?
f-
1715
15
THE
INQUISITION
IN SPAIN,
AND OTHER COUNTRIES.
LONDON:
THE RELmiOUS THACT SOCIETY
Instituted 179!?.
sx
! 7/5
15
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Page
OUICI.V AND FIRST LSTAELISHMENT OF THL INQUI
SITION 5
C!IA1 : !ER II.
APPARATUS AND PROCESSES OF THE INQUISITION . 3-1
CHAPTER Til.
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN 70
CHAPTER IV.
THE INQUISITION IN . PAIN (continued) . . , 313
CHAPTER V.
THE INQUISITION IN PORTUGAL AND GOA . . . 133
CHAPTER VI.
THE MODERN INQUISITION IN ITALY , . 1T7
THE INQUISITION.
CHAPTER I.
ORIGIN AND FIRST ESTABLISHMENT OF THE INQUISITION.
No argument against the apostolicity of the
Romish church is presumptively more strong
than that which arises from the sanguinary
character of its whole history. Its repeated
persecutions its bloody crusades its exter
minating desolations have not only outraged
the sympathies of human nature, but have
stood in such violent contrast to the genius of
the gospel as to engender the suspicion that a
resort to such desperate arms for defence must
have been prompted by some secret conscious
ness that the system was weak in more essential
elements. The following pages will illustrate a
scheme of ecclesiastical action in which the
light and love of Christianity are sought in
vain ; whilst in substitution for them stands a
despotism .fashioned after the world s worst
rule ; which racks the body and rends the
heart ; which combines the suspicious, the
-jealous, the absolute, the severe ; and which
6 THE INQUISITION.
has more affinity with the worship of Moloch,
or the ancient sacrifices of savage Druidism,
than with the truth which proclaims mercy to
all, and comes " not to destroy men s lives,
but to save them."
Towards the close of the eleventh century
the Romish church had reached the culminating
point of its greatness. Under Hildebrand
(Gregory vn.) the bishopric of Home had
claimed over the princes of Christendom a
dominion in matters temporal as well as spi
ritual. Such a power was not likely to be
conceded Avithout a struggle , but the mere
demand carried in its train a mass of evils.
The pretensions of the clergy, and the vices for
which they were notorious ; their continual
interference in secular matters ; their enormous
exactions ; their incredible superstitions ; their
generally obvious ignorance, and their entire
indifference to public opinion, contributed to
form throughout the continent of Europe a
mass of spiritual disaffection which only needed
to be brought into contact with some exciting
outward influence to explode destructively. In
such a case, echo answers to echo through an
almost interminable series. The popular im
pressions produced against the church of Rome
reacted upon that church itself, and created in
its mind the desire to silence di>alli< ti-.n by
persecution. That persecution again unit-d in
mim-n sympathy the hearts of the real
disciples of t: Lord, taught them how
to take the first steps for delivering themselves
ORIGIN AND FIRST ESTABLISHMENT. 7
from their galling fetters, and prepared the
way for that wide assertion of spiritual liberty
which constitutes one of the greatest blessings
of modern times.
How early the Christian church had degene
rated from its primitive simplicity, and had
begun to adopt grievous and destructive errors,
needs hardly to be told. The worship of the
Virgin ; the superstitious regard shown for the
consecrated wafer, which afterwards settled into
the doctrine of transubstantiation ; the practice
of private confession ; the antiphonal chanting
of psalms by night as well as by day ; the
legends of marvel and miracle ; the decorated
robes ; the lighted tapers, the long proces
sions, the smoking incense ; the self-inflicted
macerations and vigils ; the holy water ; the
infallibility of the pope ; the recluse habits of
monasteries and nunneries ; the declared effi
cacy of relics ; the service of the mass ; the
celibacy of the clergy ; these, with many similar
evils, had gradually increased and accumulated
in the bosom of the nominal church, till religion
became a mist only short of total darkness,
extinguishing the lights of truth, obscuring the
headlands which should have marked the path
of progress, magnifying objects intrinsically small
into gigantic proportions, and throwing all eccle
siastical subjects into a state of chaos, in which
disorder and confusion were alone triumphant.
The first chapter of the history of truth
always begins with the small voice in the
desert ; and deeply as the so-called church of
8 TIIE INQUISITION.
Christ had fallen from its original piety and
purity, and degraded as it had become by cor
rupt and pernicious influences, there was not
yet wanting a small minority who, "faithful
among the faithless," and contending with every
conceivable disadvantage and oppression, yet
represented the simplicity and devotedness of
the primitive disciples. Such were the Wnl-
denses a people singularly interesting ; the
pioneers of a later reformation ; the spiritual
isthmus which binds Protestantism to primitive
Christianity; nnd the first who in modern
times ventured to cut the tangled unli rv.
of a false Christianity. Peter Waldus, a native
of Lyons, who lived towards the close of the
twelfth century, tormented and roused by the
corruptions he witnessed around him, caused
portions of the Scriptures to be translated into
the current language ; and though originally a
layman, formed around him a church to which
he preached and expounded. "\Val<n,
band became afterwards associated with another
body of humble disciples, the descendant
the ancient Paulicians, who inhabited tin- val
leys of Piedmont, and were <! lois,
(in French, ) Waldenses, (in Latin,) and Val
ley men, (in English,) names which aftenv.
became affixed to the united community.
These Christians cultivated the utmost sim
plicity of dress and manners. Unambitious of
li, they abjured all unfair and d
/iiiinpr gain; they observe*] the
Strictest t- ;m . r;,:iee and chastity, and den!- 1
OHIGIN AND FIRST ESTABLISHMENT. 9
themselves, with true moral sublimity, even
those innocent enjoyments which might appear
to identify them with their ungodly neighbours.
As many of them followed the occupation of
travelling merchants or pedlars, answering in
many respects to the colporteurs of modern
days, they availed themselves of all favourable
opportunities to instruct their customers in the
doctrines of vital religion, not failing to exhibit
the truth in marked and effective contrast to
the corrupt and venal religionism of their day.
It is admitted that their interpretation of sacred
truth was conjoined with much that was de
fective and even puerile ; but the Waldenses
were true spiritual reformers, exhibiting, though
in a yet more gloomy age, the leading views
which afterwards distinguished the transition
period of Luther and his followers. A section
of these primitive Christians was designated
Albigenses, probably deriving their name from
Albi, a city in Languedoc. As corruption and
calumny are ever allies, they were branded by
their enemies with every crime of which human
nature is capable ; with atheism, blasphemy,
the worship of two gods, (in other words, Mani-
cheeism,) and with the most contemptuous
ridicule of all sacred things. Their real crime
in the eyes of their accusers, was the superior
purity of their lives, and the steady opposition
they offered to the contemptible or corrupt
practices of the Romish church. So long as
they freely disseminated their tenets, Popery
felt itself no longer safe. Inclination therefore
A2
10 THE INQUISITION.
united with interest in urging the ecclesiastical
powers of that time to check the progress of
doctrines so dangerous. Nor was such a course
without precedent in church history. The
persecution of the early Christians, though
begun by the heathens, had been largely pro
moted by the Hebrew portion of the com
munity, though the Jews found, too late, that
in denouncing Christians they had been forging
implements of destruction for themselves. The
edicts of Constant ine first authorized their
punishment by fire. The subsequent consti
tutions of Theodosius provided for the employ
ment of inquisitors and informers. St. Angus-
tine had himself avowed opinions favourable to
persecution ;* and the power of the popes had
manifested itself by its severe repression of
doctrines deemed heretical. It was not, there
fore, probable that in so dark an age the Albi-
genses would be allowed to escape ecclesiastiral
severities ; and when the preaching of tli"
Crusades had been received throughout Europe
with a shout of almost unanimous enthus;
it naturally followed that the arms omp!
against the Saracens would be found appli
to the extermination of doctrines very dili .
from those of the great Oriental impostor, but
even more dangerous to papal pr- :n,Mons.
Accordingly, in the year 1103, pope .
under m., then an exile from Rome, con*
a council at Tours, composed of ecclesiastics
and laics from various parts of England and
EIUS. cxiii.
ORIGIN AND FIRST ESTABLISHMENT. 11
France, to devise measures for the extermination
of heresy. The decrees passed by this assembly
were stringent and severe. Heretics were to
be watched, denounced, and cut off from the
solaces of life for the good of their souls ;
commerce with them was rigidly prohibited ;
and these penalties were enforced by the threat
of excommunication a course then much in
fashion, and possibly more dreaded for its
temporal than its spiritual consequences. These
measures were followed up by other general
councils, one of which was held in the church
of the Lateran in Rome, and constituted the
third Lateran council ; and another at Verona.
In these assemblies canons were issued against
the new heresies, punishments provided for
such as favoured them, and the ecclesiastical
and civil powers leagued together for their
extermination. The execution of these decrees
was in the mean time entrusted to the ordinary
bishops, who were required to hold regular
courts for the detection and punishment of
heretics, the church pronouncing upon the
crime whilst the secular magistrates inflicted
the penalty. Thus, in the course of about
twenty years, the rough outlines of the future
system had been drawn out and approved,
whilst nothing remained but to add to them
those details which future necessities might
demand.
The committal of such a charge as that of
punishing heretics to the bishops of the respec
tive dioceses, was subsequently ascertained to be
12 TI1C INQUISITION,
extremely unsatisfactory. Such prelates were
often apt to be influenced by the public opinion
which prevailed in their respective dioceses.
Nor was their own allegiance to the pontiff of
Home always unquestionable. The administra
tion of these rigorous measures varied, therefore,
according to the character and position of the
individual prelate. Ik-sides, Koine would not
be long in discovering that it. was sometimes
important to watch over the keepers of the
faith themselves. Accordingly, pope Innocent m.
took measures to give greater efficiency to the
decretals already existing.
He, therefore, in the year 1198, authorized
Peter of Castelnnu, Arnauld, abbot of Citeaux,
and his brother Ralph, (all Cistercian monks,) to
preach against the Albigenses, having resolved
to try the effect of temperate measures before
proceeding to those of a sterner character.
The contradictory accounts of their movements
furnished by Roman Catholic historians lead
to the conclusion that these efforts were attended
by extremely small success. Their first modera
tion speedily yielded to cruelty, and Peter <>1
Castelnau lost his life in an outbreak pi. .yoked
by his persecuting spirit. The death of this
man, afterwards canonized by the pope, insti
gated that pontiff to adopt measures of
severity. Whilst, therefore, Simon d
was endeavouring by fire and IW< rd t t- niiy
mm into disciples-hip to the religion oi
Innocent c ,1. other council, the fourth
council of Lateian. He was j<in.d at this
ORIGIN AND FIRST ESTABLISHMENT. 1 3
convention bj two individuals, the name of
one of whom has since become famous in the
annals of Roman monkery and inquisitorial
intolerance.
The former of these was Foulques, bishop of
Toulouse, whose diocese was in the centre of
these Albigensian doctrines, and who, therefore,
was likely to prove no negligent seconder of
his master s measures. The other, then a young
man, was in attendance upon Foulques. His
name, originally a noble one, has passed into a
proverb.
Dominic de Guzman was born in 1170, at
Calaroga, in Old Castile, and was descended
from a very ancient family. It is related that
before his birth his mother dreamed that she
had become the parent of a whelp with a
burning torch, which set the world on fire a
dream which certainly presented no unapt em
blem of the character and actions of her future
son. At the age of fourteen, Dominic, who
had already distinguished himself by his ascetic
habits, became a pupil in the university of
Salamanca; and at the age of twenty-one had
acquired considerable reputation as a devotee.
In 1198 he was appointed canon of Osma, and
soon after accompanied his bishop in a visit to
the districts of Languedoc, where the Albigenses
were preaching. Here, by leave of the pope,
he and his diocesan united themselves with the
Cistercians in putting down the heretics. Some
absurd fables are related of this period in
Dominic s history. Among others, we are told
14 THE INQUISITION.
that St. Dominic, having drawn up an exposi
tion of the Roman Catholic doctrine, gave his
papers to the heretics that they might refute
his propositions if they could. The Albigenses,
after examining them, threw them into the
flames. But the papers miraculously refused
to burn. The experiment was (we are more
over told) repeated in a public assembly, where
several abbots were collected at a great dispu
tation. Thrice was the document committed
to the fire; thrice it came out unhurt* Such
are the inventions which the Romish church
does not hesitate to palm upon its deluded
votaries ! Luther found the flames more
tractable.
In this man, thus brought by the bishop of
Toulouse to the fourth Latcran council, Inno
cent in. found a welcome adjutant for his
schemes of ecclesiastical oppression Dominic
earnestly desired to be the founder of a new
order of monks. But as the council had aln.-ady
determined rather to reform the existing bodies
than to add new ones to their number, the
proposition was not without its difficulties. But
by substituting the name of " canons K
for the more formal appellation by which the
other establishments had been distingi
the difficulty was evaded; and as Innocent,
soon after this council, died, his successor,
Honorius nr, issued bulls, constituting the
bodies of Dominican and Franciscan monks,
the former according to the regulations of
Butler s Lives of tbc Saints. Art. Don.
ORIGIN AND FIRST ESTABLISHMENT. 1 5
Dominic de Guzman, the latter under the
authority of Francis de Assisa. The peculiar
duty of both was to preach against heretics;
the Dominicans being appointed to the districts
at the base of the Pyrenees, the Franciscans to
those of the valleys of Italy. The instructions
under which these mendicant monks were sent
out, commanded them to investigate the tenets
and numbers of the heretics, and to keep
watch on the measures adopted by the bishops
for the preservation of the doctrines of Rome.
They were hence called Inquisitors, that name
having been first given to Dominic by the
authority of the pope himself.
It is notorious how the character of men has
become perpetuated in the systems they have
originated. Of this the Inquisition is a re
markable specimen. Dominic was a stern and
fierce zealot, distinguished, according to the
testimony of Campegius, (inquisitor-general of
Ferrara,) by " the severity he made use of to
stop the progress of these crimes." His own
letters, produced by Paramus, show that he
undertook his office with stern and resolute
determination, resolving, by the severity with
which he punished offenders, to terrify others
from heretical professions. When he had been
appointed by the papal mandate, he appeared
in the church of St. Prullian in the midst of a
great crowd, and in the sermon he preached on
that occasion, he declared that " he was re
solved to defend with his utmost vigour the
doctrines of the faith, and that if the spiritual
16 THE INQUISITION.
and ecclesiastical arms were not sufficient for
this end, lie was determined to call in the secular
arm, to excite and compel the Catholic princes
to take arms against heretics, that the very
mention of them might be utterly destroyed."
Pitiful is the sight of a poor vain bigot thus
clothing himself in armour against the authority
of the Lord of hosts! Not satisfied with these
monkish agents, the pope commissioned his
instruments to engage Philippe H., king of
France, (Philippe Auguste,) with his son and
his nobles, to aid them in exterminating heresy
by force of arms, promising abundant indul
gences as the appropriate rewards. But as the
movement was distasteful to the bishops, and
as the king had no great love for papal man
dates, Philippe took no part in the a Hair, and
many of the nobles of France, who regarded
the Albigenses as peaceful and harmless sub
jects, refused to join in measures which would
have the effect of banishing them from their
domains.
At first these proceedings were submitted to
no distinct tribunal, the efforts to detect heresy
being irregular and promiscuous. Dominic,
however, that he might level all the artillery
of terror against the hapless Albigenses, formed
*n order of laymen, called the Militia of Christ;
" who, being approved by the p"pe, Constituted
or members of the family
x. Dominic. These wen: t.ik- n under the
protection of the emperor, Frederic ir.
Persecution, like other virulent diseases, is
ORIGIN AND FIRST ESTABLISHMENT. 17
one of rapid progress. The succeeding pope
(Gregory ix.) made further advances in the
organization of the Inquisition. lie called a
council at Toulouse, in the year 1229, which,
among other enactments, ordained that appointed
persons, lay and clerical, should search for here
tics, and that no territorial lord should harbour
any suspected person. At the same time it was
required that all the inhabitants of each district
should be registered, and that every person
arriving at a certain age should take an oath
of adhesion to the Catholic faith, and of renun
ciation of heresy. Failure in these respects,
and in regularly communicating three times a
year, exposed the delinquent to suspicion of
heresy. The same council signalized itself by
prohibiting the laity to read the Bible ; thus
first authorizing that fearful sin, which must
ever weigh so heavily in the scale of the Romish
church s condemnation the denial of the bread
of life to the ignorant and perishing sinner.
The Albigenses were now effectually plied
with the arguments of fire and faggot, and
when apprehended were immured in dungeons,
sometimes called " perpetual prisons of the
wall," implying incarceration for life. Even
those who recanted their heresy and avowed
the Romish faith were frequently imprisoned ;
or, in cases supposed to deserve less infamy,
publicly whipped.
The following letter of" Saint" Dominic will
adequately illustrate the spirit in which such
sentences were pronounced :
1 8 THE INQUISITION.
" Brother Dominic, the least of preachers, to
all Christ s faithful people, to whom these pre
sents shall come, greeting in the Lord :
" By the authority of the Cistercian abbot,
who hath appointed us this office, we have
reconciled the bearer of these presents, Pontius
Rogerius, converted by God s blessing from his
heretical sect, charging and requiring him by
the oath which he hath taken, that three Sun
days, or three festival days, he be led by a
priest, naked on his shoulders, from the coming
into the town unto the church door, being
whipped all the way. We also enjoin him that
he abstain at all times from meat, eggs, cheese,
and all things that proceed from flesh, except on
the days of Easter, Whitsuntide, and Christmas,
on which days we command him to eat flesh
for i\ denial of his former error. We will that
he keep three Lents in one year, abstaining
even from fish ; and that he fast three days
every week, always refraining from fish, oil,
and wine, except bodily infirmity or hard
labour in harvest time require a dispensation.
We will have him wear friar s coats, with two
small crosses sewn on his two breasts. Let him
every day hear mass if opportunity may serve,
and on all holidays ; let him go to vespers to
church. He shall observe all the other canon
ical hours, by day and by night, whtjrever he
be, and shall then fay his orisons, that is, seven
ti mo a day he shall say ten j :>fernosters to-
iT, and twenty at midnight. Every first
day of the month let him show these our letters
ORIGIN AND FIRST ESTABLISHMENT. 1 9
to the curate of the town of Cervicum, whom
we command diligently to observe what kind
of life this bearer leads ; whom, if he should
neglect to observe these our injunctions, we
declare to be perjured and excommunicated,
and will have him taken for such."*
This gradual establishment of inquisitorial
power was attended by scenes of outrage and
enormity which, though not perhaps strictly
forming part of the history of the Inquisition
itself, strongly illustrate the spirit of the system
from which it emanated, and leave a track of
blood to witness from the ground against the
church of Rome. The ravages of Simon de
Montfort, the English earl of Leicester ; the
barbarity of Arnault! , abbot of Citeaux, who,
when told at the siege of Beziers that there
were many Catholics in the town, commanded
that all should be killed, declaring that " God
would know his own ;" the concentration of
leaders from all parts of Europe against the
hapless Albigenses ; the infamy of Foulques,
bishop of Toulouse, who jested with indescrib
able barbarity on the sufferings of those he
made his victims constitute in their combina
tion a series of atrocities perhaps unequalled in
the history of the world. When Beziers was
taken, the massacre was universal there was
nothing left living within it ; and pillage, deso
lation, and death were triumphant in the dis
tricts around. At Minerve a large fire was
lighted before the citadel, and in the face of its
* Limborch a Inquisition, chap. x. Ed. W6.
20 THE INQUISITION.
flames the Albigcnses were exhorted to be con
verted or die. One hundred and eighty chose
the latter alternative. These enormities con
tinued during many years, the monks of St.
Dominic being the executors of the decrees
issuing from the council of the Lateran. It is
related by Bzovius, that in the beginning of the
thirteenth century multitudes of heretics were
burned in Germany, France, and Italy, and
that eighty persons were seized in Strasburg
alone. " If any of these denied their heresy,
friar Conrade, of Marpuy, an apostolical inqui
sitor of the order of Predicants, put them to the
trial of the fire-ordeal, and as many of them as
were burned by the iron he delivered over to
the secular power to be burned as heretics ; so
that all who were accused and put to this trial,
a few excepted, were condemned to the flames."
The contentions which existed between the
papal and imperial authorities prevented, how
ever, the progress of the Inquisition in Germany.
Traces of the existence of this sanguinary
tribunal are found in connexion with the his
tories of Sardinia, Servia, and Syria.
The Inquisition was introduced by pope
Innocent iv. into Italy under Vivianus Burgo-
mensis and Peter of Verona. The latter was
the proto-martyr of the inquisitors. Soon after
his appointment, as he was jourm -yinj from
Como to Milan, in prosecution of his ollico, he
was attacked and murdered. Tin- church of
Iiome canonized him, and the Iu<jui>ition -
after regarded him as their sainted protector,
ORIGIN AND FIRST ESTABLISHMENT. 21
calling a class of their servants " Co-Brothers
of Peter the Martyr," in honour of his death.
So unpopular was the Inquisition in Italy, in
consequence of the cruelty of its administra
tion, (especially against those who were accused
of magic,) that dangerous tumults arose in
Brescia and Mantua ; whilst in Rome the popu
lace broke open the prisons, and burned the
building to the ground.
It is needless to specify the details connected
with the introduction of the inquisitorial appa
ratus into Hungary and Poland.
Though Venice could not avoid the intro
duction of this system, the jealousy of the senate
prevented its ever acquiring a permanent influ
ence, in that state.
Owing to the disputes between the pope and
the king respecting the appointment of . inqui
sitors, Naples wholly escaped the terrible inflic
tion ; nor could it ever obtain a footing in the
Low Countries.
The introduction of the Inquisition into Spain
will be related in a subsequent chapter. The
remainder of this present one will be devoted
mainly to France, the original scat of its power.
About the middle of the thirteenth century,
Raymond of Pegnaforte, a Dominican, drew
np, by command of pope Gregory ix., a com
pendium of the various laws enacted against
heresy. Several additions were subsequently
made to this digest, which constituted the basis
of the inquisitorial code, and at a synod subse
quently held at Tarracona many new edicts
22 TITF. INQUISITION.
were added to the former. The tribunal of the
Inquisition was first erected at Toulouse in
1233, and its administration was entrusted to
the monks of St. Dominic. The establishment
of the old Inquisition is due to the pope who
first gave to the doctrine of transubstantiation
its regular form. It appears that early in the
fourteenth century an inquisitorial prison ex
isted in Toulouse, and that periodical demon
strations, not very dissimilar to those which
in later times were called autos da fe, terrified
and warned the hapless inhabitants. Every
offence which might, by natural or forced con
struction, bear the likeness of misprision of
heresy, as well as of heresy itself, appears to
have awakened the jealousy of the lynx-eyed
familiars of those distant days. Union with the
Waldenses in acts of prayer ; harbouring the
heretical pastors in houses ; visiting them in
prison ; employment of the same prayers as
those used by the simple teachers ; hearing or
reading the Scriptures in the common tongue ;
even the act of accepting a needle from one of
them, are cited in this document as crimes to be
punished, often by burning alive. In one case
we have the record of a priest of the Romish
church, who had been received secretly into
the society of these denounced heretics, though
he had not ceased, however at variance with
his true convictions, to minister at the altar of
his mother church. He was denoun
tried, but released upon his \
ance. Yet he united again with hi
ORIGIN AND FIRST ESTABLISHMENT. 23
friends, and was once more brought before the
tribunal of the Inquisition. As his diocesan
bishop was dead, there was no power by which
he could be removed from his office except the
pope s, who issued a special bull for the pur
pose. The long and solemn process of degra
dation was inflicted even the tonsure was
erased by the shaving of his head, and he was
then thrown into the fire and consumed.
Even those who renounced their heresies
appear to have been condemned to perpetual
imprisonment by this Toulousian tribunal. Nor
were even the dead free from the vengeance of
their persecutors. The errors of the Waldenses
caused their very bones to be ransacked in their
graves. Then, as since, the vengeance of Rome
pursued the body beyond the grave.
The visitor to Toulouse is yet shown "Le
Couvent de Tancienne Inquisition," on the right
bank of the Garonne; and, till the end of the
last century, the cell was exhibited which
St. Dominic inhabited when on a visit to the
city to plant there his upas tree, since so widely
extended, full of dark foliage and prolific of de
structive fruit. Some localities become morally
pestilential : the miasma of evil, once caught,
is long retained. It was so with Toulouse.
The cruelties inflicted on French Protestants
lasted till the year 1761, when persecution
struck its last blow in the cruel and sanguinary
death of Galas, and roused a public indignation
under which Rome long trembled. Yet it was
Toulouse which wrote en one of its churches
24 THE INQUISITION.
the church of St. James of Compostella " Non
est in toto saitctior orbe /on/s;" "There is no
holier spot in all this world." Self-delusion is
often self-destruction.
But it was not on heretics alone that this
Toulonsian tribunal exercised the power which,
unlike that of the first apostles, was given for
" destruction," not for " edification." The ava
lanche which fell on the heads of the Parisian
Jews in the reign of St. Louis, in 1230, had its
consequences in Toulouse ; for, in continuation
of those outrages, the Inquisition of that city
entered the houses of the descendants of Abra
ham, seized their Hebrew books, especially the
copies of the Talmud, and burned them in
public. One might suppose the fables of that
work to be too absurd to be regarded ns
dangerous. But, when learning was small and
superstition great, the Cabbala* of the Jews
was dreaded as something most fearful; and if
magic have any power, it must be confessed
that the Mishna and Gemara contain enough
stories of its power to alarm the least cre
dulous.
Nor were the Jews alone liable to this accu
sation of sorcery. The authority which dealt
with Pietro d Apono as a magician, (\ve decide
not whether he were foolish enough to believe
in its reality without adci-nate evidence, or
juggler enough to practise what !: did not
Wlifn Mirnrxlola wn ! .iti<i i nn.l
. ho n-kii| in a jnil>lisl:i-(| \\ork, " What u
( al)bala?" "S " Cabbala wa a wicked .
who wrote gniiut Christ. Tbc Cabbaliati arc his follower*."
ORIGIN AND FIRST ESTABLISHMENT. 25
believe,) and which tortured him till life could
bear no more, and till he died in prison, demon
strated its zeal in many parts of France. _
Among the inquisitors of this new institution
in the year 1250, Peter lleines obtained a
disastrous celebrity. He was busily occupied
in carrying into effect that decree of the council
of Toulouse which forbade the laity to possess a
copy of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue.
Under his administration the Waldenses appear
to have suffered the most grievous barbarities.
Such numbers were about this time apprehended,
as to cause a complaint from the archbishops of
Aix, Aries, and Narboune, that they found it
difficult, not only to defray the charge of main
taining so many prisoners, but even to furnish
materials out of which a sufficient number of
prisons might be built. In Italy, a branch of
the Albigenses, at the close of the thirteenth
century, assumed the title of Apostolics ; and in
the commencement of the fourteenth, one of
their number, Sngarelli, having been seized,
was condemned and burned as an arch-heretic.
As the sect to which he belonged was very
numerous, Clement v., then pope, sent among
the Apostolics preaching inquisitors, who (en-
lumniously, no doubt) returned to him a most
unfavourable report of the practices and num
bers of these new dissentients. A crusade was
accordingly proclaimed against them, and an
army was sent for their extermination. It
succeeded. If < the blood of the martyrs^is the
seed of the church," it is not always in the
26
THE INQUISITION.
literal moaning of that proverb. The extirpa
tion of the true reformed faith from Spain,
irance, and Belgium, stands as a manifest
proof to the contrary.
In the year 1307, a new body, which had
been once regarded as the main support of
the Christian religion against the heathen and
infidel Saracens, and which had shed their best
blood in its defence the Knights Templars-
fell under the suspicion of heretical tendencies
and by a coup d etat of Philip the Fair of
France, (who had been offended by this order
because they had furnished the preceding pope
with money to carry on war against him,) were
seized in great numbers and thrown into prison.
In addition to the crime of heresy, the Templars
were accused of licentious and abominable enor
mities, of secret alliance with the Saracens, and
of an intention to deliver Christendom into the
hands of its enemies. The papal chair was at
this time filled by Clement v., who, being a crea
ture of Philip, and, moreover, a prisoner in the
hands of the king, could not take the measures
necessary for their defence, though extremely
desirous of sparing a body which had proved
itself so useful to his order. As the Templars
were little guided by any true principle, and as
many of them had been extremely licentious in
their practice, the charges against them were
not without a colour of probability, and some
of their number, when imprisoned and tl
with extreme tortuivs, j.urclia^-.l tlu-ir liberty
at the price of stigmatizing their companions.
ORIGIN AND FIRST ESTABLISHMENT. 27
To remove the scruples of the pope, Philip
caused seventy-two of these confessing Tem
plars to be brought before him. Bub the
course of their examination showed with suffi
cient distinctness the measures which had been
adopted to secure their evidence. One of them
asserted he had been tortured by intoxicated
men. Another declared that he had undergone
extreme severities at Carcassone, and when
asked why he did not then tell the truth,
replied, " Because I did not then recollect it,
but I prayed the seneschal to confer with my
companions, and when I had deliberated with
them I recollected." In reply to the charges
brought against them, the Templars asserted
that such imputations were utterly false, and
could only have been made by men who feared
the. consequences of speaking the truth. Most
authors, not French, have admitted the fallacy
of the charges.
