justice could not touch him. Reason: that
persons might be induced to accept the employment of the
Church. Effect : that the scum of society sought its employ-
ment with ardour.
Law 2. The name of a witness was never to be given to the accused.
Reason: to facilitate accusations, and render them more fre-
quent.
Law 3. Witnesses were not obliged to prove their depositions.
Reason : the same.
Law 4. The most depraved characters were to be admitted as wit-
nesses, such as known perjured persons; and even the evidence
of a witness was admitted in a case in which same case he had
already committed perjury; also infamous persons; and heretics,
if their testimony went against the accused (and this is the only
favour or compliment ever shewn by the Church to heretics).
It may be remarked that such testimony, equally with that of the
good, the just, and the virtuous, might send a man or woman, of what-
ever rank or character, to the torture and the stake.
Law 5. Two witnesses, who had heard through others that anything
had been said or done were equivalent to one that had himself
heard or seen it done.
Law 0. Two such witnesses were sufficient to " put to the question,"
or to subject the accused to torture.
Law 7. The evidence of the wife, husband, children, and servants
was admitted against, but not for, the accused.
It is, I suppose, unnecessary to proceed further with the laws regu-
lating judicial proceedings. Lavallee remarks, on Law 4 "That a
highway robber or murderer found with these judges more credence
than the unfortunate, whose only crime often was, that he possessed
riches, on which these monks wished to seize. Moreover, the testi-
mony of Jews, Mahometans, and Infidels was received on subjects of
which they necessarily knew nothing."
Nicholas Eymeric, who, as I have already said, was the great writer
and organ of the Church of Rome on the subject of its Inquisition,
also comments on Law 4. He says, in justification of this law " If
heretics depose in favour of the accused one cannot believe them,
because one must suppose that it is not from a spirit of justice that
they do so, but from hatred to the Church. If they depose against
him, one is delivered from this fear."
It appears to me that it would have been as creditable to the reason-
ing faculties of this humane and merciful sage, if it had occurred to
him, that a heretic, deposing against the accused, could not do so from
motives of justice, because he must think a Church, to him heretical,
had no right to try the accused, nor could he depose from favour to
the Church; he must, therefore, do it from revenge, hatred, envy,
malice, or the like.
Nicholas Eymeric seems himself to think Law 7 not quite as it
should be, he therefore proceeds to justify it; but as the assumption,
" That God ordained the Inquisition," occurs very early in the argu-
ment, I think what I shall have to say hereafter will justify me from
unfairness in not giving this gentleman's justification in full. The
Laws already given were avowedly those by which the legal proceed,
ings of the Inquisition were conducted. I shall add another, not a
whit less generally acted on than the others, though not, like the
others, an avowed law. I don't think I could resist this, it is such a
short and simple one :
Whatever might be the property of an individual when he entered
the Inquisition, he was a beggar when he left it.
It has been already said, that from the nature of the jurisdiction of
this tribunal of the Church, the ecclesiastics could accuse any one of
some crime falling within its jurisdiction. It is now asserted, that
from the laws of evidence of this court, the priests and monks could
no less convict any one of almost any crime whatever falling within
its jurisdiction. I leave the reader to imagine for himself a few cases
in which the priests might use this power for evil, assuring him that
he will, to a very high probability indeed, discover none in which it
has not actually been so used.
It is now the place, pursuant to the order already laid down, to
endeavour to give some idea of the prisons, and of the way in which
the prisoners were treated.
Lavallee says "The prisons were horrible ; they were subterranean
and infected, situated in places removed from all the walks of men.
One descended into them by many windings, lest the cries and com-
13
plaints of the unfortunate should be heard. Day never entered into
these sombre places, in order that the prisoners might neither read nor
occupy themselves with aught else but their griefs, and the sad thought
of the evils which were reserved for them. In this situation they were
neither permitted to see or to speak to any one. If the proximity of
one dungeon to another permitted them to converse, all communication
was forbidden ; and if they were heard to speak, either alone or with
any one, the gaolers entered and tore them with the lash."
The following is a literal translation from the narrative by Dellon, of
his own sufferings during a long detention in the prison of the Inqui-
sition at Goa, so that the author was an eye and ear witness (and a very
sensible one, too) of all that he asserts :
" An exact and perpetual silence is caused to be observed in the
Inquisition, and those who wish to complain or weep, or even to pray
to God in too loud a voice, put themselves in great danger of receiving
the whip at the hands of the keepers, who, at the smallest sound they
hear, run to the place t where it is made to warn to silence, and if a
second order is not obeyed, they open the doors and beat without pity,
which serves not only to correct those that are chastised, but also to
intimidate others who hear the cries and blows, from the profound
silence which everywhere reigns. An Inquisitor, accompanied by a
secretary and interpreter, visits the prisoners about once every two
months, to ask them if they have need of anything ; if their food is
brought at the prescribed hours ; and if they have any complaints to
make against the officers who approach them. These visits are only to
make a display of the justice and goodness which is everywhere so much
paraded by this tribunal ; they are not of the slightest use, nor are they
any solace to those who complain, since they are not in consequence
treated more humanely."
Dellon gives a short story illustrative of the rigidity with which
silence is maintained in the Inquisition. "A prisoner coughed. The
gaolers came to him, arid admonished him to forbear coughing, * because
it was not lawful to make any noise in the house.' He replied, it was
not in his power. They admonished him a second time to forbear it,
and because he did not, they stripped him naked, and beat him ruelly.
This increased his cough; for which they beat him so often, that at last
he died through the pain and anguish of the stripes." It is just to say,
that Dellon did not see or hear this himself, but says he heard it from
many most trustworthy persons.
Dugdale says, "As soon as the prisoner is entered within the first
gate of the prison, the gaoler asks him if he hath a knife about him, or
J4
money, or rings, or jewels ; and if a woman, whether she hath rings,
chains, bracelets, or other ornaments : and all these the gaoler strips
off as his fee.
The two following narratives also illustrate the favour shewn to pri-
soners. The former is from Dugdale, the latter a faithful abridgment
from Gonsalvius Montanus : " A keeper had a maid, who, seeing how
miserably the prisoners w ? ere used, pitied their distressed condition,
who were hunger-starved, and almost pined. She would sometimes
speak to them at the grate, and exhort and comfort them as well as
she could, and sometimes would help them to some good and whole-
some food ; yea, by her means, the prisoners came to understand one
another's condition, which was a great comfort to them ; but this, at
last, coming to the Inquisitors' ears, they ordered her to wear the
Sanbenito, to be whipped about the streets, to receive 200 lashes, and
be banished the city for ] years with this writing on her head, ' A
favourer and aider of heretics.'" It is a necessary consequence of
what has been already said of the jurisdiction gf the Inquisition, that
this inscription interdicted the poor girl from all communication with
her species, and denied to all, under the grievous infliction which will
afterwards be described, the performance of any kind office towards her;
so that she wandered about in the same state as Jane Shore is said to
have done in her last days.
From Gonsalvius Montanus: "Peter ab Herera was appointed
keeper of the tower of Friana, a prison of the Inquisition. Among the
prisoners were a certain good matron and her two daughters, who,
having been put into different cells, earnestly desired the liberty of
seeing and comforting one another in so great a calamity ; they there-
fore earnestly entreated the keeper that he would suffer them to be
together for one quarter of an hour, that they might have the satis-
faction of embracing one another. Moved by compassion and humanity,
he allowed them to be together half an hour, to indulge their mutual
affection, and then replaced them in their separate cells. A few days
after, they w r ere put with great cruelty to the torture. It is pleasing
to think, that notwithstanding this, they did not betray their benefactor;
but the poor man, dreading that in the greatness of their agony, the
fact might escape them, himself ran to the Inquisitors and confessed
his fault. The Lords Inquisitors judged this to be so heinous a crime,
that they threw him into prison, and such was the cruelty of his
treatment, that it induced a disorder of the mind, and he became mad.
This did not avert his punishment ; he was left full a year in prison,
and then sentenced to be led, like a common thief, in a public proces-
15
sicm, with a halter round his neck, to receive 200 lashes through the
streets of the city, and to be sent to the galleys for six years. While
he \vas being flogged, his madness returned, and he endeavoured to free
himself. The Inquisitors stigmatised this effect of his madness as in-
decent, and added four years at the galleys to his sentence."
This last little history shews, that the men whose mildness, gentle-
ness, mercy, and humanity Romish ecclesiastics were everywhere, on
all occasions, extolling, drove a human being mad to punish his virtue;
and after this, with them his madness was powerless either to excuse
his fault, or avert his punishment.
In describing hereafter the general process of a trial, it will be seen
that for years a prisoner might be dragged from his prison to an
audience, and from the audience to his prison. How these long
intervals between the audiences were filled up, the account which
Dellon gives of the way in which he spent one may serve to shew. It
is, I think, as well to insert it here, as it is wholly descriptive of the
treatment of prisoners ; the translation is perfectly literal.
