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THE 

INQUISITION UNMASKED 

BEING 
AN HISTORICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL 

ACCOUNT 

OF THAT 

€remcttbouj6J €nljuita(, 

FOUNDED ON AUTHENTIC DOCUMENTS; 

kSD EXHIBITING 

THE NECESSITY- OF ITS SUPPRESSION, 

^5 A UEAS'fi OF REFORX AND REGESEIlATrnX. 



WRITTEN AND PUBLISHED AT A TIME WHEN THE NATIONAL 

CONGRESS OF SPAIN WAS ABOUT TO DELIBERATE ON 

THIS IMPORTANT MEASURE, 

BY 

D. ANTONIO PUIGBLANCH. 



TRANSLATED FROM THE AUTHOR S ENLARGED COPY, 
BY 

WILLIAM WALTON, Esq. 



VOL. II. 



LONDON: 

PRINTED FOR BALDWIN, CRADOCK, AND JOY, 
PATERNOSTER-ROW ; 
AND J. BOOTH, DUKE-STREET, PORTLAND-PLACE. 

1816. 



C. Baldwin, Printer, 
New Brid^stTMt, London. 






CONTENTS. 



VOL. II. 



CHAPTER V. 

The Inquisition has not only obstructed the Pro- 
gress of Science in the Countries where it has 
been established, but has also propagated perni- 
cious Errors 1 

CHAPTER VI. 

This Tribunal has supported the Despotism of Kings, 
and has itself exercised it 123 

CHAPTER VII. 

As the Inquisition owes its Origin to the Decline of 
Church Discipline and Remissness of the Clergy, 
it opposes Obstacles to their Reform, which is ab- 
Bolutely necessary if the Nation is to prosper. . . . 390 

Index i65 



INQUISITION UNMASKED. 



CHAPTER V. 

The Inquisition has not only obstructed the 
Progress of Science in the Countries where 
it has been established, but has also propa- 
gated pernicious Errors. 

^ O two things in nature are more opposed 
to each other than light and darkness ; nor 
is it possible, even by means of the imagina- 
tion, to bring them together without one 
destroying the other. Since then the tri- 
bunal here alluded to is intricate in the 
principles constituting its governing system, 
and dark in its proceedings, can it be ima- 
gined that it has failed to take umbrage at, 
or ceased rancorously to persecute, every 
ray of light capable of endangering its sta- 
bility ? Every thing else might be expected 
from it rather than neglect in this particular. 

VOL. II. B 



2 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. V. 

Knowledge and generally all kinds of science 
have been the marks at which it has pecu- 
liarly aimed its fury and revenge. Science 
and the Inquisition in no country ever en- 
joyed, at least long, a peaceful dwelling 
together ; the former soon declines and dege- 
nerates like an exotic wherever the latter 
is indigenous and successfully thrives. The 
earth itself over which its malignant shade 
spreads and darkens loses its fecundity, in 
consequence of the tainted effluvia issuing 
from its trunk and boughs, as well as the 
poisoned juices which circulate around its 
roots. That such has been its aspect and 
influence in our own country, as well as in 
every other where it has been admitted, is 
fully proved by the examples of a variety of 
learned men it has persecuted, either by 
sacrificing their persons to its fury, or by pro- 
hibiting or expunging their works ; and this 
lamentable truth is still more stronglv evinced 
by the extravagant and monstrous opinions 
it has infused into the people, or which have 
.spread under its dominion. Philosophy, theo- 
logy, and politics, being the branches of 
science which principally contribute to the 
felicity of the state, are those against which 
the Inquisition has launched its thunderbolts 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 5 

with unerring aim ; in what manner this has 
been effected will therefore be the next point 
we shall proceed to consider. 

With regard to philosophy, we shall quote 
the example of Galileo. This wise native 
of Florence, whose talents after his death 
procured him eternal glory, during his life- 
time was tenaciously persecuted by the 
Inquisition. Natural philosophy, geography, 
and mechanics, but more particularly astro- 
nomy, were indebted to this celebrated man 
for the greatest improvements. After enrich- 
ing the latter, and showing the powers of 
the telescope by the discovery of the increase 
and wane of the planet Venus, of the spots 
on the sun and moon, of four of the satellites 
of Jupiter as well as of many fixed stars, he 
promoted the solar system which had been 
taught by Aristarchus in ancient times, after- 
wards revived by Copernicus, and latterly 
consolidated by Newton ; by which it was 
established that the earth, revolving on its 
own axis, moves round the sun, whilst the 
latter remains immoveable in the same central 
place. The Jesuits and Dominicans, desirous 
of being considered as the sole depositaries 
of knowledge, beheld with indignation a 
doctrine which, if it prevailed, would cer* 

B2 



4 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. V. 

tainly bring disrepute on their schools, in 
consequence of which they hastened to dis- 
credit it as opposed to the Scriptures. 
Nothing was to be feared from this emu- 
lation as long as it was restrained within the 
limits of a literary controversy ; but the 
enemies of Galileo were also the enemies 
of reason, so that instead of argument they 
recurred to force, and accused him before 
the Inquisition of Rome. 

This distinguished astronomer, in the year 
1615, being called up to the capital in order 
to abjure his opinions as repugnant to the faith, 
from a motive of necessity complied with the 
wishes of the pope and inquisitors ; but a few 
years afterwards he published a treatise, en- 
titled " Dialogo delle due Massime Systeme 
del Mondo Tolemaico e Copernico," in which 
he inculcates the very same ideas. He was 
again commanded to appear before the 
Inquisition, and it was only after a new 
retractation, and his compliance with various 
forms of penance, that he obtained pardon 
for having taught and persisted in a truth.* 
Before proceeding to such a step as this, the 
tribunal, acting with more caution, ought to 
have considered the mistake incurred by 
* Diction. Historiq. art. Galilei. 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 5 

Lactantius, and even still more strongly by 
St. Augustin and Procopius, with regard to 
the antipodes, — when they denied their 
existence on the authority of a passage in 
Genesis and the Psalms ; a proceeding so 
much the more reprehensible in the judges 
of Galileo, because the above writers simply 
manifested their own way of thinking, at 
that time extremely general, whereas the 
latter -sustained theirs by the violent means 
with which their authority furnished them. 

Abbe Bergier, editor of the theological 
part of the French Encyclopedia, although 
not very friendly to the Inquisition, seeks to 
ward off the blow levelled at the Roman 
Church by this inconsistent conduct on the 
part of the tribunal ; bat his endeavours to 
palliate it by means of interpretations are 
far from being successful. He asserts that 
Galileo was condemned, not as a good 
philosopher but as a bad theologian, in 
consequence of his having done all in his 
power to induce the congregation of the 
Holy Office and the pope to declare the 
Copernican system as conformable to the 
text of the Bible.* This is a subterfuge net 
only destitute of truth, but likewise of all 
* Diction. Encyclop. art. Sciences Humaines, 



6 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. V. 

appearance of probability ; for who ever saw 
a mathematician seek the proofs of his theo- 
ries in the Scriptures, and in the recom- 
mendation of an ecclesiastical court? If 
Galileo in his answers to the Inquisition 
spoke of the Bible, it was in reply to the 
objections deduced against him from its 
authority j but to argue that an obstinate 
wish to have his opinions approved gave rise 
to his arrest is evidently a folly. That the 
sense in which he was condemned was no 
other than the one before stated may also 
be collected from the circumstance of all 
the Italian and Spanish authors who after- 
wards wrote on natural philosophy not 
adopting such a system, from their believing 
it proscribed by the said tribunal. In proof 
of this I might bring forward the testimony 
of Roselli and Amat ; who, in fixing the last 
prop to the tottering edifice of the Peripatetic 
school, though without any other result than 
being themselves buried in its ruins, gave a 
considerable degree of importance to this 
argument. But why add any more words 
on the subject, when the decree of the 
congregation of the Inquisition promulgated 
on the 5th of March, 1616, in consequence 
of the condemnation of Galileo, perfectly 
1 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 7 

clears up the point? By this decree it is 
commanded to suspend, till the offensive parts 
had been expunged, the work of Copernicus 
in which the above system is established, as 
well as Zuniga's Commentaries on Job, in 
which this distinguished professor of Osuna, 
by means of the motion of the earth, at that 
time explained the 5th verse of the 9th 
chapter of Job, because the above doctrine 
in the opinion of the tribunal was false and 
absolutely contrary to the Sacred Scriptures. 
After this let Bergier tell us whether Coper- 
nicus, and Zuniga also, importuned the in- 
quisitors and the pope to approve their 
system of philosophy.* 

With regard to theology, I shall quote the 
case of Bartholomew Carranza, one of the 

* The decree, extracted from the Index of Prohibited 
Books for the year 1664, and published in Rome by order 
of Alexander VII., is as follows : " Et quia ad notitiam prce- 
fatcB Sacrce Co7igregntionis pervenit falsam illam doctrinarn 
Pytkagoricayiiy Divinceque Scripturce omnino adversantem 
de mobilitate terra: et immobilitate solis quam Nicolaus 
Copernicus De Revolutionibiis Orbium Ccelestiiim, et Didacus 
a atunica in Job etiam decent, quam maxime divulgari et a 
midtis recipi. Ideo, ne idterius hujusmodi opinio in perni- 
ciem Catholicce veritatis serpat, censidt dictos Nicolaum 
Copernicum De Revolutionibiis Orbium, et Didacum a Stu- 
nica in Job, suspendendos esse donee corrigantur." 



8 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. V. 

most illustrious professors sacrificed by the 
Inquisition. Having performed a brilliant 
career among the Dominicans, whose order 
he had embraced, he was sent by Philip If. 
to England and the Low Countries for the 
purpose of labouring in the extirpation of 
the new tenets of Luther and Calvin ; which 
commission he most assuredly fulfilled in a 
more efficacious manner than prudence and 
religion allowed, since he rendered himself 
odious by his rigour. But the ideas of that 
age were no other, excessive zeal being gene- 
rally mistaken for true piety ; whence, as a 
recompence for his great services, the king 
afterwards promoted him to the archbishopric 
of Toledo. The enemies whom his singular 
merits had excited in the cloister, and who 
never lost sight of him, at length resolved 
to give him a mortal blow, in consequence 
of a catechism he published, which they sup- 
posed contained propositions in some measure 
opposed to the articles of faith ; and, in con- 
formity thereto, they lodged a secret informa- 
tion against him before the Inquisition. 

Carranza was arrested in the year 1569, 
in a place called Torrelaguna, where he was 
visiting his diocess, and conducted to Valla- 
dolid. Not being subject to the authority 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 9 

of that tribunal in the quality of bishop, he 
demanded to be tried by the pope himself; 
but the king and the inquisitors insisted on 
a compliance with the royal prerogative, 
which specified that all causes were to be 
instituted and ended within the kingdom. 
In order to put an end to this dispute, the 
pope created a special court composed of 
Cardinal Boncompagno, and the bishop of 
Rosano, the first legate and the other nuncio 
in Spain, together with the auditor of Rota. 
The inquisitors considering that it would be 
a dishonour if they did not proceed in an 
affair of which they had already begun to 
take cognizance ; and, above all, fearful of 
their own discredit, in case what had been 
done towards Carranza should be deemed 
irregular, left no stone unturned till they 
were allowed jointly to sit as judges, or 
delayed the cause in such manner as to ren- 
der it interminable. Whilst these contests 
lasted Pius IV. died, and the legate, without 
having made any progress in the affair, 
returned to Rome, in order to assist at 
the conclave in which Pius V. was elected. 

The new pontiff, informed by the Cardinal 
how strongly the Spanish Inquisition opposed 
the special court acting with full liberty, as 



10 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. V. 

well as of the inconveniences which would 
result if its pretensions were admitted, not- 
withstanding all the remonstrances of Philip 
II. ordained that the culprit should be trans- 
ferred to Rome. On the arrival of the 
unfortunate prelate there, he was placed in 
the castle of St. Angelo, and the pope named 
new commissioners. The obstacles however 
which intervened, through the intrigues of 
our inquisitors, were such that the cause was 
not terminated till the year 1586, under the 
pontificate of Gregory XIII. ; and, although 
it is true that the tribunal of Rome absolved 
Carranza, nevertheless, not to irritate the 
Inquisition of Spain and the king who, from 
motives which were never discovered, had 
changed his former affection for the prelate 
into open hatred, it obliged him to abjure 
as being suspected of heresy, and suspended 
him from the government of his church for 
five years; during which time he was to 
remain in the convent of La Minerva. The 
archbishop survived this sentence but few 
days, dying at the age of seventy- two, 
after he had endured an imprisonment of 
sixteen years. 

It is worthy of remark, that the cate- 
chism above referred to was examined and 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. Jl 

approved, not only by several prelates and 
individual theologians in Spain, but also by 
the committee of the Council of Trent en- 
trusted with the formation of the index of 
prohibited books ; but as the Inquisition was 
tenaciously resolved to destroy the reputa- 
tion of the author, it appealed; soliciting that 
the act of approbation might be reformed. 
The Fathers of the Council stedfastly refused 
compliance with this solicitation, for which 
reason the bishop of Lerida, patron of the 
Inquisition, declaimed against them with 
such warmth that he actually reproached 
them with partiality. The archbishop of 
Prague, president of the committee, offended 
at such lengths, and desirous of vindicating 
* his own honour and that of his colleagues, 
complained bitterly to the Spanish envoys, 
protesting that he would withdraw from the 
council unless competent satisfaction were 
given him. These quarrels were at length 
settled, on condition that no regular testi- 
mony of approbation respecting the cate- 
chism should be given to Carranza, and that 
the bishop of Lerida should verbally ask 
pardon of the bishop of Prague, as well as 
of the rest whom he had offended. To the 
favourable censure this work received from 



12 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. V, 

the Council of Trent, I ought to add, in 
order that the iniquity of the Inquisition 
may be better known, that Carranza had 
previously offered not only to abide by the 
judgment of the Church on the subject of 
his composition, but also to refer it to the 
censure of any intelligent person capable of 
amending the errors into which he might 
involuntarily have fallen. What greater se- 
curity could be given for the sentiments 
contained in a Catholic book, or what more 
could be exacted of any writer ? * 

* Sarpi, Istoria del Concilio Tridentino, liv. viii. chap. 
xxxii. — Palavicini, Histor. Concil. Trident, lib. xiv. cap. x. 
n. 4. et lib. xxi. cap. vii. n. 7. — Cabrera de Cordoba, Vida 
de D. Felipe II. book vii. chap. xii. — Moreri, Diccion. 
Histor. art. Carranza. — This Catechism, which proved so 
fatal to its author, and whose perusal was prohibited by 
the Inquisition notwithstanding it excited no other than 
sentiments of edification and respect towards the worthy 
prelate, is a volume in folio, printed at Antwerp by Martin 
Nucio, and dedicated to Philip II. in the year 1558. 
Its title is, " Comentarios del Rmo. Senor Fr. Bartolom6 
Carranza de Miranda, Arzobispo de Toledo, &c. sobre el 
Catechismo Christiano. The object of the work, and the 
protest by which he subjected it to the judgment of the 
Church, are contained in the preface under the following 
words : " My intention is to arrange the text of the Cate- 
chism which the Church from its foundation ordained 
through the Holy Ghost, and promulgated by means of the 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 13 

Under the head of politics, one of the most 
remarkable victims of the Inquisition was 
Don Melchor de Macanaz. This venerable 
statesman, celebrated for his learning, and at 
one time proctor-general of the kingdom, as 
well as minister plenipotentiary of Philip V. 
for the arrangements of peace in the congress 
of Breda and Soissons, possessed the science 
of the canons with all the perfection that 
was possible at the beginning of the last cen- 
tury, that is, at a time when church disci- 
pline resembled a thick and confused forest, 
which some protestant and catholic writers 

apostles, and to prepare it in such manner as to enable the 
people to understand all that is necessary for their pro- 
fession, guiding myself at the same time by the authority of 
Holy Writ and the ancient fathers, conformably to the pre- 
cepts they taught to those who assumed the profession of 
Christians, so as to extract the weeds which the heretics 
of the present day have sown, by pointing out in their 
proper places the dangerous ones, and recommending 
those which are good. By every means in my power I 
have endeavoured herein to revive the ancient discipline 
of our forefathers and the primitive Church, because that 
was the soundest as well as the most pure. My intention has 
been good, and what is wanting in the work will be cor- 
rected by the Church, to whose judgment and censure I 
submit all, as well as to every christian reader to whom 
God may have given more understanding than I myself 
have possessed." 



int 



14 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. V. 

have since thinned and arranged into order. 
Uniting to this branch of knowledge a vast 
scope of reading, he was well adapted to 
oppose the ambitious pretensions of the 
Koman see, and to point out, in several 
questions which at that time arose between 
the courts of Rome and Spain, the just limits 
between the priesthood and the empire. He 
likewise wrote a memoir, suggesting the 
various reforms he judged indispensably ne- 
cessary in the ecclesiastical state, as well 
regular as secular. It was not easy for Ma- 
canaz to speak on matters of this nature with 
any degree of freedom, without bringing on 
himself the the anger of a tribunal, always 
disposed to favour the views of the powerful, 
more especially those in which the clerical 
order was directly concerned. However Maca- 
iiaz was most implicated through a report he 
drew up by order of the king, at the time it 
was in agitation to suspend the remittances 
of money with which Spain then supplied 
Rome, under an apprehension that the Pope 
might avail himself of these resources, in 
order to strengthen the German party, with 
whom he acted in concert in the war of 
Succession. 