By the joint authority of Clement and Philip
a council was called at Vienne to determine
respecting the continuance of the Order of the
Temple, and the pope issued a bull, entitled,
" Faciens Miscricordiam" by which princes
and prelates were summoned to attend the
council and to assist him in his inquiries. At
this council several of the accusers of the
Templars retracted, one of them declaring that
he had been tortured before a burning fire till
the bones came off" his feet, and another that he
bad been three times subjected to the question,
and had been kept on bread and water for
28 THE INQUISITION.
thirty-six weeks. Whilst this trial was pend
ing, the archbishop of Seas, with disgraceful
servility, performed an act of which Philip was
the real instigator. This was the putting to
death of fifty- four Templars who had declared
the innocence of the Order. These wretched
men were dragged from prison to find the piles
already prepared for their execution, and the
torches flaming. An offer was made of rescue
to those who would confess the guilt of their
body in vain, and equally vain was the remon
strance of their friends, who entreated them to
avoid the impending destruction. They died
with heroic courage, asserting to the last
moment their innocence. Jacob Mola, the
grand-master and general of the Order, ad
dressed the people at the place of his execution
in these words :
" As the end of life is not the time to utter
falsehoods, even though advantage would follow,
1 swear by everything sacred, that what has
been alleged as a crime against the Templars,
and is now referred in the sentence pronounced
against me, is false and unfounded."
These proceedings were confined to France,
and no capital punishment was inflicted on the
Templars in any other kingdom a strong
presumptive proof of their innocence of these
actual charges. The Order of the Templars
was however suppressed, though, four days
.-.fur its suppression, Clement v. issued a 1 nil
in which he declared that the proof against the
body was far from positive.
OIUGIN AND FIRST ESTABLISHMENT. 29
The Beguins next came under the notice of
the Inquisition. These men were a sect of
Franciscan monks, who, disgusted with their
brethren because they did not observe their
professed practice of poverty, and maintaining
that not even the edicts of the pope himself
could release them from their vow, were
declared to be guilty of heresy, and were
proceeded against with the utmost rigour under
a decree of the pope. Home has ever looked
upon all reformers as heretics of the Avorst
cla-ss. In 1318, four of these Beguins were
convicted and burned alive. Their death was
followed by that of many others who partici
pated in their opinions, and regarded them as
martyrs for the truth. This persecution lasted
during many years, and continued at intervals
until even the time of Luther. Many serious
errors appear to have intruded themselves
among the disciples of this sect, for an account
of which the reader is referred to the third
volume of Mosheim s Ecclesiastical History.
Though the Inquisition was thus first esta
blished on the French soil, it was unable to
secure a permanent footing in that country in
consequence of the violent altercations which
perpetually arose between the pope and the
reigning monarchs of that powerful kingdom.
The contentions, especially between Philip the
Fair and pope Boniface, which ended in the
excommunication of the monarch, were ill
calculated to confirm the power of so tyrannous
an ecclesiastical institution.
30 TI1E INQUISITION.
Yet when, in the next reign but one, certain
nobles of Dauphiny protected the Waldenses,
the reigning pope addressed himself to Charles
IV., soliciting his support for the Inquisition.
This was granted, till, in consequence of the
zeal of the persecutors, the prisons were so
glutted with victims, that it was found no
easy matter to provide food for the miserable
inmates. To meet this difficulty, the pope
appropriated part of the funds of the church
for the maintenance of these ecclesiastical
prisoners, and offered large indulgences to
those who should aid in the erection of new
prisons.
That the proto-reformation which began
under Wyclifte and IIuss gave abundant em
ployment to the cruel energies of the Inquisition
scarcely admits of question, though history has
not separated its special acts from those general
enormities which distinguished the Romish
church at that period. The Inquisition doubt
less instigated those proceedings of the Council
of Constance by which John Huss was commit
ted to the flames in 1414, and by which Wycliffe s
bones were exhumed and thrown into the Swill
at Lutterworth. It is indeed impossible to think
of this wide-spread engine of desolation and death,
this ecclesiastical Thuggisin which thus dill
its l.aiu ltil influence among so many of the
s <>f Kurup" , without a shudder. Tl.
to the provi<l :. t (
al\v ;v( they are sometimt -sabhonvnt.
a those who might admire the bilky undulu-
ORIGIN AND FIRST ESTABLISHMENT. 31
tion and glistening colours of the serpent, fly
with instinctive terror when they hear the
rattle which proclaims his venomous character.
The old Inquisition had not indeed all the fully
developed powers of its successor, but it exer
cised its influence in a darker age, and that fact
could not fail to magnify its despotism. In our
own days persecution is, we would fain be
lieve, comparatively a harmless thing. Even
when it exists, the facilities given for the trans
mission of intelligence from point to point, the
wide area through which public opinion be
comes excited, the concentration of efforts and
remonstrances on any single point,^ must of
necessity curtail, if these cannot entirely pre
vent, its free range of action. Of this the cruel
punishment of the Madiai may afford an illus
tration. The voice which all Protestant Europe
has uttered regarding that transaction, though
for the present it may seem powerless, will long
resound in the ears of the Borne-ridden despots
who would " weary out the saints of the Most
High." But we cannot look back to the history
of persecution in the dark ages without unmiti
gated horror. When men stood comparatively
alone when the feudal system bound the vassal
in iron subjection to his lord when no press
thundered forth the case of the sufferer when
no post transmitted the tale of his woe when
no lightning element was ready to convey the
news of his injury with the rapidity of thought
from north to south and from east to west
what must have been the facilities which a
32 THE IKQUISITIOH.
persecuting religion then possessed for its dark
and deadly work !
Yet dark as the scene is, all is not darkness.
Many of these sufferers hated, denounced,
tortured, destroyed had sources of consolation
within them of which the world knows nothing.
They knew the picture on one side to be dark,
but they knew how to turn if. Whilst they
bled or withered in p. death of anguish, they
felt that they were the r-ul benefactors of their
posterity.
"They never fail who die
In t great cnnsc; the blork may soak their gore,
rncir heads may sodden in the smi, their limbs
Be strung to city pates and castle walls
IJut htill their spirit walks abroad."
"We are not ungrateful when we think of the
civil and social liberties which such suflerings
procured for those who should follow. But we
prize at an infinitely higher rate the lesson
they have left us of the reality, the vitality, the
energy, the fortifying influence, the indestruc
tible power of the doctrines of salvation by
faith in the merits of the Redeemer s sacrifice.
Every cry which torture wrung from the suffer
ers wakened sonic drowsy member of a false
church from his dreamy slumbers. The flames
by which they were consumed poured a blaze
of detecting light upon the evil practices and
anti-Christian observances which without them
would have remained unknown. In tin.- provi
dence of God, the Inquisition whi>-!i tdturert
the Albigenses taught the Lollard
which would have exterminated the i
ORIGIN AND FIRST ESTABLISHMENT. 83
roused the spirit of the Reformation. " I shall
not all die " may be the motto, not only of a
heathen moralist, but of the Christian martyr.
All is not gloom. Not a sigh of God s true
servants passed unheeded by their Master !
" Are they not in Thy book ? " Their passage
from earth t heaven was terrible, but it was
often brief. There is a recompense. Between
the persecutor and the persecuted who could
now hesitate which side to choose ? Let U3
learn. It is well to live for ultimate issues,
It is well to live, not for to-day or to-morrow,
but for a whole hereafter. And to bear the
cross as Christ himself did is the only road to
being partakers with him of the crown for
which he died.
Romanism has thus served to develope true
Christianity. The executioner who severs the
head of his victim brings to light, the marvels
of its physical construction. But shall we
thank him for his lesson ?
84 THE INQUISITION.
CHAPTER II.
APPARATUS AND PROCESSES OF THE INQUISITION.
THE operations of the Inquisition have consider
ably varied in the earlier, compared with the
later periods of its history. Its general character
has, indeed, been always one; but, on its first
establishment, its vigour was chiefly dependent
upon the energy and zeal of individual adminis-
trants, rather than on the concentrated powers
of a united and extensive organization. In the
first instance, the tribunal did not trample down
all considerations of ecclesiastical rank, nor
did it then set at defiance, as it afterwaidi
learned to do, the remonstrances of pontiffs
themselves. Though the terrible engine of
seci esy was not, in its earlier operations, entirely
unknown, this had not yet become a distin
guished element of its power. It is from the
close of the fifteenth century that we must
begin to recognise the completed form of this
tribunal.
It is not wonderful that the influence of
public opinion should have chocked, in modern
days, the practices and exhibitions of this
APPARATUS AND PROCESSES. 35
tremendous engine of iniquity. The position
now occupied by the Inquisition is, therefore,
most studiously enveloped in dark mystery,
from the midst of which, however, there occa
sionally emanate startling disclosures, oj, at
least, expressive groans. This elaborate con
cealment of its present character renders it de
sirable for us to describe the Inquisition in the
past, rather than in the present tense; though
we caution the reader against drawing any
inference from this circumstance. In the sequel
\ve shall endeavour to place the question as to
the modern existence of the "holy office" in
its true light. Till then, we wish to be under
stood as speaking, to employ a legal term,
" without prejudice" as to the fact of its modern
character.
The essential intolerance of the church of
Rome is equally manifest and enormous. Ac
cording to its canon law, all variation from the
prescribed tenets of that church is criminal,
and deserving of punishment, both spiritual
and temporal; and every pope and archbishop
is understood to be invested with power and
jurisdiction for the extirpation of heresies.*
The fourth council of Toledo, which has been
sometimes quoted as a specimen of Eoman
Catholic liberality, declared that Jews baptized
ly force should be compelled to hold to the
* The reader is here reminded of a remarkable and instruc
tive correspondence which took place not long since between
i Presbyterian clergyman and a recently-appointed cardinal,
U r W "V U V vhich the la"er was invested as
the Romish church.
30 THE INQUISITION.
faitli, lest the name of God should be blas
phemed.* The following was the decree of the
fifth council : " We promulge this doctrine
pleasing to God, that whosoever hereafter shall
succeed to the kingdom, shall not ascend the
throne till he has .sworn, among other oaths, to
permit no man to live in his kingdom who is
not a Catholic ; and if, after he has taken the
reins of government, he shall violate this pro
mise, let him be anathema marcmatka in the
sight of the eternal God, and become fuel of
the eternal fire."| The council of Lateran,
under pope Innocent ur., decreed that "all
heresy and heretics should be anathematized,
and these being condemned, must be left to the
secular power to be punished." J At the same
time secular oflicers are required to swear that
" they will endeavour, bond fide and with all
their might, to exterminate from every part of
their dominion all heretical subjects, univer
sally, that are marked out by the church."
The last council of Lateran decreed, " that all
false Christians, and those iVho think ill con
cerning faith, of whatever people or nation they
may be, as well as heretics or persons polluted
with any stain of heresy, or Judaizers, be
entirely excluded from the company of believers
in Christ. . . . We ordain that proceedings be
taken against them. . . . And they who are
guilty of this crime, and legitimately convicted,
* Hlanro WliitrV 1 :.inst CatlioliciMn, p. 254.
t ( Jirrnn.
% Ibid, p. 602.
APPARATUS AND PROCESSES. 37
shall be punished with due penalties. But it
is our pleasure that the relapsed be dealt with
without any hope of pardon or of remission."
And the following passage may be here intro
duced from the annotations of the Douay Bible:
" The good must tolerate the evil when it is
so strong that it cannot be redressed without
danger and disturbance of the whole church.
. . . Otherwise, where il men (be they hereticks
or other malefactours) may be punished and
suppressed without disturbance and hazard of
the good, they may and ought by publike
authority, either spiritual or temporal, to be
chastised or executed." * In coincidence with
such sentiments, the creed of pope Pius iv.
speaks of " this true Catholic faith, out of
which none can be saved." And Aquinas,
dignified by the Romanists with the honours of
a saint, and regarded as a special authority
among the learned of the Komish church,
declares: " Sicut in voto aliqud necessitatis sen
honestatis causa potest fieri dispensatio, ita et in
juramento" " As" with regard to vows, a dis
pensation may take place for the sake of neces
sity or of honesty, so it may also with regard
to oaths. I It cannot be, therefore, a matter
of surprise, if a church claiming to possess
powers of so extensive an order, has deemed
itself qualified to regulate at its pleasure, and
* Douay Bible, 16, 33, 1816. Capper s Acknowledged Doc-
trines of the Church of Rome.
t Secunda Secnndac, Quest. Ixxxix. Art. ix. See some
striking and instructive observations on this subject in
" Blanco White s Evidence against Catholicism," p. 58.
38 THE INQUISITION.
by whatever penalties it may have seen fit to
impose, the religious opinions of all whom it has
tyrannically regarded as subject to its sway.
More effectually to accomplish such ends, the
" apostolical inquisitors" were early appointed
by the pope as "the supreme maintainers of
the faith," and were invested with complete
jurisdiction over cases of alleged departure from
the truth. The appointment to this office might
be made either by papal word or rescript. Of
the latter mode, the following is one of the
forms : " That the office of the Inquisition
against heretics may bo more effectually dis
charged, we command your discretion by our
apostolic writings, enjoining you, by the remis
sion of your sins, to execute the aforesaid office
which we commit to you by our apostolic
authority, in the love of God without any
fears of men, putting on the spirit of strength
from on high."
The powers entrusted to the INQUISITOR-
GENKUAL were enormously great. He was the
head of the supreme council, which in its turn
exercised a complete control over all inferior
courts. He was irremovable except by the
pope who appointed him. Occasionally the
monarch nominated the inquisitor-general, and
the supreme pontiff confirmed the appointment.
It rested with this officer to choose the INTERIOR
INQUISITORS, but subject to the papal auction.
These functionaries v ,.j,t jy um a n
ordinary ecclesiastical juriMdiction. They bore
the title of " most reverend," and were 04110! in
APPARATUS AND PROCESSES. 39
rank to bishops. In matters of difficulty the
whole council of inquisitors adjudged on the
case. The unlawful use of their powers ren
dered these officers liable to be removed by the
prelates of heir order, though the pope might
take the judgment into his own hands, and
award punishment according to his pleasure.
But such penalties were usually administered
with caution and in secresy, on the pretext that,
as the office was much hated by offenders, it
was not wise to expose the institution to con
tempt. This plea for the mitigation of penal
ties on ecclesiastical offenders is familiar to all
who have studied the genius and practices of
the Roman Catholic religion.
A large district might require the aid of
VICARS or cosiMissiONERS, the final sentence being
usually pronounced by the inquisitor-general.
As the original inquisitors were friars, and
therefore, however learned in divinity, might
be often inexperienced in law, they were re
quired to coujoin with them canonists and
jurists, to whom was given the title of ASSESSORS
or COUNCILLORS. Nor was such aid unneces
sary, for it not unfrequently happened that the
inquisitors betrayed the grossest ignorance on
doctrinal points respecting which they were
required to adjudicate. Dr. Geddes gives some
almost incredible instances of their stupidity.
He records that the origin of the word hcereticus,
(derived, as every schoolboy knows, from the
Greek word a /peo-ts, opinion, choice?) was inter
preted by some of them as having its origin in
40 THE INQUISITION.
the two Latin words crro and reel us, because " a
heretic errs from what is right ;" and by others
as derived from adha reo, because heresy is
" the obstinate adherence to an error."* The
inquisitors were often ignorant of the plainest
passages of the Scriptures, and even of the
canons of their own church. To prevent such
mistakes they were permitted to call to their
councils those who were versed in divinity or in
civil Jaws, as the case might be, and having
heard their opinion they determined the case
for themselves. Such advisers were sworn to
secresy.
The accuser in the office of the inquisition
was called the PROMOTER FISCAL, who prepared
the charge, swearing that in laying it he was
not instigated by malice. He marshalled the
witnesses, and produced all other proofs deemed
requisite ; only he was forbidden to exercise
his oflice in his native district. This officer
was not, however, allowed to be present when
the nature of the sentence was under deli
beration.
The NOTARIES were the secretaries of the tri
bunal. It was their office, not merely to pre
serve the minutes of the examinations, but to
record every subordinate, circumstance which
occurred during the interrogation, such as hesi
tations, changes of countenance, faltering of
Trnrt, vol i. p. 425. " It was n proverb in
Portugal that children li> wriv rompi tent ID nutliing ele
were fit for inquUitors. A SpunUh j< st run tl.us : - \Mi:it
maw an inquisitor? A. One crucifix, two candle-:
i.a ftne blockheads. "
APPARATUS AND PROCESSES. 41
the voice, etc. They were ordinarily lay men,
and were also sworn to secresy.
As the trials conducted by the Inquisition
frequently involved property to a large amount,
RECEIVERS or TREASURERS held the amounts con
fiscated, subject to the pleasure of the tribunal.
The APPARITORS or PURSUIVANTS were the
executive servants of the " holy office," as the
FAMILIARS were its detective police.
With the exception of the officials of tho
tribunal itself and bishops, (who might be de
nounced, but could only be condemned by a
superior power,) the extent of the authority of
the Inquisition was almost unbounded. Heresy,
Judaism, sorcery, necromancy, magic, Quietism,
Lutheranism, freemasonry, or whatever might
be suspected to come under any of these desig
nations ; in short, every opinion differing or
supposed to differ from the absolute standard of
the Romish church, was subject to its inquiries,
impeachment, and punishment. The armed
baron, who, with twilight sagacity, began dimly
to suspect the errors of his all-grasping church ;
the wealthy proprietor, the amount of whose
amassed riches might aid in some new scheme
of ecclesiastical oppression ; the tonsured priest,
whose awakening convictions had outrun the
prudence of his spiritual position ; the father
or mother of the family, who had been more
concerned about the salvation of children s souls
than the mere dogmas of creeds and confessions ;
the hapless virgin , whose affections had been fixed
on some heretical lover ; the destitute labourer,
B 2
42
THE INQUISITION.
who had sought in a reformed faith a consola
tion denied him by the church of Home ; the
careless talker, whose gibes or sarcasms had
pierced too sharply some well-guarded error;
the friend of liberty, who longed to break the
manacles of a dreaded despotism, and to set
himself and his country free ; these, and a
thousand varieties besides, were the objects on
which the lynx-eyed malignity of papal pene
tration was not slow to rest, and whom it did its
utmost to sweep out of existence.
Perhaps no better notion of the proceedings
of the Inquisition can be obtained than that
derived from the " Directory " of Nicholas
Eymeric, inquisitor-general of Aragon in 1536.
which constitutes the basis of all the subse
quent proceoilipTS of that tribunal. It was
sanctioned by tux gory xm., and "has served
as a model for all the regulations which have
been in force in Spain, Italy, and Portugal, and
as authority for all who have written on the
subject."* To the information derived from
this Directory may be added that of Llorente,
who was, previously to the publication of his
work, secretary to the Inquisition, and chan
cellor of the university of Toledo. The latter
has furnished a complete account of the mode
of procedure adopted by the modern Inquisi
tion. We shall have frequent occasion to avail
ourselves of his information.
The 1 ..rose, chlier out
of an accusation directly i
Puigblanch, cbap. iv.
APPARATUS AND PROCESSES. 43
individual person,* or from information ob
tained more stealthily. The former course was
decidedly discountenanced ; it was too open to
suit the purposes of the treacherous tribunal
In case of "information" furnished to the holy
>ince the witness swore not to reveal the inter
rogatories that had been put to him, nor the
nature of his replies. Though, in the eyes of
the inquisitor the matter might appear alto
gether groundless, it was not therefore to be
concluded that it was unworthy of credence
since future occurrences might throw licrht
upon what at present seemed to be entirely
contradictory. It o f re n happened, however,
that the matter of suspicion was derived from
information which had transpired at some pre
vious trial ; in which case it was competent to
the inquisitor to question any persons whom he
might cite, provided there were two of them to
corroborate the point. It was not necessary
these witnesses should state facts of which
they were cognizant; even hearsay evidence
was fully admissible. It was the object of the
tribunal to keep these witnesses almost entirely
L the dark, and this was done by asking
hem m the most general terms possible, whe-
her vhey had ever seen or heard anything which
was, or appeared to be, contrary to the Catholic
faith or the rights of the Inquisition. Llorente
4-L THE INQUISITION.
declares that when the notary had written down
the allegations of these persons, though in the
course of doing so he often heightened the
colour of their depositions, they never failed, on
his notes being read over to them, to approve
all which he had recorded.*
The testimony of witnesses was not damaged
by the ill character they bore. Though they
were heretics, or infamous in the eyes of the
law, they could give testimony against a cul
prit, but not in his favour. If the witness re
tracted his first allegation, it was held, never
theless, to be of force. In obtaining informa
tion regarding suspected persons no tie of
nature was respected. The servant might in
form against the master, or the son against the
father. But though such witnesses were suffi
cient to accuse they were by no means allowed
to exculpate. Every advantage was taken of
the malicious motives which might prompt one
person to become the accuser of another. The
witness was wrought upon by fear, by interest,
and by the sense of what was due to God, or
(which was represented as being the same
thing) to the holy tribunal. As he was sworn
to secresy, a bad man would be encouraged in
bearing false evidence ; and lie who had once
been brought before the tribunal durst not
communicate anything which had passed within
its walls. Townsend, in his " Journey through
Spain," relates that a Dutch consul, with whom
be was acquainted in 1787, resolutely refused
Llorente, chap. ix.
APPARATUS AND PROCESSES. 45
to make any statement regarding his imprison
ment in the Inquisition at Barcelona, though
his confinement had occurred thirty-five years
before, and that he was agitated when any
questions were asked of him on that subject ;
while his fellow in prison, M. Falconet, though
he had been seized when a boy, was turned
grey by the fright of his capture, and never, to
the day of his death, could be prevailed upon
to communicate the details of his confinement.
The charge against these parties really -was,
that the latter had destroyed a picture of the
Virgin, which the Dutch consul had witnessed
without accusing his friend.*
The information having been obtained, and
having been laid before the supreme council,
the arrest of the accused speedily followed.
Ministers of the tribunal, among whom it was
necessary that the treasurer should be one, (for
the purpose of taking charge of the confis
cation,) proceeded usually at dead of night to
the house of the alleged culprit. " The thun
derbolt launched from the black and angry
cloud," says a writer, " strikes not with such
alarm as the sound of * DELIVER YOURSELF UP A
PRISONER TO THE INQUISITION I Astonished and
trembling, the unwary citizen hears the dismal
voice ; a thousand different affections at once
seize upon his panic-struck frame, and he re
mains perplexed and motionless. His life in
danger his deserted wife and orphan children
eternal infamy, the only patrimony that now
* Tcwuscnd s Journey through Spain, vol. ii. p. 330.
4G THE INQUISITION.
awaits his bereft family are all ideas which
rush upon his mind ; he is at once agitated by
an agony of dilemma and despair. The burn
ing tear scarcely glistens on his livid cheek, the
accents of woe die on his lips ; and, amidst the
alarm and desolation of his family, and the con
fusion and pity of his neighbours, he is borne
away to dungeons, whose damp and bare walls
can alone witness the anguish of his mind."*
The inquisitorial prisons, though in more
modern times, as Llorente informs us, com
paratively light and airy, were, in earlier
periods, dark, gloomy, and most distressing.
The reader of the life of Howard the philan
thropist knows the descriptions there given of
prison accommodation, and can easily suppose
that the Inquisition furnished no exception to
the general rule. There were public cells for
light offenders, more secluded ones for erring
servants of the holy office, and secret ones for
heretics. In the last case the seclusion was
generally absolute. Here the miserable cap
tive was immured, without society, without
compassion, without books, without a copy of
his accusation, and was often forbidden even
to hum a tune, lest it might prove a means of
correspondence with his fellow prisoners. Thus
jealously cut off from all communication with
the external world ; ignorant in the first in
stance of the crime of which he was accused ;
aware of the anxit-ty his unaccountable
absence would cause to his friends, and of the
Puigbltnch, chap. iv.
APPARATUS AND PROCESSES. 47
irretrievable ruin into \vhich his affairs would
be thrown ; in dread of the torture, and appre
hensive of the fatal issue which might lie be
yond it it is no wonder if the prisoner was
prostrated, body and soul, by the prolongation
of such anguish ; or if those who had no spi
ritual sustenance in gospel hope should rashly
dare the dreadful act of suicide. " O my
God I" said Constantine Ponce de la Fuente, a
Spaniard and a most learned man, who, during
the reign of the emperor Charles v., was im
prisoned under suspicion of Lutheranism,
" O my God ! were there no Scythians, or
cannibals, or pagans, still more savage, that
thou hast permitted me to fall into the hands
of these baptized fiends?" His loathsome
dungeon, which was never permitted to be
cleaned in the least degree, brought on dysen
tery, of which he died. Olmedo, a man dis
tinguished for erudition and devotion, when
immured in the prison of Seville, was often
heard to say that, his condition was more
dreadful than any kind of torture he could be
called to endure. Juana Sanchez, imprisoned
at Valladolid for heresy, committed suicide by
means of a pair of scissors. In the Inquisition
of Madrid, also, a physician murdered himself
with a pair of snuffers. Many other instances
are on record.
The culprit, when a sufficient period had
elapsed, was brought before the tribunal for
examination. The most minute inquiries were
made ; all of them, however, so cunningly
48 THE INQUISITION.
generalized ns to keep him in darkness. He
was not informed of his charge, but, under
oath, was enticed to make confession, or at
least urged to admit a crime for which lie
illicit suffer the last penalty. In the presence
of the judges, who were clothed in their robes
of office, and seated face to face before them, he
was asked his parentage and descent whether
any of his ancestors had been heretofore brought
before the holy tribunal what was the amount
of his property what the names of his relatives
was required to give a precise account of his
former history to state the reasons for which
lie imagines himself to have been arrested to
run over every act and incident of his whole
life. To aid him in performing this scrutiny,
the most persuasive and dulcet words were
c-mployed by the presiding inquisitors ; or,
failing in the result, other processes, abhorrent
from the truthfulness of Christianity, but not
to be despised when the ecclesiastical despotism
of the papal church is involved, were used.
Witness the following passage from the Direc
tory of Eymeric :
" When the prisoner lias been impeached
the crime of heresy, but not convicted, and he
obstinately persists in his denial, let the in
quisitor take the proceedings into his hands
or any other file of papers, and
over in nee, let him fritrn t->
..vcro l the offence fully etoblitd tli
find thaf " ll!<1 - lt
^sion. The inquisitor shall then say
AITAHATUS AND PROCESSES. 40
to the prisoner, as if in astonishment, And is
it possible that you should still deny what I
have here before my own eyes? He shall
then seem as if he read, and to the end that
the prisoner may know no better, he shall fold
down the leaf, and, after reading some moments
longer, he shall say to him, l It is just as I have
said; why, therefore, do you deny it, when you
see I know the whole matter? When the
inquisitor has an opportunity, he shall manage
so as to introduce to the conversation of the
prisoner some one of his accomplices, or any
other converted heretic, who shall feign that he
still persists in his heresy, telling him that he
had abjured for the sole purpose of escaping
punishment by deceiving the inquisitors. Having
thus gained his confidence, he shall go into his
cell some day after dinner, and keeping up the
conversation till night, shall remain with him,
under pretext of its being too late for him to
return home. He shall then urge the prisoner
to tell him all the particulars of his life, having
first told him the whole of his own; and, in the
mean time, spies shall be kept tit the door, as
well as a notary, in order to certify what may
be said within."*
Or this :
" Let the inquisitor have one of his accom
plices, or any person now converted to the true
faith, and who he knows is not offensive to the
prisoner, and let him permit this person to
enter and speak to the captive. If need be, let
* Eyincric, Director. Inquis. chap. iii. p. 102.
50 T1IE INQUISITION.
him pretend that he is still of his sect, but has
abjured through fear, and has deceived the
inquisitors. And when the heretical prisoner
shall have confided in him, let him go into his
cell some day in the evening, and then feign
that it is now too late to go away, and let him
remain all night, that they may talk together
and express the sympathy they have for each
other, he who has just entered leading on the
prisoner; and let it be arranged that spies shall
stand outside the prison in some convenient
place, who shall hear all and take down tho
words ; and, if necessary, let there be a notary
among them."
" Ange ou demon ?" as the poet asked respect
ing lord Byron. Are these "airs from heaven,
or blasts from hell?"
Though, under certain conditions, the ar
raigned man was not wholly denied the aid of
a defender, it was amidst circumstances which
rendered it of little avail. The counsel was not
permitted to examine the documents, nor to hold
intercourse with the prisoner, except when the
inquisitor was present. The defender was com
pelled to promise that his defence should be
limited by the justice of the case, and that he
would throw up his brief if he believed his
client to be guilty. The advocate was made to
understand, in short, that the condemnation of
the prisoner would be most acceptable to the
holy office.
Nor could the accused challenge his witnesses.