" I do not pretend to justify, nor even excuse myself, by the harsh-
ness of those who exacted impossibilities from me under pain of fire,
since there is no extremity so great as to justify despair the greater,
and the last of evils. I had resolved not to speak of the despair with
which I was seized, and the efforts which it induced me to make to
destroy myself. But I believe that it is important to make this
avowal, because it cannot be denied that the unjust rigours of the
Inquisition have caused many to fall into the same state ; and it is
important to make known, not only the evil of this injustice considered
in itself, but also the horrible evils which are too generally its conse-
quences. For, if persons of education and reason, who besides are
instructed in their duties, and who do not lose sight of the light of
faith, fall into such extremities, what might one not fear for many
ignorant and uneducated persons, for the most part recent converts
from Paganism; and who have, therefore, nearly all their lives regarded
suicide as virtuous and honourable ? I avow that the ill success of my
last audience, which I believed would be so favourable, was a very
insupportable blow to me ; and no longer regarding liberty, except as a
good to which I should never attain, I abandoned myself so sadly to
my despair, that a very little more would have destroyed my reason. I
had not forgotten that to commit suicide is forbidden, and I had no
design to destroy myself eternally; but I no longer wished to live, and
the extreme desire I had to die troubled my reason so, that I devised
a middle course between committing suicide at once, and the natural
16
death I could not resolve to await ; and I hoped God would pardon me
if I procured death slowly, and by means of others. I pretended to
be ill, and to have a fever. The physician came to me, and had no
difficulty in finding a disturbance in my pulse, which he mistook for
the effect of a purely bodily fever. He ordered bleeding, which was
repeated five times in five successive days, and as my intention in
using this remedy was very different from that of the physician, who
was endeavouring to re-establish my health, since I only thought of
finishing my sad unfortunate life; so soon as the assistants left me,
and my door was shut, I untied the band, and allowed the blood to
flow sufficiently long to fill a cup which would contain at least 1 8 oz.
I repeated these cruel evacuations as often as I was bled, and it is not
difficult to conceive that I was reduced to the last degree of weakness."
Such and similar melancholy scenes filled up the dreary intervals
between the audiences (and there want not hundreds) whose fractured
skulls and the brain-bespattered walls of whose dungeons attested how
vain against suicide, during these long gloomy intervals, were the
studious precautions of the Inquisitors. I do not think that a more
sad spectacle could well be presented, than that of this poor fellow,
day after day, when the assistants had left him, quietly and alone un-
doing the bandage from his arm.
It has been said that the dungeons of the Inquisition were subter-
ranean and infected; but there were other prisons, also, which nothing
but violated freedom distinguished from palaces. These were destined
for widely different purposes. But enough has been said on the
prisons, and the treatment of prisoners in the dungeons of the Church.
It would be almost impossible to believe these, and the other facts and
annals which will be given, were they anything more than a reduction
to practice of the principles and rules contained in the acknowledged
authors and organs of the Church of Rome.
The tortures used by the Roman Catholic hierarchy have next to be
described ; and since the phrase, " To put to the question " will here-
after several times occur, it will be necessary to say what the "question"
was. To " put to the question " was to examine the sufferer either
during or after the application of a series of different tortures, which
lasted generally five quarters of an hour. The description which will
now be given of the various tortures employed, and the manner of tor-
turing, is collected from Llorente, Limborch, Lavallee, Gonsalvius, and
others. When a literal translation, or direct quotation, is made, the
name of the author will be given with it.
Julius Clarus thus describes the manner of putting to the torture in
17
his time. " Know, therefore," says he, " that there are five degrees of
torture. First, the being threatened to be tortured ; secondly, being
carried to the place of torture ; thirdly, by stripping arid binding ;
fourthly, the being hoisted on the rack, or the application of any of
the other instruments or means of torture." "The stripping," con-
tinues he, " is performed without any regard to humanity or honour,
not only to men, but to women and virgins, though the most virtuous
and chaste, of whom they have sometimes many in their prisons ; for
they cause them to be stripped even to their very shifts."
The following is quoted, word for word, from Dugdale: "Then is
he led into the place where the rack standeth, which is a deep and
dark dungeon, with many doors to pass through ere a man come to it,
because the shrieks and cries of the tormented should not be heard.
Then the Inquisitors seat themselves on a scaffold hard by the rack,
and the torches being lighted the executioner comes in, all arrayed
from top to toe in a suit of black canvas ; his head is covered with a
long black hood, that covereth all his face, having only two peep-holes
for his eyes, which sight doth more affright the poor soul, to see one
in the likeness of a devil to be his tormentor. The lords being set in
their places, they begin again to exhort him to speak the truth freely
and voluntarily; then, with sharp words, they command him to be
stripped stark naked, yea, though the modestest maid and the chastest
matron in the city, whose grief, in regard of the rack, is not so great as
to be seen naked in the presence of such manner of persons ; for these
wicked villains, without any regard of modesty, will not by any prayers
of godly matrons, or chaste maidens, forbear one jot of that barbarous
impudence, as if a shirt or smock could hinder the violence of the
rack or trough from sufficiently tormenting them. The party being
thus stripped, the Inquisitors signify to the tormentor how they would
have him or her ordered" (i.e. which of the different kinds of torture,
some of which will now be described, is first to be used).
The kind of torture called " squassation " was thus performed. The
thumbs of the sufferer were bound tightly round with a fine cord ; to
the wrists was attached a coarser cord, also tightly bound; he or she
was then raised by these cords from the ground, by means of a pulley
in the roof of the chamber. The suspension was not the direct one
which would be effected by tying the hands together before the body,
but the indirect and evidently more painful kind of suspension,
effected by previously tying the hands behind the back. The sufferer
was generally allowed to remain so suspended for about a quarter of an
B
18
hour, then what was called the " strappado," a process incidental to
squassation, was applied. The cords were suddenly slackened, so as to
allow of falling freely till within a foot or two of the ground, when the
fall being abruptly checked, in consequence of all the slack cord being
expended, a violent jerk was communicated, which never failed to dis-
locate one or more joints.
The torture of the "trough" was as follows: The trough was a
large piece of wood, hollowed out in the form of a trough, from which
likeness it derives its name. About two-thirds from one end it was
traversed by a bar of wood placed low down in it. The person to be
tortured was placed in the trough so that the bar of wood supported
the lower part of the back, the wrists being tied together behind the
back, and each leg being so suspended, by a rope passing through a
pulley in the roof, that the legs were higher than the head. The legs
were placed higher than the head partly as a mechanical contrivance
to increase the pressure of the vertebrae of the back on the bar, and
partly to render respiration difficult. The thighs and shins were tied
round at intervals with fine cords ; through these short truncheons
were passed and turned by screws with lever heads placed at proper
intervals in the sides of the trough. These truncheons, as will readily
be seen, were for the purpose of tightening the cords to the required
degree. Almost every one has seen a cord tightened by means of a
stick or lever in a similar manner. Belonging to the trough was also
a fine cloth, placed over the mouth and nostrils of the sufferer while in.
the position described ; on this water was allowed to fall from a con-
siderable height, but slowly, so as gradually more and more to stifle
respiration and wash the cloth farther and farther down the throat.
This torture was thus applied: The sufferer being placed in the
trough and the legs suspended, as soon as the intolerable pain caused
by the bar to the vertebras of the back had, by duration, been some-
what deadened, the cords round the thighs and shins were gradually
tightened till they were lost beneath the skin. Then, when all that
could be effected in this manner was done, by means of the cloth and
water respiration was gradually stifled amid the agonizing heavings of
the breast, rendered more intolerable, if possible, by repressed circula-
tion.
.Another instrument of torture was called the " dry-pan." It was a
large pan of copper, into which the individual was locked. Then a fire,
small at first, but continually increased, was supplied underneath.
Another torture was the binding hand and foot, then placing the
19
sufferer, thus rendered incapable of moving, with his or her feet against
a slow fire, and basting them with oil, lard, or some other penetrating
unguent.
The " steel boot," into which the leg being inserted the shin-bone
was gradually crushed by means of a wedge struck at intervals with a
hammer.
"The rack, "an instrument composed of two cylinders placed parallel
to one another about thirteen feet apart, the axes of the cylinders
being in the same horizontal plane. These cylinders were thicker in
the middle part than at the ends, and each might better be described
as a cylinder, from each end of which a small cylinder abutted, the
three cylinders being rigidly connected together, and having their axes
in the same straight line. This instrument was thus employed : The
hands and feet were attached to four ropes passing round the four
smaller cylinders ; then, the cylinders being turned by means of levers
or screws, the occupant was stretched lengthwise, and also, since the
greater cylinders in the centre never permitted the ropes, as the rollers
were turned, to approach their centres, a tension was created at the
hips and shoulders in a direction parallel to the cylinders.
In addition to these, many others might be mentioned ; in fact, all
that the united ingenuity of the artificers of Eome could imagine for
the purpose of eliciting the most agonising sensations from structures
so terribly formed as our own for generating and enduring them.
Such are the monsters which await the sons and daughters of heretical
protestant countries beneath the flowery wreaths, lighted candles, and
silly mummeries of Puseyism, no less than beneath the splendid music*
sweet incense, and gold and crimson raiment of blood-stained Rome.