This report was presented to and read 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. IS 

before the council, but the partisans of the 
Roman see prevented all deliberations re- 
specting its contents, under pretext of 
requiring time to examine it, and in the 
interval they handed it over to Cardinal 
Judice, then Inquisitor General. This pre- 
late who, from being an Italian, could not 
brook the idea of any infringements on the 
excess of power which under the plea of 
respect due to the Holy see, his nation en- 
joyed in Spain ; and who, on the other hand, 
was piqued with Macanaz for having pre- 
vented him, as a foreigner and in conformity 
to the laws of the kingdom from obtaining 
the mitre of Toledo, sent the report to Rome, 
at the same time issuing an edict in which he 
prohibited it under the most rigorous penal- 
ties. The king, although at first he granted his 
protection to his proctor, and appeared highly 
offended that the Inquisitor General and his 
own council should make so open an attack 
on his royal privileges, at length borne away 
by a false piety unfortunately too common in 
our monarchs, gave way to the opinions of the 
pope's party, and turned his back on him 
who had risked every thing to sustain the 
rights of the nation and the throne, as well 
as to comply with his duty. In consequence 



16 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. V. 

of this, Macanaz, judging it impossible to 
dissipate the storm by which he was threat- 
ened, sought safety in France, on whose 
frontiers he wandered about during the space 
often years. 

In the mean time, Phih'p V. deprived him 
of his dignities and offices, declaring him 
banished from the court, by virtue of a decree 
which, extracted and inserted in a royal order 
addressed to the council of the supreme, un- 
der date of 28th March, 1715, is as follows : 
" Sinistrously influenced and advised in my 
council respecting the matter of the edict 
and proscription of the proctor-general's 
report, I entered into the resolutions laid 
before the council of the Inquisition ; but 
being now more solidly informed, I am con- 
vinced of the irregularity thereof, for it never 
was nor will be my royal intention to put my 
hand into the sanctuary, nor to hold any 
other rights than those which belong to me 
conformably to religion, respecting which 
rights I have and will consult with my coun- 
cil. Under these circumstances I judged it 
proper to remove from my royal person, my 
court, and their offices, the ministers who thus 
sinistrously and fraudulently advised me, and 
in consequenc* thereof, and the mistake 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 17 

which has thence arisen, have resolved to 
abrogate, suppress, and annul all the decrees 
issued, as well as the resolutions formed on 
the subject of this important affair, at the 
same time commanding that Cardinal Judice, 
without any justificative answer or excuse, 
be allowed to return to the exercise of his 
office of Inquisitor General," &c.* 

On duly considering this sudden change in 
Philip V. and the manner in which he repaid 
the services of his faithful minister, I know 
not which is most deserving of compassion ; 
whether the monarch, made the tool of 
intrigue and acting contrary to his own 
interests, or Macanaz, rendered the victim of 
the weakness and inadvertency of the king. 

The Inquisition immediately seized his pro- 
perty, without observing any of the formalities 
usual in cases of sequestration, and excommu- 
nicated him in a solemn manner, affixing his 
name to the doors of the parish churches in 
Madrid. It also laid hold on the property as 
well as the person of his brother, preventing 
him from filling his seat as member of the 

* This decree was inserted in a representation to 

Charles III. on the subject of a royal order dated June 16, 

1768, respecting the prohibition of books, and presented 

by the Inquisitor General Don Manuel Quintano Bonifaz. 

VOL, II. C 



IS INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. V« 

Council of the Supreme, lately conferred 
upon him, and condemned him to a banish- 
ment of eight years ; nor did any reason for 
all this exist except relationship, since a letter 
written by him to his brother Don Melchor, 
in which he merely said, " Do not you laugh 
at the Inquisition ?" the only charge alleged 
against him, was not found among the papers 
of the latter till long after the former had 
been imprisoned. The tribunal moreover 
punished its own counsellors for having said 
they did not discover any crime in Macanaz 
sufficient to render him an object of persecu- 
tion. AVhilst wandering about as an exile he 
addressed several energetic remonstrances to 
the king, manifesting his innocence and the 
wicked machinations of his rivals, but they 
were unnoticed by the ministers ; and if any 
copies reached the public eye, the Inquisitors 
ordered them to be called in. The tribunal 
likewise took possession of the greatest part of 
his writings, which were numerous and on 
various subjects. Eventually Macanaz, on 
being recalled to Spain under an ostensible 
pardon, was arrested in Pamplona and es- 
corted to Segovia, where he remained in 
prison till the reign of Charles III., who 
granted him permission to end his days in 






CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 19 

Hellin, a town of the kingdom of Murcia, in 
which he was born.* 

One of the works of Macanaz is entitled 
" Defensa critica de la Inquisicion contra los 
principales enemigos que la han perseguido 
y persiguen injustamente," (Critical Defence 
of the Inquisition against the principal ene- 
mies who have and still unjustly persecute it,) 
concluded by him in the year 1736, after his 
own persecution, and published in 1788^ 
On reading this miserable production, and 
such a character it pre-eminently deserves, I 
was induced to believe it surreptitious, and 
certainly should have pronounced it such, 
if I had not noticed the language and style ; 
and likewise that the author therein mentions 
another apologetic work he was writing, 
under the title of" Historia Dogmatica de la 
Inquisicion," to which he also refers in the 
manuscript quoted in the preceding chapter. 
Notwithstanding nearly the whole of the 
work is directed to justify, by means of 
frivolous arguments, persecutions against he- 
retics ; as it is no more than an interpolation 
of the French treatise respecting the edicts 
for the maintenance of the Catholic Church 

* Memoria Apologetica tie Don Melchor de Macanaz, 
an inedited work. Semanario Erudite, torn. vii. — Essais 
sur I'EspagnG, torn, ii. 

C 2 



20 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. V. 

written by Father Luis Tomasin, and of the 
anonymous Latin apology of Philip II., it 
presents no information regarding the judicial 
forms of the tribunal that is not superficial 
and mistaken. In the little he speaks con- 
cerning the Inquisition he says that it was 
not usual to confiscate the property of cul- 
prits unless they had relapsed ; that they 
were not delivered over to the secular magis- 
trate till they had thrice fallen into heresy ; 
that then alone was the torture inflicted upon 
them, and this after condemnation ; adding, 
that it is a calumny to attribute to the tribunal 
the stratagem of sifting out the truth of their 
crimes by means of another person converted 
and still feigning that he is a heretic. He also 
affirms that, with the exception of very few 
cases intended to stop the progress of 
Lutheranism in the reign of Philip II., 
scarcely three persons had been sentenced ; 
when, if he had not before him the testimony 
of history, as minister of the king, he must 
frequently have seen in the palace the paint- 
ing of the auto of Charles 11., if he was not 
present at it, which might have been the case 
according to the time he was born.* The 
obvious way of accounting for this strange 

* Vide part i. cap. iii, n, 13 and H, cap. v. n. 7; and 
part ii. cap. iv. and v. 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 21 

production is that, depressed by his past suf- 
ferings, he sought to flatter the Inquisition 
and shield himself from its anger ; it is, how- 
ever, strange that he should have so far 
forgotten his own decorum and literary fame 
as to deny the existence of laws which might 
be perused in any library, as well as facts 
both recent and notorious. Macanaz in my 
opinion laboured under the infirmity common 
to our ancestors who never found, nor even 
sought, vices in the Inquisition, and v\ho 
were not disposed to acknowledge them when 
they stumbled upon them. Let this be as it 
may, the Critical Defence of the Inquisition 
rather serves to attack than to defend it, 
since we evidently see how desperate its 
cause is when a man of such learning sup- 
ported it so ill. 

Among the scientific acquirements the In- 
quisition has hated, and whose professors it 
has bitterly persecuted, polite literature 
and ancient languages hold a distinguished 
place. The horrid and barbarous Latin in 
which the books used by the qualificators of 
this tribunal, as well as the inquisitors in 
their studies, are generally written, excited 
in them a hatred against every author who 
disdained to imitate them ; which they sought 
5 



::3P^«ii 



22 IxVQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. V. 

to justify on the grounds, that heretics were in 
the habits of treating ecclesiastical matters in 
good language and style. The explanation of 
the Scriptures according to their original texts 
was not more pleasing to men who had been 
able to style themselves doctors of the law, 
without having taken the trouble to ascend 
to the source, where every work is more in- 
telligible as well as exempt from those defects 
necessarily experienced in a transition from 
one language to another. To this was added 
Hhe circumstance of the Protestants applying 
themselves to this peculiar species of study ; 
so that, in the eyes of the inquisitors, he who 
took an original bible into his hands was 
held in the hght of a Lutheran, or perhaps of 
a Jew. A most excellent method indeed of 
dissipating the ignorance of the people, and 
banishing apathy from among them ! 

Principally for this reason Father Luis de 
Leon, professor of Scripture in the university 
of Salamanca, and a man well versed in 
Oriental languages as well as an elegant poet, 
was implicated in the horrors of this tribunal. 
The version he made of the Canticles from 
the Hebrew text for private use, at a time 
(who would believe it !) that the Bible was 
prohibited in the vulgar tongue, was a crime 
6 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 23 

he was unable to expiate with less than five 
years imprisonment.* It appears he was in 
close confinement when he composed the fol- 
lowing Decima in complaint of the injustice 
he endured : 

" Aqul la envidia y mentira 
Me tuvieron encerrado. 
Dichoso el humilde estado 
Del sabio que se retira 
De aqueste mundo malvado, 
y con pobre mesa y casa 
En el campo delegtoso 
Con solo Dios se compasa, 
Y a solas su vida pasa, 
Ni envidiado, ni envidioso ! " 

Poestas del Maestro Fray Luis de Leon, lib, i. 

Envy and Falsehood kept me here confin'd. 
Happy the wise man in his humble mind, 
Who from an evil stormy world withdraws, 
And cheers his bosom with his God's applause ; 
Unenvying and unenvy'd leads his life. 
In pleasant fields, and scenes remote from strife. 

Report says that the first time Father Luis 
de Leon, after being set at liberty, resumed 
his professor's chair, many students of other 
classes collected round, hoping he would say 
something on the subject of his hardships 
* Vide his Life, at the beginning of his works. 



24 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. V. 

and sufferings ; but as if he had not been 
absent from the university a single day, 
and as if the scholars then assembled 
were the same he had left, he commenced 
his explanation with his usual introduction, 
" Hesterna die dicebam,'* (As I yesterday 
related,) &c. These words, in my opinion, 
contain a great share both of criticism and 
sublimity. 

This tribunal likewise arrested Martin 
Martinez Cantalapiedra, also professor in 
Salamanca of the Hebrew and Chaldean lan- 
guages, on account of his estimable work 
called Hypotyposeon Theologicarum.* A 
similar fate likewise befel Francisco Sanchez 
de las Brosas professor of Rhetoric and Greek 
in the said university, and the first who 
treated grammar in a philosophical manner. 
By this fatal event several works he had not 
yet published were lost, among which was a 
translation of the poetic works of Homer, of 
which he himself speaks in his commentaries 
on Alciatus ; and respecting which mention is 
made in the proceedings instituted against 
him, as appears from the original papers 

* Don Gregorio Mayans, in the Life of Sanchez de las 
Brozas, found at the beginning of the edition he published 
of his works, n. 11. 



^- 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 25 

obtained from the Inquisition of the above 
city, through the events of the late revo- 
lution. Cardinal Espinosa, at that time 
Inquisitor General, sensible of the merits of 
this great man, was desirous of saving him 
from so terrible a disaster, but was afraid 
to do it; such was the fury with which 
his enemies sought and at length obtained 
his ruin.* 

In Alcala several persons learned in Orien- 
tal languages were also molested by this 
tribunal. Alfonso de Zamora, first professor 
of Hebrew in that university, and one of 
those who laboured most in the edition of 
the Complutensian Bible, on the death of his 
patron Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros was 
deprived of the fruit of all his labours, 
through the designs of two wicked men 
shielded by the authority of an inquisitor.t 

* Mayans, ibid. n. 216 and 246. 

t No mention is made in history of the persecution of this 
learned man. The information on this subject I am here 
enabled to give, although small, is taken from a note in the 
Hebrew language, placed, in his own hand-writing, at the end 
of the first volume of a printed copy of the Rabinical Com- 
mentaries of Abarbanel on the Prophets, preserved in the 
library of the university of Alcala, and which he adorned 
with vowel points by order of the rector of the same, in 
order that it might serve as an exercise in the translations 



26 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. V. 

Benito Arias Montano, the celebrated editor 
of the royal Polyglot, was also denounced to 
the Inquisition, and near falling into its 
clutches. Leon de Castro, professor of Hebrew 
in Salamanca, and a man naturally envious, 
unable to brook the idea that Philip II., 
without calling upon him, should have em- 
ployed a simple doctor of Alcala in so 
honourable a commission, pointed out defects 
in the Polyglot, tending sometimes to lower 
the merits of the learned editor, and at 
others to place the principles of his religion 
in a dubious light. As large sums had been 
expended in this edition of the Bible, and its 
beauty and magnificence had rendered it 
famous throughout all Europe, and as on the 
other hand it bore the name of the king, the 
latter was interested in upholding the editor, 
since any measures instituted against him 
must eventually redound to the discredit of 
the royal person. For this reason he ordered 
the work to be submitted to the censure of 
Father Mariana, in consequence of whose 
favourable report. Arias Montano escaped 

which occur among the competitors for the professorship of 
Hebrew. It appears that Zamora having found no justice 
in his cotemporaries, consoled himself by exciting the 
gompassion of those who succeeded him in his charge. 