He might, indeed, give in a catalogue of those
APPARATUS AND PROCESSES. 51
whom lie suspected of ill feeling, as well as of
those who would probably bear testimony in
his favour. By this means the Inquisition
often caught hold of a new clue, out of which
further proceedings might arise, affecting the
prisoner himself or others.
The prisoner s accusation was never given to
him in writing, lest the study of the brief in
prison might be the means of suggesting to
him an artificial defence ; but his charge was
read to him in presence of the inquisitor, and
an immediate reply as to its truth or falsehood
was demanded of him.
Should the alleged offence be of a grave
character, and all other means failed in ex
tracting a confession, the next process was the
torture. In case, however, of contradiction or
faltering in his replies, the accused was at any
time liable to be submitted to this process.
In the Spanish tribunal the place of torture
was an underground room, receiving no light
of day. It was occupied by a table, at which
were seated the inquisitor, inspector, and secre
tary. In attendance on these was the execu
tioner, dressed in a manner somewhat resembling
the penitents still to be seen at Rome, but
altogether in black. He was shrouded from
head to foot, having his face entirely hidden,
whilst two holes in his cowl enabled him to see
clearly. When brought within sight of this
official, and whilst the apparatus of torture was
being prepared, the prisoner, who was supposed
to be already terrified by the objects around
52 THE INQUISITION.
him, was exhorted by the inquisitor to confess
the truth without reserve. It this failed, he was
stripped a process which was accomplished
with the utmost rapidity. The warning was
then repented for the last time, the prisoner
being taken aside in order the better to persuade
him. All these efforts fulling, the torture
began ; commencing usually with the lighter
torments, and gradually proceeding to those of
excruciating severity. During this process,
various interrogations were put to the prisoner,
not only regarding himself, but involving all
who were suspected of being in complicity with
him. Should the inquisitors fail to subdue
him, the accused was shown other instruments
of torture, with the threat that should lie con
tinue obstinate he must submit to their whole
severity. The answers returned were strictly
written down by the notaries.
In certain districts the questioning by torture
wns not allowed to be applied to nobles.
Among the processes resorted to in putting
the question, the following may be enumerated.
The prisoner, however, we may previously
observe, was stripped, without regard to decency
or sex, and invested in narrow linen drawers
which left the arms bare.
The first process was that of the pulley.
I v tlii> tlu- prisoner was hooted to the roof ot
hall, liis hands bound behind him and
ntt.-H li. (1 t. the ropi- which eK-vnkd him; whil.-f
a 1. v, Y
fastened to his feet. Thj simple elevation
APPARATUS AND PROCESSES. 53
of a human body, six or seven feet from the
ground, was dislocating; hut this torture could
be severely increased. Sometimes, whilst in
this position, stripes were applied to his back,
and sometimes the rope being suddenly relaxed,
the weight descended in an instant towards the
ground, which, however, the body was not
allowed to touch, and by this violent jerk the
limbs were disjointed with the most excruciating
agony. In the mean time the secretary was
precise in recording the whole process the
weights which were attached to the bod} , as
welf as how often, and during what length of
time the culprit was suspended.
The next principal torture was that of the
rack. The victim was extended upon a wooden
frame, having transverse portions like a ladder,
or sometimes only one cross-piece^upon^vhich
his back might uneasily rest, with his feet
usually higher than his head. Small cords
were then affixed to the fleshy parts of his body,
namely, to the upper and lower arm, and to
the thigh and calf of the leg, which being
tightened by the application of a bar, used
after the manner of a tourniquet, buried them
selves in the soft and yielding integuments,
cutting to the bone. A still more terrible
torture belonged to this " wooden horse," as it
was sometimes called. A thin wetted ^cloth
was thrown over the mouth and nostrils of
the sufferer, through which he could scarcely
breathe ; then a stream of water, sometimes
amounting to seven pints, was poured down his
54 THE INQUISITION.
throat, producing the sensation of drowning or
suffocation. (During this time the notary kept
a minute of the whole process, down even to the
quantity of water which was administered.)
When this cloth, which had during this time
penetrated considerably into the victim s body,
was removed, it was usually covered with
blood, and its withdrawal was a renewal of the
agony of the previous process.*
The third principal torture was that of the
fire. The feet of the prisoner, already saturated
with tallow or oil, were placed in a kind of
stocks, and exposed to the heat of lighted
charcoal a process of roasting alive. This
torture was, however, mainly confined to Italy,
and was especially adapted to persons who were
deformed, and to whom other modes of torture
were not so easily applicable.! When his agony
had reached its crisis, a moment s intermission
was given by the interposition of a board ; the
prisoner was then exhorted to confess, but if
he would not, or could not, the roasting went
on. Heathenism might have exulted in so
barbarous a cruelty.
But though these were the principal tortures,
the Inquisition could boast of many others.
Sometimes a considerable amount of water was
allowed to trickle, drop by drop, upon the
culprit. Sometimes the body was enveloped in
a linen garment, which was drawn as tight as
possible, so as almost to squeeze the sufferer to
* Llomito, chap. xvi. page 119.
t PuigblancL, chap. iv.
APPARATUS AND PROCESSES. 55
death ; then, being suddenly relaxed, it produced
by the change the severest anguish. Sometimes
small cords were bound around the thumbs so
tightly that the blood poured out from beneath
the nails. Sometimes the body, placed against
the wall and adequately supported, was tightly
compressed by small cords affixed to the wall ;
then, the bench beneath the sufferer being
removed, the body was left to hang by these
cords alone. The reader can best conceive the
suffering. Sometimes a small ladder, the trans
verse parts of which were made of sharpened
wood, was placed against the shins of the victim,
arid was then violently struck with a hammer.
The torture of this infliction was incredible.
Sometimes ropes were placed about the wrists
of the accused, and were then drawn tight by
being passed over the back of the torturer, who
leaned forward with all his might till the flesh
was severed. The last tortures were inflicted
on Orobio, a Spanish Jew, who related the facts
to Limborch.*
One of the Italian tortures consisted of two
cubes of iron, concave on one side, which were
bound forcibly on the heel, then screwed into
the flesh. Another, called the canes, was com
posed of a hard piece of wood, placed between
each finger; the hand was then bound and the
fingers forced together. Nor need we omit an
agonizing torture the placing of a foot some
times a woman s foot in a heated slipper.
But Llorente relates a torment, observed in
* See Limborch s Inquisition.
56 THE INQUISITION.
Madrid, in the year 1820, which perhaps feur-
passcs all. We give it in his own words:
" The condemned is fastened in a groove,
upon a table, on his back ; suspended above
him is a pendulum, the edge of which is sharp,
and it is so const ructcd as to become longer
with every movement. The wretch sees this
implement of destruction swinging to and fro
above him, and every moment the keen edge
approaching nearer and nearer; at length it
cuts the skin of his nose, and gradually acts
on until life is extinct."
Does any perceptible vestige of the iv
of love linger in such observances ?
On the subject of the torture Llorente says:
" I shall not describe the different modes of
torture employed by the Inquisition, as it has
been already done by many historians. 1 shall
only say that none of them can be accused of
exaggeration. I have read many proo
which have struck and pierced me with horn-r,
and I could regard the inquisitors who h.". ; l
recourse to these methods in no other li.-ht
than that of cold-blooded barbarians. Suiliee
it to add, that the council of the " supreme" has
often been obliged to forbid the repetition of
the torture in the same process ; but the in
quisitors, by an abominable sophism, have found
means to n-nd r this prhil>itin aim-
by giving the nan. I to that <
sation from torture which is inq . -ii. >u>lv
..ltd by the imminent danger to which the
victim is exposed of dying in their hands.
APPARATUS AND PROCESSES. 57
My pen refuses to trace the picture of tliesc
horrors, for I know nothing more opposed to
the spirit of charity and compassion which
Jesus Christ inculcates in the gospel than this
conduct of the inquisitors ; and yet, in spite of
the scandal which it has given, there is not,
after the eighteenth century has closed, any
la\v or decree abolishing the torture."
The last observation is especially worthy of
the notice of the reader, because it strongly
applies to the defence which has been set up in
modern times for the Inquisition by Roman
Catholic advocates. It has been the policy of
Romanists usually to deny that the cruelties
of the past times were justly chargeable upon
present. Yet, with an inconsistency which
often belongs to error, they have been not
infrequently tempted to justify and to extenuate
practices which it had been well if they could
have truly condemned. A writer in the Dublin
Review, of 1848, in defending the Inquisition,
contends that the tortures inflicted by the holy
office were not greater than the " peine forte ct
dnrc" and other punishments of the dark ages.
To this the reply is obvious. First, that any man
who should now dare to palliate the barbarity
of such a mode of torture as that of the peine
forte et durc, would brand himself with infamy.
Secondly, this punishment, and others of a
similar class, terrible as they were, became
obsolete as the light of intelligence grew brighter
and clearer; whereas abundant evidence exists,
in the other case, that during even the present
58 THE INQUISITION.
century, the cruel ami deadly Inquisition has still
continued its tortures. But when this adherence
to barbarous and atrocious customs is practised
under the shadow of the cross, and in the name
of the Saviour, who does not recoil with undis
guised abhorrence from a system which renders
the slightest attempt at its defence desirable, or
even endurable ?
It not unfrequently happened, that the mea
sures of the Inquisition to secure the capture
of a prisoner transpired to the ears of their
intended victim. Li case of escape, the culprit
was cited to appear within a given time ; failing
in which, he was pronounced excommunicate
and a rebel. But even then, the church, not
willing to suffer disappointment, lay continually
in ambush for its victim, and, failing to reach
him, proceeded with an impotent but merciless
barbarity to attaint his memory and reputation.
The confiscation of his effects, however, was a
certain punishment, and was sufficiently real.
The charge against a prisoner might fail in
proof, and in that case we might have expected
that it would have appeared to be the glory of
a system which called itself religious to proclaim
the innocence of the accused in the loudest
terms. But the Inquisition had not so learned
its lesson. It might not be able to p>-;>i>t in
accusing, but it never exculpated. In c
such as those just referred to, it (
itself with stating that the prisoner was released
IVom the present charge.
All these proceedings were intentionally
APPARATUS AND PllOCESSES. 59
veiled iii the most profound secresy. " I fet-1
the pain," said Fra Louis de Leon, imprisoned
by the Inquisition, "but I cannot see the hand,
nor is there a place for me to hide or shelter
me."
Such were the processes employed by the
Inquisition to detect offences. If a prisoner
were found presumptively guilty, his case
might resolve itself into one of three classes,
to which corresponding degrees of punishment
were attached. A light offence would expose
him to a public abjuration, followed by pre
scribed penances. A heavier crime would be
succeeded either by perpetual imprisonment, or
by the severe sentences of the merciless tribunal
before which he had been arraigned. The auto
da fe was usually the occasion on which sen
tences were pronounced.
A heretic was declared incapable of holding
any inheritance whatever. In certain cases the
Inquisition doled out a miserable allowance to
the children of those whose property it had
confiscated, but the claims of wives or widows
were little regarded. Nor was the man who
abjured his heresy considered as entitled to
have his property restored to him. The crime
of the father, if a heavy one, involved the infamy
of his family.
Perpetual imprisonment was inflicted in
dungeons of every variety of severity, according
to the supposed nature of the offence.
It will be proper in this place to describe
that grand, but terrible occasion, which, in
60 TIIK INQUISITION.
horrible imitation of the last judgment, con
ducted the wretched criminal to his execution,
and was called an auto da fd, (act of faith.)
IV ben only one criminal was sentenced, the
ceremony received the name of an autillo, but
when many victims were associated, the utmost
pains were taken to give publicity to the
coming event, and to array it with imposing
magnificence. Some Sunday, usually a great
festival, was chosen for the demonstration, and
public notice was given that at a certain time
and place there would be presented a living
picture of the last judgment. The magistrates
also received notice that on that day the
religious authorities would transfer the Inquisi
tion s prisoners to their Lands. An indulgence
of forty days was usually accorded to those who
should witness the proceedings. On the day
^preceding the auto, a bush was carried in
solemn procession to the place of execution, and
the oflicials of the Inquisition made proclama
tion that, till the ceremonial was ended, no
person should carry arms or drive any vehicle
in the public streets. In the evening of that
day the various religious communities of the
city assembled at the holy ofiice, whence they
walked to the place of the auto, chanting and
bearing a covered bier. When they n-ached
the scaffold they took from the bier a green
cross, which they erected on an altar already
provided for the purpose, placing around it
large white tapers. This altar was
during the night by Dominicans and
APPARATUS AND PROCESSES. Gl
Early on the morning of the day of the
auto, the prisoners, whose heads had been
alix-ady shaven and who had received their
prescribed dresses, were brought together.
None of them had known until the previous
evening the precise nature of the punishment
to which they had been sentenced. If the
crime was considered one of the lowest degree,
they were clothed for the procession in a
pimple black garment. In case the charge
exhibited against them was a heavy one, they
were attired in loose woollen yellow garments
called sambenitos, or " blessed frocks." This at
tire, however, varied in its appendages according
to the distinction made between the culprits.
Those who abjured their heresies wore a
plain scapulary of yellow stuff.
Those who were strongly suspected wore the
same garment with a demi-cross.
Formal heretics bore a whole cross.
In case of repentance before the execution of
tho sentence, the dress was a yellow scapulary
with a red cross and a cap formed in the shape
of a cone, called a coroza.
Where repentance came after the sentence,
the scapulary bore a number of reversed
flames surmounting a bust. In this case
strangling was to precede burning.
But when the charge was that of unrepentant
heresy, the flames were represented upright,
whilst figures of demons \vere portrayed on
the sambenito and the coroza.
The prisoners had placed before them a
62 THE INQUISITION.
sumptuous breakfast, which, as they ordinarily
refused it, fell to the share of the menial ser
vants. Before the condemned left the inquisi
torial edifice, they were taken to a separate
apartment, where for the last time they were
exhorted to repent of their sius and to make
their peace with the church.
The order and ceremonial of the auto da f
varied at different periods. One description
may serve as a general model of the rest. Tfcc
occasion to which we shall refer was the auto
which took place in Madrid in 1680, in the
presence of Charles 11. and his queen.
At seven o clock in the morning, the great
bell of the cathedral began to toll, and the
procession moved forward. The way was
cleared by soldiers of the holy tribunal.
Next came surpliced priests, among whom
the Dominican monks were honoured with
precedence, and bore the banner of the
Inquisition, which in Spain is a green cross
on a black ground. A hundred and twenty
prisoners followed, some in person and others
in effigy borne on tall poles, the least guilty
having the honour of precedence. Of these
victims, forty- eight were men, seventy-two were
women an appalling but significant distri
bution. The effigies were sometimes accom
panied by boxes containing the bones
deceased heretics. Last in the procession of
prisoners came twenty-one condemn..! t.,
the greater part of whom were gagged lest they
should utter words which might be dangerous
APPARATUS AND PROCESSES. 63
to the ears of spectators. These victims, wear
ing the coroza and sambcnito, were eacli
attended by two friars, torturing the miserable
sufferer to the last by useless and rejected over
tures. The procession was wound up by the
local magistracy, the officers of state, the chief
bailiffs of the Madrid Inquisition, the familiars
of the holy office on horses superbly attired,
the ecclesiastical ministers, the fiscal proctor of
the tribunal of Toledo, bearing the standard of
the faith, etc., etc., and last of all the inquisitor-
general, " seated on a superb bay horse, with
purple saddle and housings, ornamented with
ribbons and fringe of the same colour, and
attended by twelve servants in livery. He was
accompanied by an escort of fifty halberdiers,
dressed in black satin with silver galloons and
lace, white and black feathers in their hats,
and commanded by the marquis de Pobar as
protector of the Inquisition of Toledo, who
making up for that rich shoAv and parade
which was unfit for the situation of the inquisi
tor-general, was mounted on a grey horse,
wearing a saddle of massive silver, with white
and green furniture conformable to his livery.
He was clothed in a suit of black silk, embroi
dered in silver, with diamond buttons, cockade,
and insignia, and attended by eighteen livery
servants." Olmo tells us that " this procession
was performed in perfect silence."
A stage had been erected in the large square
of temporary materials, and in the following
manner : At the back of the stage were three
64 THE INQUISITION.
rows of galleries, rising one above another, and
covered with drapery, to protect from the
weather. Immediately in front of the lower
gallery was placed a throne for his majesty
and the queen, having a large area in its front,
and terminated on each side (that is, on the.
right and left of the king) by platforms, formed
of successively rising steps. These elevations
were occupied on one side by the constituted
authorities, surmounted by the inquisitor-
general upon a throne ; and on the other by
the prisoners, whose altitude was in proportion
to the enormity of their offences. On the right
front of the throne, and immediately below the
gallery of the inquisitor, stood the altar. W
have already spoken of an area in front of
throne. In this level two compartments ap
peared, having an open space between them.
One of these compartments was occupied by
the royal guard, the outer one by the families
of the inquisitors, and in the intervening space
stood the pulpit, two desks for the recorders
who read the sentences, and a stage on which
the prisoners successively stood to receive their
doom. This theatre was richly decorated with
hangings of crimson.
Olmo relates, that " God moved the hearts of
the workmen" on this occasion, " so as to over
come thi- -n at difficulties which occurred in its
, ; a. circumstance stroncly indicated
11 master builders, with tlu*ir w<>rk-
. tools, and materials, coming in, unso
licited, to offer their services to the over^ur of
APPARATUS AND PROCESSES. 65
the works ; and all persevered with such fer
vent zeal and constancy, that, without reserving
to themselves the customary hours for rest, and
taking only the necessary time for food, they
returned to their labour with such joy. and
delight, that, explaining the cause of their
ardour, they exclaimed in the following man
ner : Long live the faith of Jesus Christ ; all
shall be ready at the time prescribed ; and it
timber shall be wanting, we would gladly take
our houses to pieces for a purpose so holy as
this. "*
When the royal party had taken their seats,
the prisoners were paraded before them. An.
oath was then administered to the king that
lie would defend the Catholic faith, " which
our holy mother the apostolic church of Rome
holds and believes ; and that he would per
secute, and command to be persecuted, all here
tics and apostates opposed to the same ; that he
would give, and command to be given, to the
holy office of the Inquisition, and also to the
ministers thereof, all aid and protection, in
order that heretics, disturbers of our Christian,
religion, might be seized and punished con
formably to the laws and holy canons, without
any omission on the part of his majesty,"
etc.f
Mass was then said, and the oath was ad
ministered to the mayor of Madrid and to the
people present ; after which a sermon was
preached by a Dominican qualifier.
* Olmo, pp. 33, 34. f Ibid, p, 169.
C
66 THE INQUISITION.
The sermon on this occasion was founded on
the motto of the Inquisition " Arise, O Lord,
judge thine own cause." It contained the fol
lowing passages :
" And thou, O most holy tribunal of the
faith, fbr boundless nges mayest thou be so
preserved as to keep us firm and pure in the
faith, and to promote the punishment of the
enemies of God. Of thce can I say what the
Holy Spirit said of the church, Thou art all
fair, my love, as the tents of Kedar, " etc. We
could fain spare the reader the recital of this
outrageous blasphemy, but it is part of a system,
and we ought not to spare its details.
" But what parallels, similes, or comparisons
are these ? What praise or what heightened
contrast can that be which compares a delicate
female, an unequalled beauty, to the tents of
Kedar and the spotted skins of Solomon ? St.
Jerome discovered the mystery, and says, that
the people of Kedar being fond of the chase,
therein took great delight ; and for this pur
pose had always their tents pitched in the field ;
on which, in order to prove the valour of their
arms, they spread the skins of the animals
killed in the chase, and hung up the heads of
the wild beasts they had slain. And the said
people of Kedar were so proud and boastful of
these their trophies, that they prized them as
th .-ir greatest ornaments : this was the greatest
; y of tlifir t-.-nts ; to this the Holy Spirit
compares the beauty of the church ; and this is
also to-day the glory of the holy tribunal of
APPARATUS AND PROCESSES. G7
the faith of Toledo. To have killed these
horrid wild beasts and enemies of God whom
we now behold on this theatre, some by taking
life from their errors, reconciling them to our
holy faith, and inspiring them with contrition
for their faults ; others by condemning them,
through their obduracy, to the flames, [here
the orator openly, and without any disguise,
confesses that the Inquisition condemns to the
i lames,] where, losing their corporeal lives,
their obstinate souls will immediately go to
burn in hell ; by this means God will be
avenged of his greatest enemies ; dread will
follow these examples ; the holy tribunal will
remain triumphant, and we ourselves more
strongly confirmed and rooted in the faith,
which, accompanied by grace and good works,
will be the surest pledge of glory."*
The sermon being ended, the trials and sen
tences were read, which occupied the multitude
till four in the afternoon. Those who were
condemned to die were, if ecclesiastics, stripped
of their robes with great solemnity. The vic
tims were then delivered over to the magis
trates, with the hypocritical request as to each
one, " that they would treat him with much
commiseration, and not break a bone of his
body, or shed his blood." f But as the judge
* The above extracts from Olmo are taken from the au-
tlventic work of don Antonio Puigblanch, who was himself
a .Spaniard, thoroughly versed in the history of the Inqui
sition, and possessing every qualification for unmasking that
sanguinary tribunal. London, 1816.
t Montanus, p. 148.
68 THE INQUISITION.
had been already made acquainted with the
number of prisoners to be delivered over to
hi ID, every preparation had been made for this
consummation. The place of execution was an
area suitably fitted up for the occasion, being
a stone platform of sixty feet square, and seven
feet in height. Some of those who were con
demned to be burned, anticipating the orders
of the executioners, cast themselves into the
lire. The rest were soon made to follow. The
bodies of those on whom the sentence of stran
gulation before death had been carried out,
were then thrown into the flames, together with
the effigies or bones of such as had not fallen
into the hands of their merciless tormentors.
The slightest attention to the preceding forms
of trial will convince the reader how contempti
bly unjust and unblushingly mendacious was
the whole procedure. To say nothing of the as
sumed and anti-scriptural authority under which
the church of Rome inflicted such mortal penal
ties, and to suppress altogether our indignation
that the cloak of religion should cover deeds so
enormous, there was not a process of the trial
and execution which did not exhibit the foulest
partiality and injustice. The evident desire of
the tribunal to accuse and to convict; the awful
my&tery which continually shrouded the pri
soner ; the advantage taken of those symptoms
of hesitation or weakness which, amidst scenes
of physical torture, will often beset the innocent ;
the paralysing influence of long-continued men
tal suffering upon the mind of the incarcerated
APPARATUS AND PROCESSES. C9
victim; and especially the hopelessness of
any fair decision in cases where the sufferer,
having learned nobler truths, had excited the
anger or the fears of his judges formed alto
gether a combination which demonstrates that
the ecclesiastical tyranny of a false church
is the most debasing, most despotic, and most
tremendous engine which can try the faith and
patience of God s true servants. The declara
tion of the church of Rome that her hands are
bloodless, is proved by every page of the annals
of the Inquisition to be a lie. " Is there in all
history," says Dr. Geddes, " an instance of so
gross and confident a mockery of God and the
world as this of the Inquisition ? beseeching the
civil magistrates not to put to death the heretics
they had condemned and delivered to them ! "
" Can anything be more evident," says Dr.
Chandler, u than that this is nothing more than
acting a part and an affectation to be thought
by the people to have no hand in the murder of
which they are really the authors ?" We may
remark, that the execution of the inquisitorial
sentence by the magistrates was, to a consider
able extent, compulsory ; as to have refused it
would have been to incur the doom of excom
munication no trivial penalty in the days of
mediaeval ignorance and papal barbarity.
70 THE INQUISITION.
(CHAPTER III.
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN.
A MEMORABLE feature in the history of the In
quisition is its introduction into Spain in the
year 1232. Up to this time, the edicts against
heresy in that country had been remarkably
lenient. The council of Elvira had denied the
privilege of the communion to any Catholic
who should become an informer. The severest
law against heretical doctrine amounted to de
privation and perpetual banishment. Even
when Alphonso 11. banished the Vaudoia from
his kingdom, those who remained were expressly
exempted from death or mutilation. At the
period above referred to, however, Peter Cade-
rite, a predicant monk, was commissioned to
set up the Inquisition at Aragon, and was placed
under the special protection of the king, whi!-t
the primate was ordered to constitute inquisitors
in his district. Four years later, a papal bri.-f
introduced this engine of intolerance into Castile,
where it was eagerly welcomed by 1-Vr.linand,
(miscalled the saint,) who, at an execution of
heretics, himself carried the wood by which
TIIE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 71
they were to be destroyed. Such was the
opposition, however, raised by the Castilians to
the original institution, that during some period
of time little progress was made in the estab
lishment of a regular tribunal.
The modern Spanish Inquisition dates its
origin from the union of the mass of the Spanish
kingdoms under Ferdinand and Isabella, whilst
the subsequent conquest of Granada afforded a
tempting opportunity for the exercise of the
powers of the holy office. At that time Spain
presented throughout all its borders an exten
sive and formidable amount of rebellion against
the doctrines and practices of the papal see.
The conscience of Isabella was held in the most
absolute bondage by Ximenes, an able politi
cian, who, from the post of confessor, subse
quently advanced to that of prime minister.
Originally a mendicant monk of the Franciscan
order, he practised a self-denying abstinence in
singular contrast to the luxuries by which he
was surrounded ; and though he had begun by
attempting, contrary to the advice of Adrian vi.,
the reigning pope, to reform the church, he
ended by vigorous efforts to extirpate heresy
from its borders. He was seconded in his
designs by the bigotry of Isabella and the
covetousness of her husband ; and as many
Jews abounded in Spain, and escaped the ter
rors of death by a false profession of Chris
tianity, the Dominican friars took advantage of
the unpopularity which these merchants had
acquired by their wealth and usury, to stir up
72 THE INQUISITION.
the reigning sovereigns to an entire remodelling
of the ancient Inquisition.
The leading agent of this newly constituted
tribunal was lather Thomas Torqucmadn, who
was constituted inquisitor-general.
Under him inferior tribunals were appointed,
the heads of which, with himself and some
others, formed a junta, by whom instruct ions
were drawn up for the regulation of the future
proceedings of the holy office. Among tho
articles which were then published, and which
Llorente has recorded at length, some are worthy
of special notice.
The second i\nd third articles commanded
censures to be pronounced against those who
did not voluntarily accuse themselves during
thirty days.
The sixth That a reconciled heretic (one
who had confessed his heresy, and }>een
absolved) should perform penance by being
deprived of all honourable employments, and
of the use of gold, silver, pearls, silk, and fine
wool.
The eighth That one confessing after the
term of grace should suffer confiscation.
The eleventh and twelfth That if, during
imprisonment, a prisoner appeared to show true
repentance, he .should suffer perpetual impri
sonment ; but that if the inqui-sitnrs thought
his repentance simulated, they should condemn
n im to be burned.
1 he- fifteenth That torture might be inflict^!
upon semi-proof of the crime ; if the
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 73
confessed his crime during torture, and adhered
to that acknowledgment^ he was punished as it
convicted ; but if he retracted, he was tortured
again, or sentenced to extraordinary punishment.
The sixteenth That the accused should not
be made acquainted with the whole deposition
of the witnesses.
The nineteenth That if an accused man did
not appear when summoned, he was condemned
as a heretic.
The twentieth That if after deatli a man be
proved to be a heretic, sentence should be
passed on him, his body disinterred, and burned,
and his property confiscated.
The twenty-second That the children of a
condemned heretic, if under age at their father s
death, should receive a portion of their father s
goods as alms, and that the inquisitors should
provide for their education.
The last That any point not comprehended
in these articles should be left to the prudence
of the inquisitors.*
With this code in his hand, Torquemada
introduced the inquisitorial system into the,
kingdom of Aragon, appointing Gaspard Juglar,
a Dominican, and Arbues, inquisitors. But
there was another element of the question which
had been altogether forgotten, or at best imper
fectly considered we mean the popular feeling.
The most violent opposition to the new tribunal
was manifested by the Aragonese themselves.
Many who held high offices about the court
* Llorcnte, chap. vi.
74 THE INQUISITION.
were terrified and indignant at its tyrannical
proceedings. They sent a deputation to the
pope and to the king, pleading that the consti
tution of the kingdom of Aragon forbade the
new confiscations. But they pleaded in vain ;
for whilst these commissioners were waiting iii
the pope s and king s anti-chamber, several of
the insurgents at home were seized and con
demned. It was then determined by the Ara-
gonese that the new inquisitors should be as
sassinated, and they fixed upon Arbues as their
victim. Though he wore constantly a secret
coat of mail, and an iron covering for his head,
which his cap concealed, he was wounded in the
back of his neck whilst performing service in
church, and died two days after from the
injury. He was afterwards beatified by Alex
ander vir., and Ferdinand and Isabella honoured
him with a sumptuous mausoleum.
This murder was the commencement of a
new proscription, directed against those sus
pected of having a share in that crime. The
conspiracy by which Arbues death had been
projected was revealed by one of the assassins
of the inquisitor. Llorente tells us that in con
sequence " there was scarcely a single family
in the three first orders of nobility which was
not disgraced by having at least one of its mem
bers in the auto da f<, wearing the habit of a
talk" The murderers were seized, their
bodies quark-ivd, while tin ir limbs decor
the highways. Aragon, howcv.-r, had not alone
resisted the newly modelled Inquisition. Great
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 75
opposition was made to it in other quarters,
especially in Majorca and Sardinia.* In fact,
the infamy of the Inquisition in Spain, as else
where, rests upon the exertions made by the
Dominican monks for its establishment.