I have now to describe the course of a trial before the Inquisition :
The accused was seized by the familiars either publicly by day or
privately by night, and taken to one of the prisons. The accused in
many cases languished for long months and even years without being
called to the first audience of his trial. In order that so grievous an
injustice as this might not be charged against a tribunal so holy,
humane, and merciful, as the Church was continually declaring the
Inquisition to be, it was usual, when the Inquisition intended to give
the accused an audience, to make the gaoler apprise the prisoner con-
fidentially that it would be best to send by him a suggestion to the
judges that he wished an audience. By this means it was permitted
to the Inquisitors to say, that had the prisoner requested an audience
sooner, it would have been immediately granted. This condescension
to the ordinary notions of justice was not, however, deemed necessary
B 2
20
in the great days of the tribunal. During this time the accused wag
kept in entire ignorance of his crime, and also of the names of the
witnesses who had deposed against him. When the accused was
brought to the first audience, the judges usually pretended they knew
nothing whatever either of him, his accusation, or aught respecting
him, and inquired why he had requested an audience of them. If the
accused were now before the court for the first time, there was one
course of conduct alone, which, if he followed it, might under favour-
able circumstances procure his dismissal. This was to persist con-
stantly in saying, that he knew not at all of what he could be accused,
and that he had not and could not have the slightest notion about it.
Then, if the evidence were very weak indeed, which we must conclude
from observing the laws of evidence already given to mean, if it rested
only on a vague report, or if it were the will of the judges (always the
important thing in a trial before the Inquisition) to acquit the prisoner,
he was dismissed. But even in this, the most favourable case for the
prisoner, it must not be supposed he was free of the court. Thence-
forward he was perpetually surrounded by the creatures of the Inqui-
sition, an innumerable host, which might include his most intimate
friends, relations, wife, children, and servants ; his every action was
watched ; no word or deed of his seemed able to escape the ears or
eyes of his judges, and, on the slighest suspicion, he was again imme-
diately arrested. To pardon twice was a thing unknown to an inqui-
sitor. Sometimes, however, when the accused was before the Inqui-
sition for the first time, it was safest, even though guiltless, to confess
to the crime, provided, indeed, it was possible to guess the accusation.
If guilty, the same course was also sometimes safest. But even this
may not be considered, though the safest course, a very safe one. The
only difference between the situation of this accused and that of an
accused brought for the second time before the court, and who had
similarly confessed, or against whom two hearsay witnesses could be
brought, was that the former could not be punished with death, pro-
vided he did not die under the torture or persist in heresy ; the latter
could. I shall, then, have given a general outline of all possible trials
before the Inquisition if I finish the case of either of those accused
from the point at which I left it, the only difference between the
future proceedings against the two having already been stated, and
in addition to this, consider the case of a prisoner, against whom the
evidence at any part of his trial was deemed conclusive. I shall take
the latter first. The prisoner was condemned to be burned alive at
the next Auto da Fe. An Auto da Fe was a public wholesale burning
of heretics and others the Church or individual ecclesiastics thought
fit to burn, and was precisely similar to the burnings of heretics which
took place in Smithtield in the reign of Queen Mary, except that it
was on a grander scale.
This w r as accompanied by a very gaudy procession of ecclesiastics, a
great saying of prayers and masses, and a sermon in praise of the Holy
Inquisition. It is sad to think that sentenced prisoners, whose death
by fire was certain and inevitable, whom nothing could save, were, in
many cases, kept alive even for years, with nothing but the gloomy-
prospect of this awful death before them. And for what reason ?
Because, said the priests, a general public burning of heretics will
confirm the people in the faith. What a means ! Auto da Fes generally
took place at the birth, majority, and marriage, of the unfortunate heir
to the throne. To resume the cases of the accused who had confessed,
and the accused against whom the evidence was inconclusive : The
future proceedings against both being, as has been said, identical, with
the single exception already stated, will be given, if the future pro-
ceedings against either be detailed. The accused is told to make a
full confession, and replies that he has done so : if he had confessed
continually for a year, it does not appear that the confession could have
been complete. He is then sent back to prison, and again left to
languish long months, and even years, still without knowing either the
nature of his accusation, the witnesses, or his accusers. Again the
prisoner is advised to request an audience, and again exhorted to
confess ; and, perhaps, again also sent back to his solitude, that (as the
Inquisitors tell him) he may recollect ; and thus always, if innocent,
often, if guilty, a physical impossibility is required of him. If, however,
this be an audience at which the Inquisitors wish to proceed with the
trial, the accused is made to swear on the Crucifix and Gospel that he
will, in no case, say anything but what is true. If he refuses the oath,
he is condemned immediately to the flames. He is now interrogated
on every circumstance, however essentially personal and private, of his
life, and of the lives of his ancestors. Unfortunate individual, if a
heretic were numbered among his or her ancestors, the taint of heresy
is in the blood ; the Inquisitors have recognised, and had expected it,
and strong indeed must be the evidence which could now free him from
their tortures and fires. Were a father, a mother, an uncle, an aunt,
or any relation, a heretic, no evidence of guilt so conclusive. No
principles or opinions, according to these holy men, were diffused with
such insuperable activity and steady perseverance as heresies ; for the
energy of propagation was with them the restless activity of the evil
one. After this examination, if the accused still insisted on his
innocence, or, in fact, in any case, he was now furnished with an
accusation, not the true one sworn to by the witnesses, but a false
document artfully drawn up by the judges, in which enormities with
which he was not charged, and of which there was no reason to
suppose him guilty, were mixed up with the real charges against him.
This usually served only to create great anxiety, to delude and to
perplex. It is, however, due to truth to say that the accused was
allowed an advocate, subject to the restrictions that no communication
was allowed except before the judges : and, that the advocate might
say nothing but what he had the previous private permission of the
Inquisitors to say : so that it is generally admitted that it was rather
preferable not to have an advocate at all. It was in vain for the
prisoner to ask the names of those who witnessed against him, he was
only allowed to guess, and ask if they were not such and such persons;
frequently he was answered untruly, never directly. To guess the
name of a witness was often useless and dangerous ; always, in fact,
unless the witness could be shewn to be an acknowledged personal
enemy, for in all other cases, a correct guess seemed to the Inquisitors
an additional proof of the truth of the witness's statement. The accused
was, perhaps, again taken back to his dungeon, to pass more of those
long, silent, anxious months, known, perhaps, nowhere but in the
criminal prisons of the Romish priesthood. At length, after dragging
the unfortunate from his dungeon to an audience, and from an audience
to his dungeon, frequently for many years, the trial was begun in
earnest, and its termination was near. For the first time, the real
accusation and true depositions of the witnesses were given, but so
denuded of place and circumstance, that to determine the accusers and
witnesses was impossible. " These mutilated depositions," says La-
vallee, " frequently only served to throw the accused into the highest
uncertainty and perplexity."
In this posture of affairs, it was necessary for the accused to defend
himself. How easy a task this was, is left to the judgment of the
reader; the historical result is, that "the question" was always resorted
to. It has been seen what the question was, and that the evidence of
two hearsay witnesses was, in accordance with Eymeric's principle,
sufficient to conduct to this. If the sufferer could endure for the five
quarters of an hour during which " the question" lasted, if he or
she could alternately support the tension of his or her limbs on the
rack ; joints wholly or partially dislocated by the strappado ; in the
trough, the injured vertebrae, every limb enclosed continually tighter
23
arid tighter, by small cords, till they pierced beneath the skin, some-
times to the bone ; the breast heaving in all the agonies of repressed,
and at length suspended respiration, introduced one after another, and
at length, all simultaneously imposed ; and finally, the feet roasted
slowly with penetrating unguents, without acknowledging his or her
culpability, the justification was complete, and pardon followed. This
was almost a physical impossibility, and consequently seldom occurred.
If the criminal confessed, they proceeded to the sentence ? No : it
was necessary that the torture should be again endured, in order that
the judges might know the confession was complete. " And again, a
third time," says Lavallee, " that the cause which could lead to such
gross wickedness might be thoroughly known ; and this too, even in
cases such as those of a man who had married two wives ; a nun who
had broken her vows, where it was evident the deed was purely the
effect of interest or affection." It would surely be supposed, that
these monks must now be satisfied. Another application of tortures
was deemed necessary, to discover the aiders and favourers of such
guilty actions : fruitful source of the crimination of others, innocent
and guilty. It is here necessary to consider the case of a criminal,
who, whether innocent or guilty, was induced by the torture to confess,
and after the cessation of his pains refused to ratify the confession
(this will occur in one of the trials of which the details will be given),
alleging that he, or she, was innocent, and that nothing but intolerable
pains had elicited a false confession. In this case, the question was
again applied, until either a confession was made and ratified, or else
supported without confession. But, even if a future question was
afterwards supported, though the criminal was then acquitted of the
crime with which he was charged ; yet, since, as we have seen, an oath
had been imposed at an earlier stage of the trial, that nothing but the
truth should in any case be told, it was just that the criminal should be
sentenced for perjury. The course of a trial has now been conducted
with perfect generality in all possible cases, up to the point where
sentence has to be passed. Those trials in which the lust or bad
passions of an Inquisitor did not alter the ordinary course are the only
trials here spoken of.