CHAF. v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 27 

being arrested by the Inquisition ; which, 
under other circumstances, most assuredly 
would have taken place, as some of the 
charges preferred against him were of a suffi- 
ciently difficult nature.* 

Among these charges, the following ap- 
peared to carry great weight. In the 
instructions made out in writing by Philip II. 
the king had ordered that the editor was to 
follow the Hebrew text of the Complutensian 
Bible, in which the 17th verse of Psalm xxi. 
is thus worded : I^J^J &c. Foderunt manus 
meas, et pedes meos. — To this. Arias Montano 
preferred the other text used by the Jews, 
viz. ni^O Sicut leo manus meas, et pedes 
meos ; thus destroying one of the most clear 
prophecies of the passion of Jesus Christ, for 
such it has been considered by the Holy 
Fathers, as well as the other Christian exposi- 
tors. I am ignorant what solution he gave 
to this objection ; but it seems to me that he 
might have cleared up the point by observing 
that the order of the kijig was made out, not 
so much to abide by the letter as the spirit of 
the work ; and could mean no other than that 
all was to be done in the best manner, and, 
if possible, to produce a Polyglot edition 

^ Rodriguez de Castro, Biblioteca Rabinica Espanola, 



28 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. V. 

more exact than the Complutensian one : for 
which reason, the codices on which the 
latter was drawn up were placed in the hands 
of the editor. In these codices, which I also 
have had an opportunity of examining, and 
generally in all others as well as in the printed 
Bibles, the reading is the same as that used 
by Arias Montano ; whence it results, that 
Cisneros, in deviating from the originals, 
acted rather as a pious prelate than a faithful 
editor. Neither can it be alleged as an ex- 
cuse in his favour that the Jews have cor- 
rupted the original text ; for, besides this 
accusation being unfounded when made 
against a people who venerate the Bible 
even to superstition, and who, by merely 
altering an accent, might have disfigured the 
passages most offensive to them, it appears 
that the reading was not different in the 
time of Jesus Christ ; since the two evan- 
gelists, St. Matthew and St. John, follow- 
ing the Greek version, and quoting this 
passage in proof of the prophecy respecting 
the crucifixion being fulfilled, omit the words 
Foderunt, &c. at the same time that they are 
so filled with meaning, and begin by the fol- 
lowing verse, " Diviserunt sibi vestimenta 
viea, he. Arias Montano therefore had done 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKBD. 29 

nothing which warranted a prosecution on 
the part of the Inquisition ; consequently all 
proceedings against him would have been 
extremely unjust. 

In speaking of the great enmity the Inqui- 
sition has at all times evinced towards learned 
men, we ought not to forget that it has driven 
many to the brink of the precipice through 
its absurd and violent conduct, or caused 
them to separate from the Catholic Church ; 
particularly when they have been animated 
by more than ordinary zeal. Aonius Palea- 
rius, whose singular merit and disastrous 
end wrest from historians the most lively 
sentiments of compassion, may serve as an 
example of this fatal truth. His merit was 
universally acknowledged, not only on the 
score of philology, of which he was pro- 
fessor in Milan when he was arrested, and 
where he had besides published an estimable 
Latin poem on the Immortality of the Soul, 
as well as several orations in the same lan- 
guage, but also as far as regards theology, 
which, notwithstanding he was a secular and 
married, he possessed in an eminent degree, 
as did Vives among us. Hence did cardinals 
Peter Bembo, James Sadoleto, Renato Polo, 
Francis Sfondrato, Ennius Filonardo, and 



30 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. V. 

Bernard Mafef, honour him with their friend- 
ship. Even Paul IV. bestowed on him his 
esteem, and Phihp II. granted him certain 
privileges, and ordered a larger salary to be 
assigned him for his own subsistence and 
that of his family. His zeal may be appre- 
ciated by the following words extracted from 
a charge, or, as he calls it, declaration against 
the Roman pontiffs as corrupters of disci- 
pline, which he addressed to Charles V. and 
the other Christian princes, in order to excite 
attention to this subject on the convocation 
of a general council at that time agitated, 
and which ended in that of Trent. This 
paper was in the mean time deposited in 
the hands of his friends, in case he should 
previously die, or the Inquisition, which had 
already threatened him, should sacrifice him, 
as it afterwards did. The following are his 
words : 

" What is it that princes wait for in order 
to prove that the religion of Jesus Christ is 
not indifferent to them by promoting a salu- 
tary reform? We have been forbidden to 
speak the truth ; the edifice raised by the 
apostles has been destroyed ; the word of 
God is belied ; the majesty of his precepts 
is diminished j the fruit of the cross, as far 



GHAP. v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 31 

as regards the popes, rendered useless ; great 
and unimaginable abuses have been intro- 
duced ; and, in short, all the divine and 
human rights have been confounded. Who 
therefore can be so great an enemy to the 
name of Christ as to behold all this, and still 
remain silent ? Or who would not wish, since 
he is unable to remedy it, rather to die than 
be held as an accomplice in so much ini- 
quity ? With regard to myself, I can assert, 
that I shall never regret having undertaken 
the defence of the Gospel, whatever may 
be the danger to which 1 am thereby ex- 
posed. Here thou hast me; oh ! executioner, 
tie my hands, cover my head, discharge thy 
axe on my neck, since I voluntarily offer 
myself to the anger of the popes, as well 
as to the torments they may seek to inflict 
upon me. And if with my death they are 
not still satiated, and should- wish to see 
my entrails torn to pieces and converted 
into ashes, here thou hast me; oh! execu- 
tioner, approach, I will endure all." * 

Palearius indeed beheld the convocation 
and termination of the council ; but he also 
beheld the scholastic spirit that prevailed in 

* Aonius Palearius, Actio in Pontifices Romanes et 
eorum asseclas, cap. xx. 



32 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. V. 

all its decisions, owing to most of the Fathers 
having been friars ; and, with regard to dis- 
cipline, he moreover saw grievous abuses 
left standing, and, as the compendium of 
all, the Inquisition. On the other hand, in 
the anterior pontificates he had likewise seen 
cardinals Sadoleto and Polo, as well as 
cardinal Moron, under an indelible stigma 
arrested by the tribunal, though they were 
afterwards declared innocent, more through 
their virtue than their science ; and in the 
existing one he had beheld Peter Carne- 
seco, Julius Zoanneto, and Bartholemew 
Bartoccio, barbarously murdered through 
their desires of a more radical reform than that 
adopted by the council, and which undoubt- 
edly was necessary, in terms more or less 
extensive. Finally, he saw himself accused of 
crime for having spoken against a tribunal 
notoriously fatal to science and religion. 
How difficult therefore must it not have been 
for him to remain devoted to the authority 
of the Roman Church, an authority he be- 
held increased with a thousand abuses and 
sustained by oppression ? 

Without entering into a long enumeration 
of all the sciences, as well as of the persons 
who have been eminent therein, it would not 



eHAP. v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. S3 

be possible to give a complete idea of the 
individuals who have suffered by the pro- 
ceedings of the Inquisition ; particularly if 
this tribunal is considered not altogether 
as organized under a fixed plan, the form it 
has retained among us, but in a wider sense, 
that is with regard to the fanaticism which 
has predominated in it more than in any 
other establishment. John Reuchlin, in Ger- 
many, — Picus Pince of Mirandula, in Italy, — 
Peter Ramus, in France, — and Desiderius 
Erasmus, every where, — had to endure the 
lash of this infernal fury, yet no nation has 
thereby suffered so much as Spain. In the 
seventeenth century Father Pedro de Soto, 
a wise and pious writer, — Father Juan de 
Villagarcia, professor of theology at Oxford, — 
and, in general, all the learned men who at 
that time visited England became its victims. 
Father Jose de Sigiienza, a diligent and 
polished historian, — and in more recent times 
Don Estevan Manuel de Villegas, Father 
Nicolas Belando, Counts de Aranda and de 
Campomanes, Don Benito Bails, Don Anto- 
nio Ricardos, Don Nicolas de Azara, Father 
Pedro Centeno, Don Thomas Iriarte, Den 
Felix Samaniego, Don Jose Teregui, as well as 
Don Melchor de Jovellanos, all distinguished 

VOL. II. D 



34 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. V» 

by their acquirements in history, theology, 
mathematics, politics, philology, &c., became 
objects of inquisitorial vengeance. Finally, 
within late years not a few enlightened per- 
sons of literary pursuits and known probity, 
still living and known to us all, have had to 
drag a miserable existence within the walls 
of the Inquisition, on account of denuncia- 
tions ridiculous and chimerical, or have been 
admonished or threatened by it. Even in the 
way of artists of any pre-eminence this tri- 
bunal has placed obstacles. A navigator 
who, by discovering a new route, had per- 
formed a voyage in less than the customary 
time, — a master of the first rudiments who, 
by his genius and constancy, had brought 
forward and improved his scholars quicker 
than his competitors, — and even the handi- 
craftsman who has enjoyed more credit than 
others of his own class, — have incurred the 
displeasure of the Inquisition and been en- 
tangled in its toils. 

As a final proof how much illustrious men 
have been persecuted among us, we will 
recur to the testimony of some of them who 
con)p]ain of this fact. Such is the apology 
which Antonio de Nebrija, professor of Latin 
in Salamanca and of rhetoric in Alcala, as 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. S5 

well as the restorer of Spanish literature, had 
to make of himself before Cardinal Cisneros, 
in consequence of some of his grammatical 
labours on the Vulgate having been de- 
nounced to the Inquisitor General Deza. 
He answers the two charges preferred against 
him, viz. that a mere humanist ought not 
to introduce himself into the jurisdiction of 
theologians ; and that, in case of amending 
the less exact or adulterated passages of the 
Bible, this ought to be done by correcting, 
not the Latin version by the Hebrew and 
Greek text, but rather the latter by the 
former ; and filled with indignation thus 
exclaims : " What ! then, it does not suffice 
for me to enslave my own understanding in 
compliance to the faith, respecting the dog- 
mas it proposes to me, but I am moreover 
bound to confess myself ignorant with regard 
to certain truths which I know, not on 
grounds either dubious or supported only 
by probable reasons, but resulting from irre- 
fragable arguments and palpable demonstra- 
tion ! What slavery is this, great God ! What 
iniquitous oppression is this, which, under 
the title of piety, does not permit me to 
manifest my way of thinking in matters 
by no means injurious to the faith ! What, 
D 2 



S6 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP, V. 

did I say manifest ? nay, that does not even 
ftllow me to write down my opinion for 
my own use and within the secrecy of 
the closet — not even to utter it within 
my teeth, or make it the subject of my 
jneditations." * 

Another testimony is contained in one of 
the letters written from Bruges by Luis Vives 
to Erasmus, of which it may be advisable to 
to present an extract. In it, after copying 
some paragraphs of other letters he had 
received from Spain, he represents the oppo- 
sition the works of Erasmus had met with 
in the Peninsula, and the oppression under 
which the vulgar part of the friars and the 
Inquisition held all literary characters. I 

* Antonio de Nebrija in his Apology, which circulates 
under a MS. form, thus expresses himself: " An mihi noii 
sit satis in iis qua religio credenda proponit captivare inteU 
ledum in obsequium Christi, nisi eliam in iis qua: mihi sunt 
■exploratUy comperta, nota manifesto, ipsaque luce dariora^ 
ipsa veritafe veriora, compellor 7iescire quod scio, non halluci- 
nans, non opinans, non conjecta?is, sed adamaniinis raiionibiis^ 
irrefragabilibus argumentisj apodicticis denwnstrationibu^ 
colligens? Qua, malum.' here servitus est, ant qua; tarn 
iniqua veluti ex arce dorninatio, quce te non sinat^ pietate 
salva,liberc qua; seniias dicer e? Quid dicere? Immo nee 
intra parietes latitans scribere, aut scrobibus ivvmirmxiram 
infodere, aut saltern tecwtt lolutans cogitareP 

6 



CHAP, v.] INQtiSITION UNMASKED. St 

say vulgar part of the friars, because, as may 
be seen from the same letter, among them 
some were to be found of a right way of 
thinking. " In my former letter," says Vives 
to Erasmus," I wrote you at great length, 
informing you that the mendicants have 
denounced you to the Inquisitor General, 
the Archbishop of Seville ; and that, in con- 
sequence of this, an assembly has been held 
in which the subject of your errors wa3 
discussed, when two Benedictines and one 
Augustine spoke in your defence. The deci- 
sion however was left till another day, when 
theologians of the greatest reputation are 
to assist, and among them the most enthusi- 
astic of all, Virues. I am also of opinion 
that Coronel, Lerma, and Father Dionisio, the 
Augustine I have just mentioned to you, will 
net fail to attend; all of them extremely 
fond of your writings, that is, extremely 
fond of true piety and erudition. Some 
bishops are likewise to be present, whom 
the Emperor is to send." 

Under another date he adds, " I have 
received letters from Spain, viz. from Ver- 
gara, Cepero, and Virues ; what they state 
respecting your affair is as follows : Cepero 
says. Here the friars have declared war 



38 INQUISITION UNMASKED, f CHAP. T, 

against Erasmus with indescribable hatred, 
and are making the greatest exertions to 
have his works prohibited ; but some of his 
friends have been able to prevail on the 
chancellor to interest himself in favour of 
this learned man. The Inquisitor General, 
who, most assuredly, is an upright charac- 
ter, has been able to withstand for some 
time the impetuosity of his enemies, but it 
will be impossible for him to please all, and 
the rage of the friars is beyond example. 
They have undertaken this affair with such 
warmth that in the convents they have had 
no schools for some days, all being busily 
employed in examining the writings of Eras- 
mus. They have already presented some 
propositions which they pretend are schisma- 
tical and heretical ; but, on the other hand, 
the same are defended by Coronel, by the 
bishop of the Canaries, (Luis Cabeza de 
Vaca,) as well as by others. AVe cordially 
regret being unable to aid him ; since we 
should expose ourselves to imminent danger. 
However it is useless to explain the nature 
of this tyranny when writing to a Spaniard 
who knows it as well as myself.'* * Let it 

* Johannis Ludovici Vivis Opera ; torn. vii. Valencia 
edition, " Nos interea dolemus opem quodjerre afflictis rebui 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 39 

be remarked, that Cepero here gives the 
name of tyranny to this inquisitorial fanati- 
cism. This is the manner in which the 
learned of that age explained themselves 
in their epistolary correspondence, that is, 
when they spoke without reserve and to con- 
fidential friends. 