Before the siege of Granada was yet finished,
and at the time when the treaty with Columbus
for the discovery of America was still recent,
Ferdinand and Isabella published their cruel
edict against the Jews, who had acquired in
Spain a distinction denied to them by the other
courts of Europe, and had obtained large pos
sessions and considerable influence. These
Jews were charged, through the instigation of
the inquisitorial clergy, with promoting apostasy
from the Christian faith, and with crucifying
children on Good Friday ; whilst the death of
many Christians, some of whom were nobles,
and even kings, was attributed to the designing
practices of Jewish physicians. The true cause
of odium may perhaps be found in the fact of
the superior riches possessed by the Jews ; f
and the marriages which took place between
them and the Christians, who thus obtained
fortune in exchange for rank, prompted the
envious or malicious to every calumny. These
rumours were eagerly seized on and extended
by the inquisitors, who declared that, till the
unbaptized Jews were banished from Spain, the
* Llorente, chap. vi. Aragon was not the only protesting
kingdom. Valentia and Saragossa both resisted the establish
ment of this tribunal. See Fuigblanch, chap. iii.
Martyr; quoted in Prescott s " Ferdinand and Isabella,
vol. ii. p. 221."
76 THE INQUISITION.
Christian religion was in danger. Terrified by
the imminence of their peril, the Jews offered a
large subsidy, (thirty thousand pieces of silver,)*
ns if to cany on the war against the Moors ;
they promised at the same time all obedience as
citizens, declared their willingness to retire, as
the regulations required, to their habitations
before night-fall, and to avoid all iriterferencp
with the Christians. These propositions were
conveyed to Ferdinand and Isabella by Ahar-
6anel, once a farmer of the royal revenue, who,
having been allowed to reach the royal pre
sence in the Alhambra, kneeling at the royal
feet, besought the sovereigns to recal the sen
tence which they had just pronounced, namely,
that after the next 31st of July, every person
harbouring a Je\v should incur the forfeiture of
all his property, and be deprived of any office
he might hold ; and that, during the interval,
any Jew might sell his estates, subject to the
condition that they were riot to remove gold,
silver, money, or other prohibited articles. The
rntreaty was abject, the temptation great, whm
Torquemada burst into the apartment, and
drawing forth a crucifix, held it up as h- cri.-.l
out, " Judas sold his Master for thirty pieces of
silver; your highnesses would sell him anew
for thirty thousand: behold him! take him
and sell him with all the haste you can ! II.-
threw the crucifix on the table, and 1- ft il..<
apartment. Abashed and confounded, tlu>
tf. cl.ap. viii. The sum is variously ttte<! in iM
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 77
royal couple retraced their steps. Torquemada
Lad gained the victory, and the edict was signed
March 20th, 1492.
Nothing could exceed the consternation of
the Jews on the issuing of this proclamation.
The time was too short, the state of the market
(now presenting advantageous offers on every
hand) too unfavourable to allow of any fair
measure of compensation for the property they
were compelled to sacrifice. " A house was
exchanged for an ass ; a vineyard for a small
quantity of cloth or linen." But in vain did
Torquemada urge them to receive baptism. A
few only listened to his exhortations. The
rest, to the number of eight hundred thousand,
quitted Spain ; some of them, in evasion of the
edict, carrying their money concealed in their
saddles, or in their garments, whilst not a few
of them swallowed their gold.
AYhen the day named in the edict arrived,
all the principal roads witnessed a melancholy
spectacle in the crowds of sad and desolate
exiles by which they were thronged. Men,
women, children, on horses, or asses, or carts,
thronged the highways, attended by a great
multitude who performed the journey on foot.
Few knew the direction which they ought to
take. Their misery was aggravated, not re
lieved, by the songs and music with which
their rabbis exhorted them to triumph over
the calamities of the occasion. Vessels had
been partially provided at the principal ports ;
but the insufficient means of transport mocked
78 THE INQUISITION.
their hopes. They were assailed on their road
by multitudes of plunderers and debauchees,
who, in some cases, even tore open their bodies
in search of gold. Of those who reached their
provided vessels many were sold into slavery
and many thrown into the sea. Pestilence
invaded some of the overcrowded vessels ;
shipwreck and famine did their work on many
more. Some, who managed to reach Ercilla, a
Christian settlement in Africa, proceeded to
Fez, to be plundered by robbers, and then re
turned to Ercilla, where their calamities in
duced them to accept an unwelcome baptism.
Others, journeying towards Italy, took refuge
m Naples, bringing with them a pestilential
disorder, which spread among the inhabitants,
and carried off twenty thousand in one year
Others again, with better success, made their
way into Portugal, through which they were
allowed a passage at the rate of a cmzade a
head ; while they were allowed, if they settled
to ply their skill as artizans in that kingdom.
JV> one," says Senarega, "could behold the
ffenngs of the Jewish exiles unmoved. A
great many perished of hunger, especially those
tender years. Mothers, with scarcely strength
to support themselves, carried their famished
infants in their arms and died with thrm.
-Many fell victims to the cold, others to inN
thirst, while the unaccustomed distresses inci
ted th.-ir maladirs.
rwflj m-t enlarge on the cruelty and the ava
rice which they frequently experienced from
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 79
the masters of the ships which transported
them from Spain. Some were murdered to
gratify their cupidity ; others forced to sell
their children for the expenses of the passage.
They arrived at Genoa in crowds, but were not
suffered to tarry there long, by reason of the
ancient law, which interdicted the Jewish tra
veller from a longer residence than three days.
They were allowed, however, to refit their ves
sels, and to recruit themselves for some days
from the fatigues of; their voyage. One might
have taken them for spectres, so emaciated
were they, so cadaverous in their aspect, and
with eyes so sunken ; they differed in nothing
from the dead except in the power of motion,
which indeed they scarcely retained. Many
fainted and expired on the mole, which, being
completely surrounded by the sea, was the only
quarter vouchsafed to the wretched emigrants.
The infection bred by such a swarm of dead
and dying persons was not at once perceived,
but when the winter broke up ulcers began to
make their appearance, and the malady, which
lurked for a long time in the city, broke out
into the plague the following year."*
One hundred and sixty thousand Jews, ac
cording to the most moderate estimate, were
expelled from Spain during the reigns of Ferdi
nand and Isabella. Llorente and many others
state the number as eight hundred thousand.
The former estimate appears best to comport
with the calculations of the Jewish rabbis
* Prescott s Ferdinand and Isabella, vol. ii. pp. 251, 252.
80 THE INQUISITION.
themselves. In one year five thousand Jews
suffered death ; and a million in the course of
a few years submitted to the forms of Cluis-
tianity.*
Such "barbarity, which, with all our esti-
Jiiate of the moral guilt of the Jews in obsti
nately rejecting the true Messiah, fills the com
passionate mind with horror, has been almost
uniformly represented by Spanish writers as a
sublime act of religious heroism. Mirandola,
the Florentine, describes it as a scene in which,
" while it fills Christians with consternation,"
"the glory of the Divine justice delighted."
And Senarega sneaks of it as a transaction
" which, though it might contain some small
degree of cruelty, had respect to the honour of
our religion."
This was almost the last act of Torquemada,
a man who, as the chief of the Inquisition,
aimed at unbounded influence, and exercised
his power with savage fanaticism. Whether
from ambition or from fear, (but probably from
both motives,) he affected a pomp almost regal.
In his journeys he was attended by fifty mounted
familiars, whilst two hundred more accompanied
him on foot. Whatever his propositions in the
inquisitorial council might be, they were always
received by the phrase " We conform, though
they might afterwards become the Mihj-ct of
remonstrance. The grandees of the C
alike bowed bi-f>n- him. Jt is a Mibji-ct of con
cern to the historian that <|iu--n I>ali-lla, w]
* McCrie s Reformation in Spain, rhsp. n.
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 81
talents and virtues were in many respects so
conspicuous, should have yielded herself to the
influence of a bigoted asceticism, which made
her the tool of so sanguinary a confessor.
The conquest of Granada, in 1492, called
the Inquisition into renewed activity. At the
instigation of don Diego Dieza, successor of
Torquemada, the inquisitors used their utmost
influence with Ferdinand and Isabella to banish
those Moors, or Moriscoes, as they were then
called, who refused to undergo baptism as a
sign of their conversion to the Christian faith.
But these sovereigns, hoping that the Moors
would eventually conform to the religion of
Kome, gave orders that they should be treated
with leniency, and at first forbade all perse
cution. Accordingly, in 1499, Ximenes, in a
conference with the Moorish literati, promised
them that if they would embrace Christianity
and instruct their people in its principles, they
should receive honours and offices. The appeal
proved irresistible, and three thousand of them
received baptism, whilst one of their principal
mosques became consecrated as a collegiate
church. Though the number of converts was
very numerous, the progress was not, however, so
rapid as the proselyting zeal of Ximenes desired.
Accordingly, terror was employed to add its
impulse to the other motives which were swelling
the amount of Moorish conversions. Ximenes
not only burned in one great pile all the Arabic
manuscripts he could collect together an im
mense loss to literature but, by the severe
THE INQUISITION.
measures which he employed, drove the Moors
into the madness of despair. A contention
arising between the servants of the cardinal and
these irritated orientals, led to an insurrection,
in which the palace of Ximenes was besieged,
whilst the prelate himself had nearly rec i
the martyrdom to which he aspired. The
interposition of the archbishop of Granada,
whose meekness soothed the populace, saved
Ximenes from destruction, and he hastened to
court to instigate the mind of his sovereigns
against the Moors. Ills task was somewhat
difficult, but his influence was great. In such
a court, and especially in the breast of Isabella,
the efforts of such a man were well nigh om
nipotent. The Moors were aliens, infidels,
belonging to a nation long renowned for op
posing the zeal of Rome. Multitudes of them
were, accordingly, imprisoned ; some embraced
Christianity, and some hastily sold their pro
perty in the best market they could find, and
departed for Barbary. A movement in i .i ,
of the Moors was made in the mountainous
districts of Alpuxarra, but this insurrection
was sternly subdued, together with others
which arose at the same time from similar
causes. The last spark of the sedition was
ultimately trodden out. A decree, similar to
that which had expelled the Jews, was issued
Ml the iinK-ipti/cd Moors, and intnlrrance
triumphed orer th> last vestiges of their liberty.
I In- conditions of the conquest of Granada,
which provided that no Moor should become a
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 83
Christian against his will, (though it had been
confirmed by the royal word,) were shamelessly
violated ; and, pressed by the Inquisition, the
king forbade the use of the Moorish tongue,
commanded Moorish houses to remain open,
forbade Moriscoes the use of baths, and denied
them marriage according to their own customs.
In the mean time the energies of the Inquisition
were vigorously employed. A watch was kept
over the slightest actions of the Moors, and their
proceedings were duly reported to the holy
office. The following circumstance is related
by Llorente: On December the 8th, 1528, an
infamous woman, named Catalina, forwarded
an accusation to the court of Valladolid against
Juan, a Monaco of the age of seventy-one. She
related that she had lived with him eighteen
years before, and she bore witness that, ac
cording to the custom of the Moors, he and his
family had neither eaten pork nor drunk wine,
and that they washed their feet on Saturday
nights and Sunday mornings. Juan was brought
before the Inquisition and examined. His defence
was, that at the age of forty-five he had received
baptism; that his previous habits had rendered
wine and pork distasteful ; and that he being a
coppersmith by trade, he and his children had
found the frequent use of water necessary to
cleanliness. He was sent back to his own town,
and was forbidden to travel more than three
leagues beyond it. T\vo years after, in order to
obtain from him information which might crimi
nate others, the Inquisition again summoned him.
84 THE INQUISITION.
He was taken to the chamber of torture, was
stripped, and bound to the ladder ; he then told
die inquisitors, that though they might distract
him by torture, his utterances would not be
worthy of credit, and that he was determined
not to make a false confession. As threats
would not move him, he was released from the
torture, but was kept strictly confined till the
next auto da fo, at which time he was walked
as a penitent, with a lighted candle in his hand,
and saw several persons burned, but was himself
ultimately released.*
The existence and proceedings of the Inqui
sition in Spain will ever brand indelibly the
memory of cardinal Ximenes de Cisneros.
Placed at the helm of power at a period when
his strong natural sagacity could fully estimate
the evils of intolerance, he maintained the
system of the holy office amidst its worst abuses,
extended it to Africa and America, defeated all
attempts to reform the vices of the tribunal,
(especially the system of secret depositions,)
and exposed himself to the charge, that when
he himself held the office of inquisitor-general,
in a period of eleven years, fifty-two thousand
eight hundred and fifty-five persons were con
demned under his instigation and permission.
Of this number, no fewer than three thousand
five hundred and sixty-four were burned
alive !f
But if anything can demonstrate more forcibly
* I.lorontc, clmp. \ii.
t Ibid. clmp. .\.
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 85
than another the degrading influence of so
detestable a system, it is the fact that the
Inquisition, strongly protested against on its
first introduction by the Spanish people, as the
source of interminable misery, and the horrible
scourge of a heroic nation, should have become
in the issue a subject of pride to the Spaniards
themselves, whilst its name was regarded as
conferring honour on the spot of its birth. " The
claims of the inhabitants of Seville are engraven
on a monument, erected in their city, to the
memory of this event. Segovia .has contested
this honour with Seville, and its historians are
seriously divided on the question, whether the
holy office held its first sitting in the house of
the marquis de Moga, or in that of the major
at Caceres."*
The cruelty of the Inquisition could only be
equalled by its credulity. A cunning woman
of Pedraita, who professed to have received
visions of Jesus,- (like the protegee of the late
earl of Shrewsbury,) was, during the adminis
tration of Ximenes, an object of especial favour.
She was introduced at court, excited the atten
tion of the population of Spain, and was petted
and patronised by the Inquisition. Rome fa
vours all absurdities provided they be its own.
On his accession to the throne of Spain,
Charles i., grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella,
(better known to us by his German title of
* McCrie s Reformation in Spain, p. 107. In the provinces of
Andalusia, in about forty years, thirty thousand persons
informed against themselves. Puigblanch, chap. iv.
86 THE INQUISITION.
Charles v.,) bad appeared inclined to oppose,
or at least greatly to restrict inquisitorial opera
tions in that kingdom. But the disposition, if it
were ever sincere, lasted for a very brief space ;
and Leo x., after negotiations in which his
venality was strongly conspicuous, persuaded
the sovereign to attempt no interference with
the powers of the holy see.
Yet, amidst all these debates, the activity of
the holy office continued undiminished. Among
the other victims of the Spanish tribunal at
this time was Juan de Salas, a physician,* who
was accused of having, in the vehemence of a
dispute, uttered a profane expression. The
charge would have been a serious one, if true ;
though it was not by means like these that the
guilty man could have been most effectively
convinced of its enormity. But he strongly
denied it. He was laid in the trough we i
already described, bound tightly with cords,
each of which surrounded his extremities eh \ . n
times. In this position he was urged to con
fess. But instead of confessing he denied th.-
charge, uttering aloud such formula? as ini^hl
have tended to convince his judges that hia
adherence to Komanism was still un.^liuk. n.
The torture of the cloth and th.- drij.piru- \\at.-r
was then applied, but only with the &um .- ivMilt
as before. The iin|iiUii..r.s nr.\t ti^htrn.d hi.s
curds so as to cut the Iksh to the bone, and
Tl.p l.-ariiin ? nn.l tnl.-i.t nf t..- Spamanls at fhr tun.- Wtn
n.iv
r un.- tn
s.rn.^iv ,,a,,,M KO,,,H.,,M,,. The proverb remaini t-, thi*
ran " " * ^"^ as tu be lu d8W of b t
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 87
then renewed the application of the water.
Still the prisoner denied. Baffled by his firm
ness, which was doubtless the result of a con
sciousness of truth, the inquisitor said that his
tortures must be regarded as having only com
menced. The accused was then set at liberty,
to remain subject to the constant dread of the
resumption of his torment.
In the year 1535, after many tumults and
disputes, Charles withdrew his protection during
ten years from the tribunal. It was, however,
a nominal, not a real, suspension of his favour.
A danger of a more alarming character than
either Jewish or Moorish heresy was now, how
ever, about to summon into play the destructive
energies of the Inquisition. The Information,
which had extended the blessings of religious
freedom to so many countries in Europe, had
partially visited even Spain. The abuses of the
church in that kingdom had attracted attention,
and the word of God, together with some of the
writings of the reformers, had begun to be cir
culated. Gonzalo de Illescos, a Spanish writer
quoted by De Castro, has even affirmed that to
such an extent had, what he terms heresy,
spread in Spain, that if two or three months had
elapsed before a remedy had been applied, the
conflagration would have spread itself all over
the kingdom, and brought upon it the most dire
calamities. But the Inquisition was true to her
mission of evil. The word of God was almost
entirely suppressed by it; many Lutherans
were obliged to seek shelter on more tolerant
THE INQUISITION.
shores ; while on those who fell within its
grasp, the holy office poured out all the vials of
its wrath ; striving, and but too effectually, to
extirpate, by the rack and the stake, the pro
gress of Divine truth in the land. In this
work the Inquisition was cordially aided by the
reigning monarch, Philip 11. The emperor,
Charles v., wearied with the cares of a king
dom, had retired to his pleasant retreat at
Yuste, but his bigoted spirit also was sorely
disturbed by the intelligence of the danger
which seemed to threaten the church. He
wrote to Philip, then in Flanders, urging the
most severe measures, and added to his secre
tary s letter a postscript in his own hand
writing, expressing how deeply he was shocked
at the rise of heresy, and how needful it was to
cut out the root of the evil by " rigour and rude
handling." The inquisitor-general was promptly
communicated with, and suggested, in reply,
various new measures, adapted, as he considered,
to arrest the growing evil. The province of " the
Holy Office was extended, the press was rigo
rously fettered, and all new works subjected to
the Inquisition s censorship." As a proof of the
strictness exercised, it may be mentioned, that
even Dr. Matthioso, the confidential physician
of the emperor Charles v., having in his pos
session a small Bible in French, without notes,
was obliged to ask the secretary of state to pro
cure for him a license from the Inquisition, JMT-
niitting him to retain it. As some demur,
however, was made to granting this request, the
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 89
doctor soon afterwards judged it prudent to
burn the forbidden book in the presence of the
emperor s confessor. Well does an eloquent
writer,* when commenting upon these efforts of
the Romish church to fetter the human mind,
exclaim, " There were ages in which the church,
as the sanctuary of art, and knowledge, and
letters, deserved the gratitude of the world ; but
for the last three centuries she has striven to
cancel the debt in the noble offspring of genius
which she has strangled in the birth, and in the
vast fields of intellect which her dark shadow
has blighted."
The effects of the awakened energies of the
Inquisition were soon visible. About the year
1540. Rodrigo cle Valero began to preach Pro
testantism in Seville. He had been a gay, as
well as rich young man, but he had been taught
(by God s Spirit, as we would fain trust, in
spite of many defects in his character) the
value of the Scriptures, and the importance of
personal religion. His strong conviction of the
errors of Romanism led him into constant dis
putes with his ecclesiastical neighbours. Fear
less of results, Rodrigo defended his positions
on all occasions, and in the most public places
of resort. lie was soon called before the in
quisitors, lie here displayed the same courage
as before, pointing out the marks of a true
church, and upholding the doctrine of justifica
tion by faith in Christ. The inquisitors seem
to have regarded him as partially insane, and
* Stirling s Cloister Life of Cnarles v.
90 TIIE INQUISITION.
set him at liberty, contenting themselves with
confiscating his whole property. But as
Rodrigo pursued the same course as before, he
was brought, after a few years, once more to the
same tribunal. Again the conviction of his
madness saved him from the flames. The in
quisitors compelled him to recant, standing up
in a church in Seville. He was afterwards
condemned to wear the sambenito, and to per
petual imprisonment. Yet he not unfrequently
interrupted the preacher at the church to which
he was weekly carried, by contradicting the
doctrines he preached. His reputed insanity
saved him from more serious consequences, and
he died in a monastery at San Lucar. His
sambenito was long preserved in the cathedral
church of Seville, accompanied by the inscrip
tion which declared him a pseudo-apostle and
Lutheran.* This incident stands at the com
mencement of a long series of persecutions
against the reformed faith, and in the course
of this narrative we shall have to record many
others of a like character. In the outset it may
be well to observe, that we shall look in vain
among the records of Spanish martyrolopy fur
those distinct proofs of Christian triumph over
pain and torment, which so often cheer the
reader in perusing the narrative of sufferings
endured by the victims of Komish j -i> euti< a
in our own land. The last hours of the wit-
for the truth in Spain were ;itten<K<l i,y
* C>prian dc Valero r.pud Don A-.lolplio <lc Castro. London,
TUB INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 01
envenomed Roman Catholics ; in many cases,
too, the sufferers walked gagged to the stake ;
and there were no faithful friends present to
record their final testimony. We are seldom
cheered, then, we repeat, in the perusal of the
roll of the Inquisition s victims by evidence
that, in the midst of the fire, there walked
with the sufferers one whose " form was like
the Son of God." Still we have no reason to
doubt that, among the victims of the Inquisi
tion s rage, there were worthy members of the
noble army of martyrs, cheered in their conflict
by an invisible Support, and destined to wear
hereafter a conqueror s crown.
We have already alluded to the bigoted
support which Charles v. gave the Inquisition
when in his retirement at Yuste. lie was
determined that after death his influence should
be exerted in the same direction, for by his will
he thus commended the office to the protection
of his son, Philip ir. :
" Out of regard to my duty to Almighty God,
and from my great affection to the most serene
prince, Philip n., my dearest son, and from the
strong and earnest desire I have that he may be
safe under the protection of virtue rather than
the greatness of his riches, I charge him, with
the greatest affection of soul, that he take espe
cial care of all things relating to the honour and
glory of God as becomes the most Catholic
king, and a prince zealous for the Divine com
mands ; and that he be always obedient to the
commands of our holy mother the church. And
92 THE INQUISITION.
among other things, this I principally and most
ardently recommend to him, highly to honour,
and constantly to support the office of the holy
Inquisition, as constituted by God against intel
lectual pravity, with its ministers and officials ;
because by this single remedy the most grievous
offences against God can be remedied. Also I
command him that he would be careful to pre
serve to all churches and ecclesiastical persons
their immunities." And in the codicil to his
will he adds : " I ardently desire, and with the
greatest possible earnestness beseech him, and
command him by the regards of his most affec
tionate father, that in this matter, in which the
welfare of Spain is concerned, he be most zea
lously careful to punish all infected with heresy
with the severity due to their crimes ; and that
to this intent he confer the greatest honours on
the office of the holy Inquisition, by the care of
which the Catholic faith will be increased in
his kingdoms, and the Christian religion pre
served."
These dictates of anti-Christian bigotry and
zeal were by no means lost upon the successor
to whom they were addressed. The prisons of
Spain were at this time gorged with Lutheran
victims. On May 21, 1559, a royal auto da fe
took place in the great square of Valladolid.
There were present the prince don Carlos, tlu
princess Jnana, and a great number of the
grandees of Spain, together with a large multi
tude of spectators. On this occasion fourteen
persons were condemned to the stake, the sad
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 93
remains of a woman with her effigy burned,
and sixteen persons " reconciled," as it was
termed, but in reality subjected to severe
penances. Among these were the follow
ing :
Dona Eleonora de Vibero, the wife of
Cazalla, an officer in the treasury, proprietress
during her life of a chapel in the convent
belonging to the Benedictines at Valladolid.
After her death she was accused of Lutheran-
ism, which opinions it was declared she had
carefully concealed. Several witnesses had
deposed, under torture, actually applied or
threatened, that her house had been used by
the Lutherans as a place of meeting. A sen
tence of infamy was passed upon her name and
that of her posterity, her property was declared
forfeited, her body disinterred and committed to
the flames, her house destroyed, and a monu
ment, to which reference will be made hereafter,
containing a record of her crime and punish
ment, placed on the spot.
One of the living victims was doctor Angus-
tin Cazalla, a person of Jewish extraction,
holding an office in the cathedral of Salamanca,
a royal almoner and preacher. He, too, was
accused of Lutheranism. Though he had at
first denied the charge, he afterwards, under
threat of torture, acknowledged its truth, but
declared that he had never disseminated that
doctrine, and pledged himself (so frail does
human nature, when left to its own weakness,
sometiaies prove under the effect of fear) to be
94 THE INQUISITION.
a good Catholic should his life be spared. The
day before his death, a monk of St. Jerome had
been sent to him to press upon him a further
confession. lie declared that without falsehood
he could confess no more, and he was exhorted
to prepare for death, on the next day. The
sentence was totally unexpected, and was
received by Cazalla with no small agitation.
The inquisitors remarked that if he desired his
life to be spared, he must make a further con
fession. " Then," said the wretched man, " I
must prepare to die in the grace of God, for it
is impossible to add anything to what I have
already said, unless I lie." When lie arrived at
the square, he asked that he might be allowed
to speak to his fellow-sufferers, but this was
denied him. Yet he found an opportunity to
exhort his friends, with craven cowardice, to
relinquish their doctrine, and die in the bosom
of the Catholic faith. An eye-witness thus
described his last moments : " After arriving at
the scaffold, and seeing himself degraded with
a cap on his head, and a rope round his neck,
he was unable to refrain from tears ; and,
among other expressions of penitence and con
trition, lie publicly declared that ambition and
malice had been the cause of his defection ;
that it had been his intention to stir up the
world, and disturb the quietude of these king
doms by his novelties ; and for .
than (bath* had b.-lii-v.-d he- would 1
ted! l.y all Spain, as Lmhrr was in
buxony, and that some of his disciples would
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 95
take the name of Cazalla." * " We all know this
hand." The sentiments here ascribed to Cazalla
are not improbably foisted upon him by some
Romish cross-examinator, whose only notion
of Lutheranism was, that it was the way to dis
tinction and celebrity. In consideration of his
penitence, Cazalla (who had been the most elo
quent of Spanish preachers) was strangled
before burning.
Another victim was Francisco de Vibero -
Cazalla, brother of the former, accused, like him,
of reformed doctrines. By some he is said to
have at first declared his innocence of Lutheran-
ism, but afterwards to have given way under
torture, and professed penitence. By another
writer, however, he is represented as having
persevered in confessing Christ, and manifested
grief and indignation when his brother urged
him to recant. With his sister, Dona Beatrice
de Cazalla, he was strangled, and their bodies
burned.
Alphonso Perez, master in theology, who
had confessed under the torture, was also
stripped of his ecclesiastical dignity, strangled,
and committed to the flames.
A lawyer of Toro, named Antonio Herrezuela,
accused of Lutheranism, had manifested great
indifference to the exhortations of doctor Cazalla.
This so provoked one of the archers present,
that he drove his lance into the body of the
" heretic " whilst it was fastened to the stake.
He is said to have sung psalms and hymns at
* Gonzalo de Illescas.
96 THE INQUISITION.
the stake, and to have been much agitated when,
under the influence of fear, his wife, who had
also been apprehended, recanted. The closing
address of her husband seems, however, to
haue wrought upon the mind of the latter so
much, that nine years afterwards she again
professed herself a holder of Protestant doc
trines, and suffered at the stake for them.
Juan Garcia, a goldsmith, Perez de Ilerrera,
a judge, Dona Catherine de Ortega, Catherine
Roman de Pedrosa, Isabella d Estrada, Jane
Blasquiez, were likewise accused of Lutheran-
ism, though guiltless of any proclamation of the
doctrines they believed. Torture extracted
confessions from them, and they, with Gonzalex
Baez, accused of being a Jewish heretic, all
suffered.
With these were many others who had
abjured their heresies, and been "reconciled to
the church." Don Pedro Sarmiento de Roxas,
a knight of the order of St. Jago, with his
nephew, Don Louis de Roxas, and his wife,
Dona Mencia ; Dona Anna Ilenriquez de
Roxas ; Dona Maria de Roxas, a nun ; Don
Juan de Ulloa Pereira, a knight-commander of
the ordiT of St. John ; Juan de Vibero Cazalla,
with his wife, Dona Constance de Vibero
< :.illa, (the latter being relatives of the
> ilia of whom we have already spoken ;)
Eleonora de Ciseneros, twenty- four years of
age; Marina de Saavedra, a widow of rank;
Antony \\ a^.r, an Englishman, and 1
ha ; all appeared attired in the
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 97
scapulary, and were then taken back to their
prisons to await next morning the formal
declaration of their sentence, which, though
somewhat varying, usually consisted of infamy,
confiscation, the wearing of the sambenito, arid
confinement, sometimes for life. One of these
poor victims was commended to the mercy of
the princess-governess, as having thirteen
children ; bnt it would appear without effect.