The sentence might be either of the following. To be tortured, and
burnt alive afterwards ; to be burnt alive simply ; to be strangled and
burnt after death ; to be scourged or whipped publicly or privately ; tho
galleys ; any term of imprisonment ; to wear the ignominious garment,
the Sanbenito ; to perform any number of an infinity of different
penances, &c. &c.
24
Since there are, without doubt, men at present in the Church of
England, who, receiving every comfort of their hearths and homes from
its revenues, are, nevertheless, as far as lies in their power, studiously
sapping its vitality, and leading those committed to their charge as far
as they can towards Rome, whither their own hearts have gone already,
the first of the succeeding annals will show to what development an
incipient Judas may attain.
From Dugdale and others : At Seville, a pious lady, her two
daughters, and niece, were apprehended. After a short imprisonment
they were all subjected to the torture, and all endured, with manly
fortitude, some or other of the tortures already described, because they
would neither betray one another, nor other pious persons in the city.
Since it appeared that the wished-for avowal was unable to be extorted
by force, one of the Inquisitors sent for the younger daughter, con-
sidering her, either from her character or greater youth, the best
instrument of the four for his purpose. He affected compassion for her
many sufferings, changed her cell to a more comfortable one, and gave
every evidence of a sincere interest in the welfare of herself and her
relations. He told her he would advise her of the best way to free
her mother, sister, and cousin, from the meshes of the court ; and that
he would, if she reposed the necessary confidence in him, undertake the
entire ordering of the business. The poor girl probably evinced signs
of suspicion, for we find the holy man binding himself by a solemn
oath, that if the necessary confidence were reposed, he would prevent
all further proceedings against them, and procure their dismissal.
Induced by this, and the insinuating arts and artifices ecclesiastics have
ever known so well to ply, and, as well, perhaps, measuring his integrity
by that of her own mind, she avowed that her mother, sister, cousin, and
herself, had occasionally held conversations on certain doctrinal points.
Great, doubtless, was her terror and alarm, when the expressive and
ill-suppressed flush of triumph spread itself over the sallow features of
her wily adversary ; greater still, when she learned from the mouths
of the Holy Inquisitors that an oath to a heretic was void and null ;
that she had confessed in part that latent heresy existed, and tortures
should complete her confession. The poor girl was taken back to the
torture-chamber, stripped of her clothes, and stretched again on the
rack. This torture appears to have been useless. The girl was
detached from the instrument, and lifted into the trough ; and we find
that it was on this, the most ingenious and terrible machine priestly
gold or cunning could create, that she completed her confession. The
mother, sister, and cousin, were in consequence of this again tortured,
25
and many pious persons in Seville were in turn arrested from their
confessions. The two sisters and cousin were afterwards publicly
burnt ; the mother was whipt and confined for life. It may be
remarked, that when the younger daughter met her mother in the
procession, which was to conduct the former to the flames, she told the
circumstances, and the excellent intentions with w r hich she had taken
the fatal step, asking at the same time, forgiveness for her error
forgiveness, I think, unnecessary, and I need not say how readily granted.
The following is given by Gonsalvius, and quoted by Limborch. At
the same time almost, they apprehended in the Inquisition at Seville,
a noble lady, Joan Boharquia, wife of Francis Varquius/a very eminent
man, and Lord of Higuera, and daughter of Peter Garsia Xeresius, a
wealthy citizen of Seville. The occasion of her imprisonment was,
that her sister, Mary Boharquia, a young lady of eminent piety, who
was afterwards burnt for her pious confession, had declared in her
torture she had several times conversed with her sister concerning her
doctrine. When Joan Boharquia was first imprisoned, she was about
six months gone 'with child, upon which account she was not so strictly
confined, nor treated so cruelly as the other prisoners, from regard to
her infant. On the eighth day after her delivery, they took her infant
from her, and from the fifteenth made her undergo the fate of the other
prisoners ; and began to manage her cause with their usual arts and
rigour. In so dreadful a calamity, the only comfort she had was that
a certain pious young lady, who, as well as Joan Boharquia's sister,
was afterwards burnt for her religion, was allowed her as a companion.
" This young lady was, on a certain day, carried out to her torture, and
when she returned, her frame was so shaken, and had all her limbs so
miserably disjointed, that when she lay down upon her bed of rushes,
it rather increased her misery than gave her rest, so that she could not
turn herself without the most excessive pain." While in this condition,
as Boharquia was unable to show her any, or but very little, outward kind-
ness, she endeavoured to comfort her mind with great tenderness. The
young lady had scarcely begun to recover from her torture, when
Boharquia was carried out to the same kind of exercise, and was
tortured with such diabolical cruelty in the trough, by means of its
cords and screws, " that the cords cut and pierced to the bones of her
arms, thighs, and legs." The linen cloth, the usual accompaniment of
the trough, was then placed over her mouth and nostrils, and the
stream of water allowed to descend upon it had washed it far down
her throat, before an unusual effusion of blood from the mouth obliged
them to detach her from the instrument and restore to her her clothes.
26
The cloth was pulled out of her throat covered with blood, and a
crimson stream did not fail to follow it in profusion. It was clear, that
amid the strainings and heavings of suppressed respiration, a blood-
vessel on the lungs had given way. Eight days after, a power over
whom the Inquisitors had no control took this young mother to itself,
and her infant was an orphan. But this is not the whole. " When,
after all," continues Gonsalvius, " they could not procure sufficient,
evidence to condemn her, though sought after and procured by all
their inquisitorial arts, as the accused person was born in that place,
they were obliged to give some account of the affair to the people, and
indeed could not by any means dissemble it; so, in the first act of
triumph appointed after her death, they commanded her sentence to be
pronounced in these words : because this lady died in prison, and was
found to be innocent upon diligently inspecting and examining her
cause, therefore the Holy Tribunal pronounces her free from all charges
brought against her by the fiscal, and absolving her from any further
process, doth restore her both to her innocence and reputation, and
commands all her effects, which had been confiscated, to be restored to
those to whom of right they belonged."
Thus, in accordance with their wise and merciful principle, as enun-
ciated by their organ, Eymeric, did the successors of St. Peter, and
their inferior priests, in the endless subordination of apparent humi-
lity, meekness, and virtue, concealed pride, arrogance, and vice, cruelly
torture to death (for what reason, I know not, they said for heresy), a
lady whom they themselves afterwards recognised as innocent. The
feelings of the husband, father, and brothers of this lady might not
perhaps have been very enviable.
The following is translated literally from Limborch, and is an ac-
count of the way in which a Jew named Isaac Orobio was put to the
torture: " Isaac Orobio, a doctor of medicine, was accused to the
Inquisition as a Jew by a certain Moor, his servant, who had previously
been whipt for thieving ; and four years after this he was again accused
by a certain enemy of his of an act which would prove him a Jew.
But Orobio obstinately denied that he was one. I will here give an
account of his torture as I had it from his own mouth. After three
whole years which he had been in gaol, several examinations, the dis-
covery of the crimes to him of which he had been accused, in order to
his confession, and his constant denial, he was at length carried out of
his dungeon, and by several turnings brought to the place of torture.
It was a large underground room, arched, and the walls covered with
black hangings, the candlesticks were fastened to the wall, and the
27
whole room lighted \vith torches placed in them. At one end of it
there was an enclosed place like a closet, where the Inquisitor and
notary sat at a table, so that the place seemed to him as the very
mansion of death, everything appearing so terrible and awful. Here
the Inquisitor again admonished him to confess the truth before his
torments began. When he answered that he had told the truth, the
Inquisitor gravely protested that since he was so obstinate as to suffer
the torture, the Holy Office would be innocent if he should shed his own
blood or even expire in his torments. When the Inquisitor had finished
speaking, they put a linen garment over his body, and drew it so very
close on each side as almost squeezed him to death. When he was
almost dying they slackened at once both sides of the garment, and
after he began to breathe again the sudden alteration put him to the
most grievous anguish and pain. As soon as he had overcome this tor-
ture the same admonition was repeated, that he would confess the truth
to avoid further torment. Since he persisted in his denial, they tied his
thumbs so very tight with small cords that it caused the extremities to
swell greatly, and the blood to squirt out from under the nails. After
this, he was placed with his back against a wall and fixed on a little
bench. Into the wall were fastened little iron pulleys, through which
there were ropes drawn and tied round his body in several places }
especially his arms and legs. The executioner, drawing these ropes
with great violence, fastened his body with them to the wall, so that
his hands and feet, and especially his fingers and toes, being bound so
tightly with them, caused him the most exquisite torture, and seemed
to him just as though he had been dissolving in flames. In the midst
of these tortures, the executioner on a sudden drew the bench from
under him, so that the miserable wretch hung by the cords without
anything to support him, and, by the weight of his body, drew the
knots still tighter. After this a new kind of torture succeeded. There
was an instrument like a small ladder with five rounds sharpened in
front; this the torturer placed over against him, and by a certain
proper motion struck it with great violence against both his shins, so
that he received upon each of them at once five violent strokes, which
put him to such intolerable anguish that he fainted away. After he
came to himself they inflicted on him the last torture. The executioner
placed ropes about Orobio's wrists, and then putting them about his
own back, which was covered with leather to prevent his hurting
himself, he fell backwards, putting his feet up against the wall, and
drew them with all his might, till they cut through Orobio's flesh even
to the very bones. This torture was repeated thrice, the ropes being
28
tied about the arms at the distance of about two fingers' breadth from
the former wound, and drawn with the same violence. But it happened
that, as the ropes were drawing the second time they slid into the first
wound, which caused so great an effusion of blood that they thought
he was dying. Upon this the physician and surgeon, who are always
ready, were sent for from a neighbouring apartment, to ask their advice
whether the torture could be continued without danger of death, lest
the ecclesiastical judges should be guilty of an irregularity if the cri-
minal died in his torments. They, who were far from being enemies to
Orobio, answered that he had strength enough to endure the rest of
the torture, and hereby prevented him from having the tortures he had
already endured repeated on him, because his sentence was, that he
should suffer them all at once, one after the other, so that if at any
time they had been obliged to desist from fear of death, all the tortures,
even those already suffered, must have been again inflicted to satisfy
the sentence. Upon this the torture was repeated a third time, and
then it ended. After this his clothes were given him, he was sent
back to prison, and scarcely healed of his wounds in seventy days.