" Vergara's letter,'* continues Vives, " is 
of a more recent date and in the following 
terms : Our friars have conspired against 
Erasmus, not all, but most of them ; and it 
is observable, that they who persecute him 
least are the most distant from the mendicant 
class." Of Virues, without copying his 
words, he observes, that he had entered 
into a strong contention with the regular 
orders in favour of the above writer j whom 
he defended, not for any particular object, 
but because he was highly persuaded that 
his doctrines were derived from the true and 
pure sources of religion. He afterwards 
quotes another letter from a merchant of 
Burgos; in which he informs him that the 
affair of Erasmus was soon to be decided, and 
that his defenders had laid a regular remon- 

minime queamus nam confestim magnum audentibus pencuium 
hnmineret. Sed quid ego hoc apudte hominem Hispanum, qui 
hanc ti/ramiidem .'^atis cognitam habesf* 



40 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. V. 

strance before the tribunal of the Inquisition, 
stating, that the works of Thomas of Aquino 
and John Duns ought equally to be subjected 
to an examination ; and that every thing 
therein contained contrary to the Scriptures 
and the Holy Fathers ought to be condemned 
as heretical.* Finally, complaining bitterly 
of the melancholy situation in which the 
literary characters of that age were placed, 
he concludes by saying, " These are calami- 
tous times, in which, whether one speaks or 
is silent, he is not secure. In Spain, Vergara> 
his brother Tovar, together with other 
learned men, have been imprisoned ; and 
in England the same fate has befallen the 
bishops of Rochester and London, as well 
as Thomas Moore.*' t 

The junta was held and the sittings opened 
at the end of June 1527, when as many as 

* Luis Vives, ibid. " Scribit eos qui doctrines tuce Javent 
fostulasse H qucEsitore ut in Thomce ac Scoti opera inquiratur ; 
'aelle se honim placita adexamen revocare, sitne aliquid contra- 
vium vd mysticis litterisy vel veterihus nostreB religionis scrip- 
toribus; postulant de eo sibijus diet, et ut hcBresin damnari" 

i Luis Vives, ibid, " Tempora habemus difficiliaf in 
^uibus nee loqui nee tacere possumus absque periculo. Capti 
suvi in llispania VergarUy et frater ejus Tovar, him alii 
qtodain homines beue docti ; in Britannia episcojpm Roffen* 
m et Londinensli et Thomm Morus^." 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 41 

thirty-two deputies assembled, but without 
any effect, as the meeting was prematurely 
dissolved. Our historian Sandoval gives us 
to understand, that this was occasioned by 
the obstinacy of Erasmus's enemies 5 who, 
according to him, formed the majority, as 
well as through the bad faith of those who 
defended him ; but others attribute it to the 
plague which raged at that time. The latter 
might possibly be the pretext, but the true 
motive was the furious exertions made by 
the friars to have him condemned, but which 
the Inquisitor General thought it prudent to 
elude. Besides this being conformable to 
the idea given of the matter by the letters 
above quoted, it is also confirmed by the 
author of the Dialogue between Mercury 
and Charon, who appears well informed of 
all the points on which the contest turned, 
and also wrote in the following year, 1528.* 
The works of Erasmus then remained with- 
out stigma, although at a later period the 
Inquisition did not fail to brand them by en- 
joining that they were to be read with caution. 
And, in order that the interest exhibited in 
his favour might not remain altogether un- 

* This is an 8vo volume, Apparently printed in 
Flanders. 



42 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [gHAP. V. 

punished, it afterwards persecuted Peter de 
Lerma ; who was compelled to abandon his 
office of chancellor of the university of 
Alcala, and to withdraw to Paris, where he 
died dean of the faculty of divinity in La 
Sorbonne. It also persecuted Alonso Virues, 
who stood in need of ail the esteem as 
well as the admiration Charles V. professed 
towards him for his eloquent preaching, in 
order to escape perishing in the dungeons 
of the tribunal, and to counteract the exer- 
tions of the friars, who laboured hard to 
prevent the signing of the bulls for the 
bishopric of the Canaries, which he ob- 
tained.* In a country, therefore, in which 
learned men have not been tolerated how 
was it possible for science to prosper ? 

And, since the conduct of the Inquisition 
towards men illustrious in letters, with regard 
to their persons, has been such as we have 
just depicted, it may easily be inferred 
that it was still worse with regard to their 
writings. There is scarcely a work of merit 
to be found that has not been prohibited or 
commanded to have some parts rescinded j 
consequently there is hardly a writer worthy 

* Llorente, Anales de la Inquiaicion, cap. xvi. n. 59 
and 61. 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 43 

of esteem whose good name has not been 
blackened by its censures. Books totally bad, 
as well as books extraordinarily good, have 
shared the same fate : the first because they 
aimed at religion, or manners and customs ; 
the latter because they attacked absurd pre- 
judices, as sacred to the inquisitors as the 
very dogmas of faith themselves. Thus, both 
one and the other have been condemned to 
darkness or the flames, whilst those which 
suffered least have been blackened in their 
reputation. 

Would to God the Inquisition in this 
particular had always acted from error, and 
not from sinister motives ! Then the index 
of prohibited books which, according to its 
object, ought to serve for the people as a 
criterion whereby to discriminate good books 
from bad ones, would not be, as it now 
is, a repertory of the cabals to which the 
criminal condescension of this tribunal has 
yielded. In order to preserve some degree 
of order, and reduce to precise limits a mat- 
ter which, by too much minuteness, might 
become tedious, I will, in the first place, 
treat of the want of judgment with which 
it has impeded the circulation of various 
works of sound doctrine without having 



44 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. T. 

examined them, and under the sole plea of 
'' interin se calijican,'* (till they are properly 
qualified or reported upon) thus causing con- 
siderable injury not only to the reputation 
of their authors, but also their interests and 
those of the booksellers ; and consequently 
destroying the fruits of so useful a branch of 
national industry. After this I will proceed 
to demonstrate the falsity of its judgments 
respecting estimable writings j whose merits, 
although it has examined, it either has not, 
or wished not, to comprehend. Finally, I 
will prove that this tribunal, by its pro- 
hibition of books, more than once, and 
contrary to its own opinion, and with decided 
bad faith, has promoted the factions of pri- 
vate individuals, or of corporations, which 
had gained its esteem. 

Commencing by the facility with which 
the Inquisition has suspended the reading of 
useful works, I am naturally struck with the 
edict published in Seville on the 10th May, 
1789; which, like all others of the same 
class, is a copy of the one previously issued 
by the Council of the Supreme. In it the 
inquisitors confess that, having included in 
the index of prohibited books (till they had 
been corrected) the works of professor Fer- 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED, 4!? 

nan Perez de Oliva, published by Ambrosio 
Morales, as well as others of his, in conse- 
quence of their containing propositions which 
might be taken in a bad sense ; after ex- 
amining the same, they had discovered that 
this very author *' inculcates the true doctrine 
wisely, and with admirable clearness; so that 
he removes the danger which the said pro* 
positions, taken under another aspect, might 
occasion." Notwithstanding, as the inquisi- 
tors were ashamed to make a candid con- 
fession of their want of circumspection in 
so long withholding this work, which does 
not exceed one volume in 8vo, in order to 
give some colour to the transaction, they 
ordered censure to be passed on a small 
marginal note relating to St. Augustin, ac- 
cording to which it might be believed that 
this Holy Father did not reprove adultery. 
But what reader peruses a book by the notes 
placed in the margin ? or who on reading 
one and discovering any obscurity, does not 
recur to the body of the work for his more 
complete information ? 

In the edict also published in Seville, 
January 7, 1790, mention is made of two 
other works which experienced the same 
injustice. These are, the " Theoria et Praxis 



46 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. V. 

Sacramentorum/* by Gaspar Juenin, and the 
treatise " de Sacramentis" of the same 
author. Both had been comprehended by 
the Jesuits Casani and Carrasco in the cata- 
logue of Jansenist authors inserted in the 
index of prohibited books for the year 1 747 ; 
and the authority of these two individuals 
became of such weight in the eyes of the 
Inquisition, that it alone sufficed to suspend 
their circulation till they were examined. 
When the tribunal thought it had detained 
them long enough, which was at the end 
of forty years with regard to the second, and 
forty-three the first, it allowed them to circu- 
late, without having been able to state the 
smallest objection to them. It will be proper 
here to observe, that this proceeding was not 
only unjust, in consequence of the stigma 
the above-mentioned author had to endure 
the whole of that time, and the manner 
in which the public was deprived of the 
utility of reading his works, but the In- 
quisition moreover contravened an express 
royal order.* 

» The royal order issued on 16th June, 1768, which 
enjoins — First, That the tribunal shall grant a hearing to 
catholic authors of known reputation before it prohibits 
their works, and that when they are foreigners or deceased, 

7 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 47 

We ought not to omit mentioning the 
severe reprehension Pope Benedict XIV. 
gave to the Inquisition of Spain, in conse- 
quence of the said catalogue. The latter had 
therein inserted the two works of Cardinal 
Norris, one called " Historia Pelagiana," and 
the other " Dissertatio de Quinta Synodo 
j^Ecumenica," both approved by the congre- 

a pleader shall be named in their defence, who shall be a 
person of public and known science, conformably to the 
spirit of the constitution " SoUicita^et provida" of Benedict 
XIV. as well as the dictates of equity. Secondly, That 
for the same reason it shall not obstruct the circulation of 
books, works, and papers, under the plea of their standing 
over " till they are qualified,^^ and that in those in which 
it may order passages to be expunged, the places and 
folios shall be distinctly pointed out, because by this means 
the perusal of the whole will not be prevented, and the 
censured parts may be expunged by the owner of the 
book, the same being so enjoined in the edict, as in cases 
when determined propositions are condemned. Thirdly, 
That its prohibitions be directed to extirpate errors against 
the faith, superstitions, and loose opinions. Fourthly, 
That before the edict is published a copy thereof shall be 
presented to the King, through the medium of the minister 
of Grace and Justice, and in default thereof through the 
secretary of state, the publication being suspended till the 
same has been returned. Fifthly, That no brief or dispatch 
of the court of Rome relating to the Inquisition, although 
appertaining to the prohibition of books, be put in execu- 
tion without previous notice being given to his Majesty, 
and without the permit of the council being first obtained 
as a preliminary and indispensable requisite. 



4S INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. V, 

gation of the Holy Office of Rome, a circum- 
stance of which it seems our tribunal was 
ignorant. The order of the Augustines, of 
whose institution the cardinal had been a 
member, complained of this excess, and the 
pope wrote a long letter, dated the 31st of 
July, 1748, to the Inquisitor General, to 
remind him of the necessity of proceeding 
with more circumspection in affairs of this 
nature, and giving him to understand that 
he ought not to have revived a question 
repeatedly decided in favour of the above 
author, and much less placed his name in 
the index. He also added, that the remon- 
strance of the order of St. Augustin was 
most just, and that he should not behold 
with indifference the reputation of so worthy 
a prelate tarnished on light grounds.* la 
consequence of this severe admonition, the 
Inquisition commanded the preceding works 
to be taken out of the index of prohibited 
books ; and in order to prevent any imputa- 
tions that might arise among the public on 
account of these contradictory proceedings, 
it forbade all further writing on the subject, 
either in pro or in con, under the accustomed 
penalty of excommunication. With regard 

♦ The letter is translated and placed in the Seraanario 
Erudito, torn, xxx. 



■^^ 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 49 

to the writings of other authors prohibited 
like those of Norris till they had been qua- 
lified or duly reported on, took not the 
smallest notice of the royal order, so that 
it still withholds most of them, together with 
several others since. That this point may 
be seen in its due light, the reader will do 
well to examine, in the last index of pro- 
hibited books for the year ] 790, the articles 
Bourignon, St.Cyran, Font, Formey, Hersent, 
Huigens, Malpaix, Paradan, Richard, Segue- 
not, Tourneaux, &c. as well as two other 
works contained in the edict of the following 
year, 1791. 

With regard to the publications this tri- 
bunal has censured, and the want of judgment 
it has displayed in pronouncing on their 
merits, I shall here present some cases, in 
order that a just conception may thereby 
be formed of the rest. But as it has not 
been customary, when the Inquisition has 
prohibited these works, distinctly to point 
out in its censures the particular passages 
against which the latter were levelled, it would 
be impossible for me* now to analyze them ; 
yet, in their vindication, I may allege, as the 
only but sufficient argument, the reputation 

VOL. II. E 



50 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. V. 

which all these works enjoy in the literary 
republic. 

As far as relates to philosophy, Locke's 
work, entitled " Philosophical Essay con- 
cerning the Human Understanding,*' may 
serve as an example, it being prohibited by 
the Inquisition, " because," according to the 
tenor of the original censure, " the doctrines 
therein contained destroy the true notions 
of moral good and evil, leaving man in the 
state as depicted by Hobbes, Espinosa, and 
other impious characters, and tend to natu- 
ralism and atheism." * It likewise more 
unjustly proscribed, and even for those who 
have license to read prohibited books, the 
six last volumes of the work of Condillac, 
entitled " Cours d*Etudes pour Tlnstruction 
du Prince de Parme," because " the report 
states" it contains heretical propositions, 
sapientes ht^resim, scandalous ones, piarum 
aurium offensivas, tending to disturb public 
peace, injurious to the high pontiffs and the 
supreme secular powers, especially to our 
Catholic kings and lords." t A work written 

* Edict of the Inquisition of Seville, promulgated 
Feb. 25, 1804. 
f Edict of May 10, 1789. 



griAP. v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 51 

for the instruction of a prince, and the 
authority of princes to be therein combated ! 
Either Condillac was not in his sound senses, 
or the idea formed o£ his writings by the 
Inquisition must be greatly mistaken. 

Relating to discipline, theology, and the 
other ecclesiastical sciences, considerable 
stress ought to be laid on the fate of the 
two works of Fleury, viz. " Institution au 
Droit Ecclesiastique," and " Discours sur 
THistoire Ecclesiastique." Confining myself 
to the latter, the Inquisition prohibited it, 
*' because it contained rash, scandalous, 
blasphemous, and schismatical propositions, 
sapientes haresim, and also respectively er- 
roneous ones." * Scandals, schisms, and 
heresies in a work which is the result of facts 
which the author has produced in his history ! 
Are not these same facts proved by irre- 
fragable documents taken from the Holy 
Fathers, from the councils, and other writers 
whose authority we are bound to venerate ? 
And is not this to anathematize those 
same documents, rather than the reflections 
to which they have given rise ? Really we 
may say of the inquisitors condemning Fleury 
what Terence said of certain ignorant persons 
* Edict of Sept. 16, 1745. 
e2 



52 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. V. 

who criticised him, because in his comedies 
he followed the authority of the ancients. 

*' Faciunt ncs intellegendo vt nihil intellegant ; 

Qui quum hunc accusant^ Ncevium, Plautumy Ejinium 

Accusant^ qiios hie noster auctores hahet^ 

Ter. Prol. And. v. 17, &c. 

In understanding they act as if they understood nothing ; 
since in accusing him they accused Nsevius, Plautus, 
Ennius, whom here our author follows. 