On this occasion the princess Juanna, and
Carlos the young prince of Asturias, took the
usual oath that they would defend the holy
tribunal and denounce before it cases of
heresy. But the royal boy, then aged fourteen,
derived an impression from the terrible scene
he had just witnessed which sank deeply into
his heart.
On the 24th of September in the same year,
another auto took place in the square of St.
Francis in Seville. It was celebrated before
the royal court of justice, the cathedral chapter,
several grandees and noblemen, together with
the duchess of Bejar, the inquisitors of the
district, and a large assembly of spectators.
On this occasion one appeared in effigy,
twenty-one were burned,* and eighty were con
demned to various penances.
Among this multitude a few cases call for
special notice :
Francis Zafra was a priest at a church in
Seville, holding a benefice of some consideration,
and was accused of being a Lutheran. Before
* Llorente, chap. xxi.
P
08 THE INQUISITION.
this accusation had been made he had been
employed in the service of the Inquisition, and
had succeeded in promoting the escape of many
who were denounced to that tribunal. This
accusation had been made by a leata* whom
he had admitted into his house, and to whom
he had taught the doctrines of the Keformation,
but as this woman had become deranged, she
had been subjected to personal restraint. This
treatment roused her to escape, and to lay a
charge against the priest before the holy office,
declaring that besides himself there were three
hundred others tainted with the same heresy.
In consequence of this information more than
eight hundred persons were apprehended, and
among the rest, Zufra himself. But as the
priest maintained that the depositions of an
insane person were not legitimate evidence, the
proceedings became interrupted, and Zafra
contrived to disappear. He was therefore only
burned in effigy.
Another victim of the Inquisition was brother
Garcia de Arias, (called from his snowy hair the
white doctor.) Though he had been often
accused of Lutheranism, he was never suspected
by the Inquisition, so zealous did he appear to
be in maintaining the system of the holy office.
He had l>een only recommended to be more
prudent, and was trusted as before. The
following fact in his career illustrates the -a 1
lapses to which those who believe in the best
*} btenis are liable, but it demonstrates also how
A devotee.
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 99
fatally calculated is the influence of such a fear
as that which the Inquisition inspires, unless
when counteracted by Divine grace, to repress
the action of an awakened mind. At this time,
hoAvever, when the incident referred to occurred,
it is to be feared that the main actor had not
spiritually received the truths which his judg
ment embraced.
A man named lliuz was accused of having
preached unsound doctrine, and being sum
moned before an inquisitorial body, went
immediately to Arias, who was his friend, to
state to him his embarrassment, and to ask
advice from him how he might best defend
himself. When he appeared at the tribunal,
Arias, to his astonishment, confronted him as
the chosen advocate of the papal side, and what
was more confounding, he argued against his
friend in such a manner as utterly to disconcert
his previous preparation. Riuz " sank under
this attack," Llorente tells us, and Arias was
justly reprobated for his treachery by all his
Lutheran acquaintances. Yet still he continued
a secret Lutheran, communicating his opinions
freely within the Avails of his convent, and with
so much effect that the monastic observances
became disregarded. When the alarm of
danger was given, some of the brethren
escaped, but Arias and many of his folloAvers
were apprehended. The secret and hitherto
most inconsistent disciple then appeared in
more heroic colours ; he not only asserted his
opinions without hesitation, but undertook to
THE INQUISITION.
defend in any manner selected for him the
tenets he bad learned from the Bible ; and such
ivas his reputation as a theologian that none
dared to argue with him. His cowardice was
disgraceful ; but his death in the flames was
sustained with firmness.
With him was another priest of Seville, who
with h,s two sisters also had espoused the side
the Reformation. This priest, Don Juan
ronzafez, had been born a Moor, bur hud been
previously brought before the Inquisition and
compelled to renounce his heathenism. The
three victims were consigned to death together
wnpmg m the midst of the flames the 106th
sjilm, and renouncing the errors of Komanism
Among the victims one was conspicuous the
Ie maintenance of whose principles stands in
strong contrast with the case of Arias. This
was Dona Maria de Bohorquez, in whose veins
ran some of the best blood of Seville The
charge of Lutheranism was brought agaiim
her when she was not yet twenty-one years of
ge. ttut she was a young woman of extra
ordinary acquirements, and was extremely well
versed in Protestant truths, as became a disciple
Egidius. The terrors of the Inquisition
could not bend her resolution. She avowed
her belief, and maintained it to be the truth of
rhis poor creature was submitted to th,
J .ture, "Inch she bore with great I***
whV U T tl0 V v; s F Ut t0 htr in thi * state,
vvhether her sister disapproved of her opinion^
She replied that .he did not; and became thus,
THE INQUISITION IN SlAIN. 101
probably without intending it, the means of
compromising one of her nearest relatives.
Maria de Bohorquez received sentence of death
by burning. Before this news was conveyed
to her, a deputation from the Inquisition
visited her in prison. But the young heroine
proved herself a match even for the doctors of
the holy office, and they returned complaining,
as the discomfited are apt to do, of the irre
claimable obstinacy of their prisoner. A second
deputation was appointed to visit her. Maria
received them with the utmost courtesy, but
told them that whatever their solicitude might
be regarding her conversion, it could not sur
pass her own, and that she had arrived at her
conclusions after much care and examination,
whilst she had derived confirmation in them
from the difficulties experienced by her visitors
in furnishing replies to her arguments. These
were not statements likely to release this young
confessor from the grasp of the Inquisition.
She was therefore brought forth to die. At
the place of execution, a Lutheran, who had
abjured his opinions, endeavoured to persuade
her to adopt the same course. But she resisted
the attempt, declaring that she had no longer
time to dispute, and that the hour was now
come to think of the work of Christ. Desirous
of saving one so young, a strong intercession
was made by some spectators that her life
might be spared provided she would recite the
Creed. When this favour was granted, she
immediately complied with the condition ; but
102 THE INQUISITION.
when the recital was finished, she began an
exposition of it to the multitude in accordance
with the principles of the reformed faith. This
the inquisitors would by no means allow ; they
silenced her testimony by strangling her at the
stake, and afterwards burning her body.
Other female scions of nobility perished with
her.
These two autos da fe were followed by a
third, held on Sunday, October the 8th, 1559,
in the grand square at Valladolid. This
ceremonial was graced by the presence of
Philip ii., who had now returned to Spain, his
wife, Mary queen of England, having died in
the November of the preceding year. Philip,
who had narrowly escaped shipwreck in
returning by sea to his native land, had made
a vow, that if he touched terra finna again he
would offer to God a solemn sacrifice of
heretics. It was in fulfilment of this covenant
that the present demonstration was about to
take place.
On this occasion a magnificent array of
magnates and nobles attended on the king.
Princes of the blood-royal, dignitaries of the
church, ambassadors of France and Koine,
dukes, marquesses, counts, grand-priors,
knights, and ladies of the highest distinction,
swelled his train. Before the commencement
of the ceremonial, the inquisitor-general, pre
senting himself before the king, demanded the
usual oath, which the monarch with his sword
drawn recited after him,
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 103
At this time thirteen persons were burned
alive ; the corpse of a dead man with his effigy
was brought out, and sixteen -were present as
penitents. Some of the victims deserve more
particular notice.
Among them was Don Carlos de Sesso, son
of the bishop of Kacenza, distinguished for his
learning and high office. He had been one of the
great promoters of Lutheranism in Valladolid
and its vicinity, and had, when exhorted to
confess, requested to deliver his testimony in
writing. This granted, he brought forth a
remarkable paper, in which he maintained that
the doctrines of the Reformation were those of
the true church of Christ. He was led to the
auto, and gagged in order to silence any attempt
to proclaim his doctrine. As he moved to the
place where Philip sat, he asked the king how
he could permit a gentleman of his rank to be
burned ? The reply was, " If my son were as
bad as you, I myself would bring the wood to
burn him ! " When the gag was removed at
th e stake, and De Sesso was admonished to
make confession, he cried out, "If I had
sufficient time I would convince you that you
are lost by not following my example. Hasten
to light the wood which is to consume me."
Pedro de Cazalla, a curate, and Dominic
Sanchez, a priest, confessed to Lutheranism,
and were strangled before burning. Doininio
de Rojas, another priest, himself of the Domini
can order, whose two brothers had already
died by sentence of the tribunal, accompanied
104 THE INQUISITION.
him. When brought before the Inquisition,
the Dominican had wavered in his testimony,
and was ordered to be submitted to the torture.
But he had been spared the question at his
earnest request, and upon his promise to make
further revelations. Though he had demanded
to be reconciled to the church, he was consigned
to death, a sentence the more rigorously executed
from his having attempted to screen others whom
he had previously denounced. When before the
king, he exclaimed in his presence that he was
about to die for the true faith, which was the
Lutheran, adding, " I believe in the passion of
Christ, which alone is sufficient to save all the
world without any other work, more than the
justification of the soul with (4od, and in this I
believe for salvation." " Before he had ended
these last words, the king," says DC Castro,
who records the above facts, " ordered him to
retire thence, but he threw his arms round a
large post, and continued to insist on his
opinions in such a manner that two friars were
unable to disengnge him, until an officer fell
upon him, putting u gag in his mouth, which
was never removed till he died. There were
accompanying him more than a hundred of his
own order, admonishing and preaching to him.
To all they said he replied, No, no, for not
withstanding the gag, these words were under
stood. Nevertheless, they pretended to have
heard him say that he believed in the church
of Home, and therefore they did not burn him
He was strangled.
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 105
Another Lutheran, i servant of Pedro do
Cazalhi, Avas placed at the pile for execution,
but as his cords snapped asunder in the flames,
he leaped out in excruciating agony. This
enabled him to catch sight of De Sesso, of whom
we have already spoken, and the sight of his
fortitude made the domestic so ashamed of his
own pusillanimity, that from that moment he
quietly submitted to his fate, asking only for
more wood that he might burn like his com
panion.
Among the other victims was a nun, Doiui
Marina de Guevarra, of the order of Cistercians,
whose life the inquisitor-general greatly desired
to save. She had been her own accuser. No
thing, however, would avail for her release but
a false confession. This she resolutely refused
to make. She was sentenced because having
heard some one repeat, with great frequency, the
sentence " Being justified by faith, we have
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,"
she believed the doctrine. She was strangled
and burned. Some obscurity attaches to her
dying declaration with respect to her belief in
the great doctrine of justification by faith, for it
was added that she could not explain in what
sense she held it.
On the place where the house of Dona
Leonora de Yiterbo had stood, the Inquisition
erected about this time a pillar of white stone,
the inscription of which records the Luther-
anism of the Cazallas, and the names of the
king and the pope under whose administration
106 THE INQU1SITIOK.
the sentences of the Inquisition bad been exe
cuted upon this family of heretics, i
until the time of the French invasion, wL
was levelled to the ground. " It is, however,
says De Castro, "to our national sham<>, still
preserved in the same locality where it was first
erected. On the remainder of the site of that
house the Jesuits founded a part of their col-
! je."
Philip ii. was not only present at the auto
mentioned above, but went himself to the place
of execution. On this occasion it appeared
that all that gloomy bigotry which had here
tofore formed so remarkable a feature in his
character had now become congested upon his
inmost soul. The full symptoms of this re-
Jigious disorder soon broke out in the scheme
the Spanish Armada. At present his per
sonal attendants were ordered to assist in the
execution of the victims of the holy oflice.
Like the Inquisitors themselves, Philip had
learned to think the terrors of the church its
most acceptable offering to God. Woe unto
them who call evil good, and good evil."
It is, indeed, a melancholy spectacle to see,
as in 1 hilip, the conscience darkened
judgment enslaved and misdirected by a blind
superstition. In his reign the time had come
!..iyt.,ld by our Saviour when lie that kil
is di>ciples should think that li
vice. A mind so narrow and so cloc
ns resembling tli
* DC Cwtro i Spanish Protestants, j .
Till-: INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 107
different individual, one of the worst of the
heathen persecutors of antiquity ; and so strik
ing, indeed, does De Castro consider the points
of contrast between the Spanish monarch and
the .Roman Nero, that he has thus drawn the
parallel :
" Nero, during the frightful incendiary fire of
proud Eome, ordered some Christians to be
taken as criminals suspected of being concerned
in that execrable crime. He punished as many
as confessed being guilty of it, and reduced to
close confinement all who were denounced as
being culpable.
" Philip ii., when the fire of heresy began to
spread itself in Spain, filled the prisons with
Protestants.
" Nero added to the torment of those whom
he held guilty, the disgrace of being dressed
with the bloody skins of horrid and still palpi
tating beasts.
" Philip ii., after the pains and torments in
flicted upon the clergy and gentry, despoiled
of their rank and dignities, and stripped of
their vestments, could feel complacency in
seeing them covered with ridiculous sacks,
on which the figures of toads and lizards
were painted, to represent heresy, to gratify
the pride of inquisitorial judges, and fill with
terror and dismay an ignorant and fanatical
populace.
"Nero caused Christians to be torn in pieces
by hungry dogs, or put them on crosses, and
set fire to them by nightfall.
108 THE INQUISITION.
" Philip ii. ordered Protestants tube stran
gled in the garotte, or to be gibbeted on the
posts within which the fuel was kindled, to
that those might burn the more conspicuously
towards night, after the reading of the formal
processes in the public square.
" Nero readily offered his gardens for the
inhuman spectacle of torturing delinquents.
" Philip as readily lent the guards of his
royal person to the executioners, in order that
they might contribute their services in lighting
the wood, the flames from which were to devour
the bodies of the Protestants.
"In the reign of this monarch," continues
1 >e Castro, " there was no security for the lives
of (he virtuous and innocent. Iniquity and
hypocrisy, supported by a popular fanaticism,
busied themselves with inquiries into the most
minute circumstances of human actions. The
domestic hearth, where love and virtue dwelt
in peace, was cruelly invaded, false denounce
ments were received as true, the cells of the
holy office were crowded with victims, ami an
inquisitorial jury delivered to the /lames, indis
criminately, the bodies of ecclesiastics, of the
nobility, the gentry, and principal peopl<
Spain, whose ashes were ruthlessly
to the winds, though worthy of being preserved
in urns of marble."
Notwithstanding, however, the rigour of the
Inquisition, it is questioned by some how far its
severities would have prevented the Reforma
tion spreading, had not s.-me i-th- T antagonistic
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 109
causes existed. These causes are by one writer
represented as having been first, the interest
felt by a large portion of the community in the
newly discovered colonies of Spain, where the
prospect of amassing gold deadened the mind
to the pursuit of spiritual riches ; and se
condly, to the fact that the lower orders of
Spain had never readily lent their ears to new
doctrines, and had never been friendly to in
quiry in matters of religion. The ingenious
author of " The Cloister Life of Charles v." thus
ably delivers his opinion on this interesting
question :
" It would be curious to investigate the
causes to which the repressive policy employed
owed its success, and to discover the reasons
why the Spaniard thus clung to a, superstition
which the Hollander cast away ; why the
strong giant, whose ilag was on every sea, and
whose foot was on every shore, shrank to a
pigmy on the field of theological speculation.
Let it suffice to notice two points in which the
victorious church possessed advantages in Spain
which were wanting in countries where she was
vanquished. The first of these was, the Inqui
sition a police claiming unlimited jurisdiction
over thought, long established, well organized,
well trained, untrammelled by the forms of
ordinary justice, and so habitually merciless
as to have accustomed the nation to see blood
shed like water on account of religious error.
Before this terrible machinery the recruits of
reform, raw, wavering, doubting, without any
TIIE INQUISITION.
clear common principle or habits of combina
tion, were swept away like the Indi.u.
Mexico before the cavalry and culverins of
Cortes.
11 The second advantage of the Spanish church
was her intimate connexion with the national
glory, and her strong hold, if not on the affec
tions, at least on the antipathies, of the people.
The Moorish wars, which had been brought to
a close within the memories of men still alive,
had been eminently wars of religion and of grace.
They were domestic crusades, which had en
dured for eight centuries, and in which the
church had led the van ; and it was rather
the cross than the castles and lions of Isabella,
that supplanted the crescent on the red towers
of the Alhambra. Since that day the church,
once more militant under cardinal Ximcnes, had
carried the holy war into Africa, and gained a
footing in the lands of Turk and Saracen.
All good Christians devoutly believed, with the
chroniclers, that * powder turned against the
infidel was sweet incense to the Lord. In
in itself there were still a large population
of Moorish blood, which made a garden of
many a pleasant valley, and a fortress of many
a mountain range ; and which, although Chris
tian in name, was well known to be Moslem in
Pj and secret practice, and to l.e anxiously
look ,. great Turk for deliverance fr.. m
tlir;i ry city, too, had its <
P6W wretches who accumulat.-d untold
wealth, eschewed pork, and continued tu
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. Ill
the paschal lamb. Against these domestic dan
gers the church kept watch and ward, doing,
with the full approval of the Christian people,
all that cruelty and bad faith could do to make
Judaism and Islamism perpetual and impla
cable. When the Barbary pirates sacked a
village on the shores of Spain, or made prizes
of a Spanish galley at sea, it was the church
who sent forth the fathers of the order of Mercy
to redeem the captives from African bondage.
In Spain, therefore, heresy, or opposition to the
authority of the church, was connected in the
popular mind with all that was most shameful
in their annals of the past, and all that was
most hated and feared in the present time. In
northern Europe, the church had no martial
achievements to boast of, and few opportunities
of appearing in the beneficent character of a
protector or a redeemer. She was known
merely in her spiritual capacity, or as a power
in the state no less proud and oppressive than
king or count ; or as the channel through
which the national riches were drained off into
the papal treasury at Rome. In the north, the
reformer was not merely the denouncer of
ecclesiastical abuses, but the champion of the
people s rights and the redresser of their wrongs.
But in Spain, the poor reformer, to his horror,
found himself associated, in popular esteem, as
well as in the Inquisition dungeons, with the
Jew, the crucifier of babies, and the Morisco,
who plotted to restore the caliphate qf the west,
112 THE INQUISITION.
Long after the excitement had passed away, a
mark of the torrent remained in the proverbial
phrase, in which the aspect of poverty was
described as being ugly as the face of the
heretic. "
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 113
CHAPTER IV.
THB INQUISITION IN SPAIN (continued.)
IN the year 1560, another auto took place at
Seville. This ceremonial was remarkable for the
burning in effigy of Dr. Gil, (Egidius.) This
celebrated man was nominated by Charles v. to
the see of Tortosa, but had been denounced after
death to the Inquisition as a suspected Lutheran.
A characteristic occurrence marked the process
adopted by the Inquisition. Oil this occasion a
Dominican friar, named Domingo de Soto, was
sent to Gil ; but being a traitor, he suggested
that, in order to remove any occasion for dis
pute, both he and Gil should agree upon a
paper, which was to be a kind of summary of
Christian doctrine. The Inquisition ordered
this paper to be read by each of them in the
cathedral of Seville. On that occasion De Soto
preached, and when his sermon was concluded,
he read, not the paper agreed upon with Gil,
but another, totally different. As the cathedral
was large, and Gil was at a distance from the
pulpit, he did not hear what his pretended
friend was reading ; but, suspecting no trea-
- THE INQUISITION.
chery, by signs lie testified his assent to the
propositions which he supposed to be declared.
After him Gil read his paper ; and the Inqui
sition, taking advantage of the remarkable
difference, imprisoned Gil as a heretic. He
remained some time in prison, but retracted his
errors in the cathedral of Seville, August 21st,
1552,* and was condemned to one year s im
prisonment and ten years deprivation. By
some unknown means his imprisonment became
much prolonged. On his release he went to
Valladolid, where he associated much with Pro
testants in private, and where he died. Four years
after his death, the Inquisition, having learned
the secret conferences which had occupied his
latter days, ordered the exhumation of his
body, which was burned in effigy.
At this time, also, Constantino Ponce do
Fuente was burned in effigy, having escaped
by an ordinary death the vengeance of
the Inquisition. lie was represented at this
auto da fe by a figure clot lied in his garments,
and stretching out its arms as if preaching.
His property was confiscated and his bones
were burned a miserable resource of impo
tent bigotry. Constantino had been long c
brated as a preacher, and when his arrest as a
heretic had been mentioned to Charles v.,
exclaimed, " If Constantine be a heretic, he will
prove a great one." Occupying a commanding
* Hun ntntrmcnt dift ! t appears to real
iiority. DC Castro * Spanish l roU-taut ; Lon-
l"u: pp. 31, 35.
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 115
position in Seville, lie had exercised much cau
tion in disseminating his doctrines. The In
quisition, however, suspected him, and had
many conversations with him, being reluctant,
on account of the eminence of his position,
to come to extremities. Constantine well
knew his danger. " They wish to burn me,"
he said, " but they find me yet too green."
All his precautions, however, were rendered
unavailing by an event which is thus related
by De Castro : " A widow, whose name was
Isabel Martinez, was taken prisoner for heresy.
The Inquisition, according to its custom with
every culprit, ordered the confiscation of her
property. It appeared when seized to be of
small value, for her son, anticipating her se
questration, had concealed several coffers, con
taining jewels of great value. But this pre
caution was vain, because an infamous servant
betrayed the secret, and gave information that
the greatest and most valuable part of that
lady s property was hidden in the house of her
son. Upon this the inquisitors commissioned
LeAvis Sotelo, an alguazil of the holy office, to
communicate with the son, Francesco Beltran,
respecting the stolen property. No sooner had
the alguazil arrived than Beltran, without
waiting to be asked any question, said, " I fancy
I can guess that you are come about the things
hidden in my mother s house ; if you will pro
mise that I shall come to no damage by it I
will show you what is there hidden. Without
delay Beltran took Sotelo to the house of his
11G THE INQUISITION.
mother, and, taking n hammer, demolished a
part of n lintel which was over a cellar con
taining a number of books and manuscripts,
the works of Luther, Calvin, and other re
formers in the handwriting of Constantine
Ponce de la Fuente." The discovery was fatal
to Constantine. He was immediately arrested,
and refusing to name his disciples and accom
plices in the work of reformation, was com
mitted to a damp cell, where he died of
dysentery. On his memory, as we have already
seen, the Inquisition endeavoured to heap in
famy by burning him in effigy, and consuming
his bones in the lire which, had he lived, would
doubtless have destroyed his person.
The case of an Englishman who perished in
this auto deserves a little notice. Kiel-
Burton, as he followed his trade at Cadiz, was
visited by a familiar of the Inquisition under
pretence of transacting business with him. A
prolonged conversation took place, and the
next day Burton was apprehended by the holy
office. lie was there asked if he had spoken
disparagingly of the lioinan Catholic religion.
This he denied, but he was submitted to the
torture, though the cruel process failed to ex
tract any information from him. The Inqui
sition condemned him to die by fire. lie met
the flames with a heroic courage and a smiling
countenance. One of the priests, struck by his
. laimed, "The reason \\liv In-
not seem to feel is to me vrry -vil -lit ;
vvil has already got his soul, and the body
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 117
is of course deprived of the usual sensations."
Burton s property was confiscated.
Similar treatment befel at the same time
other foreigners, two of whom were English
men, named Brook and Frampton ; and a
Frenchman, of Bayonne, named Tabienne.
The consequences of these measures had almost
proved fatal to the commerce of Spain. It was
at this auto that the prisoner of whom we have
already spoken destroyed herself with a pair of
scissors. Her body and effigy were burned.
Though it is impossible for us to particu
larize all the sufferers at successive autos, Ave
must distinguish one case which demands
especial notice. It is that of Dona Jane
Boharquez, who was by marriage now Dona de
Vargas. It will be remembered that her sister,
previously to the auto mentioned in the last
chapter, had, when under the influence of tor
ture, inculpated her as having failed to reprove,
though an elder sister, Maria s Lutheran opi
nions. When she was committed to prison she
was about to become a mother. Almost as
soon as her infant was born it was taken from
IHT, and she was removed to a common dun
geon. Here she formed acquaintance with a
poor young woman, (afterwards a martyr for
the reformed doctrines,) who, commiserating
her case, treated her with the utmost tender
ness. This young girl was soon herself sub
jected to the torture ; and when she returned
to the prison covered with wounds, and with
limbs dislocated at every joint, Jane Boharques
118 THE INQUISITION.
was in her turn called to perform the work of a
comforter. It was not, however, long before
the tribunal summoned her also. Instead of
the iibual methods of torture, a cord was applied
to the softer parts of her body, which being
strained tight by n lever, not only cut through
the integuments, inflicting thus the most ex
cruciating torments, but by its pressure burst
several internal vessels, so that torrents of blood
streamed from her nose and mouth. She was
carried back to the prison almost inanimate,
and only survived eight days. In the auto da
le* which next succeeded, this young mother,
on whom such an extremity of suffering had
been inflicted, was pronounced not to have been
proved guilty.
Such were some of the earlier autos of the
modern Inquisition. They were followed by
numerous others in all parts of Spain, and
constituted in some districts an annual festival,
the more frequent because of the rapid spread
of Lutheraaism in that unhappy country.
Gonsalvius Montdanus relates the following
circumstance bearing reference to this period.
It is one of many instances which illustrate
the treachery and falsehood characterizing the
proceedings of the holy office:
Among those who suffered as the victims of
til-- auto at Seville, were a pious motlu-r, h-r
, and a niece. One of t
brought beforo th<- inquisitor,
wn " ; ; >g her simplicity, into
conversation with her, professing sympathy
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 119
with her sorrows, but endeavouring to extract
information from her which might tend to the
inculpation of others. After several days spent
in familiar discourse, the poor girl, convinced
of the fatherly affection which the inquisitor
pretended to feel, and excited by the hope of
release which he held out to her, made a full
declaration of the doctrines she had been taught,
and of the conversations which had passed
between herself and her relatives. When he
had gained this point, the crafty official caused
her to repeat her statement in the presence of
a notary, who recorded her confession. But
when the moment of relief seemed to be near,
this deluded victim found that, instead of the
liberty which had been promised her, she was
delivered to the torture in order thus to force
from her what it was alleged she still concealed.
She was submitted both to the rack and the
trial by water, till the object of the inquisitorial
tribunal had been fully gained. In her anguish
she accused her mother, sister, and several
others. They were apprehended, were sub
mitted to the question, and were burned alive
in the sumo fire as that by which, she herself
was consumed.
Great consternation was created throughout
Spain, as well as other countries, by an event
which at this time took place, namely, the arrest,
at the instance of the Inquisition, of Bartolome
de Carranza y Miranda, archbishop of Toledo,
one of the highest dignitaries of the Spanish
church. This ecclesiastic waf :\ Dominican
1 20 tin: INQUISITION.
friar, who in tlie early part of his history had
been accused of Lutheran opinions, but who
had succeeded in defending himself against the
charge, lie rose to high honours in the church
of Koine ; became professor of philosophy,
qualifier of the Inquisition of Yalladulid, a
member of the general chapter of the church
of Konio, doctor of theology, and a censurer of
prohibited books. As theologian of the em
peror, and a celebrated defender of the ecclesi
astical orders of his church, he was present at
the council of Trent, and had accompanied
Philip ii. to England, where he had been
signally active in the proceedings taken against
the Protestants. In 1588 he obtained, as a
consequence of this activity, the post of primate
of Spain; yet, before many months had passed,
lie was accused of Lutheranism. Several causes
co-operated to lead to so unexpected a charge.
In the council of Trent he had pleaded against
non-residence, and had afterwards written in
support of his views. He had, moreover, in
curred the dislike of many of his companions,
and especially that of Melchior Caiio, bishop of
the Canaries, and of Valdes, the inquisitor-
ml. His " Commentaries on the ( ini-tian
hi,m" had spoken with greater reverence
ol thf 1 jible than of tradition, and had, besides,
; published in the vulgar tongue. Many
of his former pupils, who had become Luther
ans, had, indeed, undergone his remonstrances
their MIJ>J>"-- <i u) >rs but had not 1
1 by him t the tiibunals. On several
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 121
doctrines, as, for instance, that of justifica
tion, he had shown himself more inclined to tho
tenets of Luther than the Romish faith permitted.
It was said that he had avowed such views in
a sermon preached in London in the king s
presence, and had on other occasions declared
that indulgences were on sale in Spain, and
had used language which led one of his hearers
to remark : " Carranza has preached just as
Philip Melancthon might be expected to have
done!" He had, moreover, been falsely
accused of speaking doubtfully respecting pur
gatory, and he had pleaded for greater indul
gence to convicted heretics. For these crimes
he was brought under the notice of the holy
tribunal.
When his books were seized in the house of
the marchioness d Alcanices, that lady declared
that she once asked brother Juan cle Villagareiu,
to what book the author had been indebted for
his learning ; the reply was, " To a work of
Luther." When examined by the Inquisition
he said that his reference had been not to a
work of Luther s, but of (Ecolampadius ; and
that the archbishop, though he had derived
some aid from Lutheran writings, had always
been true to the Catholic doctrine. It appears,
from a brief found among his papers, that the
pope had given him leave to read heretical
works.* Other depositions declared that Car-
* In the year 1558, Philip n. passed a lav/ denouncing the
punishment of death and confiscation against the sellers and
readers of prohibited books.