Inasmuch as he made no confession under his torture, he was sen-
tenced, as one suspected, not convicted, of Judaism, to wear for two
years the infamous garment the Sanbenito, and at the expiration of
that time, to perpetual banishment from the kingdom of Seville.
William Lithgow, an Englishman, tells us, in his " Travels," that he
was taken up as a spy at Mallagom, a city of Spain, and was exposed
to the most cruel torments in the trough ; but when nothing could be
extorted from him, he was delivered to the Inquisition as a heretic,
because his pocket journal abounded with blasphemies against the Pope
and the Virgin Mary. When he confessed himself a Protestant before
the Inquisition, he was admonished to convert himself to the Koman
Church, and allowed eight days to deliberate on it. In the meanwhile
the Inquisitors and Jesuits came to him often, sometimes " wheedling "
him, sometimes threatening and reproaching him, and sometimes
arguing with him. At length they endeavoured to overcome his con-
stancy by kind assurances and promises, but all in vain. As they found
him immoveably fixed, he was in the beginning of Lent condemned to
suffer on the following night eleven most cruel torments, and after
Easter to be carried privately to Granada, there burnt at midnight, and
his ashes scattered in the air. When night came on he was stripped
naked, put upon his knees, and his hands lifted up by force, after
which, opening his mouth with iron instruments, they filled his belly
with water till it came out of his jaws. Then they tied a rope hard
29
about his neck, and in this condition rolled him seven times the length
of the room till he was nearly strangled. Lastly, they tied a small cord
about both his great toes, and hung him up thereby with his head to-
wards the ground, then cutting the rope about his neck, they let him
remain in this condition till all the water discharged itself out of his
mouth, so that he was laid on the ground all but dead, and it was in
consequence of imminent danger to his life that the remaining nine
tortures were not inflicted. Lithgow was now re-conducted to his dun-
geon, and, beyond all expectation, by a very singular accident, escaped
from his prison, sought the sea-coast, and sailed home to England.
The innocence of the monastic life was no shelter from the fury of
the Inquisition ; the asylum of the cloister was a thousand times
violated by it, and furnished it with victims as well as the world.
One of the most celebrated trials illustrative of this was that of Sister
Mary of the Conception. This young person w r as arrested on the
charge of heresy, and passed long years in the prisons of the Inqui-
sition of Evora, in Portugal, without the Inquisitors being able to unite
sufficient proofs, or rather to corrupt sufficient witnesses, to condemn
her. In all the examinations they made her undergo, she persisted
constantly in declaring she was innocent ; and at length the Inquisitors
pronounced against her a sentence, which condemned her to the tor-
ture. This unfortunate girl supported various tortures during five
quarters of an hour with an extraordinary courage, which her execu-
tioners did not expect to meet with, and which, in fact, they seldom
met with in this delicate sex. Alternately was she placed on the rack,
and her frame stretched to the utmost limits its fragile structure would
support ; and being lifted into the trough, the vertebras of her back
were bruised with its bar ; its cords were drawn tighter and tighter
about her limbs with the screws ; and again the linen cloth and run-
ning water added to these all the agonising heavings of repressed
respiration. At length, overcome by pain, she accused herself, and
avowed all that they wished. She was then detached from the instru-
ment, on which she was suffering, when the avowal was made ; and her
clothes, of which, according to usual custom, she had been deprived,
being returned to her, she was required to ratify her confession. In-
stead, however, of persisting in the avowal, she protested against all
she had said during the torture, affirming that she was a good Catholic,
and that the fear of expiring in the torments of the question had alone
decided her to accuse herself of being a Jewess.
The Inquisitors caused her to be reconducted to her dungeon, and
some days afterwards she was again tortured. Probably new and
30
different tortures were this time applied, and this time also she yielded
to the violence of her torments, again agreeing that she professed the
Jewish religion. As on the former occasion, when conducted to an
audience to ratify her declaration by a free avowal, she contradicted the
declaration, and told her judges that vainly would they put her again
to the torture ; for though she should be subjected a hundred times to
it, she would always behave in the same manner.
Nothing could disarm the inflexible and barbarous obstinacy of the
Inquisitors, and this unfortunate girl was put a third time to the tor-
ture. This time a secret Providence seemed to come to her assistance,
and gave her strength to sustain the question without confessing what
they wished her to acknowledge. Three horrible series of tortures
inflicted on an unfortunate woman ! and for what ? For an assumed
difference of religious opinion, supported only by the very faintest
shadows of a proof. The sequel of this atrocious process was an
iniquitous judgment. It will be remembered, that in describing the
ordinary course of the trial of a prisoner, it was mentioned, that at an
early stage of the proceedings an oath was administered, that he would
in no case deviate from the truth. But Mary of the Conception had
deviated from the truth, since she acknowledged that which she after-
wards denied. She was guilty of perjury, and justice is desecrated if a
perjurer be unpunished. The sentence was, that she should be pub-
licly whipped in the cross-ways of Evora, and banished for ten years.
For perjury, then, the Inquisitors blasted this unfortunate woman by
an infamous punishment: such was their justice, yet it was necessary
to adore in silence. For with the Church of Rome, no heresy so
abominable, no crime so deep, as resistance to its authority. To ques-
tion or resist the authority of the Inquisition was, said the priests, to
resist the " Defenders of God."
But truth compels us to acknowledge, that with these holy men
mercy and justice were sometimes predominant ; indeed, such is the
beauty of mercy and justice, even to the most degraded intelligences,
that it would be wonderful indeed if this were not the case. It is
indeed refreshing to turn from these sad narratives to a happier pic-
ture; to discover a luminous point in the midst of all surrounding
darkness; a blue speck in an all-clouded sky. It would indeed be
ungenerous, after relating the deeds, wrong perhaps to our notions
(but we must all remember that right and wrong are relative to our
own fallible judgment), of these Holy Inquisitors, if I omitted to write
their good with their evil ; to bring forward as well a proof of their
mercy, justice, and magnanimity, as proofs of their errors. I am
31
approaching a bright point, and I fear it is only a point in the dark
history of the Inquisition. I am about to relate a signal triumph of
mercy and magnanimity over justice on the part of these holy men. I
shall shew that once, so far did these predominate, that the prison
doors of the Inquisition, so seldom opened to a captive on whom they
had closed, opened, a signal triumph of mercy and magnanimity over
justice, to a determined Protestant, an Englishman, and one who
besides had opposed and spoken ill of the Holy Institution. We find
more than could be expected from justice ; all that mercy and the
highest magnanimity could grant ; free pardon and honorable dismissal
to one who was, to the Inquisitors, a pestilent heretic, as well as a
determined opponent. The judges, perhaps, yielded to the dignity
which ever accompanies a rigid adherence to principles in the face of
danger ; but, however this may be, it is certainly true that a heretic,
and an Englishman, found that mercy and magnanimity which the not
vainly boasted clemency and goodness of the Inquisitors might lead
one to expect. Glorious proof that their dark and so undeviatingly
reiterated barbarities were the effects of doctrines earnestly believed
in, and of a system of principles no less firmly believed to be good !
For may we not from this argue, that the mercy and benevolence so
much boasted by the Church, did in reality exist in the bosoms of its
servants, though so painfully, yet undeviatingly pent up by a rigid
observance of (to us) mistaken duty. Does not this show that the ten-
derness and mercy of these holy men were always, as they said, ready
to overflow, since we find them so nobly exercising these to the preju-
dice of their consciences and convictions ? May we not indeed hope
that their principles, mistaken though we think them, would have
borne them unflinching and unconquered through those dangers and
trials which require open and courageous action, as well as what is
most difficult to be borne, the passive endurance of cunningly devised
and long-continued torture; yet were not proof against the mercy,
compassion, and benevolence, ever ready with them to break through
the restraint of deep religious convictions, and firmly-believed prin-
ciples.