At length the squeamish tribunal dis- 
covered the hasty manner in which it had 
passed censure ; and, on more mature 
reflection, these discourses were allowed 
to circulate, on condition of their being 
attached to the Ecclesiastical History of the 
same author.* 

It will also be proper, in this place, to 
advert to Racine's work, entitled " Abrege de 
THistoire Ecclesiastique," in 16 vols, prohi- 
bited, " under every edition, in consequence 
of its containing expressions ill-sounding, 
scandalous, piariim aimum offens'was, in- 
jurious to the Saints, defamatory of the 
high pontiffs and bishops, subversive of the 
pontifical authority, and even of that of 
monarchs, schismatical, sapientes Iwreswiy 
and inclining to error,*' " And because that," 
* Index of Prohibited Books for 1790, art. Fleury. 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 53 

the censure adds, " from the tenth to the 
thirteenth volume, the author has united a 
complete apology of the Jansenists, the said 
four volumes are moreover prohibited even 
to those who are licensed to read forbidden 
books; and in the same quality vols. xiv.,xv., 
and xvi., are likewise interdicted, in conse- 
quence of their containing the heads and 
recapitulation of the whole work." * The 
inquisitors, as far as they give to understand, 
would wish that history, instead of being a 
faithful portrait of the past, were rather indis- 
tinctly a flattering panegyric of the persons 
who conducted themselves well in the digni- 
ties in which they were constituted, accompa- 
nied by a detail of those who acted ill. With 
regard to the Jansenists, it is now well known 
to whom the Jesuits, and their companions 
the inquisitors, gave this epithet. Finally, in 
speaking of theologians and canonists whose 
writings have been persecuted by the Inqui- 
sition, I ought not to pass over in silence 
the respectable names of Arnaud and Van 
Spen ; the prohibition of the works of the 
first of whom, and the mutilation of those 
of the second, alone suffice to cover this 
tribunal with eternal opprobrium. 
* Edict of Feb, 25, ISO*. 



S4t IHQUISIJION UNMASKED. [CHAP. V» 

Touching politics, I shall mention the 
writings of Mably, principally the one en- 
titled " Droits et Devoirs du Citoyen," which 
was prohibited on the grounds of its " con- 
taining doctrines seditious, formally heretical, 
and inducing insurrections against the legiti- 
mate authorities."* The Inquisition however 
has never acted with such a degree of extra- 
vagance as in the prohibition, even for those 
who are licenced, of Filangieris' work, en- 
titled " La Scienza della Legislazione." The 
following are the grounds on which its cen- 
sure is founded : " Owing to its being full 
of propositions false, captious, rash, bordering 
on error as regards the faith, erroneous, and 
abetting tolerantism so much reproved by 
the Church ; subversive of the authority and 
rights of sovereigns, as well as of civil and 
criminal legislation, seditious, and capable 
of exciting the people into the most confused 
anarchy."! Had we not the testimony before 
our own eyes no one would believe that 
a tribunal belonging to a polished nation 
could have fallen into so gross a delirium. 
In treating of the science of government 
and its appendages, the following names, 
from having been deeply wronged by the 
* Edict of Dec. is, 1789. f Edict of March 7, 1790. 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UN^IASKED. ^ 5S 

Inquisition, deserve to be particularly men- 
tioned, viz, Grotius, Puffendorf, Montesquieu, 
Beccaria, Adam Smith, and Robertson ; whose 
works, as solid in their principles as they 
are commendable by their erudition, no 
discreet man would venture to say ought 
to be called in, or that they merit the igno- 
minious marks of reproach with which it 
has been attempted to brand them. 

What has hitherto been said relates to 
scientific productions, which this tribunal, for 
want of information in its judges and qualifi- 
cators, has sought to exterminate ; let us 
now proceed to consider some of those it 
has prohibited contrary to its own opinions, 
and out of obsequiousness to powerful per- 
sons or bodies. What happened to the works 
of Peter Nicole is recent and well known in 
all Spain. After they had been suspended for 
many years, they were examined by an assem- 
bly of theologians, by orders of the Inquisitor 
General and the Council of the Supreme; 
who, having found them unobjectionable^ 
the latter gave permission for a translation to 
be published. Four volumes were already 
printed and in the hands of the public, 
when, at the request of a certain ecclesiastic 
belonging to the court, to whom it was a« 



56 , INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. V. 

pleasing to meddle in the intrigues of the 
palace as it was disagreeable to reside in his 
own diocess, an order came down from the 
said council for the Inquisition again to 
prohibit Nicole. In conformity to this, the 
tribunal a second time affixed its prohibitory 
censure ; and, according to the custom ob- 
served in its edicts, it was necessary to state 
the motive of so irregular a proceeding, 
which the inquisitors did in a vague and 
irrelevant manner j such as manifests the 
confusion under which they themselves la- 
boured at an instance of versatility so inde- 
corous and abominable. Their words are the 
following : " Because the doctrines of this 
author ought not to circulate in many parts, 
as from them considerable injury may result 
to religion and the state." * 

That the Inquisition has constantly lent its 
favour to every person or faction that might 
contribute to give stability to its empire is 
evidently proved, as it is to this institu- 
tion that the regulars of the Company of 
Jesus were, in great measure, indebted for 
that despotic influence they enjoyed over the 
people, and particularly over literary cha- 
racters. In testimony of this I might quote 

* Edict of Feb. 25, 1804.. 
1 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 57 

the numerous writings revealing the plots of 
the Jesuits, which appeared in time to stop 
their ambitious plans, all which writings were 
prohibited by the Inquisition. Among others 
were some of the Bishop of La Puebla de los 
Angeles', the venerable Don Juan de Pala- 
fox ; nor was any licence to individuals or 
communities to read them of any avail. Of 
these writings one was a letter to Innocent X. 
and the other a memorial to the king, in 
which he informed both authorities of the 
scandals the said company of the Jesuits was 
causing, and which, from the duties of his 
ministry, he could no longer pass over in 
silence. The prohibition was at length raised 
when the Jesuits were near falling, a fact 
which fully demonstrates that it was the 
unbounded influence of the latter, and not 
the defects of the above writings which 
induced this tribunal to tarnish the good 
name of their author. Even the Inquisition 
itself has since been brought to acknowledge 
the intrigue, for its members in 1801 having 
received the King's orders to clear up some 
articles of the index of prohibited books 
relating to Palafox, as from the manner in 
which they were conceived the fame of the 
prelate was not altogether unhurt, the inqui- 



58 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. V. 

sitors executed the same ; stating, in order to 
justify their own conduct, that the former 
prohibition of the said works had been done 
under an express protest not to injure the 
sound intention and doctrine with which they 
had been penned ; (we have aheady had ex- 
amples of the vahdity of inquisitorial protests) 
adding, that it was their desire to banish that 
spirit of party which governs in many, and 
threatening at the same time to proceed with 
all the rigour of the law against those " who 
by their slander and calumny still pretend to 
find motives or pretexts to wound the just 
reputation of so enlightened a prelate."* 
The tribunal here says that it will proceed 
against those who by their slander and 
calumny still pretend to find pretexts for 
wounding the reputation of Palafox ! Then 
it was slander and calumny, emanating from 
a spirit of party, which formerly persecuted 
the same writings. Consequently it was to 
slander and calumny that the Inquisition lent 
its arms. 

But how can it appear strange that this 

tribunal, out of consideration to the Jesuits, 

should have treated the works of the above 

zealous prelate with so much injustice after 

* Edict of March 19, 1801. 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 59 

his death, when even in his life-time, and for 
the same reasons, it prohibited one of his most 
wise and pious pastoral letters? The tri- 
bunal which did this was that of Mexico, on 
whose bench a person of the name of Don 
Juan de Mafiozca sat as judge, and jointly 
with him, as visitor of the tribunal and ordi- 
nary inquisitor, the Archbishop of that city, 
cousin and namesake of the said Mauozca. 
These two persons, to crown their baseness, 
intercepted, opened, and adulterated certain 
letters relating to this affair, which the Pre- 
bendary of La Puebla, Don Antonio Peralta, 
was sending to the government sealed, the 
contents of which they altered in such a 
manner that they appeared a defamatory 
libel rather than a plain exposition ; and 
having secretly distributed some copies of the 
same, and afterwards ordered them to be 
called in, they arrested the said Prebendary 
as the real author, in a manner not less in- 
human than disgraceful, since they took him 
out of his bed when dangerously ill, on a 
festival day, and in sight of the whole city. 
Palafox himself, speaking of this insulting act 
of violence in a complaint which he addressed 
to the King, exclaims in the following words : 
" It would not be possible to experience a 



60 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. V. 

more painful circumstance than to see that 
the injury arises from that quarter whence 
justice ought to be derived, and that the 
wrong is so much the greater because he 
who commits it is vested with greater dignity; 
whereby he appears to sanction the injuries 
done, and converts into truths what in fact 
are no other than atrocious calumnies. These 
being also published by known authors, and 
they besides, one an archbishop and the 
other an inquisitor, a greater stain and defa- 
mation cannot be cast on innocence, since no 
one presumes that such an act of wickedness 
could be committed by so holy a tribunal. 
And on the other hand men will be more 
encouraged by this bloody manner of wrong- 
ing each other to defame and outrage sacred 
persons, seeing this is done by inquisitors ; 
and what is still more, they defend the act 
by the very jurisdiction of their tribunal, so 
that as men they outrage, and as inquisitors 
avenge themselves. Moreover, they hold it 
lawful in themselves to write satires and libels, 
as they suffer them to circulate; but they deem 
it unlawful to answer them, nay, the Inqui- 
sition itself prohibits it." In short, the latter 
suffered all the calumnies published against 
the venerable prelate to circulate freely, and 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 61 

after prohibiting his pastoral letter, together 
with all the writings in his defence, and 
imprisoning the Prebendary Peralta in the 
manner above related j and as the proctor of 
the tribunal, Don Antonio Gaviola, declared 
himself in favour of Palafox, the judges 
ordered him to go into banishment within 
the space of three days.* 

I should conceive myself wanting to the 
respectable memory of one of our ancient 
worthies, were I to pass over in silence his 
writings delivered over to the flames, not by 
the Inquisition, which at that time did not 
exist in Castile where this learned man 
resided, but by that same spirit of persecution 
which already began to propagate itself, and 
in the above kingdom prepared the way to 
the entry of that fatal tribunal. I here allude 
to the distinguished mathematician Don 
Enrique de Aragon, Marquis of Villena, who 
flourished under the reign of his relation 
John II., and whose library was partly burnt 
and partly appropriated to himself by a Do- 

* I am indebted for this information to Don Juan 
Antonio Rodrigalvarez, contained in the meraorandumg 
of which I have spoken above, and who affirms that at the 
time he was writing them he had in his possession an ori- 
ginal document of the venerable Palafox, 



62 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. T. 

minican, preceptor to the prince, called 
Father Lope de Barrientos, afterwards Bishop 
of Segovia, and other places. The letter 
written on this subject to Juan de Mena by 
the King's physician, Fernando Gomez, 
known also by the name of the Bachelor of 
Ciudad Real, deserves particular notice. It 
is as follows : " Don Enrique de Villena's 
knowledge did not suffice to prevent him 
from dying, neither did his being uncle to 
the King prevent him from passing for a sor- 
cerer. The King has had his share in the 
inherited property, and the conclusion I can 
inform you of is, that Don Enrique was wise 
in what he did to others, but not in what 
regarded himself. Two waggons have been 
loaded with the books he left, and these have 
been brought to the King; but as he conceived 
they related to sorcery and to art? unfit to be 
read, the King ordered they should be con- 
veyed to the house of Father Lope de 
Barrientos. Father Lope, however, who is 
more suited to be a courtling than a reviewer 
of works on the black art, caused more than 
one hundred volumes to be burnt, which he 
no more read than the Emperor of Morocco, 
or understood than the Dean of Ciudad Ro- 
drigo J for there are many now-a-days who 
4 



CMAP. v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 6» 

represent themselves as learned and make 
others foolish and magicians, and what is 
worse than all is, that they make themselves 
pass for devout people whilst they turn others 
into necromancers. After experiencing so 
much, this stroke of fortune was alone want- 
ing to this illustrious man. Many other works 
of value remain in the hands of Father Lope, 
which will neither be burnt nor turned over. 
If you should be pleased to send me a letter 
to shew the King, in order that I may ask 
his Majesty for some of Don Enrique's books 
for you, we shall relieve the soul of Father 
Lope from this sin, and that of Don Enrique 
will rejoice that he is not his heir who has 
made him pass for a sorcerer and necro- 
mancer.*" The above-mentioned Juan de 
Mena, Father Mariana, and Antonio Nicolas, 
also lament this loss. The first, speaking of 
the ashes of the above unfortunate man, 
bursts forth with the following lines i 

" O tnclito sabio, autor muy scyente, 
Otra, y aun otra vegada yo Uoro ; 
Porque Castilla perdio tal tesoro 
No conocido delante la gente. 

* Letters of the Bachelor of Ciudad Real, letter Ixvi. 



64/ INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. V. 

Perdio los tus libros sin ser conocidos, 

Y como en exequias te fueron ya luego, 
Unos metidos al avido fuego, 

Y otros sin orden no bien repartidos." * 

O author thrice renown'd and wise ! 

Castile, till time itself's no more. 
With sorrow fresh, with tearful eyes, 

Thy loss lamented may deplore. 

It lost thy books, where wisdom's lore 
Diffused its light ; some burnt in fire ; 

Some borne away, a useless store, 
Felt all the wrathful bigot's ire. 

If to the fact of Barrientos burning the 
books of the Marquis of Villena we add that 
of Zummarraga, first Bishop of Mexico, 
destroying the symboHcal monuments of the 
Indians, and of Cisneros casting into the 
flames, according to report, as many as 80,000 
vohimes of Arabian works, it will result that 
we Spaniards, far from being benefited by the 
Inquisition, rather require to purge this 
baneful humour away which thus impels us 
to burn and destroy. 

Having already exhibited the persecuting 
spirit which the productions of learned men 
have experienced from the Inquisition, some- 

* Nicolas Antonio, Biblioth, Vetus Hisp. lib. x. cap. iii. 
n. 155. 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 65 

times through ignorance and at others 
through malice, it will be proper to say some- 
thins: on the want of discretion and care with 
which the tribunal has also acted in this par- 
ticular. This is the more necessary, because 
some persons, although sensible of the many 
vices it always has and still does labour under, 
will with difficulty be induced to believe that 
it has not maintained all possible decorum 
in order to keep up the illusion in the eyes 
of the people. A few additional observations, 
however, on the index of prohibited books 
will fully demonstrate the errors of those 
who reason in this manner ; since these re- 
marks will point out to us that if the tribunal 
of the Inquisition had been confided to the 
care of children it could not, in the pro- 
hibition of books, have conducted itself 
with more irregularity. And indeed what 
better could be expected from men who 
considered themselves exempt from all re- 
proach ? 