122 THE INQUISITION.
ruiiza had said that if he were at the point of
death he should wish to have a notary, in order
to receive his renunciation of good works, be
cause his reliance was only upon the merits of
Jesus Christ for salvation ; but one of the
witnesses explained that he understood this
statement to be perfectly compatible with the
maintenance of the doctrines of the Catholic
church. Dr. Cazallu deposed that lie had heard
Dominis de Roxas impute to Carrauza the doc
trines of the Reformation. This Dominis do
Roxas denied ; but when submitted to the
torture, confessed that he had made such a
statement, declaring, however, on further inter
rogation, that it was not true. Juan de Regla
voluntarily presented himself to the tribunal,
declaring that when he was present at the
death-bed of Charles v., Carranza had exhorted
that monarch not to trust in any merits of his
own, but to rely on the merit of Christ for the
pardon of his sins.
A number of charges of a similar kind were
collected against Carranza, and Philip II. was
unable to protect him. Indeed, he suffered
himself to be persuaded that the archbishop
was guilty of odious heresy. In answer to the
applications of the inquisitors, the pope, Paul iv.,
at a meeting of the consistory, declared, " that
being informed that the heresies of Luther and
some others had been propagated in Spain, he
had reason to suspect that several prelates ha-1
adopted them, and in consequence he authorized
the grand inquisitor, for two years from that
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 123
day, to make inquest concerning all the bishops,
archbishops, patriarchs, and primates of that
kingdom ; to commence their trials ; and in
case that an attempt to escape was suspected,
to arrest and lodge them in a place of security ;"
authorizing the inquisitor at the same time to
report them to the sovereign pontiff, and to
send the criminals, with their processes, to
Rome, at the earliest possible period. The
same decree authorized the Inquisition to im
prison Carranza.
All things being thus prepared, it was re
solved to proceed against the archbishop ; and
as Philip ii. was at this time absent from his
kingdom, and as he dreaded the result of public
processes, he wrote to his sister Juanna, who
was the temporary regent, to instruct her in
the measures which she should pursue. The
princess accordingly wrote to Carranza, that
as the king would speedily arrive in his own
dominions, it was necessary that he should
instantly repair to Valladolid to receive him,
dispensing with all state, in order to secure his
earlier arrival. The archbishop immediately
prepared to obey the summons ; but as the
messenger who brought the order had fallen ill,
lie thought it better to await his restoration
before leaving his home. On his way to court,
the messenger having recovered, he held con
firmations as usual. But these delays indi
cated to the eyes of the inquisitors a secret
intention of escaping, and they were resolved
not to lose their prey. They proceeded, there-
124 THE INQUISITION.
fore, to the lodgings of the archbishop, who
was then at Tordelogima, with :i strong party,
conducted by Rodrigo de Castro, the beaver of
the princess s letter. De Castro had com
manded the host of the primate to leave the
doors of his house open. As soon as they
entered, guards were placed at the gates, and
the inquisitors began to ascend the stairs,
crying out, Open to the holy office." They
proceeded to the archbishop s chamber. C ar-
runza himself cried out "Who is it?" The
reply was, The holy office ;" and the door
was opened. The archbishop threw back the
curtains of his bed, and Rodrigo, kneeling on
one knee, and in tears, said, " Most illustrious
seiior, your reverence will give me your hand
and pardon me?" Carranza replied, "Why
so, Dun Rodrigo? Pray rise." "Because,"
said Don Rudrigo, " I come to do a thing
respecting which your reverence may sec in my
face how contrary it is to my inclinations."
Then, stepping back, he beckoned to the officers
of the holy tribunal to advance. The order of
the council of the Inquisition, signed by its
general, Fernando de Valdes, Carranza s enemy,
was then read to the archbishop. When ( ;u -
ranza objected that he was subject to the pope
alone, the inquisitor, Don Diego, exhibited the
papal brief authorizing his arrest.
Carranza was secretly conveyed to the prison
of the holy office in Valladolid without being
aware that he was in the Inquit-ition. Such
pains were taken to conceal an event which,
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 125
when known, filled the courts of Europe with
consternation.
The primate appealed to the pope, declaring
that the inquisitor -general was prejudiced
against him, and was, therefore, not an im
partial judge. The appeal was obstructed by
all the impediments which the holy tribunal
could throw in its way. The pope, however,
commissioned Philip n. to name another judge.
He intrusted the trial to the archbishop of
Santiago, who, shrinking from the responsi
bility of presiding on such an occasion, dele-
gated two councillors of the Inquisition, already
in the interest of the inquisitor-general, to
undertake it.
Great difficulties occurred in bringing the
trial of the archbishop to an issue. Some of
these arose from the prelate himself, and some
from the Inquisition. Two years elapsed in
Challenging the judges ; then various adjourn
ments suspended the cause still more ; and
debates as to the place and mode of the trial
caused a further delay of another two years.
At last Carranza renewed his appeal to the
pope to tnke him out of the hands of the Inqui
sition. In the mean time the public mind
became much excited on the subject of his
trial ; and as a division of opinion existed in
the council with regard to the proceedings
against him, and as, moreover, during this
delay a change had taken place in the papacy
itself, the whole question became extremely
embarrassed, and at length resolved itself into a
] 26 THE INQUISITION.
quarrel between the court of Rome on the one
hand, and the holy office on the other.
In the issue Carranza was removed to the
Castle of St. Angelo at Rome, and succeeded,
after an imprisonment of sixteen years, (in Spain
and Italy,) in proving that the charge against
him was without solid foundation. He pub
licly said mass, to indicate his reconciliation
with the Roman church, relinquished his office
of archbishop, and was assigned a further im
prisonment of five years, which was the next
day, however, remitted by a special dispensa
tion. The aged man was exhausted by these
protracted processes, and died immediately after
the termination of his trial, declaring his inno
cence of the charges which had been exhibited
against him. His death terminated a series of
intrigues, perplexing and even dangerous to the
high ecclesiastical powers, but strongly illus
trative of the spirit by which the Inquisition
was actuated ; of the suspicions indulged to
wards the highest dignitaries not themselves
members of its tribunal ; and of the inveterate
hatred borne by the holy office towards every
semblance of Lutheranism, that is, of gospel
truth.
Remarking upon the case of Carranza, the
author of " The Cloister Life of Charles v."
judiciously observes: "It seems but reason-
to believe that he spoke the plain truth
when he made the dying declaration that he
had never held any of the hei. :i,.,l (.pinions of
which hj had been accused. To i -ant
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 127
who in these days looks into his very rare and
still more tedious volume [his folio " Catechism
of Christianity," which formed the main ground
of the charges against him,] the Avork appears
to breathe the fiercest spirit of intolerant
Romanism. Heresy is reprobated ; Bibles in
the vulgar tongue are condemned ; Spain is
praised as the one land where the fountain of
truth is still unpolluted ; Philip n. is exhorted
to further persecutions ; Mary Tudor is ex
tolled as the saviour of the soul of England."
Carranza himself boasted that he had converted
two millions of heretics. It would be absurd,
therefore, to view him as a Protestant divine ;
and perhaps we may, without any violation of
Christian charity, regard his entanglement in
the nets of the Inquisition as a merited retri
bution for his own active services in hindering
the work of the Spanish Reformation.
Another interesting episode in the history of
the Inquisition in Spain refers to the fate of Don
Carlos, the son and heir of Philip n., who was
condemned by a junta, of which the inquisitor-
general was president, and was strongly be
lieved to have been poisoned by his father on
account of his attachment to the Lutheran doc
trines. But our limits preclude us from de
tailing the incidents of his singular and tragical
history. It is enough to say, whether the
charge of poisoning be established or not, that
the transaction is a melancholy proof of bigotry
and intolerance overcoming natural affection.
Yet Philip s conduct in surrendering his sou to
3 28 THE INQUISITION.
the jurisdiction of the Inquisition has been
lauded by a Roman Catholic divine as a sacri
fice resembling that of the Almighty in giving
up his own Son, and that of Abraham in
yielding Isaac a.s a sacrifice. " There is no
action," says the panegyrist, " to compare with
this. The event leaves far behind it all those
of which we read in profane history."*
The trial of the archbishop of Toledo, to
which reference has just been made, was by no
means the only one of its kind. It was suc
ceeded by the prosecution of several of the
bishops who had taken part in the council of
Trent men usually of the greatest learning and
highest dignity, but who were compelled to
humble themselves before the holy office. The
professor of theology at Alcala Manciode
Corpus Christi had approved of the propositions
of Carranza, and had pronounced his opinions
orthodox ; but, terrified by proceedings com
menced against him, he saved himself from the
fangs of the Inquisition by retracting, and pub
lishing an almost universal condemnation of the
archbishop. One of Carranza s disciples, Luis
de la Cruz, was thrown into prison, when it was
discovered that he was possessed of his master s
papers, and was kept there, though without
proof against him, during five years, nearly
losing his life from illness. A singular incident
illustrates the nature of some of tin-?.- proceed
ings. Curtain propositions of Can -anxa s were
placed before Juan de Pegna, professor of S
* See De C*tro SpanUh Protettanti.
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 129
manca, for his opinion concerning them. He
returned a, favourable judgment, but as soon as
lie heard of the arrest of the archbishop, he
sent to the Inquisition, attempting to modify
the opinion he had expressed, and was com
pelled in the issue to retract and abjure it.
The persecution of the Lutherans still went
on. Atrocious calumnies, similar to those
by which, in the early ages of Christianity, the
primitive believers were assailed, were circulated
respecting them, and, as if to render more
striking the parallel between the year 15G1 and
the period of infant Christianity, the occurrence
of a destructive fire at Valladolid, by which a
large number of its houses and much of its
weal tli were destroyed, was attributed to the
holders of the new opinions. So inveterate was
the hatred borne to the reformed doctrines of
Spain, that when a bull of the pope authorized
confessors to absolve repenting Lutherans, the
Inquisition refused to publish it.
It is impossible to record at full length all
the instances of injustice and suffering which
blacken this period of the Spanish annals. Dr.
Juan Perez, afflicted at the trials of the fol
lowers of the reformed faith, wrote, about the
year 1560, a letter from Geneva, " to console
the faithful in Christ Jesus who suffer persecu
tion for the confession of his name."
In the same year, Julianillo Hernandez, or
Julian the little, who, pretending to be a rustic
travelling with bales of merchandise, contrived
to circulate a very large number of Protestant
E
180 THE INQUISITION.
works in Spain, was denounced to the holy
ofhce, and was imprisoned in the dungeons
of the Inquisition. In this confinement he
remained for three years, oOen subjected to
torture for the purpose of compelling him to
confess any accomplices with whom he might
have been associated, during which time many
conferences took place between him and the
inquisitorial officials, which he conducted with
considerable success. He was at length
brought forth to die at an auto da # on the
22nd December, 15GO. He was carried out
gagged, and hlo hands and feet were tied to the
stake, about rhich he had contrived to gather
an unusual qr entity of wood, that the severity
t his torment* night be shortened. When his
tongue was related, he was exhorted by the
confessors to renounce his heresy. But Julian
boldly rebuked them as hypocrites, and told
em that nothing but the fear of a fiery death
estrained them from avowing similar doct
to those held by himself. He died with a OOO-
rage and constancy which were extremely mor-
Wying to his persecutors, and which k-fl a
Btri 115 and favourable impression on the minds
of all who witnessed his death, even on those of
the executioners themselves.
The most degrading scenes of tyranny and
licentiousness were at this time practised by the
imjuMtors. Multitudes of - fogfeyes
their native country my, Holland,
"I England. In .1, , h< |
rt-namecl country a large house was fitted up
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 131
by the bishop of London for Spanish worship,
and sums of money were granted by Elizabeth
to the Protestant refugees. These benevolences
formed the ground of a special complaint made
by Alvaro de la Cuadra, the ambassador of
Philip n. ; and in the year 1508, John Man,
dean of Gloucester, and ambassador of England
to the court of Philip n., was expelled from
Madrid, not for any violation of his diplomatic
position, nor even for lending any aid to the
victims of the Inquisition, but because he had
spoken too freely of religious matters in ordi
nary conversation. This offence was, that at a
public banquet he had declared Philip n. to be
the only one among the sovereigns of Europe
who had the privilege of defending the pope.
Under the auspices of Philip n., the papal
power, in virtue of its assumed right to divide
empires according to degrees of longitude,
granted a bull to the inquisitor-general of Spain,
instituting " the Inquisition of the Galleys."
Cadiz was principally noted for the exercise of
this authority. By this bull, the officers of the
Inquisition were empowered to enter all vessels,
in order to seize prohibited books. But this
interference with commerce was too outrageous
to be long tolerated, and the new institution
speedily became obsolete. This bull was issued
in the year 1571.
Ten years after this period we find recorded
another awful instance of the power of
bigotry to dry up the sources of natural
affection. A gentleman of Valladolid de^
1 32 THE THQUISITION.
nounced two of his own daughters to the
Inquisition as Lutherans. Instead of being im
prisoned, however, according to the usual mode,
these young persons were permitted to remain
under the parental control, that the father (who
was much in the confidence of the officials)
might endeavour, by the assistance of church
men and monks, to disabuse them of their che
rished opinions. This scheme, however, failed ;
and the rage of the father was excessive. He
carried them, therefore, to the Inquisition, and
complained of their wicked obstinacy. Both
were condemned to die. The wretched father,
with brutal bigotry, went himself into the woods
to cut down materials for the fire which was to
burn them. The inquisitors, with no less bar
barity, praised his conduct, and held him up as
an example to the sons of the church. Stimu
lated by these praises, the miserable slave of
ecclesiastical bondage went even yet further.
He asked leave of the inquisitors to set fire to
the pile with his own hand. His request was
granted, and the inquisitors, " in order to the
exaltation of the Catholic faith, proclaimed, with
cymbals and trumpets, not only the inhuman de
mand, but their permission to comply with it." *
In mercy to the human race, however, this
baneful tribunal, which originated so mucli >uf-
fering, was to experience a decline of inflm net;
and power. This was noticeable in the ivitrn
of Philip in., who ascended the throne in
- 1). Cbtro> Spanish Protestant*, chap. xvii. The autho
rity h in Valera TreUdo de Lo Papas.
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 183
Yet, in spite of the decay of its power, it pro
bably indirectly suggested the final expulsion of
the Moors from Spain. This remarkable trans
action, however, does not necessarily come
within the scope of our volume.
The accession of Philip iv., in 1621, was
commemorated by an auto da fe at Madrid.
On this occasion no heretic was burned. This
monarch gave the Inquisition power to deal
with smugglers, and permission to retain a
fourth part of the money they might find on
Spaniards quitting their own country.
The year 1620 is noticeable in the annals of
the Inquisition for the imprisonment of William
Lithgow, a Scotchman, who was incarcerated
on the pretext that he was a spy in the pay of
the English navy. From this circumstance it
is obvious that the Inquisition had gradually
passed from a spiritual court to a tribunal
taking cognizance of secular matters. The
extraordinary sufferings which Lithgow en
dured are well worthy of being recorded, and
as his narrative is a long one, and written in
obsolete language, we shall present it to the
reader in an abridged form.
Immediately after Lithgow s imprisonment
he was searched and deprived of a considerable
sum of money, which he had provided for
his extensive journeys. He was then put
in irons, having a bar of some length so
fastened between his ankles that it was totally
impossible for him to stand. " The irons," he
says, " were thrice heavier than my body."
13 1 THE INQUISITION.
The governor visited him in his cell, and
exhorted him to confess himself a spy : and on
the prisoner declaring his innocence, he threat
ened with great anger that torture should rnako
him acknowledge it. Lithgow was allowed
neither any bed, pillow, nor coverlet." Close
up," said the governor, this window in his
room with lime and stone. Stop the holes in
the door with double mats, hanging another
lock to it, and so withdraw visible and sensible
comfort irom him. Let no tongue nor feet be
heard near him." During many days Lithgow
was thus imprisoned. He was then takm
away in a coach to a wine-press house
standing alone among vineyards." To this
pace the instruments of torture had },, ( n
already brought. Finding he would make DO
xmfession, the executioner was ordered to take
>ft his irons. In accomplishing this difficult
task, he struck off," Lithgow tells us, above
an inch of my left heel with the bolt, where
upon I grievously groaning, being exceeding
faint, and without my three ounces of bread
and a little water for three days together, the
alcalde said, Oh ! traitor, all this is nothing
bu the earnest of a greater bargain you have
m hand. Lithgow was then submitted to the
torture of the pulley, the rack, and the water.
In the course of the last infliction, as the sufferer
closed his lips to prevent the passage of tl,,.
r through them, the ex. , lsw i an
ron weapon to force them op.-n. 1 Miring these
processes, his examination continued without
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 135
interruption. He proceeds : " Thus lay I six
hours upon the rack, between four o clock in the
afternoon and ten o clock at night, having had
inflicted upon me threescore and seven torments.
Nevertheless they continued me a large half hour,
after all my tortures at the full bending, where,
my body being all begored with blood, and cut
through in every part to the crushed and
bruised bones, I pitifully remained, still roar
ing, howling, foaming, bellowing, and gnashing
my teeth, with insupportable cries, before the
pains were undone, and my body loosed. True
it is, it passeth the capacity of man either
sensibly to conceive, or I patiently to express,
the intolerable anxiety of mind and affliction of
body in that dreadful time I sustained.
11 At last my head being by their arms
advanced, and my body taken from the rack,
the water re-gushed abundantly from my
mouth ; then they, reclothing my broken,
bloody, cold, and trembling body, being all this
time stark naked, I fell twice into a trance, when
they again refreshed me with a little wine and
two warm ggs ; not done out of charity, but
that I should be reserved for further punish
ments ; and if it were not well known that these
sufferings are true, it would almost seem incre
dible to many that a man being brought so low
with starving hunger and extreme cruelties,
could have subsisted any longer reserving life.
" And now, at last, they charged my broken
legs with my former eye-frighting irons ; and
this done, I was lamentably carried on their
136 TIII: INQUISITION.
arms to the coach, being afterwords brought
and secretly transported to my former dungoon,
Avithout any knowledge of the town save only
these my lawless and merciless tormentors.
Where, when come, I was laid with my head
and my heels alike high on my former stones.
The latter end of this wofnl night poor mourn
ing Hazier the Turk was sent to keep me, and
on the morrow the governor entered my room,
threatening me still with more tortures to con
fess ; and so caused he every morning, long
before day, his coach to be rumbled at his gate,
and about me where I lay, a great noise of
tongues and opening of doors, and all this they
did on purpose to affright and distract me, and
to make me believe I was going to be racked
again to make me confess an untruth ; and still
thus they continued every day for five days till
Christmas."*
After a variety of protracted tortures, some
English merchants of Malaga accidentally dis
covered the place of Lithgow s imprisonment,
and by the intervention of the English consul,
obtained his release. Soon after his arrival in
England, in 1021, James I. visited him, and
promised to obtain compensation for his in
juries. This promise, however, appears npver
to have been fulfilled, and Lithgow died a
prisoner in the Marshalsea.
A fi.>w years later, George Penn, an English
iii Tchai.t ivsiding in the south of Spain, and an
uncle of iho well-known William IVnn, sutured
Narrative of William Litligow.
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 137
&t the hands of the Inquisition treatment even
more severe than that endured by Lithgow.
Although a Protestant, he had committed the
great error of forming an alliance with a Roman
Catholic lady, and being suspected of having
endeavoured to seduce her from her faith, he
was suddenly arrested, and committed to a
loathsome dungeon, \vhile his property, down
to the very nail in the wall of his house, was
seized and confiscated. At successive intervals
he was scourged, till his body was one mass of
festering sores. Three years having elapsed,
he was brought into the torture chamber, and
racked in so excruciating a manner, that his
constancy failed, and in a moment of weakness
lie admitted all the charges brought against
him, and promised to live and die in tht
Romish faith. " As soon," says the narrator of
the facts, " as he was sufficiently recovered from
his wounds to walk, he was taken to the greal
cathedral of Seville in solemn procession, accom
panied by the seven judges, their households
by several hundred priests and friars, and by a
vast multitude of people, and in the presence ot
the whole congregation was exposed as a signal
instance of the great mercy of the holy Inquisi
tion. His wife was taken from him, and for
cibly married to a good Catholic ; the whole ol
his estate, amounting in plate, furniture, jewels,
goods, and merchandise, to twelve thousand
pounds, was confiscated ; the money found in
his hands, belonging to other persons, was
seized ; and he was finally commanded to quit
2
138 THE INQUISITION.
the country in three months, on pain of death.
This last injunction only added insult to injury,
for the judges well knew that, having seized his
estates, the moment he left the cathedral he
would be arrested for debts which lie had no
means of discharging. The very same day he
was thrust into a common jail, with little or no
hope of ever obtaining a second release.
The exhibition in the cathedral being public,
several English residents in Seville were present,
and the intelligence of his brother s position
soon reached the young admiral Penn at his
station in the channel. His measures were
prompt and characteristic. Instead of appealing
to Cromwell, in whose day the event occurred,
and setting the dilatory diplomacy of London
and Madrid at work to procure his release, lie
seized in one of his prizes a Spanish nobleman,
Juan de Urbino, then on his way to Flanders,
where he held the post of secretary to the
government, stripped him naked like a common
prisoner, and treated him with many indig*.
nities.
This act, indefensible in itself, spoke home to
the Spanish sovereign ; and George Perm was
soon released, and sent back to England.
The death of Cromwell prevented any repa
ration being made for his losses and sufferings ;
but when the restoration was fflvctfd, !
Charles appointed him his envoy at the con:
Spain, to ;i i 1 weight to his claim for dan:.,
in body and estate. This act of substantial
justice, however, came too Jat-.-. lIis aged flesh
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 139
had been torn, his limbs dislocated and ill set,
his body starved for more than three years on
bread and water ; and he died in London only
a few weeks after receiving the royal appoint
ment, leaving his claims as a legacy to the
admiral and his family."*
This restitution, however, was never made.
The Inquisition has never been remarkable for
disgorging its prey.
Philip iv. died in 1G65, and was succeeded
by Charles n. The inquisitorial tribunals were
occupied during his reign mainly in prosecu
tions of witchcraft. On his marriage, however,
an auto da fe took place, in which a hundred
and eighteen victims appeared, nineteen of
whom were burned. The circumstances of this
auto have been already related in chapter n.
Charles H. was succeeded by Philip v. (the
grandson of Louis xiv. of France.) The Inqui
sition, from being a religious, now became
mainly a political instrument, and was main
tained by Philip in accordance with the advice
of the grandfather who had placed him on the
throne. Freemasonry was at this time the
principal subject of inquisitorial search. Indeed,
the doctrines of the reformed religion were
extinct an awful instance of man s power
seeming to prevail over the truth of God.
It was during this reign that Isaac Martin, an
Englishman, being found at Malaga with u
Bible and other books of devotion in his pos
session, was accused of being a Jew, and finding
* Hepworth Dixon s Life of Penn.
140 THE IXQUISITION.
himself exposed to considerable nnnoynnco irt
consequence, came to a resolution to quit the
country. This intention having transpired, he
was seized, and carried to the Inquisition at
(Jranada. lie was charged with having spoken
disrespectfully of the Koman Catholic religion.
After a long imprisonment, and many cross-
examinations, he was ordered to be banished
from the Spanish dominions ; was seated on an
nss, and whipped with two hundred lashes as
he went along. lie was then sent to Malaga,
where, after some adventures, he contrived to
get on board an English ship, and effected his
escape. A small portion only of the effects
which had been taken from him was ever
recovered.
Dining the reign of Ferdinand vi. (com
mencing in 174C) only ten persons were burned
alive. This number, half of which would be
enough to excite, in the present day, a convul
sion in the darkest state of Europe, was really,
in comparison with the past, an indication of
rapidly advancing progress. The victims wer
Jews who had renounced, if they had ever held
the Christian faith. The revival of learning
lent its aid at this period to the depression of
persecution. Its influence continued through
the succeeding reigns of Charles HI. and Charles
IV. Jn th.- former reign, the inquisitor-general
even toed t > propose the purification of the
Voly office. In the latter, Don Miguel Solano,
*ho in earlier times would have been bui n,>d as
a heretic, was only pitied as a maniac.
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 141
It is not our purpose to relate the series of
intrigues by which Napoleon Bonaparte invaded
Spain in the year 1806, though he was unable,
even by the aid of the strong military force
which he sent to occupy that kingdom, to
retain its possession. Suffice it to state, that
when he set up his staff near Madrid, he
wrote an order to abolish the Inquisition, which
was carried into effect. It had been well if
all the other actions of Napoleon had been of
so beneficial a character.*
On the recal of Ferdinand vii. in 1814, one
of his earliest measures was the re-establish-
nient of the holy office. Though, whilst restor
ing, he professed to reform it, suspicions and
delations resumed their empire. In 1816, it
letter from Rome announced that the pope (Pius
vn.) had forbidden the use of torture, and assi
milated the proceedings of the holy office to
those of other tribunals ; with what effect, how
ever, the succeeding narrative will demonstrate.
It is extracted from a work published by Don
Juan Van Ilalen, a military officer of some dis
tinction in the Spanish service, who, after his
escape from the fangs of the holy office, asso
ciated himself with the army of Russia, and
* An interesting narrative of some of the events connected
with the destruction of the building of the Inquisition in
Madrid, purporting to be based upon authentic information,
was a few years at;o published in the American journals. Not
having been able, however, to satisfy ourselves as to the cor
rectness of its facts, we prefer omitting it, being unwilling to
swell, by the addition of doubtful testimony, the heavy roll of
well-authenticated charges which can at present be adduced
against this tribunal.
142 THE INQUISITION.
was subsequently appointed commander-in-chicf
of the Belgian provisional government.
In consequence of having taken office under
Joseph Bonaparte, Van llalen, we may \
misc, had become an object of suspicion to
Ferdinand and his government. One night he
had occasion to leave home very late. "An
hour alter, the house was surrounded by sol
diers, and two men enveloped in their cloaks
advanced towards the door. My servant, who
heard the loud and repeated knocks, appeared
at the window, and was ordered by them to
open the door. On his refusing to do so, they
gave their names, one being the governor Irri-
berry, and the other the senior inquisitor.
(The scene is Murcia, where the building for
merly appropriated to the Inquisition was now
standing in ruin.) The servant represented
to them that, whatever might be their ofhce or
their authority, they raised unfavourable sus
picions by coming at that hour, and that if they
did not withdraw he would compel them, at the
same time showing his carbine at the window.
At this sight the senior inquisitor, fearing the
consequences, abandoned the field to Irriberrv,
who, more bold, caused some soldiers to advance
and force the door open ; he then entered with
his soldiers, to whom lie gav> to secure
tin- servant, and search the IIMM-. Whilst tin y
iting these commands, they discov i
the cook in the act of leaping from a window,
and endeayotiring to make her escape, with the
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 143
intention of seeking me and warning me of the
danger."
Van Ilalen having, without any suspicion of
his own danger, returned in the morning to
his residence, was immediately arrested.
" It was now," he continues, " that I learned
for the first time the fatal destiny which awaited
me. The day was dawning, and Irriberry
ordered, in my presence, the bishop s carriage to
be fetched, that I might be conveyed to the
Inquisition. I requested to be allowed to go on
foot, to which he replied that the prisoners of
the Inquisition were never accompanied there
by an armed force ; adding, ironically, * they
have always the honour to be taken there in a
convenient carriage. This being now ready,
I ente.red it, accompanied by Irriberry, his
assessor, and his aide-de-camp, who gave orders
to some soldiers to follow the carriage on foot,
at a distance. Thus I lost sight of my home,
my servants, my young comrades, and even of
the hope of seeing again the light of day."
lie was for some time confined, meeting at
first with fair words from his keepers, but the
scene speedily changed. His narrative, how
ever, must again speak for itself.
" About eight o clock one night, Don Juanito
entered my dungeon with a lantern in his hand,
followed by four other men, whose faces were
concealed by a piece of black cloth, shaped
above the head like a cone, and falling over the
shoulders and chest, in the middle of which
were two holes for the eyes. I was half asleep
144 THE INQUISITION.
when the noise of the doors opening awoke mo,
and by the dim light of the lantern I perceived
these frightful apparitions. Imagining I was
labouring under the effects of a dream, I
earnestly gazed awhile on the group, till one of
them approached, and pulling me by the
leather strap with which my arms were bound,
gave me to understand by signs that I was to
rise. Having obeyed the summons, my face
was covered with a leather mask, and in this
manner I was led out of the prison."
Having been solemnly and earnestly warned
by the inquisitor to make a confession of hid
guilt, he was now subjected to a treatment which
must fix upon the modern Inquisition, if Van
Halen is to be received as a credible witness,
the stigma of having adopted a procedure
worthy rather of the dark ages than of the
nineteenth century.
" The agitation of the moment," he confesses,
" permitted me to utter only a few words, which,
however, were not listened to, and I was hurried
away to the further end of the room, the jailor
and his assistants exerting all their strength to
secure me. Having succeeded in raising me
from the ground, they placed under my armpits
two high crutches, from which I remained sus
pended, after which my right arm was tied to
the corresponding crutch, whilst the left briuir
kept in a horizontal position, they encased my
hand opm in a wooden glove extending to the
wii>r, which shut very tightly, and from which
two large iron bars ran ai iJi as th-
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 145
keeping the whole in the same position in
which it was placed. My waist and legs were
similarly bound to the crutches by which I was
supported, so that I shortly remained without
any other action than that of breathing, though
with difficulty."