The tale is a brief one-
Thomas Maynard, consul of the English nation at Lisbon, was
thrown into the prison of the Inquisition, on the charge that he had
opposed and spoken evil of the Romish religion. Mr. Meadows, who
was then resident, and took care of English affairs at Lisbon, advised
Cromwell of the matter ; and after having received an express, went
to the King of Portugal, and in the name of Cromwell demanded the
32
liberty of consul Maynard. The king told him it was not in his power ;
that the consul was detained by the Inquisition, over who or he had no
authority. The resident sent his answer to Cromwell, and having
soon after received new instructions from him, had again audience of
the king, and told him, " That since his Majesty declared he had no
power over the Inquisition, he was peremptorily commanded by Crom-
well to make war on the Inquisition." This unexpected order so terri-
fied the king and the Inquisition, that they immediately determined to
free the consul from prison, and at once opened the prison doors and
gave him leave to go out. The consul refused to accept a private dis-
mission ; and in order to repair the honour of his character, demanded
to be honourably brought forth by the Inquisitors in procession. His
demand was immediately obeyed.
You were, my fathers, when opposed in darkness to the trembling,
shrinking victims of your cruelty, arrogant, menacing, and inflexible ;
and when opposed openly in broad day to an Englishman and a Pro-
testant, inconceivably cowardly, and ineffably contemptible. You the
" Defenders of God ! " The Lord must, I should think, be hard up, to
have recourse to such sneaking, cowardly curs as you to defend Him
brave defenders of Omnipotence. The dint of pity, or the gentle touch
of mercy's hand, never once caused you to do violence to your con-
sciences, and offend against your deep religious convictions and firmly-
believed principles; but pallid fear and abject submission show how
much you were yourselves prepared to suffer for the maintenance of
principles, to maintain which (as you said) you made others suffer so
acutely. A voice spoke, and a hand wrote, at home in England ; and
though a thousand miles* separated them from the captive and suffer-
ing vindicator of truth and Protestantism, the voice alone was sufficient
to bring to that lonely prisoner the free pardon and honourable dis-
missal, which, at the slightest shadow of resistance, that hand would
have so willingly and terribly enforced. A voice had spoken (to do
justice to your courage, my fathers) whose vibrations, whenever there
was a question of Protestant interests and principles, were never uncer-
tain ; all might with safety prepare themselves for the battle. A hand
moved, alike terrible to the more atrocious cruelties of undisguised
Popery and the less dreadful maimings, scourgings, and inflictions of
the Star Chamber and the Puseyite Archbishop Laud.
We have found, I think, gentle reader, but one pleasure in perusing
the dark annals of the Inquisition, and it is given by him who effected
* Lisbon, 1000 miles from England.
33
the greatest moral miracle the world has ever witnessed. " Then a
Pope, "says Macaulay, " was heard to preach moderation and humanity
to Popish princes." Surpassing miracle! "For," continues he, "a
voice, which never threatened in vain, had declared, that unless favour
were shown to the people of God, English guns should be heard in the
Castle of St. Angelo." The Castle of St. Angelo was the fortress
which protected Rome. It may be as well to say, that just before the
time of the little history just narrated, Mr. Blake had seized twenty-
five richly-laden ships at the very mouth of the Tagus ; and would
have sailed up to and burned or battered Lisbon with far greater
facility than he sailed into the harbour of Tunis, between the fortresses
of Porto Farino and Goletta, when he burnt the fleet of the piratical
bey. The effect of ] 0,000 of Cromwell's veterans, landed by Blake at
Lisbon, in the midst of a population degenerated and debased by the
long existence among them of Romanism backed by power, as their
religion, and absolutism as their civil government, affords a pleasing
subject for speculation.
Lavallee gives the following anecdote illustrative of the pride and
luxury of the Inquisitors. A traveller, says Lavallee, worthy of credit
from his position and veracity now (viz. in Lavallee's time) living in
Paris, went to Lisbon, whither his occupation called him, some years
before the Revolution. He was to go by Madrid, and a powerful
nobleman of the French court gave him a letter of introduction to the
Grand Inquisitor of Spain. On arriving at Madrid our traveller, find-
ing himself much fatigued, sent one of his servants to the palace of the
Grand Inquisitor to present him with the letter of recommendation
and make the requisite excuses for his not having the honour and
pleasure of presenting himself. His excuses were that the little time
he had at his disposal, and his extreme fatigue, did not permit him so
great an advantage.
The Grand Inquisitor came in person to seek the traveller at the
hotel where he was staying, and so pressing were his solicitations, that
it was impossible to resist spending the evening with his Eminence.
The traveller was astonished at the magnificence of the apartments,
the beauty of the paintings, the splendour of the furniture, and the
multitude of servants. When several lords who were at the palace
had left, his Eminence conducted the traveller into his own bed-
chamber ; the most elegant and exquisite woman never had such an
one. It was on the first floor, and some scenes from heathen mytho-
logy decorated the ceiling carved into a cupola. Four orange-trees,
not in pots or baskets, but which had grown up actually in earth pre-
pared for the purpose underneath the marble floor, seemed to spring
from the marble itself and presented fruit and flowers ; they occupied
the four corners of the room, and seemed to derive freshness from four
fountains whose limpid waters fell down again in cascades into basins
of porphyry, and thus returned to lose themselves murmuring under
the marble of the floor. The bed occupied the centre of his apartment.
Loves, or, more charitably speaking, genii, sustained the silver gauze
whose elegant folds served for drapery. The bed itself was suspended
by cleverly concealed machinery, about a foot from the floor, to prevent
the approach of insects. It was here that his Eminence refreshed
and recruited himself by night from the sacred labours of the day.
When the traveller had satisfied the curiosity occasioned by this
voluptuous asylum, whose existence he was very far from suspecting in
a place where he thought to meet nothing but the severe emblems
of a rigid piety, he wished to withdraw. The Inquisitor restrained
him. " At your age," said he, " can one be sensible of fatigue ? "
He made a signal: a Dominican, doubtless the confidential monk,
appeared. The Grand Inquisitor spoke a few words to the monk in
Spanish, and some time afterwards conducted the traveller into a still
more distant apartment, where the light from the candles might vie
with the day, and in which were ten women excellent in their beauty,
graces, and intelligence. Supper was served, and these ladies, the
Grand Inquisitor, some monks his inmates, and our traveller, seated
themselves at the table. Amiable proposals, music, poetry, songs, and
gaiety, increased by the delicacy of the fare and excellency of the
wines, rendered this 'night delightful. They separated with sunrise.
The Inquisitor detained the traveller, though he had so little time to
spare, some days longer. At length the grateful traveller tore himself
from the Inquisitor, enchanted with his politeness, and very much
indeed edified by the ingenious methods he made use of to console
himself for the harsh necessity of judging men.
It will be observed, that, throughout the whole of what has been
written, no attack has been made on the private moral characters of
Romish churchmen. They were men, and possessed of enormous
wealth and unlimited power, and whatever private vices they had were
doubtless hidden under the cloak of mystery ; but I think the follow-
ing story will illustrate the preceding one. The narrative is related by
Gavin in his Master-Key to Popery.
A noble Spanish lady was carried off at the age of fifteen from her
father's house, at midnight, under the charge of heresy, by Don
Francesco Torrejon, an Inquisitor of Saragossa. She was detained in
35
concubinage there eighteen months, and escaped, when the French
army, in the war of the succession, in 1706, sacked and pillaged that
den of iniquity and cruelty. The French officers made prize of the
beautiful women found there, and carried them along with them.
Madame Faulcaut, for she married the French officer who liberated her,
relates, that when she was brought into the Inquisition she expected
nothing but death in the most terrific form. She was, however, sur-
prised at being placed in a " noble room, well furnished, and an excel-
lent bed in it." Here she was alternately coaxed and terrified by the
female housekeeper. In order to dispose her to accept of Torrejon's
embraces, she conducted her into the torture-room and assured her that
the " dry-pan " awaited her unless she gratified the Holy Inquisitor's
desires. The " dry-pan and gradual fire " are for those who oppose the
holy fathers' will and pleasure. They are put naked and alive into the
pan, and, the cover of it being locked, the executioner first puts a small
fire and gradually augments it until the body is reduced to ashes.
Thus tortured and terrified she became one of the mistresses of Don
Francesco. After some months she was placed in a cell along with
Donna Leonora, another of his victims, who gave her the following
account. " When any of the holy fathers has a mind for any of us
ladies, the housekeeper comes for her at nine o'clock and conveys her to
his apartment, but as they have so many, the turn comes, maybe, once
a month. If any one happens to be pregnant she is removed into a
better chamber and sees no one until she is delivered. The child is
taken away, and we know not what is done with it. If any one happens
to be troublesome she is bitterly chastised, so that we live in continual
fear. I have been six years in the Inquisition, and was fourteen years
old when the familiars took me from my father's house, and I have had
one child. We are at present fifty-two ladies, but I have known as
many as seventy-three ; and the three colours of our clothes are the
distinguishing tokens of the three holy fathers. The red silk belongs
to Don Francesco, the blue to Don Guerrero, and the green to Don
Abrago. We lose every year seven or eight of our number, but we do
not know where they are sent, but at the same time others are being
constantly added. Our continual torment is, to think that when the
holy fathers are tired of one they put her to death, for they will never
run the hazard of their infamy being discovered by suffering any of us
to leave the house ; so, though we cannot oppose their commands, and
therefore commit so many enormities, yet we still pray to God and his
blessed mother to forgive us, since it is against our wills, and to pre-
c 2
36
serve us from the most cruel death in this house, that we are guilty
of them."