Let us commence our examination by the 
first article that occurs, viz. " Trithemius." 
The index prohibits the work of John Tri- 
themius, entitled, " Steganographia," or the 
Art of Secret Writing, under which title the 
author wished to signify what at the present 

VOL. IT. F 



66 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. V* 

day we call the art of writing in cyphers, or 
by conventional signs intelligible only to the 
person who writes the letter and the one by 
whom it is received. However, as he died 
without leaving the key, whereby the secret 
might be explained, the report which during 
his life-time had begun to get abroad, now 
became general, purporting that this in- 
vention and the manner of using it was by 
sorcery ; which at a time when the credulity 
of the common people was at its highest 
pitch, was rendered the more credible by the 
reputation of the great talents Trithemius 
enjoyed. The inquisitors without any further 
scrutiny pronounced the work to be magical; 
and although its secret was afterwards ex- 
plained by some German writers interested 
in the good name of their countryman, the 
Inquisition still holds it under a censure of 
prohibition ; nor have the taunts of foreign 
critics or the charitable insinuations of na- 
tional ones hitherto sufficed to erase the 
prohibition.* 

* Feijoo, speaking of the proliibition of the Stegano- 
graphy of Trithemius, but avoiding all means of clashing 
with the tribunal, avails himself of a kind of circumlocu- 
tion, the same as when he speaks of the encouragement to 
the belief in witches given by means of inquisitorial per- 



CHAP. V,] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 67 

Another article not less ridiculous than the 
preceding, relates to a book also prohibited 
in totum, and the form is conceived in these 
words : " A book printed in 8vo. in 44 
leaves, written in Hebrew letters, in Venice, 
1674, by Christopher Ambrosini/* But 

secutions. " I observe," says he, " that the index of 
prohibited books of the holy tribunal of the Inquisition of 
Spain prohibits Steganography, even under a knowledge 
that it contains nothing magical. Certainly this is a just 
measure, because the reading thereof may occasion 
grievous evils to those who are ignorant of the mystery ; 
and even with regard to many who might understand it, it 
is not proper to place such cyphers in their hands. In 
the same index we also read that the above composition 
is falsely ascribed to Trithemius; certain it is that many 
and weighty authors suppose it to belong to Trithemius, 
but they who performed this search by orders of the Holy 
Tribunal possibly knew more of the matter." — Teatr. Crit, 
torn, ii. disc. v. n. 43. That Feijoo deemed the prohibi- 
tion of Steganography to be unjust, is clearly seen in the 
addition to this discourse ; where, inserting an extract 
of the work alluded to, in § iv. n. 43, he observes " that 
the protests inscribed by the author in the two prefaces 
of the first and second book, as well also as his rank, 
dignity, and reputation, were sufficient grounds to prevent 
all suspicion of such a crime as the black art existing in 
him ; consequently he had the best reasons to hope that 
the contents of his work would scandalize no one." With 
regard to the unwarrantable manner in which the inqui- 
sitors deny the above the quality of being genuine, the 
opinion of Feijoo could not be more explicit . 
f2 



68 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. W 

what this book is, what it treats upon, and 
why it has been condemned, the inquisitors 
themselves do not know, since they are even 
ignorant of its title. Possibly they prohibited 
it from motives of dislike to the author. But 
they are ignorant who he was, since of his 
work they give no further information than 
of the size, which every one can see; of the 
number of leaves, which every one can 
count ; and of the place, year, and name of 
the printer, which, being in the vulgar tongue 
and usual characters, may be decyphered by 
every one who knows how to read. Is it 
then because it is written in Hebrew letters ? 
Yet the original Old Testament is in Hebrew 
letters, and hitherto the Inquisition has done 
us the favour not to prohibit it. The Gospel 
is also in Hebrew characters, into which lan- 
guage it has been translated by Catholic 
authors, and finally, in the same language are 
various works of Rabins allowed by this tri- 
bunal, such as those of grammar and philoso- 
phy. What then can have been the cause 
of this proliibition ? Really I can discover 
no other than the caprice of some qualifiw 
cator, as scrupulous as he was ignorant^ 
added to the inconsiderate imbeciUty of the 
Inquisition. 

6 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 69 

In short the attention of the public ought 
to be strongly called to a remarkable circum- 
stance, which is, that in the index of prohi- 
bited books a number of works are still to be 
found which, if it was judged proper to in- 
clude them in former times, they ought not, 
according to the later determinations of the 
Inquisition itself, to be retained in the list at 
present. Such are the works which formerly 
were called in for no other reason than as 
promoting the reading of the Bible in the 
vulgar tongue. Let all those therefore know, 
who still esteem the official censures of the 
Inquisition on books, that they are now 
allowed to read the Bible under the above 
form, with spiritual advantage to themselves, 
because this tribunal itself has so declared it; 
but at the same time let them understand 
that by this very tribunal they are excommu- 
nicated if they read any of the works which 
point out these advantages. That this may 
be better substantiated, it would be well for 
the reader to recur to articles " Courte et 
necessaire Instruction," &c., and again " In- 
struction familiaire/* and in them will be 
found two works prohibited on this sole 
account. Even more, by a general edict of 



70 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. V. 

the faith, promulgated on the 1st Feb., 1790, 
the Inquisition of Seville, commanded among 
points usual in similar edicts, that all Bibles 
in the Spanish language should be denounced, 
notwithstanding that, seven years before, the 
council of the Supreme and the tribunal 
itself of Seville had erased the prohibition.* 
And is this a proper line of conduct for a 
tribunal, circumspect as all such should be, 
more particularly one that presides over reli- 
gion ? It may perhaps be said that the 
omission to suppress the above articles in the 
new impression of the index, as well as the 
retention of the clause on the Bible in the 
above-mentioned promulgated edict, origi- 
nated in a principle of natural forgetfulness. 
I would then reply, that this might pass for 
an excuse in a private individual, but in a 
corporate body which, besides being nume- 
rous, within the latter years has had very 
few objects to attend to, argues a neglect of 
duty and an inexplicable remissness, nay 
even a total forgetfulness of its obligations. 
And if this tribunal in the index of prohibited 
books as well as in its edicts, the chief points 
on which this institution is vulnerable, has 
* It was erased by an edict of 20th Dec. 1782. 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 71 

evinced so much weakness and indolence, 
what will not have been the lax state of its 
interior regulations ? 

It is then clear that the Inquisition in its 
suspension and prohibition of books has not 
only acted in a light and heedless manner, 
with little knowledge and decided malice in 
these respective cases, but also with a want 
of dignity, or if it may be so called, a want of 
formality. Let it not be believed, however, 
that my observations are confined to the 
abuses into which this tribunal has fallen in 
the exercise of its jurisdiction ; the laws also 
which have therein held sway, under the 
name of rules, mandates, and resolutions, are 
equally censur ble. Respecting some of 
them much might be said, but for the sake of 
brevity, I shall only refer to what it is not 
possible for me to pass over in silence. 
Firstly, in the expunging of praises or 
honourable titles which persons of the same 
sect frequently confer on writers of their own 
persuasion, or perhaps Catholics, the Inquisi- 
tion has been extremely nice and scrupulous. 
Among many other proofs we may quote the 
Chronographia of Peter Opmeer, continued 
by Lawrence Beyerlinck, of which in the 
index of prohibited books for the year 1 707, 



72 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. V. 

folio 453, it is ordered to correct the ex- 
pression of " linguam GrcEcam illustrabat" 
applied to Munster, by substituting the verb 
" tractabat" In folio 464, it is said of 
Herman Buschius that he was " vir faceti 
ingenii" which words are ordered to be ex- 
punged. Even of Erasmus, in folio 438, the 
culogium, " "vir trat festivissimo higenio et 
opinione eniditionis per Celebris" was ordered 
to be wholly suppressed. This, however, 
was in remote times, when the tribunal 
was more savage ; for in the index for 1790, 
it contents itself with expunging from the 
reputation of heretics all expressions convey- 
ing the idea of piety or goodness, but yet 
using towards them a principle of liberal 
courtesy in even allowing them to retain 
(these are its own words) " the title of Don 
or Sir.'* This relates to regulation v. which 
ordains " that it is necessary to avoid every 
thing that may cause regard, inclination, and 
esteem towards any discredited persons in 
matters of religion.'* And can such trifles as 
these be honourable to religion ? 

By the xiv. regulation of the index all the 
books of the Talmud are prohibited, together 
with their glossaries, interpretations, and ex- 
positions, as well as all other Jewish works 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 78 

treating of religion and ceremonies. This 
measure, which with regard to other nations 
might possibly be considered of minor conse- 
quence, is nevertheless very great with 
respect to us. Whoever has studied the 
origin and progress of Spanish literature, 
knows that in the 1 Ith century, when Chris- 
tians every where lived buried in profound 
darkness, the Jewish academy of Cordova, 
and at a later period that of Toledo, flourished 
in all kinds of science, and from them came 
forth so many learned men who have conferred 
honour on the nation and excited the envy 
of foreigners. Among the Hebrews there is 
scarcely a learned man of any distinguished 
reputation that was not a Spaniard ; and 
those who were not, owe what they knew to 
the studies of the Spaniards, Of the four 
principal writers which the Jewish people 
possess and venerate as so many Holy Fathers, 
three belong to us; viz. Abraham Abenezra, 
Moses Benmaimon, and David Quimki, all of 
them expositors of the Scriptures. The first, 
whom the Jews out of a principle of antona- 
matia call The Wise, also distinguished him- 
self in medicine and astronomy. The second, 
whose talents they say have not been equalled 
since the time of Moses, besides possessing 



74 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. V. 

the above branches of science, and with them 
several Oriental languages and even the 
Greek, in all which he wrote with elegance, 
had acquired a fund of recondite erudition, 
such as was necessary to draw up an excellent 
commentary on the Mishna or text of the Tal- 
mud, which being written by him in Arabic, 
•was afterwards translated into Hebrew. The 
third, in short, was called Prince of the Gram- 
marians, for, in fact, he is the best the Jews 
ever had; and it is to him that in great 
measure are owing the improvements after- 
wards made in this branch by Christian phi- 
lologists, but above all by the Protestants. 

Till the period when the Jews were ex- 
pelled from the kingdoms of Spain the 
taste for science was there preserved, as is 
proved by the great number of literary cha- 
racters who then left the country to go to 
Africa and the Levant. Such, among others, 
were Abraham Zacuto, Joseph and Semtob 
Uziel, Joseph Peso, Samuel Serralvo, Jacob 
Benrab, Isaac and Meir Aram a, Joseph 
Chequitilla, Jacob and Levi Haben-Habib, 
Joseph Taitasac, Judas Hayat, Abraham 
Sabah, Judas Aboab, — nearly all writers ; 
and with them the well known Isaac Abar- 
banel. " In the part which most relates to and 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 75 

concerns us, which is the study of our most 
holy law," says the ancient Rabin who has 
transmitted this information down to us, 
" we can positively assert, that the excellent 
academy of Toledo was removed to the cities 
of Fez, Salonica, and Saffi. In the same 
flourished men eminent for learning, parti- 
cularly in the holy cabal.* In Salonica our 
people established the famous Talmud Torah, 
in which are more than five thousand scholars 
studying, together with many Yesiboth, of 
which some are most excellent, besides 
thirty-six general schools. In Fez great stu- 
dies were carried on, and wonderful order," 
&c. By the Talmud Torah I understand 
an university for the teaching of the law, 
and by Yesiboth certain schools for particular 
branches.! 

Of the principal labours therefore of these 
great men, chiefly relating to the Scriptures 
and the Mishna, and of the greatest utility 
to us, we have been deprived by the above 



* A secret mystical science professed and taught by 
the Hebrew Rabins. — Tr. 

f Imanuel Aboab, Nomologia 6 Discursos Legales, 
part ii. cap. xxvii. This work was written inCorfu, and pub- 
lished without the name of the place in the year 5389, 
according to the Jewish computation, or in 1629 of the 
Christian era. 



76 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. V. 

decree of the Inquisition. I assert that 
the labours of the Jews on this subject 
might have been of the greatest utility to 
us, because, as they preserve among them- 
selves various traditions of their primitive 
Synagogue, several passages, not only of the 
Old but also of the New Testament, are 
thereby cleared up, which has happily been 
done by some modern professors of Hebrew, 
who have availed themselves of this branch 
of our literary harvest, when in Spain it was 
scarcely known that we possessed it. Another 
of the injuries caused by similar prohibitions 
has been the loss of manuscripts, which 
necessarily must have abounded in the Penin- 
sula, as the study of Oriental languages has 
been abandoned in consequence of the obsta- 
cles placed in the way of the studious by this 
tribunal.* 

* I have the satisfaction to announce to the learned 
the dicovery of a short, but perfect, Chaldean manuscript, 
inserted in one of the Codices of the above-mentioned 
library of Alcala. It is a concise history of the feast of 
the Encaenias, or dedication of the temple of Jerusalem, 
by the Machabees, and in it are found certain particulars 
which do not occur, either in the canonical book of that 
name or in any of the other authors who treat on this 
subject, such as Flavius Josephus, Joseph Bengorion, 
Josipus, and the Arabian, a compendium of whose work is 
inserted by Walton in his Polyglott. The dialect in which 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 77 

At the same time that the Inquisition, as 
above stated, has forbidden all authors who 
were not Catholic to be distinguished by 
titles exciting esteem towards their persons, 
it has prevented the printing of any informa- 
tion when written by Catholics that might 
lessen this same esteem, in cases relating to 
princes or persons, or belonging to one or 
the other clergy. The words of regulation 
xvi., in which this is ordained, are as follow ; 

it is written in purity is equal to that of the Targura 
or Paraphrase of the Pentateuch by Onkelos, in which 
are wanting the clausular, or musical accents as they are 
called by grammarians. It has no title, as is generally th« 
case with ancient works of the same kind, but I have 
given it that of ■]'?q naD Sphar Melee, that is " Book 
of the King," in consequence of the transcriber having 
used this term in the margin. I have translated it in a 
literal manner into Latin, and afterwards into Spanish 
with more freedom, taking from it all Oriental idiotism, 
and adding to it a commentary and a preliminary dis' 
course, also in Latin ; in the latter of which I investigate 
its antiquity and the other particulars deserving of more 
immediate notice. And, as from self-experience I am 
aware how much the curiosity of antiquarians is excited 
by this species of tidings, as a specimen and till the entire 
piece is put to press, I will here insert the first verse, 
with a literal translation, which is as follows : 'ora mm 
nnuioVtyi pom mn Tpni m iV» \v-i kdVo d3vdj« 
: nV iirnniy* I'dVo bai Et fuity in diebus Antiochi Regis 
Grcecice rex magnus, et fortis fuity et potens in principatu 
vio, et Qir>iies reges obediebant ei. 



78 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. V. 