In this position a leading question was put to
him, shaping itself towards an affirmative admis
sion. But the prisoner denied the charge.
" The glove which guided my arm, and
which seemed to be resting on the edge of a
wheel, began now to turn, and with its move
ments I felt by degrees an acute pain, espe
cially from the elbow to the shoulder, a general
convulsion throughout my frame, and a cold
sweat overspreading rny face. The interroga
tory continued, but Zorilla s question of * Is it
so? Is it so? were the only words that
struck my ear during the excruciating pain I
endured, which became so intense that I
fainted away and heard no more the voice
of these cannibals. When I recovered my
senses, I found myself stretched on the floor of
my dungeon, my hands and feet secured with
heavy letters and manacles, fastened by a thick
chain, the nails of which my tormentors were
still riveting. On this being concluded, the
unpleasant mask which obstructed my sight
was removed. ... It was after much diffi
culty that I dragged myself to bed. I spent
the whole of the night struggling with the
intense pains, which were the effect of the
torture, and with the workings of my excited
14 G THE INQUISITION.
mind, which offered but a horrible perspective
to my complicated misfortunes. This state of
mental agitation, and the burning fever which
was every moment increasing, soon threw me
into u delirium, during which I scarcely
noticed the operation performed by my jailors
of opening the seams of my coat to examine the
state of my arm."
After many attempts, Van Halen contrived
to escape from his tormentors.*
To statements of sufferings like those just
narrated, resting, as they necessarily must,
upon the testimony of one individual, it is easy
for Koman Catholic writers to give u denial,
and to maintain that they are either exaggera
tions or misrepresentations. But even the
most candid reader must admit, after the peru
sal of the following case of Spanish intolerance,
that there is only too much reason to believe
the darkest accusations brought against tho
tribunal.
" A schoolmaster of Busafa,f a village in the
neighbourhood of Valencia, was reputed to
be a quaker. He was accused before the
tribunal of the faith, condemned, and thrown
into the prisons of St. Narcissus, with the vilest
felons. The lord of the tribunal of the faith,"
says my informant, a priest of Valencia, " en-
Narrative of Escape of Don Juan Van Halen.
t This incident is e\ true ted from tin- Kev. Mr. Kule s" Brand
mir," n vnhuil.lr work upon the InquiMtion. t<> whu-li
we acknowledge obligation. lie lived for sonic time in :*,
M himself satisfied with the evidence on which
the statement rciU.
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 147
deavoured to induce him to make a solemn
recantation of hig belief as a quaker, but lie
said that he could not do anything against his
conscience, nor could he lie to God. They
condemned him to be hanged, and he was
transferred to the condemned cell, and resigned
himself fully to the will of God. On July 31,
1826, he was taken from the prison to the
scaffold, displaying the most perfect serenity.
The crosses were removed from the scaffold.
He was not clothed in the black dress usually
put on culprits when brought out to execution,
but appeared in a brown jacket and pantaloons.
With a serious countenance and unfaltering
mien he ascended the scaffold, conducted by
father Felix, a barefooted Carmelite friar, who
exhorted him to change his views. But he
only replied, Shall he who has endeavoured
to keep God s commandments be condemned ?
When the rope was put around his neck, he
asked the hangman to wait a moment, and
raising his eyes towards heaven, prayed. In
three minutes he ceased to live. I have been
shown the spot, and have conversed with some
who saw * the quaker schoolmaster die."
After the death of Ferdinand, various
political changes occurred in Spain, and in
1834 the Inquisition was again abolished.
Whether, however, this is a temporary or a
permanent abolition remains to be proved.
That its extinction did not take place too soon
will be evident from the following summary of
the number of victims who suffered under its
MS THE INQUISITION.
rule. Llorente is the authority upoii which it
is given, and us the investigation of the annals
of the holy office was intrusted to him by the
French, he had every opportunity of procuring
accurate details. The list extends from Mttl
to 1809.
Condemned and burned . 31,912
Burned in efligy . . . 17,G59
"Penitents" .".... 291,450
341,021
Those who would read the history of the
peninsula, especially that of Spain, aright,
must peruse it by the ilames of the Inquisition.
That light will show how a nation heretofore
distinguished by noble bearing and manly
independence, became under its influence
morose, narrow, gloomy, and craven-hearted.
Beneath that power, its literature declined, its
liberty departed. The blast from the desert is
not so destructive as is the withering efl ect of
continued religious intolerance. If Spain has
btood in modern history among the lowest of
kingdoms, unequal to every crisis, barren,
though not without noble exceptions of great
ness and moral power ; if freedom has no truo
asylum within her shores ; above all, if it have
little which represents the lofty Christianiiv < I
Jesus and his apostles, but is overrun by
monks, blinded by superstition, and prolific in
a costly glare of external show, which has no
corresponding spiritual reality she owes the
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 149
desolating change- to the system from
she at first recoiled, but which she afterwards
blindly regarded as her boast and honour the
Inquisition.
The machinery of the holy office was intro
duced by Spain into her South American
colonies. The institution had its seat at Lima,
and fairly rivalled the barbarities of the tri
bunal in the mother country. Till lately the
traces of its operation might not unfrequently
be seen in the mangled and dislocated limbs of
some of the Lirnanese. " A Spaniard," says
Tchsude, " whose limbs were frightfully dis
torted, told me, in reply to my inquiries, that
he had fallen into a machine which had thus
mangled him. A few days before his death,
however, he confided to me that in his twenty-
fourth year he had been brought before the
tribunal of the holy Inquisition, and that by the
most horrible tortures he had been compelled
to confess a crime of which he was not guilty.
I still shudder, when I remember his crushed
and twisted limbs, at the thought of the ago
nies which the unhappy wretch must have
endured."
On one occasion its power met with an unex
pected check. The viceroy, Casttl Fuerte, was
denounced to it by his confessor as a heretic.
He was summoned accordingly before the holy
office, always eager to show its authority, even
over the highest. He went, entered the hall
of judgment, took out his watch, and said,
150 TUB INQUISITION.
" Senores, I am ready to discuss this affair, but
for one hour only ; if I am not back by that
time my officers have orders to level this
building with the ground." And, indeed, at
that very time his body-guard, a company of
infantry, with two pieces of artillery, had taken
their station before the building. The inqui
sitors, aghast at this information, consulted
together during a brief colloquy, then, with
officious eagerness, complimented Casttl Fuerte
out of their establishment.
The same fettering influence upon the human
mind, exerted by the Inquisition in the parent
country, seems to have been produced by its
operation in Spanish South America. "Na
ture," says a French writer, " has here invited
man by her solitudes to vast thoughts, and to
kingdoms gigantic as her own. But man re
mains motionless ; an invisible power binds his
arms. Three centuries pass, and everything
withers around him. In the midst of virgin
forests not one new thought starts to life. The
morning breath of the universe passes over the
forehead of this old man, and cannot revive
him. What mean these cradles of empires,
Mexico, Kio Janeiro, Buenos Ayres, Lima,
which from the first day wear the wrinkles of
Byiantium? . . . lie sees this unspotted world,
and comprehends it not. Sad and motion!
he seats himself by the banks of the great
rivers, having only recollections in n world
which has no past ; and the choir of worship
from so many new creatures adds not a single
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 151
accent, form, or note to his liturgy. The
Catholicism of the Council of Trent throws
over these nations the dark shadow of Philip n.
On the other hand, a breath reaches them from
France and North America, and torments them
with an inextinguishable desire for liberty.
Between these two opposite forces what is the
result ? These nations are agitated with a
hopeless movement. Whatever they do they
end by realizing in politics the ideal of their
religion, that is to say, absolute power. All
that they can accomplish is to change their
dictators. We see republics, (and since then
the truth extends to the writer s own country,)
which issue only in a tightening of their bonds.
A new and strange punishment 1 South Ame
rica lies under the shadow of a vast manchineel,
which distils death upon it ; the roots are in
another continent, and remain invisible."
1 52 THE INQUISITION.
CHAPTER V.
THE INQUISITION IN PORTUGAL AND OOA.
PORTUGAL would have afforded a noble exception
to the mass of the more " Catholic states," if,
whilst able during the reigns of Ferdinand and
Isabella to offer an asylum to the persecuted
Jews, she had always continued to maintain
that tolerance. But it was not so. John nr.,
alarmed at the growing liberty of opinion which
was at that time beginning to take the form of
the Reformation, and resolving to restrict its
exercise in his own dominions, invited pope
Clement vn. to send an inquisitor-general, who
should establish the holy office among his
subjects. We cannot suppose that these w<-n>
the first rigorous measures adopted in Portugal
to prevent the spread of gospel truth, though
the form in which persecution had previously
exhibited itself is unknown. In 1589, however,
the Inquisition was set up in Evora and Li>l,,n,
and not long after in Coimbra ; and XaviYr,
a man full of zeal, though much of it was of ;l
false kind, wrote to the king from India, staling,
that " the Jewish wickedness spread every day
THE INQUISITION IN PORTUGAL AND GOA. 153
more and more in the parts of the East Indies
subject to Portugal, and therefore earnestly
besought the said king, that to cure so great an
evil he would take care to send the office of the
Inquisition into those countries." Accordingly
cardinal Henry, who was at that time inquisitor-
general in Portugal, erected at the royal com
mand the tribunal in Goa, the metropolitan
city of the Indo-Portuguese dominions.*
A despicable breach of promise on the part
of the king was involved in some of these
proceedings. In the year 1521, John had
pledged his word to the new Christians of
Portugal, (as the baptized Jews^were called,)
that the Inquisition should not be established
for twenty years, (repeating thus a covenant
previously made with them by king Manuel to
a similar effect;) and also that they should not
be liable to be accused of heresy by the deposi
tions of secret witnesses. Great opposition was
therefore made by them to the establishment
of the holy office, and with such effect that
Paul HI., successor of Clement, not only granted
them a pardon for the past, but exempted them
from the most galling of the new instructions.
In 1536, however, on the representation of the
king that some new Christians had relapsed
into Judaism, whilst others adopted the Lutheran
heresies, the Inquisition, in a modified form,
was again established, and Diego da Silva,
bishop of Ceuta, was the first inquisitor-
general.
* Liiuborch, chap. xxv.
154: THE INQUISITION.
Cardinal Tabera, who was the sixth inquisitor-
general of the Portuguese tribunals, exercised
his office with great severity; and Llorente says
respecting him, " The number of victims, calcu
lated as it was for the time of Maurique, affords,
for the seven years of cardinal Tabera s ministry,
seven thousand seven hundred and twenty
individuals condemned and punished : eight
hundred and forty were burned in prison, four
hundred and twenty in effigy ; the rest, in
number five thousand four hundred and sixty,
were subjected to different penances. I firmly
believe that the number was much more
considerable, but, faithful to my system of
impartiality, 1 have stated the most moderate
calculation." 1 Even if the reader should be
of opinion that indulgence to an opponent may
require some abatement of this calculation, the
result will be fearful indeed. It is evident
that the unjust severities practised by this
tribunal were such as to excite the reclamations
of pope Paul HI. himself, who, with only partial
success, urged upon the inquisitors giv
forbearance.
With the early history of the InquUiti.-n in
Portugal, the name of an Englishman is .,
ciated, as having, under circumstances of a vrry
peculiar character, fallen under its ban.
John Gardiner, an Englishman, rand
>n as a British merchant, but as a IV-
tant righteously abstained from frequenting the
lloman Catholic worship. However, on the
* -Uorente s History of the Inquisition, din;
THE INQUISITION IN PORTUGAL AND GOA. 155
occasion of a marriage between the prince of
Portugal and the infanta of Spain, he departed
from this wise custom and went to church,
where the superstitious observances which met
his eye excited within him the greatest horror.
He rashly resolved to obtain reformation or to
sacrifice his own life. AVith this view he wound
up and closed his business, and prepared to
take the attitude of a witness for the truth.
Accordingly, going to the cathedral, he snatched
the host which the people were adoring, and
trampled it in the dust. The consternation
was excessive, and Gardiner s life was in immi
nent peril. The king being present, inquired
who had instigated him to such a proceeding.
Gardiner declared that he had no accomplices,
but acted according to his conscience alone.
He was imprisoned, and an order was at the
same time issued that all his countrymen then
in Lisbon should undergo the same fate. The
tortures of the Inquisition were applied to
Gardiner a ball was alternately forced down
and drawn up his throat, and one of his hands
was amputated ; but nothing could cause him
to denounce a deed in which he gloried, and he
was condemned to die. A gibbet was accord
ingly erected, and a fire placed beneath it.
Gardiner was then hung from it over the
flames, so as to be roasted in the most lingering
manner, being sometimes lowered into the fire,
and then raised up, so as to be fully seen by
the people as he perished in his agony. But
his courage was undaunted. In reply to the
15C THE INQUISITION.
exhortations of the priests who stood around
him, that ho would renounce his heresies and
pray to the Virgin, he replied with his dying
breath, " When Christ ceases to be our Advocate
then I will pray to the virgin Mary to become
one." He began the Psalm in the Vulgate,
" Judge me, 6 God ! and defend my cause
against an ungodly nation." This was the
motto of the Inquisition. His tormentors, in
order to put a stop to his recitation, drew his
roasted body up and down more quickly, till
the rope suddenly breaking, he met his death
in the flames. As our first really Protestant
king, Edward vi., then sat upon the throne of
Kngland, all his subjects in Lisbon were, in
consequence of this event, regarded for some
time with peculiar disfavour.
If Rome has ever been celebrated for a
faithful remembrance of its promises, it has not
been where heretics have been concerned. The
Portuguese history of the holy tribunal furnishes
one among many illustrations of this significant
fact. As the Jews of that country had con
tributed a sum of no less than 250,000 to aid
Sebastian in an assault on the Moors in Africa,
pope Gregory in. promised (contrary to the
advice of Philip 11. of Spain) that during ten
years the Jews should be free from the fines
of the Inquisition. Not more than three months
had elapsed from the issuing of this edict, when
the African expedition having disastrously
fail. d, the same pope ascertained from the b.-t
legal opinions that such a promise was a
THE INQUISITION IN PORTUGAL AND GOA. 157
one to have been made, and a dangerous one
for the safety of the church to be observed.
In 1G04, a bull, issued by pope Clement vur.,
promised to relieve the condition of those who
were the victims of inquisitorial severity. But
the hope it held out was probably a mockery
and a cruelty, for the bull was apparently
succeeded by a more stringent system than
before.
In the year 1082, we read of an auto at
which eighty-two persons were sentenced to
severe punishments; three were burned alive,
and one was strangled before being burned.
The offences were mainly Judaism and witch
craft. Not long afterwards, the throne of pope
Alexander vur. at Home was besieged by a
deputation, entreating that he would show pity
on the new Christians of Portugal, who were
immured in the dungeons of the Inquisition,
where some of them had lain for fourteen years,
and none for less than seven.
When, in the year 1672, some^ wafers were
missing from the churches, suspicion was directed
towards the Moors and Jews of Lisbon, and the
torture was put into the most industrious action.
Pitying their case, some noblemen of influence
asked the king to end these barbarities, lie
referred them to the court of Home. It might
have been expected that a discovery soon
afterwards made that the offender was a
Roman Catholic, would have settled the whole
affair by opening the prison doors, But the
accused were still held in confinement because
158 THE INQUISITION 1 .
a quarrel had arisen between the court of Rome
and the Inquisition, respecting a reform in the
holy office, the king siding with the former.
Dominican justice, when animated by revenge,
does not disdain to war with the dead; for
when the monarch soon after this breathed his
last, the inquisitors led his widow and regent,
Dona Luisa, to his grave, that she might
witness the manner in which the church could
insult the remains of her departed husband.
Some peculiar barbarities appear to have at
tended the mode in which the martyrs of the
Inquisition suffered death at Lisbon. The
following is the relation of Dr. Geddes:
" The prisoners are no sooner in the hands
of the civil magistrate than they are loaded
with chains before the eyes of the Inquisition,
and being carried first to the secular jail, are,
within an hour or two, brought from thence
before the lord chief justice, who, without
knowing anything of their particular crimes, or
of the evidence that was against them, asks
them one by one in what religion they intend
to die ? If they answer that they will die in
the communion of the church of Rome, they
are condemned by him to be carried forthwith
to the place of execution, and there to be first,
iglcd, and afterwards burned to ashes. I Jut
if th -y say they will die in the Protestant, or
in any faith that is contrary to the Roman,
then sentenced by him to 1..
forthwith to the place of execution, and there
burned alive.
THE INQUISITION IN PORTUGAL AND GO A. 159
" At the place of execution, which at Lisbon
13 the Ribera, there are as many stakes set up
as there are prisoners to be burned, with a good
quantity of dry furze about them. The stakes
of the professed, as the Inquisition call them,
may be about four yards high, and have a
small board, "whereon the prisoner is to be
seated, within half a yard of the top. The
negative and relapsed being first strangled and
then burned, the professed go up a ladder
betwixt the two Jesuits who have attended
them all day, and when they are come even
with the forementioned board, they turn about
to the people, and the Jesuits spend a quarter
of an hour in exhorting the professed to be
reconciled to the church of Rome, which, if
they refuse to be, the Jesuits come down, and
the executioner ascends, and having turned the
professed off the ladder upon the seat, and
chained their bodies close to the stake, he leaves
them, and the Jesuits go up to them a second
time to renew their exhortation to them, and at
parting tell them, that they leave them to the
devil, who is standing at their elbow to receive
their souls and carry them with him into the
flames of hell-fire so soon as they are out of
their bodies. Upon this a great shout is raised,
and as soon as the Jesuits are off the ladder,
the cry is, Let the dogs beards be made!
which is done by thrusting flaming furzes,
fastened to a long pole, against their faces.
" And this inhumanity is commonly continued
until their faces arc burned to a coal, and is
ICO THE INQUISITION.
always accompanied with such loud acclama
tions of joy as are not to bo heard upon any
other occasion ; a bull feast or a farce being
dull entertainments to the using a profeasi-d
heretic thus inhumanly. The profess* d .s
beards having been thus made, or burned, as
they call it in jollity, fire is set to the furze
which are at the bottom of the stake, and abo\e
which the professed are chained so high that
the top of the flame seldom reaches them ; and
if there happens to be a wind to which that
place is much exposed, it seldom reaches
higher than their knees ; so that though, if
there be a calm, the professed are generally
dead before half an hour has elapsed since tin-
lighting of the furze, yet if the weather prove
windy, they are not after that dead in an hour
and a half or two hours, and so are really
roasted and not burned to death. But though
out of hell, there cannot possibly be a more
lamentable spectacle than this, hearing the
sufferers (so long as they were able to speak)
crying out, Misericordia par amor Je DiotJ
1 Mercy for the love of God ! yet it is beheld
by people of both sexes and all ages with such
transports of joy and satisfaction as are not on
any other occasion to be met with."
A letter, written to Dr. Gilbert liurm-t,
bishop of Salisbury, by Mr. Wilcox, afterwanU
bishop of Rochester, in 1706, corrobor;it< ^
the above account. The writer speaks of an
auto da fe which he had just witnessed at Lisbon,
where he was at that time an English chaplain,
THE INQUISITION IN PORTUGAL AND GOA. 161
at which five persons were condemned and two
burned alive. " The woman was alive in the
flames half an hour, and the man above an
hour. The king and his brothers were seated
at a window so near as to be addressed for a
considerable time, in very moving terms, by
the man as he was burning. But though the
favour he begged was only a few more faggots,
yet he was not able to obtain it."*
The case of Elizabeth Vasconelles, which was
attested before the same clergyman and the consul
of Portugal, possesses considerable interest. She
had gone to Madeira, and had been married to
a physician of that island, never conforming,
however, to the rites of the Romish church.
Her husband had gone on a voyage to Brazil,
and she, being taken ill, was visited by priests,
who administered to her the sacrament, though
without her knowledge, she being in a state of
delirium. In consequence of her afterwards
refusing to conform to the established ritual,
she was sent a prisoner to the Lisbon Inqui
sition. There she was kept in a narrow cell
during nine months, and was told, that as she
had conformed to the Romish church she must
persist in it or burn. As she refused obedi
ence, she was severely whipped with knotted
cords, and some time after was cruelly cauter
ized with red hot irons, and then sent back to
her prison without any application for her
wounds. A month after she was again severely
whipped. As they found her fortitude un-
Chandler s History of Persecution, p. 247. Note.
F
1G2 THE INQUISITION.
shaken, the inquisitors told her " that it was
the mercy of that tribunal which led them to
endeavour to rescue her from the flames of
hell; but if her resolution were to burn rather
than to profess the Romish religion, they would
give her a trial of it beforehand." Accord
ingly, " her left foot was made bare, and an
iron slipper, red hot, being immediately brought
in, her foot was fastened into it, which con
tinued on, burning her to the bone, till such
time as by extremity of pain she fainted away,
and the physician declaring her life in danger,
they took it off, and ordered her again to her
prison."
She was subsequently again whipped, and was
threatened with fresh tortures. Worn out by
suffering, she at length consented to subscribe
her name to a paper which was set before her.
She accordingly signed she knew not what ;
and after having been pillagedof all her pro
perty, amounting to about 500, and obliged
to take an oath of solemn secresy, she was
turned into the streets to beg or starve. Such
was the substance of the deposition made by
this poor woman. Her further history does not
appear to have been related.
After ono of those revolutions by which
the framework of society in Portugal has been
frequently disturbed, the oflice of the InquiM-
tion in Lisbon was destroyed. The following
: iption of the appearance which the interior
of the building presented, will be read with
interest :
THE INQUISITION IN PORTUGAL AND GOA. 163
"On the 8th of October, 1821, the palace
of the holy office was opened to the people.
The number which crowded to see it for the
first four days, rendered it extremely difficult,
and even dangerous, to attempt an entrance.
The edifice is extensive, and has the form of an
oblong square, with a garden in the centre. It is
three stories high, and has several vaulted gal
leries, along which are situated a number of
dungeons of six, seven, eight, and nine feet
square. Those on the ground floor, and on the
first story, having no windows, are deprived of
both air and light when the door is shut. The
dungeons of the next story have a kind of
breathing hole, in the form of a chimney,
through which the sky may be seen. Those
apartments were allotted to prisoners who it
was supposed might be set at liberty. In the
vaulted wall of each dungeon there is a hole of
about an inch in diameter, which communicates
with a secret corridor, running along by each
tier of dungeons. By this means the agents of
the Inquisition could at any moment observe
the conduct of the prisoners without being seen
by them ; and when two persons were confined
in the same dungeon, could hear their conversa
tion. In these corridors were seats, so placed
that a spy could observe what was passing in
two dungeons by merely turning his eyes from
right to left, in order to look into either of the
holes between which he might be stationed.
Human skulls, and other bones, have been
found in several of the dungeons. On the walls
164 THE INQUISITION.
of these frightful holes are carved the names of
some, of the unfortunate victims buried in them,
accompanied with lines, or notches, indicating
the number of days of their captivity. One
name had beside it the date * 1809. The doors
of certain dungeons, which had not been used
for some years, still remained shut, but the
people forced them open. In nearly all of them
human bones were found ; and among these
melancholy remains, in a dungeon, were frag
ments of the garments, and the girdle of a
monk. In some of these dungeons the chimney-
shaped air-hole was walled up, which is a
certain sign of the murder of the prisoner. In
such cases the unfortunate victim was com
pelled to go into the air-hole, the lower extre
mity of which was immediately closed by
masonry. Quicklime was afterwards thrown
on him, which extinguished life and destroyed
the body. In several of these dens of misery
mattresses were found, some old, others almost
new a circumstance which proves, whatever
may be said to the contrary, that the Inquisi
tion in these latter times was something more
than a scarecrow. The ground on which the
palace of the Inquisition stands was covered
with private houses before 1775, whence it is
plain that the victims who have suffered here
must all have been sacrificed within less than
sixty years. Besides the dungeons which the
people already visited, there are subterraneous
vaults which have not yet been opened. 1
Keference has been already made to th
THE INQUISITION IN PORTUGAL AND GOA. 165
establishment of an inquisitorial office at Goa,
in the East Indies. In the prosecution of their
missions on the Malabar coast, the Romish
priests, according to their custom with heathens,
had frequent recourse to compulsory baptism.
By such means, together with lavish favours
conferred on those who became converts to
papal Christianity, they speedily gathered
around them a considerable body ; and as a
protection against the heresies of the Nestorians,
as well as against the secret Jews in their
vicinity, the tribunal of the Inquisition was
established at Goa. It followed the general rule
of the holy office in other countries, dealing
sometimes with Nestorians and heretics without,
and sometimes with contumacious priests within.
Much of our information relative to the tribunal
at Goa is derived from a French physician,
named Dellon, who Avas made painfully ac
quainted with it in 1763. Residing at Damaun,
a Portuguese town in the East Indies, he had
spoken with considerable freedom respecting
religious subjects in general, and the Inquisition
in particular. lie was accordingly brought
under suspicion and imprisoned, but when in
troduced into the presence of the inquisitor,
terrified at the probable consequence of his im
prudence, he fell at his feet, offering to accuse
himself and amend his fault. lie was told,
however, that there was no haste, and that
when the inquisitor was at leisure he would
send for him. lie remained in prison from
August, 1673, to January in the next year.
ICG THE INQUISITION.
lie was confined in a cell ten feet square en
tirely alone, and denied the use of books or any
amusement. After a considerable time a second
audience was granted, when Dellon, with head,
legs, and feet naked, was conducted ngain to
the presence of the inquisitor. He detailed
many conversations which he had held, but as
he did not at the time remember that he had said
anything about the Inquisition, he confessed
nothing on that subject. He was asked in the
usual manner, whether he had anything further
to confess, and on being told " no," was solemnly
adjured not to make concealments.
On the 15th of February, his interview was
begun by a similar adjuration. A multitude
of questions were proposed to him relative to his
baptism, his friends, etc. He was then ordered
to repeat the Creed, Ave Maria, Command
ments, etc.; and again conjured, "by the
bowels of the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ,"
to make instant confession. As soon as the
prisoner retired, some words he had spoken at
Damaun relative to the holy office flashed on his
mind. He demanded an audience, but it was
a month before he obtained it.
When brought once more before the inqui
sitor, he detailed the conversation lie had
remembered, and imagined that now his trials
would be ended. He was frigidly told, liow-
, that this was not what had 1 <<!.
confession was not even taken down in
wri ing.
So great was Ddlon s despair at this juncture
THE INQUISITION IN PORTUGAL AND GOA, 167
that he endeavoured to commit suicide. He
was therefore kept in tight manacles, which so
aggravated his sufferings, that only the watch
ful caution of his keepers preserved him from
dashing out his brains on the stone floor.
Eighteen months thus passed, and Dellon
was once more brought before the inquisitorial
tribunal. He was now formally accused, partly
on his own confession, of having spoken dis
respectfully of the holy office and of the sove
reign pontiff, and was told that his property
was confiscated to the crown, and that he was
sentenced to be burned. The former charge
Dellon admitted ; the latter he utterly denied.
Three or four audiences followed, with the same
result. At this time he heard every morning
the cries of victims enduring the torture, which
caused him to fear that he should undergo a
similar process. In conclusion, Dellon was
brought out at the auto da f<6, whence he was
taken to Lisbon, where, after labouring for
some time among convicts, he was released.
At this auto, however, two persons were
destroyed by fire.
The narrative of Dr. Claudius Buchanan,
though nearly thirty years later than that of
Dellon, forms an appropriate sequel to it. As
vice-provost of the College of Fort William,
he possessed an opportunity of observing the
state of the Inquisition at Goa. Referring
to the year 1808, lie expresses his surprise
that at that period the inquisitorial tribu
nal at Goa should still exist : " That in the
1C8 THE INQUISITION.
present civilized state of Christian nations in
Europe, an Inquisition should exist at all usuli-r
their authority appeared strange; but that a
papal tribunal of this character should exi>t
under the implied toleration and countenance of
the British government ; that Christians, being
subjects of the British empire, and inhabiting
the British territories, should be amenable to
its power and jurisdiction, was a statement
which seemed to be scarcely credible, but, if
true, a fact which demanded the most public
and solemn representation. ... I had commu
nicated to colonel Adams and to the British
resident my purpose of inquiring into the state
of the Inquisition. These gentlemen informed
me that I should not be able to accomplish my
design without difficulty, since everything
relating to the Inquisition was conducted in a
very secret manner, the most respectable of the
lay Portuguese themselves being ignorant of its
proceedings; and that if the priests were to
discover my object, their excessive jealousy and
alarm would prevent their communicating with
me, or satisfying my inquiries on any subjc -t.