Does it remain for me to establish the folly and blasphemy of the
Church of Rome ? I think not : yet the following relation will illus-
trate the former, and some portion of a celebrated Roman Catholic
discourse the latter.
Most persons know that the celebrated philosopher and mathema-
tician Galileo was arrested and confined by the Inquisition. No man,
perhaps, enlarged or advanced science so much as Galileo. At a very
early age he discovered to the world the magnitude of his genius, and
according to some, having invented the telescope, according to others,
rendered it fit for astronomical purposes, by it, in 1612, he observed
several spots in the sun of a kind analogous to those which every per-
son sees in the moon. The following year he printed an account of this
discovery, and ventured on some arguments in favour of the Copernican
system. The doctrine of the Church was, that there were no spots on
the sun, and that the Ptolemaic system was correct, this system assert-
ing that the earth is the immoveable centre of the universe. So absurdly
arrogant were these churchmen, that, not content with coercing the
opinions of men contrary to their reason, they also punished those who
thought that the natural universe was such as their senses indicated it
to be ; seeing is generally considered to be believing, but, according
to Rome, if opposed to a doctrine of the Church, it was nothing of the
kind. For this production Galileo was thrown into the prison of the
Inquisition. The philosopher was just shown the rack, which up to this
point we have had occasion to view with horror as an instrument of
torture ; we must now not a whit less view it with admiration, as a
machine for accelerating and for invigorating the imaginative, in-
ventive, acquisitive, and considerative faculties. Several natural laws,
relative to light, before overlooked, combined with the imperfect for-
mation of the telescope, immediately removed the spots from the sun ;
and so convincing and rapid were the arguments the philosopher
brought forward to prove the earth at rest, that it is rather to be
wondered that the earth did not stop, if only from astonishment.
The Inquisitors thought the philosopher sincere, being totally unable
to follow his arguments sufficiently to know whether he was or not,
and in consequence dismissed him. It is wonderful to see to what
curious artifices and devices this great mind was afterwards reduced,
in order that, while enunciating pure abstract truth, he might escape
the prejudices and consequent torments of those pigmy little villains,
37
the priests. Galileo held the theory of attraction, but the Church
denied it, so vre find him prefacing in the following \vay a treatise on
the tides explained hy this theory. " There can be no doubt," says
he, " that the theory of attraction (since so gloriously developed by
ion) is absurd and untrue, since the Church says it is, but as it
certainly has explained a considerable number of natural phenomena,
I thought it just possible that it might the tides. It is a very curious
fact," continues he, " that it does so, and is very probably a device of
the Evil One." Galileo then proceeds to deduce roughly the pheno-
mena of the tides from the theory of attractions, taking care continually
to inform his readers that they are contemplating something very ana-
logous to a Chinese puzzle, or a clever conundrum. In A.D. ]632,
Galileo published his dialogue between the Ptolemaic and Copernican
systems, in which he takes care to make the Ptolemaic appear to think
it has evidently the best of the argument, and conveys the idea that
he (the author) also thought so, taking care all the time that all the really
weighty and convincing arguments were on the side of the Copernican.
At first sight, an ordinary reader might think the Ptolemaic had the
advantage, but a little consideration would show to even a cursory
observer that the other system was indubitably the true one. The
Copernican system gained ground rapidly in Italy, while men began to
laugh quietly at the priests, which rendered the latter, now convinced
that Galileo (popularly speaking) was humbugging them, very irate,
and the philosopher was again " put into quod." This time he had more
than a sight of the rack. The Inquisitors now made Galileo swear, and
that, too, in the most solemn manner, under pain of further and very ter-
rible tortures, that there were no spots on the sun, and that the earth
stood still. To make any one swear, not to his belief of the truth of two
facts in physics, but to their actual truth, seems so awful that the matter
is not rendered much worse by saying that the poor philosopher swore
to a lie in both cases. Galileo had now to repeat seven penitential
psalms, and an indefinite number of aves and paters, weekly, as also to
enumerate accurately the beads on certain strings.
Miserable creatures of Rome ! who could implant a contempt of our
holy religion in such a mind as Galileo's. It is a surprising fact, my
fathers, that all the great and powerful minds who have received the
religion of Christ at your hands have been infidels, Voltaire, Lagrange,
Laplace, D'Alembert, Frederick the Great, Poisson, Pontecoulin : but
why continue the series ? Protestantism may claim her Newton as a
believer and adorer of Christianity. Had Protestantism presented
Christianity to the foreign nhilosonhers, the mental powers of many of
38
whom scarce yielded to those of Newton, while those of some need not
yield at all, how know we what might have been the result? That
Newton and Bacon were Christian believers we certainly do know.
It remains now to see a little more of the blasphemy of Rome, by
means of a well-known discourse of one of the preachers ; it may be
remarked, that this discourse is only a fair specimen of all the discourses
preached at Auto da Fes, and the reader will judge if blasphemy and
folly can go further. The following is taken from Laval lee. These
words, " Exurge, Domine, judica causam tuam " (Arise, Lord, and
judge thine own cause), were so familiar to the Inquisition, that they
almost always furnished the text to the preacher charged with the
discourse at the Auto da Fes, or general public burnings of heretics.
" It is very right," said the preacher in his preface, " that men should
consecrate, at least, one day to avenge God for the offences which have
been committed against Him, since God himself suffers their audacity
through so many ages." (Proud worm, would it not be better to imitate
the long-suffering of God ? If God is patient, why are you not so ?
What right have you to take the initiative with Him ?)
" The holy tribunal," continues this preacher, " manifests to-day its
zeal for the glory of God ; and this amphitheatre, filled with the wicked
that it is about to punish, is a striking type of what we shall one day
see in the valley of Jehosaphat." He compares next, the presence of the
king at the Auto da Fe to the coming of Jesus Christ at the end of the
world. " As at his universal judgment, the King of Heaven and Earth
must come to judge mankind, accompanied by all the nobles of his
court, et omnes sancti cum eo, so we see present at this judgment of
the holy tribunal, the greatest monarch of the earth, his counsellors,
and all the nobles of the monarchy. Have you not then, Lord, other
enemies besides the Jews, the Mahometans, and the Heretics ? Are
they the only ones who outrage you ? Do not other men offend you
every day by their follies and their vices? Yes; without doubt.
But God says, All these faults are light and trifling ; Jews, Mahometans,
Heretics, are the only ones I abhor." So, according to this preacher,
murder, robbery, incest, &c., are all nothing when they are committed
by a Catholic. And why does God, according to this preacher, abhor
them? "Because they attack me in my reputation, my honour, and
my glory." Can one say the reputation of God ; as if the Omnipotent
had a reputation to support. " So," continues the preacher, " David
was right in saying to the Lord, Arise up, O Lord, and defend thine
own cause ; overwhelm with Thy chastisements these miscreants and
wretches. The holy tribunal of the faith is imitating David to-day."
39
Then from this it is evident that David gave a lesson to God, by
which God did not profit, and the Inquisition was coolly making up for
his small intelligence. What modesty ! It would he difficult to bring
together more insults than this preacher uses towards the poor
creatures just going to be burnt. " The joy that you manifest, wretches,
at the sight of the executioner, is not a true joy, it is an infatuation.
Notwithstanding your madness, the executioner will not deliver you
from your misery ; the holy tribunal will deliver you up to hell. You
shall presently burn, and the spectators will be frozen with dread.
Your death shall be to them a terrible lesson. And thou, holy tribunal
of the faith, remain immoveable during the lapse of ages (this wish
was not prophetic), continue to preserve us pure and firm in our sacred
religion. Oh ! what a splendid testimony does this amphitheatre
display of the care and zeal of the Inquisitors. Thy greatest triumph,
glorious tribunal, is this crowd of criminals ! I can say of you, what
the Holy Spirit said of the Church: Pulcia est arnica mea sicut
tabernacula cedra et sicut pelles Salomonis. This day is for the
tribunal a day of triumph and glory. It is punishing the fierce and
wild beasts, the enemies of the faith, and is clothing itself with their
spoils." (This was an important part of the business, clothing itself
with their spoils.) " We see all these terrible animals ranged in the
amphitheatre ; condemned to the flames, they will go immediately to
hell. God will be avenged, and the holy tribunal will triumph."
Humanity might with far greater justice have cried out, " Exurge,
Domine, judica causam tuam." The Lord, "whose idleness these gentle-
men were continually accusing, did sometimes arise, and has for the
present, at least, suspended their operations. It must have been an
awful spectacle, those gigantic waves rolling eastward from the Atlantic,
with that silent, awe-inspiring approach a large wave always has, in
seeming proof, too, that the oath which Rome made Galileo swear of
the non-existence of gravitation was a terrible truth : rolling onward
to crush Lisbon, that great stronghold of the Inquisition, beneath their
irresistible waters.