*' It is ordered to blot out all clauses deroga- 
tory to the good fame of any neighbour, 
and principally those containing detraction 
against ecclesiastics and princes. Item : 
Those writings shall be rescinded which may 
offend or discredit ecclesiastical rites, the 
state, dignity, and orders of persons devoted 
to religion." This law, which the egotism 
of one class of the community, already too 
much favoured by kings, dictated as a means 
of supporting their own despotism, to our 
literature has operated as a fatal blow. In 
consequence of it, I may venture to affirm, 
it is that in Spain up to the present day we 
have been deprived of a history worthy of 
the nation ; since, if the first and most in- 
dispensable quality in all history is truth, 
what judgment are we to form of our histo- 
rians, when they were obliged to tread in the 
very path which the Inquisition pleased to 
point out to them, omitting a great number 
of facts, and clothing the detail of others 
according to the palate of this tribunal ? 
The learned consequently ought, as soon as 
peace is re-established in our country, to rec- 
tify and make up for the inexactitude and 
voids which the want of freedom has caused in 
this so material a part of human knowledge ; 
and this will be best done by searching in 



GHAP.V.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 79 

the libraries and archives for those docu- 
ments which the voracity of time and the 
fury of the war may have spared.* 

• The author of a pamphlet ironically entitled " Para 
que la Inquisicion? (Wherefore the Inquisition ?) printed 
in Valencia, defending the prohibition of books as ordained 
by the tribunal makes use of these words : " The liber- 
tines complain that the prohibitions of certain books 
decreed by the Inquisition are so many shackles to the 
understanding. Could any complaint be more unjust ? In 
the immense multitude of books Christianit)' has pro- 
duced has not the confined understanding of man per- 
chance a scope sufficiently wide wherein to range ? Can 
it ever approach the limits of the vast space presented by 
the Sacred Bible, in which are developed all the occur- 
rences of the life of man, together with their consequences, 
from the creation of the world till its destruction?" — So 
then, for the learning of all kinds of science, we shall 
. have to put away all books not appertaining to religion, 
and recur only to those which do ! This, most assuredly, 
is the wish of some persons who, boasting of being the 
only depositaries of the arcana of science, seek nothing 
so much as to convey the truth to us under a garbled 
form. But the above author adds, " Do not the Holy 
Fathers present to us a vast field for reading, profound 
erudition, and enchanting eloquence ?" — Most certain it 
is, that this same apologist of the Inquisition never read 
them, and still more so that, if he did, in the vast field 
for reading they present he never found proofs wherewith 
to support the Inquisition. " Are history," he concludes, 
" sacred and profane, natural science, and belles-lettres, 
in which Christian authors have distinguished themselves 



80 INQUISITION UXMASKED. [CHAP. V, 

I have now gone through the first part of 
my chapter, in which I hope to have amply 
proved that the Inquisition has obstructed 
the progress of science, by persecuting, either 
through ignorance or mahgnancy, its profes- 
sors, as well as by suspending and proscribing 
their works 5 and, in the second, it now 
remains for me to point out the errors which 
it has sometimes disseminated, and at others 
firmly planted, by misleading the judgment 
of the people through its monstrous prac- 
tices, and encouraging their prejudices, as 
if these were derived from principles of 
eternal truth. My remarks will principally 
be directed to the display of three errors ; 
viz. 1st, The infallibility it has arrogated 
and affected to arrogate to itself, by design- 
edly identifying its name with that of the . 
Church and of religion ; 2dly, The belief of 
the existence of witches and sorcerers in 

above all others, too confined a field for the extension or 
human talents ?" — If by Christian authors he likewise 
understands the sectarians, I agree with his opinion, 
but then his argument becomes ridiculous. If he holds 
that it is merely the Catholics who have excelled in 
science, he speaks not the truth ; yet, even confining our- 
selves to the latter, how many of their works, possessed 
of incomparable merit, have not been prohibited by the 
Inquisition I 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 81 

considerable numbers, as well as that the 
injuries and mischiefs related of them were 
true ; and Sdly, The temporal power of the 
Church and of its ministers over nations and 
authorities representing them. Entering on 
this question, and proceeding to examine 
each of the above points respectively, the 
first object that presents itself worthy of 
consideration is the pompous and amphibo- 
logical language which the Inquisition has 
been in the habits of using in the heading 
of its edicts ; by this means dazzling the 
minds of the common people, in order to 
secure their veneration, as if belonging to 
the universal Church. " We, the apostolic 
inquisitors," says the form, " against here- 
tical pravity and apostasy, to all persons of 
whatsoever quality or condition they may be, 
health in our Lord Jesus Christ; which is true 
health, ordaining them firmly to obey and 
comply with our commandments, which, more 
truly, are apostolic prescripts," &c. The 
haughty arrogance with which, in the latter 
words, the Inquisition asserts that its decrees 
are, more truly, apostolic prescripts, is too 
evident and remarkable to require any fur- 
ther comment. It is indeed such that the 
inquisitors themselves, aware of the greater 

TOL. II. G 



irit^fi53fiSly-'.'iJ?f^l(.WiiL . 



82 l!^(iUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAl». Vc 

sagacity of the public, for some years past 
have omitted the above words ; fearing, no 
doubt, that they would rather excite laughter 
than respect towards their tribunal. 

It is to this proud and lofty tone, as well 
as the other stratagems by which the Inqui- 
sition has given importance to its dealings, 
that I attribute the little propriety wuth 
which some of our writers have spoken of 
this institution, conferring upon it such titles 
and epithets as are only applicable to the 
Church assembled in general council. Any 
one, however little he may have read, will 
^easily bring to his mind several of these pas- 
sages; but I shall content myself with merely 
quoting one in this place. Father Luis de 
Granada, among other things, calls this tri- 
bunal " a column of the truth, the guardian 
of the faith, treasure of the Christian religion, 
light against the deceptions of the enemy, 
and touch-stone on which the purity of the 
doctrine is tried, in order to discover whether 
it is false or true." * Borne away by this 
same delusion, the jurisconsult Bartolo went 
so far as to affirm, that he was a pertinacious 
heretic, and as such deserved to be punished, 
who does not hold the word of an inquisitor 

^ Father Luis de Granada, Sermon de Escandalos. 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 8S 

as true and certain.* But why be astonished 
that individual authors have explained them- 
selves on this point with such little exacti- 
tude, or have fallen into the error of believing 
the Inquisition infallible, when this tribunal 
itself has blazoned forth the same infalli- 
bility as a truth connected with the faith ? 
This was in fact done in Zaragosa in the 
year 1591, during the persecution of Antonio 
Perez, secretary of state to Philip II., which 
was carried on against him by the king his 
master; but of which transaction I shall 
speak at greater length in the next chapter. 
The king, proceeding in joint accord with 
the Inquisition, attempted to make the cause 
of Antonio Perez a religious one, and thereby 
seize his person and convey him away from 
the public prison called the Manifest acioii ; 
but as the people, in the unjust outrage com- 
mitted against this minister, presaged the 
loss of their own liberty, and evinced senti- 
ments so much in his favour as to supply 
him with food during his confinement, the 
inquisitors, for the purpose of entangling 
him, sent a friar to visit and publicly incul- 
cate to him the blind respect due to them, 

* L. Tutor. § Tutores,^^ de Suspect. Tut. quoted by 
Alfonso de Castro, de Just. Haer. Punit. lib. i. cap. x. 

G 2 



84 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. V, 

being that theii' decisions possess the pre- 
rogative of infallibility. " Such pains were 
taken to deprive him of the kind acts of the 
people," says Antonio Perez, speaking of 
himself in the third person, " that a friar 
of character used his endeavours with certain 
ladies who supplied him with daily bread in 
order to prevent them from continuing so 
to do ; for it is notorious that he lived on 
charity, since all his income and property 
was in a state of seizure. In addition to this, 
on reprehending the above friar respecting 
what he was doing, and other things he had 
said in the pulpit, he answered, that he had 
been ordered so to do.** Perez then proceeds 
to say, in the note annexed to this passage, 
" I have been informed that this same friar 
was in the habits of declaring that an inquisi- 
tor could not err; and, on his being reproved 
for such a proposition, he answered that he 
was commanded to say so. Scandalous ex- 
cuse indeed," he concludes, " to say that he 
has been commanded to do it ; yet more 
scandalous the order, pitiful the age, and 
lamentable the province, in which such things 
are commanded, and such obeyed from a 
rinciple of fear." * 

* Antonio Perez Relacion del 24 de Mayo. 



/ 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 85 

Besides the convincing proof just stated, 
I could avail myself of others, so much the 
more strong because they demonstrate that 
this doctrine has not been purely speculative 
among the inquisitors ; but rather practical 
to such a degree that not a few culprits have 
thereby fallen victims to their cruelty. In 
the first place, the punishment of death, 
which the code of the Inquisition assigns to 
the convicted, but not confessed, heretic, 
rests upon no other principle than its infalli- 
bility ; which punishment, in order to be 
considered as perfectly just, it would be neces- 
sary for the tribunal to be perfectly exempt 
from mistake and possessed of no failings. 
On the other hand, the auto de fe celebrated 
in Mexico in the year 1 659 affords us testi- 
mony of a similar nature, in the accusations 
preferred against two miserable beings who 
died by the hand of justice. The one was 
Mr. William Lamport, an Irishman; from 
the proceedings of w^hose trial, among other 
things, it resulted that he was the author 
of two writings, tlie first of which was cen- 
sured in the following words : " That in it 
things were said against the Holy Office, its 
erection, style, mode of process, the secresy 
it observes, as well as against the inquisitors. 



86 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. "V, 

secretaries^ and ministers ; in such manner," 
continues the proctor, " that in the whole of 
it not a woi'd was to be found that was not 
deserving of reprehension, not only as being 
injurious, but also insulting to our holy 
Catholic faith." The censure passed on the 
second stated " that it contained such de- 
testable bitterness of language, and contume- 
lies so filled with poison, that they gave 
sufficient room for more than vehement sus- 
picions respecting the faith of the author, 
manifesting his heretical spirit and bitter 
hatred against the Holy Office ; for, in all 
the contents of the same, he has treated it 
as being cruel, tyrannical, unjust in all its 
proceedings, waly in its secresies, inhuman 
in its conduct to culprits, irregular in its 
mode of arresting and examining witnesses, 
the Jews and heretics it punishes as innocent 
persons," (that is, those it punishes supposing 
them such); " and that the whole writing- 
was a glaring libel against the Holy Office 
and the inquisitors." So far Lamport against 
the Inquisition, and the proctor against Lam- 
port.* It is easy to discover, on combining 

* Auto General tie la Fe celebrado en Mexico en 
1659. It is a thick tract in 410, without any division of 
chapters or enumeration of pages. 



CHAP, v.] INaUISITION UNMASKED. 87 

these sentences together and analysing their 
context, that, according to the opinion of 
the tribunal, not only to criticise its laws, 
but also not to approve the conduct of 
its judges, is to discover an heretical spirit, 
give rise to more than vehement suspicions 
of heresy, and evince a principle of conduct 
offensive to the faith. 

The name of the other culprit was Pedro 
Garcia de Arias, and he was accused of having 
said, when on trial, " that the inquisitors, 
after detaining him so long a time in prison, 
were resolved, at all events, to bring him in 
guilty,** and with this giving to understand, 
that the tribunal could not err, when, in fact, 
it was erring; " which," the proctor observes, 
" he repeated with indescribable gestures and 
vehemence.** * 

I leave to the judgment of every rational 
reader to consider, what great discredit must 
have been brought upon religion by the 
prevalence of so absurd an opinion, some- 
times spread abroad by the Inquisition in the 
most positive and conclusive terms, always 
authorised by its practices, and never contra- 
dicted by it, unless it is by the enormous 

* Auto General de la Fe celebrado en Mexico, above 
fi^uoted. 



"^tSsSttt^ST'y^:^''' "***"' 



88 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. V. 

blunders, in which it has left every other tri- 
bunal far behind. Really, in considering the 
resistance on the part of the sectaries to 
acknowledge the infallibility of the Church, 
might it not be asked, whether the zeal of 
our inquisitors, and the prodigality of our 
grovelling writers, who have not only ex- 
tended this same infallibility to the Pope, 
but also to the Inquisition, have not greatly 
corroborated this resistance? This same sense- 
less opinion of the vulgar did not esape the 
notice of the Spanish protestant, Cipriano 
de Valera ; for, in reproving the catholics, he 
expresses himself in the following manner ; 
" Our adversaries say, that the Church can 
make any apocryphal work canonical, which 
we deny. The false opinion they hold that 
neither the sovereign pontiffs, the Church, 
nor the council representing it, can err, (and 
even some add, the inquisitors,) causes them 
to fall into follies of this nature.** * 

In speaking of the manner in which the 
tribunal of Mexico recriminated the two 
above-mentioned culprits, I ought not to 

^ Cipriano de Valera, in his Exhortation to the Reader, 
or rather preface to his translation, or more properly 
his new edition, of the Bible of Casiodoro de Reyna in 
Spanish. 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 89 

omit an interesting circumstance, and this is, 
that the judges who evinced so much zeal 
for the purity of the faith, and appeared so 
much offended that doubts should be enter- 
tained of the sanctity of the Inquisition^ of 
the propriety of all its measures, and even 
of its infallibility, were precisely the same 
persons who, as we have already related, 
with so much perfidy falsified the letters 
written by the prebendary of La Puebla in 
favour of the venerable Palafox.* In the 
proceedings of the trial of Lamport, insti- 
tuted by the said tribunal, mention is inci- 
dentally made of the death of the archbishop 
Don Juan de Manozca, which occurred on 
the ISth Dec, 1650. The above culprit, as 
far as can be collected from the contents of 
his trial, was a man of the world ; and, whilst 
in confinement, he also wrote against the 
conduct of the archbishop towards him. Who 
knows but his complaints were equally as 
well founded as those of Palafox ! It is cer- 
tain that great crimes are imputed to him ; 
but, for my own part, as far as I have been 
able to judge of matters relating to the 
Inquisition, I have learnt how to appreciate 

* Auto General de la Fe celebrado en Mexico en 
1659. 



-| jiH w jfM » i i «wiii >W'«r-«r'rr"^^ '-'-"- rr <-*-y^<r'ts^ 



90 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. V. 

those truths it sometimes utters through mis- 
take and in its own detriment ; and, in like 
manner, I listen with distrust when it re- 
criminates its enemies. The other inquisitor, 
named Don Juan Saenz de Manozca, appears 
in the file of proceedings as one of the pre- 
siding judges. 

The second error cherished by the tribunal 
has been the belief in witches and sorcerers ; 
and this is the error that has most brutified 
the people, and given most food to the cru- 
elty of the Inquisition. The data by which 
I could prove the indiscretion and stupidity 
of the tribunal in this particular are infinite ; 
but I will content myself with one case, for, 
besides being conclusive, it is undoubtedly 
original in its kind. Such do I consider the 
substance of various proceedings read in the 
auto de fe celebrated by the Inquisition of 
Xogrono in the year 1610 j in which, for 
similar crimes, eleven victims were con- 
demned to the flames } five of whom were 
in effigy, and six in person. The capital 
points to which this ridiculous narrativ^e may 
be reduced are three ; viz. the reception of 
proselytes into the sect of the witches, and 
the profession of faith they make in the hands 
of Satan ; their ordinary occupation in an4 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 91 

out of the Aquelarre or Meadow of the 
Cuckold, (Praclo del Cabron) where they 
assemble, it being called so in the Biscayan 
language from the same lying near Zugarra- 
murdi, a town of Navarre ; and lastly the 
celebration of their mysteries on the princi- 
pal festivals of the year. Following up this 
same order, it is stated, that the candidate 
for witchcraft, awakened in the night by his 
master or conductor, and being anointed in 
different parts of the body with a verdi-black 
water, is taken out of his house through the 
key-hole or some chink in the door, and 
carried through the air to the Aquelarre. 
He is there received by the devil, who then 
appears to him under a human form, seated 
in a chair of black wood, bearing a crown 
formed out of horns, his eyes fiery, his body 
and shape between a man and a goat, with 
the beard of the latter; his hands covered 
with sharp claws resembling those of a bird 
of rapine, and his feet like those of a goose. 
The proselyte then falls on his knees, and, 
renouncing God and both chrisms, he ac- 
knowledges Satan for his God and Lord; 
whom, as a sign of respect and vassalage, he 
Jcisses on the left hand, on the heart, on the 



2t-S3!rrr 



92 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. V. 

private parts, and, to complete all, under the 
tail, which resembles that of an ass. The 
devil then marks him as his own, by thrust- 
ing one of his claws into his body, and 
imprinting the figure of a small toad on the 
pupil of his eye with an iron ; and this done, 
he presents him with some coins which soon 
afterwards disappear. 