... He resolved, therefore, to visit Goa for
himself, where a friend of his introduced him
to Joseph a Dolorihus, the second inquisitor of
the holy office, who invited Dr. Buchanan to
take up his residence with him. . . . " ( >n thu
second morning after my arrival, I was ^
prised by my host, the inquisitor, coming into
my room, clothed in black roles from head to
foot, instead of the usual dress of his order
THE INQUISITION IN PORTUGAL AND GOA. 169
\vhitc. He said he was going to sit on the tri
bunal of the holy office. I presume, father,
your august office does not occupy much of
your time ? Yes, answered he, much. I sit
on the tribunal three or four days every
week. 1
" I had thought for some days of putting
Dellon s book into the inquisitor s hands ; for
if I could get him to assent to the facts stated
in that book I should be able to learn, by com
parison, the exact state of the Inquisition at the
present time. In the evening he came in, as
usual, to pass an hour in my apartment. After
some conversation I took the pen in my hand
to write a few notes in my journal ; and, as if
to amuse him while I was writing, I took up
Dellon s book, which was lying with some
others on the table, and handing it across to
him, asked him whether he had ever seen it.
It was in the French language, which he under
stood well. Relation de 1 Inquisition de Goa,
pronounced he, with a slow articulate voice.
He had never seen it before, and began to rend
with eagerness. He had not proceeded far
before he betrayed evident symptoms of uneasi
ness. He turned hastily to the middle of the
book, and then to the end, and then ran over
the table of contents at the beginning, as if to
ascertain the full extent of the evil. He then
composed himself to read, while I continued
to write. He turned over the pages with
rapidity, and when he came to a certain place
he exclaimed, in the broad Italian accent,
F 2
170 THE INQUISITION.
Mendachmi ! mendacium! I requested he would
mark those passages which were untrue, and
we should discuss them afterwards, for that I
had other books on the subject. Other books ?
said he ; and he looked with an inquiring eye
on those on the table. He continued reading
till it was time to retire to rest, and then
begged to take the book with him.
44 It was on this night that a circumstance
happened which caused my first alarm at Goa.
My servants slept every night at my chamber
door, in the long gallery which is common to
all the apartments, and not far distant from the
servants of the convent. About midnight I was
waked by loud shrieks and expressions of terror
from some person in the gallery. In the first
moment of surprise I concluded it must be the
alguazils of the holy office seizing my servants
to carry them to the Inquisition ; but on going
out I saw my own servants standing at the
door, and the person who had caused the alarm
(a boy of about fourteen) at a little distance,
surrounded by some of the priests, who had
come out of their cells on hearing the noise.
The boy said he had seen a spectre, and it was
a considerable time before the agitations of his
body and voice subsided. Next morning, at
breakfast, the inquisitor apologized for the dis
turbance, and said the boy s alarm proceeded
from a * animi phantasmaj a phantom of the
im, -filiation.
44 After breakfast we resumed the subject ot
the Inquisition. The inquisitor admitted that
THE INQUISITION IN PORTUGAL AND GOA. 171
Dellon s descriptions of the dungeons, of the
torture, of the mode of trial, and of the autos
da fa", were in general just ; but he sa.id the
writer judged untruly of the motives of the
inquisitors, and very uncharitably of the cha
racter of the holy church ; and 1 admitted that,
under the pressure of his peculiar suffering,
this might possibly be the case. The inquisitor
was now anxious to know to what extent
Dellon s book had been circulated in Europe.
I told him that Picart had published to the
world extracts from it in his celebrated work
called ^Religious Ceremonies, together with
plates of the system of torture and burnings at
the autos da fe. I added, that it was now
generally believed in Europe that these enormi
ties no longer existed, and that the Inquisition
itself had been totally suppressed, but that I
was concerned to find that this was not the
case. He now began a grave narration, to
show that the Inquisition had undergone a
change in some respects, and that its terrors
were mitigated.
" The chief argument of the inquisitor to
prove the melioration of the Inquisition was the
superior humanity of the inquisitors. I re
marked that I did not doubt the humanity of
the existing officers, but what availed humanity
in an inquisitor ? He must pronounce sentence
according to the laws of the tribunal, which are
notorious enough ; and a relapsed heretic must
be burned in the flames, or confined for life in
a dungeon, whether the inquisitor be humane
172 THE INQUISITION.
or not. ( But if, 1 said I, you would satisfy
my mind completely on this subject, show me
the Inquisition. Ho said it was not permitted
to any person to see the Inquisition. I ob
served that mine might be considered as a
peculiar case ; that the character of the Inqui
sition, and the expediency of its longer con
tinuance, had been called in question ; that I
had myself written on the civilization of India,
and might possibly publish something more
upon that subject ; and that it could not be
expected that I should pass over the Inquisi
tion without notice, knowing what I did of its
proceedings ; at the same time I should not
wish to state a single fact without his authority,
or at least his admission of its truth. I added,
that he himself had been pleased to communi
cate very fully with me on the subject, and
that in all our discussions we had both been
actuated, I hoped, by a good purpose. The
countenance of the inquisitor evidently altered
on receiving this intimation, nor did it ever
after wholly regain its wonted frankness and
placidity. After some hesitation, however, ho
said he would take me with him to the Inqui
sition the next day. I was a good deal sur
prised at this acquiescence of the inquisitor,
but I did not know what was in his mind.
" One morning after breakfast my host went
to dress for the holy office, and soon returned
in his inquisitorial robes. lie said he would
..ilf an hour before the usual time f>r tin-
impose of showing me the Inquisition. I
THE INQUISITION IN PORTUGAL AND GOA. 173
thought that his countenance was more severe
than usual, and that his attendants were not so
civil as before. The truth was, the midnight
scene was still on my mind. The Inquisition
i s about a quarter of a mile distant from
the convent, and we proceeded thither in our
manjeels. On our arrival at the place, the
inquisitor said to me, as we were ascending the
steps of the outer stair, that he hoped I should
be satisfied with a transient view of the Inqui
sition, and that I would retire whenever he
should desire it. I took this as a good omen,
and followed my conductor with tolerable
confidence.
" lie led me first to the great hall of the
Inquisition. We were met at the door by a
number of well-dressed persons, who I after
wards understood were the familiars and atten
dants of the holy office. They bowed very
low to the inquisitor, and looked with surprise
at me. The great hall is the place in which
the prisoners are marshalled for the procession
of the autos da fe. At the procession described
by Dellon, in which he himself walked barefoot
clothed with the painted garment, there were
upwards of one hundred and fifty prisoners.
I traversed this hall for some time with a slow
step, reflecting on its former scenes, the inqui
sitor walking by my side in silence. I thought
of the fate of the multitude of my fellow crea
tures who had passed through this place, con
demned by a tribunal of their fellow sinners,
their bodies devoted to the flames, and their
174 THE INQUISITION.
souls to perdition. And I could not help saying
to him, Would not the holy church wish in her
mercy to have those souls back again, that she
might allow them a little further probation?
The inquisitor answered nothing, but beckoned
me to go with him to a door at one end of the
hall. By this door he conducted me to some
small rooms, and thence to the spacious apart
ments of the chief inquisitor. Having surveyed
these, he brought me back again to the great
hall, and I thought he seemed now desirous
that I should depart. Now, father, said I,
4 lead me to the dungeons below ; I want to see
the captives. No, said he, that cannot be.
I now began to suspect that it had been in the
mind of the inquisitor from the beginning to
show me only a certain part of the Inquisition,
in the hope of satisfying my inquiries in a
general way. I urged him with earnestness,
but he steadily resisted, and seemed to be
offended or rather agitated by my importunity.
I intimated to him plainly that the only way to
do justice to his own assertions and arguments
regarding the present state of the Inquisition
was to show me the prisons and the captives.
I should then describe only what I saw, but
now the sulject was left in awful obscurity.
Lead me down,* said I, to the inner building,
and let mo pass through the two hundred
dungeons, ten feet square, described by your
former captives. Let me count the number of
your present captives, and converge with tin in.
I wan b to see if there be any bubjects of the
THE INQUISITION IN PORTUGAL AND GOA. 175
British government to whom we owe protection.
I want to ask how long they have been here,
how long it is since they beheld the light of the
sun, and whether they ever expect to see it
again. Show me the chamber of torture, and
declare what modes of execution or of punish
ment are now practised within the walls of the .
Inquisition, in lieu of the public autos da fe. If,
after all that has passed, father, you resist this
reasonable request, I shall be justified in be
lieving that you are afraid of exposing the real
state of the Inquisition in India. To these
observations the inquisitor made no reply, but
seemed impatient that I should withdraw.
My good father, said I, I am about to take
my leave of you, and to thank you for your
hospitable attentions, (it had been before under
stood that I should take my final leave at the
door of the Inquisition, after having seen the
interior,) and I wish always to preserve on my
mind a favourable sentiment of your kindness
and candour. You cannot, you say, show me
the captives and the dungeons, be pleased then
merely to answer this question, for I shall
believe your word. How many prisoners are
there now below in the cells of the Inquisition?
The inquisitor replied, That is a question
which I cannot answer. On his pronouncing
these words, he retired hastily towards the door,
and wished me farewell. We shook hands with
as much cordiality as we could at the moment
assume, and both of us, I believe, were sorry
1"6 THE INQUISITION.
that our parting took place with a clouded
countenance."
The Inquisition at Goa perished, wiih the
obsolete government of which it was an appen
dage, in the year 1821.
THE MODERN INQUISITION IN ITALY. 177
CHAPTER VI.
THE MODERN INQUISITION IN ITALY.
IT remains for us now briefly to notice the
progress of the modern tribunal in ITALY.
After the persecutions of the Hussites, to
which we have already made reference, the
Italian Inquisition declined. Many efforts were
made to revive its action, but without adequate
success. When, in I486, the inquisitor-general
condemned certain persons to be burned, the
secular officers refused to fulfil the summons
without first examining the process by which
they had been sentenced. Though a show of
generosity was made by the pope, Alexander vr.,
on the first expulsion of the Moors from Spain,
many of them were incarcerated till they had
qualified themselves, by confessing their heresies,
to receive admission into the church. They
then walked to St. Peter s in sambenitos, after
which they received the papal benediction.
Leo x. ordained that the publication of all
books should be prohibited till their contents
had received the approbation of the inquisitor
of heretical pravity ; and the council of Trent
subjected all works to the approbation of the
holy office. When Luther had burned the bull
178 THE INQUISITION.
of Leo x., that pope ordered tho Inquisition
to adopt the most vigorous measures against
heretics, and enjoined the magistrates, without
seeing the processes, to execute implicitly the
behests of the church. Paul m., the same pope
who summoned the council of Trent, passed a
decree, reviving the holy office in a new form,
to which he gave the name of the Congregation
of the Holy Inquisition, and from which Spain
was specifically excepted. This institution
exercised a special control over all books,
(what does Romanism fear so much as free
literature ?) and inflicted penalties of various
kinds, pecuniary and personal, for the breach
of its regulations. Many eminent Christians,
also, who had imbibed the doctrinc-s of the
Reformation, suffered for their attachment to
gospel truth. Among the rest was Aonio
Paleario, who, on the accession of Pius v. to
the pontificate, was accused, in consequence of
his tract on " The Benefit of Christ s Death,"*
of denying the doctrines of the church, and was
condemned to be hung and his body burned,
(A.D. 1570.) Another sufferer was Thomas
Reynolds, an Englishman, who, after being
racked, died in prison.
Gregory XIH. gave permission to Jews to
reside in his pontifical city, but compelled them
to hear sermons directed against their peculiar
tenets. Sixtus v. encouraged the proceedings
of the Inquisition against those who professed
magical arts ; and under his pontificate the
Published by the Religious Tract S
THE MODERN INQUISITION IN ITALY. 179
vicars were required to publish the general
edict of the Inquisition, to send monthly reports
to the inquisitor-general, to observe the most
profound secresy, answering no questions on
the affairs of the holy office, and divulging no
information, as well as refusing to answer all
letters on behalf of prisoners of the Inquisition,
without special permission from the pope.
The influence of the holy office was not more
fatal to the progress of religion in Italy than it
was to that of science. Of this the well-known
case of Galileo may be taken as a specimen.
This celebrated man was teacher of mathematics
at Florence, and had given a great impulse to
the studies of natural philosophy and geography,
but especially to that of astronomy. After his
discovery of the telescope, by means of which
he demonstrated the phases of the planet Venus,
and made known the satellites of Jupiter and
the spots on the sun, he adopted the system of
Aristarchus, afterwards repeated by Copernicus,
which taught, according to the now established
Newtonian doctrine, that the earth revolves
round the sun. This doctrine, as Galileo an
nounced it, was regarded by the Jesuits and
Dominicans as an insolent attempt to dispute
the authority of the Scriptures.* They did
* I)r Wiseman, in a recent lecture at Leeds, contends, with
others, that the offence for which Galileo was prosecuted was
not his scientific views, but his teaching them theologica ly.
The distinction is neither very clear nor important. In either
case the Romish church has opposed freedom of inquiry.
But what literature has not the Inquisition proscribed !
Locke, Flcury, Racine, are but specimens of its prouiuil
books.
180 THE INQUISITION.
not sec, or they would not, that the Bible has
been mercifully adapted to man s views und
language, and that the Divine Being, seeing he
could not have been understood at all except
by accommodating himself to man s weakness,
had graciously employed the imperfect vehicle
to which his creatures are most accustomed ;
and, therefore, that no inference to the preju
dice of revelation can be drawn from the iact
that, " speaking after the manner of men," the
Deity has employed current, rather than scien
tific modes of expression. Galileo was accused
before the Inquisition in the year 1G15, and was
brought to iJome. Cardinal Bellarmine com
manded him, on pain of imprisonment, to re
nounce the dogma he had taught, and never to
repeat it more. Galileo promised obedience, but
the promise was rashly made, and this lover of
science, impressed with the truth of his theory,
could not remain silent. Yet he thought that, by
employing caution in the promulgation of his
doctrine, he might possibly escape censure.
He therefore published a dialogue, as between
a believer in the Ptolemaic system, an adherent
of theCopernican doctrine, and a third individual
in doubt, and obtained leave of the master of
the sacred palace at Home to publish his tract.
But when this treatise was issued, the con
sternation was dreadful. Urban Mil.
made to believe that the work contained n
caricature of himself. Galileo was in terror
and fell sick, but was compelled to appear at
liome, where the holy oflice declared his books
THE MODERN INQUISITION IN ITALY. 181
heretical, and condemned him to penance.
Under the influence of this compulsion, which
proved too strong for his moral principle,
Galileo, kneeling down on the pavement of the
pope s palace, swore by the holy Gospels a
renunciation of his errors. It is said, however,
that on rising from his prostrate position he
stamped with his foot, and muttered in an
under tone, " Eppitr si muov<?(" But ^it does
move though.") His punishment was in con
sequence mitigated, and he was sent to a monas
tery instead of a dungeon during the rest of his
days.
Among the modern instances of imprison
ment by the Italian inquisition, the case of
Catherine Evans and Sarah Cheevers, two
Quakeresses, who were incarcerated in Malta
till their skin was dried up like parchment and
the hair fell from their heads in consequence of
their close and loathsome confinement ; and that
of Archibald Bower, a Scotchman, who repre
sented himself as having suffered extreme
torture, (though some details of his case were
contradicted after his arrival in England,)
deserve a passing reference. The Inquisition
was very active in dispersing the lodges of
freemasons or politicians which abounded
towards the middle of the eighteenth century.
In 1782, Ferdinand vi., king of the Two
Sicilies, finally abolished the Inquisition in his
dominions.
Our next reference must be to thn occupation
of Rome by the French in 1809. From the
382 .
THE INQUISITION.
state of the prisons at this time the disuse of
this branch of inquisitorial power was inferred,
and it was concluded that the Inquisition had
ceased to be a tribunal for the punishment of
heresy and other oflVnces in general, and was
confined simply to taking cocnizance of crimes
against ecclesiastical law. But in 1825, under
the pontificate of Leo xn., (Napoleon being
quietly inte rred at St. Helena,) the inqui
sitorial prisons rose once more, with the
significant amendment of " being now well sup
plied with light and air." The public attention
was, however, little drawn to the Koman Inqui
sition till the recent revolution in Italy re
minded the world forcibly of its existence,
though any prying eye might have seen ita
modest building quietly crouching down at the
foot of the Vatican and of St. Peter s at Kome.
When the Constituent Assembly, in 1849
determined that the holy office should be no
more, it was resolved to appropriate the erec
tion to the reception of a train of civic artillery,
in consequence of which extensive alterations
were made in the building, and some signifi
cant discoveries were made. The prisons then
contained only two occupants, a bishop and a
nun the former had been imprisoned for twenty
years in consequence of his having been or
dained bishop by falsely personating another
man. Of the offence which the nun had com
mitted nothing was known.
At the bottom of one of the vaults a discovery
was made of a great number of human bones
THE MODERN INQUISITION IN ITALY. 183
without skulls, so mingled \vith lime and cor
roded by its influence, that none of them could
be moved without crumbling into dust. In the
same cell several skulls were found not cor
roded. The two classes of bones evidently bore
relation to each other. An Italian refugee has
given this explanation. The bodies were im
mersed in lime which was slaked and reached
up to their necks. They died of suffocation and
in torment. After a time the head detached
itself from the body and rolled away. "We
must not, perhaps, assume this interpretation
as certain, but the practice is in accordance
with other ascertained practices. In another
vault was found a quantity of earth of a
peculiar character. It was analogous to that
which exists in crowded churchyards, being
composed of decayed tissue, with human
hair of considerable length, more like that of
women than of men. This disgusting mass
was found at the bottom of a deep opening
which intervened between the hall of trial
and the well-furnished apartment of the chief
inquisitor. A trap had once closed up this
orifice, and the conclusion was, that numerous
victims must have set their feet upon its
treacherous surface possibly whilst listening
to words of kind farewell from the inquisitor
then sank to be seen no more. Besides this,
there was discovered in one of the prisons a
furnace, with the remains of a woman s dress.
The very apprehension of its possible purpose
convulses one with a shudder. On some
194 TIIC INQUISITION.
remnants of the ancient cells sentences were
found written: " Too long have I been confined
here at the caprice of calumniators without ad
mission to the sacraments." Again, " Takij
away oppression, O God." Again, " inori"
surmounted by a death s head and cross 1>
In one cell was found written in English, li J.s
this the Christian faith ?" The examination
of the papers which were discovered afforded
proofs of an atrocious mass of degradation and
licentiousness, though it is believed that some
of the principal documents were burned imme
diately after the pope s flight.
An interesting question to the reader of these
pages, as lie approaches the conclusion of this
volume is
Does the office of the so-called holy Inqui
sition still exist ?
We have already glanced at the arguments
by which the continuance of such a tribunal as
that of the Inquisition is defended and just ill- -d.
The nature of this work demands that these
shall be more explicitly examined, especially as,
in some publications of recent times, they have
been put forth broadly and unblushingly.
It may be contended that heresy is a great
crime, the prolific parent of perhaps all other
crimes ; that inasmuch as faith is the spring of
all action, a perverted faith is most dangerous,
and that the interests, therefore, not of indi
viduals alone, but of the whole community, re
quire the suppression of unscriptural doctrines.
No rightly judging Protestant denies the
THE MODERN INQUISITION IN ITALV. 185
criminality of error, especially the high crimi
nality of religious error, nor that the conse
quences of such errors to the community are
in the highest degree disastrous. But as God
himself has forborne to extirpate evil from the
world by external and physical influences, and
has rather commanded his people to do so
by the influence of persuasion, of virtue, and
of goodness, it is the height of arrogance to
claim for the church of Home, or for the
Inquisition which represents it, a power which
in this probationary world the Almighty Being
does not himself ext-rcise. It is evidently the
intention of God that the tribunal to reward
or punish men s actions shall not be set up
in this state, but in another. Man has no
scalpel fine enough for spiritual dissection, no
wisdom adequate to the accuracy of the separa
tion which the severance of truth from error
demands. In rooting up the tares, he will " pull
up the wheat also." In this case the practice
of the Romish church exemplifies its own
theory and condemns it. It has eradicated
more good than evil. The testimonies given
from many quarters to the morality of the
judges themselves is most damaging. History,
science, literature, religion, furnish superabun
dant evidence of the intolerable mischief
Ilomanism has done, and of the still greater
mischief it would have done had a higher
power permitted it to carry its OV.TI doctrines
into full operation.
It is contended, again, that the Inquisition
186 THE INQUISITION.
was the great parent of peace and order ; that
"during the last three centuries there have
been through the agency of the Inquisition
more peace and more happiness in Spain than
in the other countries of Europe." If quietness
and order be the only test of moral excellence,
then absolute slavery or actual death will best
realize these conditions, and the argument
should be pushed to the adoption of one or
both. The Inquisition did give peace to Spain,
but it was by crushing its energies, enerv.v
its art, repressing its literature, annihilating its
liberty. " You make a desert," said a heathen
writer, " and call it peace."
It may be contended, again, that the punish
ments of the Inquisition, terrible as they were,
were not worse than those of other tribunals
that a woman was strangled and then burned
before the debtor s door in Newgate for coining
in 1789, and that torture was used in Scotland
to extract evidence so late as 1C80. The ab
surdity and enormity of this argument may be
perceived by the reader in an instant. What !
has a religion which borrows the name of J<
Christ, himself the pattern of mercy and lov
a religion which is to teach and instruct th--
world no better prototype than the punMiin
invented in the darkest ages, though in some
cases lingering on beyond their day ? One
might surely have expected it to protest in tin-
name of Christ against such practices, rather
than by its own authority to promote an-l
instigate such barbarities. "\Vcll did our Lord
THE MODERN INQUISITION IN ITALY. 187
say to some of his disciples, whose momentary
zeal might have prompted them to similar con
clusions" Ye know not what manner of spirit
ye are of: for the Son of man is not ^ come to
destroy men s lives, but to save them." ^
That the Inquisition is still in action has
been boldly denied, nor is it difficult for us
to imagine that it has often been denied with
perfect sincerity ; for so revolting is the recital
of the atrocities of the holy office to every
humane and reflecting mind, that we cannot
conceive of a devout Koman Catholic who does
not lean to the belief that such enormities must
have passed away from his beloved church for
ever. It may well be believed that scarcely
any Roman Catholic layman, and very few
even of the clergy themselves, are thoroughly
versed in the history and numerous enact
ments of their own church. Could we judge
of them by the standard of their present
knowledge, without raising the previous ques
tion, how it happens that that knowledge is so
inadequately small, we should be called to pity
rather than to blame. But the important
question returns upon us, If the Inquisition be
a notion, now absolutely faded and obsolete-
thrown aside amidst the black rubbish of the
dark ages a system alien to the genius of
Romanism as it is abhorrent from the sym
pathies of Protestantism, how happens it that
the edicts of later popes and councils have
not as eagerly denounced its existence as in
former days they unblushingly proclaimed it ?
188 THE INQUISITION.
How is it that the fostering wing, beneath
which this cockatrice egg has been hatched, is
boasted to be immutable and infallible ? Why,
when the thing itself is gone, shivered into
atoms, as it is said to be, by the universal
feeling of an enlightened age, do its forms and
its apparatus yet survive ? Why are Dominican
friars still the keepers of the Inquisition, and
the supreme pontiff yet its prefect ? And why
do the kindling embers of ancient persecution
still appear whenever there is a breath of
despotism to fan them into a flame, to the
consternation and grief of all lovers of an open
Bible and a free religion ?
But this is not all. Let those who contend
for the obsoleteness of the holy office, mark
only the declarations and avowals of Roman
Catholics themselves. Of these the following
may be taken as a specimen :
" / have not the least doubt that a tribunal of
this kind, modified according to time, place, and
the characters of nations, would be most useful in
every country. 1 * This is from a Roman Catholic
publication, apparently of high authority. The
sentiment might be confirmed by others of a
similar character. There is some ground, in
deed, for believing that the elements of nn
inquisitorial tribunal already exist within tin-
ish shores, lint to any careful observi r
of the signs of the times, it will appear not an
letters from a Russian Kcntleman nn tlio nanish Ii. P,I-
Bition, 1>\ count Joso^li dr Mm-tre. i tl.. Rev.
K. M. I). Uawson. Dolman, London, l
THE MODERN INQUISITION IN ITALY. 189
unwarrantable nor an ungrounded belief that
papal ascendancy would immediately bring
back, even upon this favoured land, all the
tyranny, all the secret proceedings, perhaps
all the horrors, of the terrible and accursed
Inquisition ! Our conclusion is
THAT THE INQUISITION IS IN ABEY
ANCE, BUT NOT ANNIHILATED; THAT
THE TRAIN IS LAID, BUT WAITS FOR
THE HAND BOLD ENOUGH TO APPLY
THE SPARK WHICH IS TO FIRE IT 1
And the crisis for which it pauses, may God
in his mercy grant that Protestant Christendom,
may never see 1
It remains for us in few words to conclude
this volume, by some observations on the whole
system we have attempted to describe.
We cannot detach our recollections of the
inquisitorial system from its association with
the doctrines, discipline, and temper of Popery
itself. Such an apparatus could only have
existed in connexion with elements of grievous
and even appalling error. The holy office is
necessarily identified with a religion which
keeps the mind in paralyzed subjection to
priestly domination. Its power presupposes
the interdiction of free inquiry respecting Scrip
tural truth. It proceeds throughout upon the
supposition that forms, ceremonial, and external
profession, are the all in all of Christianity,
instead of the enlightened convictions of the
inmost heart. The Inquisition can only co
exist, in energy, with absolute allegiance to one
190 THE INQUISITION.
temporal head, and with a subordination of all
authority, temporal and spiritual, to himself as
supreme. It undertakes a spiritual responsi
bility from which any other system than Ro
manism would shrink aghast, and presup;
an infallibility which that church alone has
been found to claim, and it realizes in the most
striking manner the application to Romanism
that passage of Scriptural truth : Which
opposeth and exalteth itself above all that
i, caned God or that is worshipped ; so that it
?fl 8 ; r l /M G tem P Ie of God > ^wing
itself that , it ; is God."* Can any religion which
calls itself Protestant, whatever its errors, (and
no variety is free,) be conceived of as syste
matically associated with the series of evils of
ucn the Inquisition is the type, and no
accidental one :--Insolence ; Fraud ; Rapacity ;
80 58 5 Indi S nit > ; Terror; Torture;
How fearful is it to think of the Inqui
having been to many minds the strongest
exponent of religion they have ever known !
low many have lived and died, whose hi
views of holiness goodness, power, an-!
have been derived from this dangerous ,
blood-stained source? Llorento says that
lorquemada was born to render religion
eWOJ Sad truth! that to many the only
ramification of Christianity they hare
ever known was that from which their inmost
hearts revolted !
* 2 ThcM. ii. 4.
THE MODERN INQUISITION IN ITALY. 101
And what must have been the domestic and
social system which such an organization incul
cated and encouraged ? Deriving their notions
from the partiality, rigidity, and gloomy severity
of such a demonstration, what must have been
the husbands, parents, masters, rulers, sove
reigns, who grew up beneath its influence?
The case would be fearful if the Inquisition
merely represented the state of society in its
day. It is doubly fearful when it was the
means of informing and creating it.
Shall we regard the inquisitorial tribunal as
a means of conversion to God ? The word con
version is familiar even in such a connexion.
But it means another thing from the melting
and winning of the soul by the agencies of
God s Spirit. Taking the word conversion in
that sense, we cannot, without horror, entertain
the thought of such a mockery as the con
nexion involves !
But let us not bo unthankful. The value of
the metal is seen by exposing it to the fire.
God has, for wise reasons, determined that
religion shall not be too easy. We shrink
from the crucible, but we admire the gold.
Rome and its Inquisition have been always
engaged on bringing out the true church, by
contraries ! In the Divine hand the spiritual
enemy has been the real friend. The imple
ment which has disfigured the foliage has
increased the fruit. The strongest arguments
against papal superstition are those of its own
successes. Error dies in living ; truth lives in
dying ! The mistakes of Romanism if they
192 THE INQUISITION.
be mistakes might cause its most bigoted fol
lower to suspect his creed ; its deliberate inten
tions if they be deliberate might cause the
most resolute to deny it.
Above all, let us not, as Protestants, over
estimate our real strength. Ancestry, num
bers, position, "worldly influence, "will not save
us. We are more in danger from insidious
than from persecuting Popery. The quiet tide
which snps the shore gains more than the
thundering waves which threaten to engulf it.
Protestant security is in the prevalence of gospel
truth. A crucified Saviour apprehended by
faith ; a sanctifying Spirit sought by prayer ;
a naturally corrupt heart brought into contact
with the eternal and invisible ; the amend
ment of the moral and not the merely senti
mental nature ; the transfusion, through our
whole life, of God s sacred and written word
these are our bulwarks, and, like many of the
strongest fortresses, are invincible, though un
obtrusive. Let us beware of the religion which
is mere external homage. And if we would be
true to ourselves and our creed, let us set up
a holy Inquisition within with Christ as our
Head with his word as our law with con
science for our great investigator with reso
lute mortification of sin as our appropriate dis
cipline ; but having all this system pervaded
by a love for God, not by a mere terror of his
frown.
LOVDOjr : BiacxBUKK A*D BVBT, I-UIXTIRS, ROLBOBX BIIL.
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