The following is the report of the demolition of the Palace of the
Inquisition at Madrid, made by Colonel Lemanoir, of the 9th Regiment
of Polish Lancers, in the year A.D. 1809 (so late as 1809, A.D.) :
" Ordered by Marshal Soult, the Governor of Madrid, to destroy the
buildings of the Inquisition, conformably to the decree of the Emperor,
1 observed to him that the 9th Lancers were insufficient for that service;
the Marshal then added two regiments of infantry, one of which regi-
on+o fVio n7tTi wna under thft nrrtars of Colonel Delille. With these
40
troops I marched to the Inquisition, the buildings of which were
surrounded with strong walls, and guarded with 400 soldiers. On my
arrival I summoned the fathers to open the gates. A sentinel, who
was on one of the bastions, appeared to converse for an instant with
some one in the interior, after which he fired upon us, and killed one of
my men. This was the signal for the attack, and I ordered my troops
to fire upon all who appeared upon the walls. It became soon evident
that the combat was unequal, and I changed the mode of attack. Some
trees were cut down and made into battering-rams, and two of these
machines being well directed, under a shower of balls a breach was made,
and the Imperial troops rushed into the Inquisition.
" Here we had a sample of what Jesuitical effrontery can do. The
Inquisitor-General and the Father Confessors solemnly issued forth
from their retreats, clothed in their sacerdotal robes, and with their
arms crossed upon their breasts as if, knowing nothing, they came to
learn -what was the matter. They rebuked their soldiers, saying, ' Why
do you fight with our friends, the French?' They appeared to wish to
make us believe that they had not ordered the defence, and they hoped,
no doubt, to be able to make their escape during the confusion occa-
sioned by the pillage. They were deceived. I gave strict orders that
they should be kept in view, and all their soldiers were made prisoners.
"We then began our examination of this prison of hell. We saw
chamber after chamber, altars, crucifixes, wax tapers in abundance,
riches and splendour were to be seen everywhere. The floors and
walls were highly polished, and the marble mosaic inlaid with exquisite
taste. But where were the instruments of torture of which we were
told, and where were the dungeons in which it was said that human
beings were entombed alive ? We sought for them in vain ; the holy
fathers assured us that they were calumniated, and that we had seen
everything. I was about to abandon my researches, persuaded that
these Inquisitors were different from those of whom we had heard
spoken ; but Colonel Delille would not give up so easily. He said to
me, 'Let us examine again the floors; let us pour water upon them,
and we shall see if it does not run through some part.' The flags of
marble were large and quite smooth. After we had poured the water,
to the great displeasure of the Inquisitors, we examined all the inter-
stices, to see if any oozed through. Very soon Colonel Delille cried
out that he found what he sought for. In the joinings of a flag the
water disappeared very quickly, as if there was an empty space
beneath.
" Officers and men set to work to raise the flag, whilst the priests
41
cried out against the desecration of their beautiful and holy house. A
soldier struck a spring with the butt end of his musket, which disclosed
a flight of steps. I took a lighted taper, four feet long, from a table,
in order to explore our discovery, but was stopped by one of the Inqui-
sitors, who gently placed his hand upon my arm, My son,' said he,
with a devout air, 'you ought not to touch that taper; it is holy.'
' Well,' I replied, ' I require a holy light to fathom iniquity.' I
descended the steps, which were under a ceiling without any opening
except the trap-door. Arrived at the bottom we entered into a vast
square room, called the Hall of Judgment. In the middle was a block
of stone, upon which was fixed a chair for the accused. On one side
of the room was another seat, more elevated, for the Inquisitor-General,
called the Throne of Judgment ; and there were lower seats for the
fathers. .From this chamber we passed to the right, and found small
cells extending the whole length of the edifice. But what a spectacle
presented itself to our eyes ! How the beneficent religion of the Sa-
viour had been outraged by its professors ! These cells served as
dungeons, where the victims of the Inquisition were immured, until
death relieved them from their sufferings. Their bodies were left
there to decompose, and that the pestilential smell might not incom-
mode the Inquisitors, ventilators were made to carry it off. In the
cells we found the remains of some who had died recently, whilst in
others we found only skeletons, chained to the floor. In others we
found living victims of all ages and both sexes, young men and
young women, and old men up to the age of seventy, but all as naked
as the day they were born. Our soldiers first busied themselves to free
these captives from their chains, and then took off part of their clothes
to cover them. After having visited all the cells, and opened the
prison-doors of those who yet lived, we went to visit another chamber
on the left. There we found all the instruments of torture that the
genius of men or demons could invent. At this sight, the fury of our
soldiers could not longer be contained, they cried out that every one
of these Inquisitors, monks and soldiers, should undergo the torture.
We did not attempt to prevent them, and they immediately commenced
the work upon the persons of the fathers. I saw them employ four
kinds of torture, and then withdrew from the frightful scene, which
lasted as long as there was a single individual in that ante-chamber of
hell upon whom the soldiers could wreak their vengeance.
" When the victims of the Inquisition could be brought without dan-
ger from their prison into the light of day, the news of their delivery
spread abroad ; and those from whom the Holy Office had torn their
42
relations or friends came to see if there was any hope to find them
alive. About one hundred persons were rescued from their living
tombs, and restored to their families. Many found a son or a daughter,
a brother, or a sister. Some found no one. A large quantity of powder
was placed in the subterraneous passages of the building, the massive
walls and towers were blown up into the air, and the Inquisition of
Madrid ceased to exist."
Thousands of terrible histories equal or worse in atrocity to those
few which have been recounted could be brought forward. The reader
must not for a moment suppose that in reading these he is dealing
with isolated or exceptional cases, far from it ; we firmly believe, since
the principles and theory of Rome confirm its practice, and its practice
in turn confirms its principles, that thousands of deeds worse than
those related have seen the light, or rather the broad glare of torches,
in the prisons of the Inquisition. These few annals are finished ; but
the urgency which has called them forth remains existent and un-
touched. Can we suppose that Cardinal Wiseman and his inferiors in
the endless subordination of canting, hypocritical priestcraft, will carry
on their insidious Propaganda a whit less successfully under titles
taken from cities of the continent than under those taken from our
own cities ? Does the ministerial measure touch the traitors in our
cwn camp I mean the Puseyites ; are not these, after having for the
period they deemed sufficient carried on their perversionising towards
Rome, while remaining in our Church, and receiving the revenues col-
lected from our tithes and church-rates, daily seceding to Rome, and by
a pretended sincerity and self-denial in the change, disgracing, as far as
lies in their power, by that last act, the Church they had so' long and
so shamefully betrayed. What should we say of an officer who should
take a commission from the Queen or the State, and who almost from
the moment of accepting it should endeavour insidiously, by all the
means in his power, to wean the men committed to his direction from
their allegiance, and then, at the time of danger, when the glorious
hopes of brave and honest men depended on his fidelity, should desert
openly to the enemy ? One would not, I think, hesitate to declare him
a despicable wretch, a hollow villain, a disgrace to every particle of in-
tellect and intelligence he might possess, a foul traitor to his trust.
Yet from a soldier we expect honour and duty ; from a churchman, reli-
gion and morality. I own it scarcely appears to me right that Pro-
testant churchmen and Protestant dissenters should be made to pay
tithes and church-rates while men like these Puseyites, or incipient
Roman Catholics, are allowed to remain in the Church.
43
But this is not the place to suggest either a single insulated measure,
or a definite continued course of action against Puseyism and Roman-
ism. The proper limits of a pamphlet are already passed ; and this
would require one wholly to itself. I do hope, however, at a future
period, to collate and systematise the most valuable suggestions of
which I am possessed on this subject.
Were the Puseyites and Rome in possession of sufficient power in
this country, or in any country, there can be no doubt in the mind of
any sane man who knows anything of the history of Romish and
Puseyite priests, that the terrible scenes of the Inquisition, a few of
which I have feebly portrayed, would be restored in all their atrocity.
I grant some of these men may not themselves think so at present;
many of them, I have no doubt, would scorn the idea with the future
murderer Hazael, " Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing? "
Themselves and their principles tend steadily and undeviatingly to-
wards the resuscitation of these'horrors and superstitions of the past ;
they cannot change themselves except by the grace of God, by becom-
ing true Christians and Protestants, and this it does not appear they
are at all likely to do. Some of these priests, and I hope the great
majority, err from ignorance : others are bad men, and err from design.
I have only now to say, that if a good man see a villain or a child,
the one engaged or the other playing with a machine which may pro-
bably cause some little danger to many persons, he may not possibly
feel called upon to interfere ; if he see a villain or a child, the one en-
gaged, the other playing with a train of gunpowder, whose ignition
would in an instant destroy millions, he might possibly again not feel
called on to interfere ; but if the villain or the child were engaged or
playing with a system which would certainly bring back the deep
horrors of the Inquisition, I think it may possibly be admitted that it
would be time for him to act.
My last sentence shall contain a proposition, of the truth of which
every word that has gone before is a proof. That any act or measure
levelled against the increase of Puseyism and Romanism in this coun-
try or elsewhere is not an attack on the great principles of religious
freedom and toleration ; but, on the contrary, it is as direct as possible
a defence of these very principles, as well as of civil, political, and
philosophical liberty.
Woodfall and Kinder, Printers, Angel Court, Skinner Street, London.
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