Each one of the practisers of witchcraft 
has a devil in the shape of a toad, dressed in 
cloth or velvet, with a hood of the same, and 
a necklace of small bells, assigned to him in 
the place of a tutelary angel. Out of these 
toads they obtain the water with which 
they anoint themselves, by treading upon 
them and pressing them softly against the 
ground. In the Aquelarre they have also 
flocks of real toads -, the feeding of which is 
given in charge to the neophite wizards and 
witches, who pasture them along the plain. 
As the object of these assemblies is to cause 
all kinds of injuries, the wizards and witches 
go forth when the trees and fields are in 
flower to collect serpents, lizards, snails, and 
other reptiles j and cutting them in small 
pieces, together with the toads taken out of 
the flocks, and mixing the whole in a boiler 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 93 

with the bones and brains of dead persons 
collected out of the burying grounds, and 
boiling it up with the green and stinking 
water compressed out of the clothed toads, 
they prepare certain powders which they 
spread about on the farms, blight the flowers 
of the trees, and void the ears of corn. They 
injure grown-up persons by causing them to 
become ill of very grievous disorders, accom- 
panied by intense pains, till at length they 
die; and this is done by introducing some 
of the above powders into their mouths whilst 
they are asleep. Boys they kill by scourging 
them with twigs of willow and thorn, without 
their being able to complain or receive any 
assistance from the family, because the devil 
holds them in a state of enchantment ; and 
besides they smother children, or suck out 
their blood. Finally, when any of the witch- 
tribe die, his companions assemble in the 
night, and going to his grave and disinterring 
the body, they carry it to the Aquelarre, cut it 
in pieces, and with great rejoicings eat it. 

But the greatest of all these extravagancies 
is the mass which Satan celebrates on each 
night preceding the festivals of Whitsuntide, 
Christmas, and Easter, as well as others. 



94 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. V* 

After the witches and wizards have confessed 
to him, accusing themselves of the good they 
have done and the injury they have omitted 
to do, his attendant devils help him to put 
on his sacerdotal garments ; having before- 
hand prepared an altar for him with his own 
figure upon it, and a canopy of black shabby 
cloth, together with all the ceremonial uten- 
sils. The choir commences in a low, harsh, 
and grating tone, and Satan reads out of a 
missal, as it were of stone, and then preaches 
a sermon, exhorting his hearers to acknow- 
ledge him for their only God and to do 
Christians all the harm in their power, pro- 
mising paradise to them as a recompense. In 
the offertory, the priest being seated in his 
black chair, the witches arrive according to 
their antiquity, and adoring him with three 
genuflexions and the customary salutations, 
they offer alms in money, and the old squint- 
ing witches present cakes, eggs, and other 
eatables, which are received by the attendants. 
" The offering being made," (these are 
the precise words of the file of proceed- 
ings) " the devil proceeds on with his mass, 
and elevates a round substance, as if made of 
sole-leather, in which his own figure is repre- 



€HAP. v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 95 

sented; saying. This is my body: when all" 
the witches and wizards placed on their knees 
adore it, strike their breasts and cry out, 
Aquerragoiti, Aquen^aheiti ; which means 
Cabron ai^riba, Cabron abaxo. (Cuckold 
above. Cuckold below.) They also do the 
same when he elevates the chalice, seemingly 
of wood, black and ugly ; and he then eats 
the host and drinks the contents of the chalice, 
and afterwards all the witches and wizards 
surround him, and he administers communion 
to them, giving them a mouthful of a black 
and extremely pungent substance, and then 
a drink of a very bitter liquor, which greatly 
chills their hearts. On the mass being ended, 
the devil," &c. (Here follows a description 
of the lewd and beastly orgies into which 
they rush, too revolting for the eye of any 
one.) So far the mad and doting Inquisition.* 

• Auto of the Faith celebrated in Logrono, in 1610. 
This report was printed in the above city, in 1611, by 
Juan de Mongaston, after being examined and approved 
by the prior of St. Francis, censor to the Holy Office, and 
the same who carried the green cross in the procession, as 
well as by a canon of the Collegiate who bore it back to 
the church. This is the same work lately reprinted in* 
Madxid, and adorned with excellent critico-burlesque 



9€ INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. V. 

Martin Delrio states the heads of another trial 
similar to the one of Logroilo, with the ex- 
ception of the mass, contained in a sentence 
pronounced by the Inquisition of Avignon, in 
the year 1582.* This is as much as to say, 
that the inquisitors, in all times and places, 
have cherished and kept alive more or less 
the same prejudices. 

It would be to underrate the national im- 
provements of the present day were I to de- 
tain myself in proving the fantastical nature 
and ridiculous purport of the two preceding 
reports ; of themselves and as they are, they 
cannot fail to strike even the most obtuse 
reader. I will only say, in confirmation of the 
criticism written by Feijoo on this subject, 

notes. " It is now time," says the editor in his preface, 
** to produce documents in order that other pens, without 
exaggeration, without partiality, and without rancour, 
may describe the origin, progress, as well as the sighed-for 
termination of our calamity." Pedro Valencia, a celebrated 
literary character of that time, dared, according to the same 
editor, to reproach the inquisitor-general for this abuse of 
his jurisdiction; but he also adds that his production^ 
which exists under a manuscript form, was disregarded ; 
and it was fortunate enough the author had not to suffer 
on account of it. 

• Martin Delrio, Disquisit, Magicar, lib. r. sect. xvi. 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 97 

and this to his eternal praise, that several per- 
sons of research, on examining various files 
of proceedings handed about since they were 
taken out of the tribunal of Logro^o through 
the late irruption of the French, have observed 
that nearly all relate to sorcery and witch- 
craft which are anterior to the middle of the 
last century, a period when the writings 
of the aforesaid author must have had their 
influence and produced some effect on the 
public mind. It is also presumable that the 
same must have happened in the other tri- 
bunals. It would consequently result that 
this learned writer in a few years succeeded 
in extirpating with his pen, what so many 
ignorant characters during so many ages 
could not do by wielding the sword, since all 
their labours seemed to have a contraiy 
effect, and rather increased the evil. Some 
of the patrons of the Inquisition, confounded 
at the sight of so much weakness and ab- 
surdity, and unable to. answer the proofs 
presented, as well as others of a similar class, 
say that the Inquisition punished what are 
called witches and wizards, not because it 
considered their crimes as real and certain, 
but in consequence of the depraved inclina- 
tion with which they embraced as real the 

VOL. II. H 



9S INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHA? . V. 

impious dreams of their imagination. But 
this answer far from justifying the tribunal, 
even were it well founded, would only serve 
to aggravate its proceedings the more ; since 
by not undeceiving the people, which it has 
never done, it knowingly has canonized an 
error which, from many respects, it was 
bound to condemn. By merely turning over 
the authors who treat on its mode of judicial 
procedure, any one will be convinced that 
the belief in spells and witchcraft had taken 
^s firm hold on the inquisitors as the com- 
mon people themselves, nay even possibly 
greater. 

Of this error in the Inquisition we have 
besides a most striking proof in the cause of 
Father Froilan Diaz, confessor to Charles II. 
and member of the Council of the Supreme. 
From these proceedings it results that the said 
Father, being desirous, in accord with the 
Inquisitor General Father Juan Tomas Roca- 
berti, to discover a remedy for the convulsive 
attacks and other disorders under which the 
King laboured, and suspecting that he was 
bewitched (as the tribunal had before done 
in the time of the Inquisitor Valladares,) he 
for this purpose consulted three demoniac 
nuns of the monastery Cangas, through the 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 99 

medium of their vicar, with whom he kept 
up a long correspondence respecting the 
means of exorcising them and conjuring the 
devil, to the end that he might declare the 
author of the spell and the means of destroy- 
ing it. He also consulted another demoniac 
woman, resident in Madrid, and each step he 
took in this affair having tended only to con- 
fuse it the more, owing to the contradictions 
resulting from the above inquiries, as well as 
others made of a woman possessed of the 
devil in Vienna, he derived no other fruit 
from the whole transaction than to disturb 
the hapless patient still more, and perhaps 
hastening his death with the potions they 
gave him. His simplicity in like manner 
brought upon Diaz the persecution of the 
Inquisitor General Don Balthazar de Men- 
doza, successor of Rocaberti, who, desirous of 
pleasing the queen, offended that part of the 
enchantment had been attributed to her, or- 
dered him to be arrested in Rome, Avhither 
he had escaped. It was the intention of the 
Inquisitor to institute a suit against him, and 
bring him forth in a private auto de fe, but 
in this he did not succeed, for he was deposed 
by Philip V. in consequence of his having 
thereby offended the Council of the Supreme ; 
H 2 



100 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. V. 

thus giving rise to no small murmurs and 
laughter at court, as well as among the whole 
nation.* 

* A criminal process fulminated against Father Froilan 
Diaz, from the year 1698 to 170i, written about that time, 
and printed in Madrid in 1788. The editor, as may be 
seen by comparing the printed with the manuscript copies, 
suppressed some passages in consequence of their being too 
repugnant to common sense, and among them the following 
one, in which the vicar of Cangas in answer to the com- 
plaints addressed to him by the Inquisitor General and his 
counsellor Diaz, respecting the want of improvement in 
the King's health, notwithstanding the remedies prescribed 
by the devil, makes use of the following words : " How is 
it their Lordships can expect the King to get well ? Is 
not the Most Holy Sacrament kept in the dark ; are not 
the religious orders enduring hunger ; are not the hospi- 
tals shut up, and the blessed souls in Purgatory suffering 
for the want of masses ? And above all, the King has not 
done justice, when he promised to do it, to a Holy Cross." 
It is very singular under the total disorganization the 
monarchy at that time experienced, that the King should 
be blamed on no score except because he did not attend 
as much as the Father Vicar desired to pious establish- 
ments, and to the celebration of masses. The Holy Cross 
of which he speaks, was most probably the one with a silver 
shoe belonging to the convent of the Dominicans of 
Atocha : at least it was in the chapel of the Virgin of said 
convent that the devil oftered to declai-e the author of the 
charm, prescribing as a condition, " that the devotion to 
the above holy image, which had greatly cooled, should be 
restored." It would be necessary to agree that the friars, 
1 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 101 

More serious and more fundamental than 
the preceding are two other proofs which I 
am about to present of the mad delusion under 
which the tribunal laboured in this respect. 
The first is, that considering this crime ex- 
tremely difficult to prove, because the witches 
held their conventicles at an unusual hour 
of the night and in uninhabited places, light 
evidence was sufficient to question them 
under torture, and age and ugliness in women 
were deemed very powerful signs.* This 
was actually believed by the Inquisition, yet 
the second case is still stronger. The tri- 
bunal imagined that the culprits accused of 
similar crimes rendered themselves insensible 
to pain in consequence of their having some 
spell attached to the hair of the body. In 
order to prevent this trick it adopted as the 
best possible means the shaving of the head, 
face, and other parts where the spell might 
be secreted. Thus owins^ to the consummate 



'& 



especially the Dominicans, have in the devil a great and 
watchful promoter of their interests, if we did not know 
that the persons possessed by the devil were Dominican 
nui;is, that the exorcist was a Dominican, and that Father 
Froilan Diaz, as well as the Inquisitor General, were also 
of the same order. 

* Delrio, Disquisit. Magicar. lib. v. Append, ii. quaest. 
xxii. — Massini, Prattica della Santa Inquisizione, part yii. 



102 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. V. 

ignorance of the tribunal those unhappy 
people had to suffer, more particularly the 
women from the shameless manner in which 
they were exposed, an atrocious martyrdom 
before they were placed on the torture or 
thrown into the flames. In this manner, in the 
year 1585, the Inquisition of Como, in Italy, 
burnt 41 females, after the above operation 
had been previously performed.* Hence 
therefore is the supposition brought forward 
as an excuse for such conduct both ground- 
less and capricious. Neither ought the 
general manner in which in the preceding 
ages credit was given among all nations to 

* Delrio, Disquisit. Magicar. lib, v, sect. ix. " Tertio 
debent capilli capitis et barbce abradi, immo et per totum cor- 
pics, etiam in paHibus secretioribusy sifemince sint ajeminisy 
si viri a viris, et sic cavebitur inhonestas et inverecundiay 
propter quam Inqtiisitores Germanici Uprengerus et socii non 
amijuerunt hoc uti remedio ut ipsimet profiteniu?; addentes 
alibi hoc in usu esse." Could any consideration obserred 
towards the sex in the election of the executioners never- 
theless prevent shame from being extremely great? He 
then quotes the precise words of Sprenger and his com- 
panions, which are these : " Tamen ingiiiimt, in aliis reg- 
nis Inquisitores talent per totum corpus abrasuram Jieii 
mandant. Unde et Cumanus Inquisitor nobis insinuavit 
quod anno elapso, qui fait 1485, unam el quadraginta 
maleficas incinerari mandasset, omrdbus per totum corpus 
mbi'asisJ'* 



CHAP, v.] tNQUISlTION UNMASK8D. 108 

these frenzies, to be considered as an 
apology in the present case. I should my- 
self be inclined to excuse, by attributing this 
prejudice to a want of information in our 
ancestors, rather than to the real grounds on 
which it rests, if, like other tribunals, the In- 
quisition had acted from candid motives; but 
as it has had the petulancy to proclaim itself as 
omniscient and unerring, and has closed the 
mouth of every one who laboured to unde- 
ceive it, in this respect I consider it highly 
deserving of public execration. 

Let us now proceed to examine the third 
error the Inquisition has inculcated and de- 
fended as a truth of the faith, and this is the 
power of the Church over kings in temporal 
matters. If the concession of spiritual autho- 
rity in favour of priests is manifest in the 
Gospel, the conservation in all their integrity 
of the rights and prerogatives of nations is 
not less so. But what is vulgarly said of he- 
retics, viz. that they model the Scriptures like 
a waxen nose, giving it the shape that best 
suits them, may also be affirmed of the Decre- 
talists and Scholastics, for they have made 
it pointed, aquiline, Roman, and they have 
also completely flattened it when they wished 
none to appear. " My kingdom is not of this 



104 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. V, 

world," said Jesus Christ to Pilate, in answer 
to the accusation he had preferred against 
him of aspiring to the monarchy.* " Who 
has constituted me judge between thee and 
thy brother?** did he also answer to him who 
solicited sentence respecting the partition of 
the property he had just inherited.! In like 
manner did he say to the emissaries of the 
Pharisees, who were preparing for him a snare 
in order to accuse him of sedition, "Give 
to Csesar the things which are C8esar*s, and 
unto God those which are God's.** 1^ There 
is nothing more categorical, nor more con-^ 
elusive against the temporal power of the 
Church, than these same passages ; neverthe- 
less. the popes, and in imitation of them the 
inquisitors, have interpreted them as if they 
meant nothing in the case, or as if their real 
signification was quite the reverse. Such is 
the influence of a thirst for sway. 

In the middle ages, when seculars with re- 
gard to politics and literature were completely 
blind, and even the Charlemaignes did not 

* S. Johan. cap. xviii. v. 36. " Regnum meum nonest de 
hoc mundo." 

f S. Luc. cap. xii. v. M. " Homo guis me constituit 
judicem, aut divisorem iyiter vos?" 

% S. Matth. cap. xx. v. 21. " Reddite, ergo, quce'sunt 
Ccesaris Casari, ct quce sunt Dei Deo." 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 10.5 

know how to read and write, the clergy, 
sufficiently well informed to avail them- 
selves of the favourable opportunity, extended 
their powers so widely that they nearly ab- 
sorbed the regal power. Hence arose the 
competitions and even the wars declared 
against Rome when the nations awoke from 
their lethargy ; and hence the multitude of 
concordates between the papal see and the 
other Christian courts, in which the despoiled, 
capitulating with the invader for the sake of 
peace, submitted to acknowledge one part of 
his usurpation as just. " The disorder which 
it is pretended to cure/* said Melchor Cano 
to Charles V., speaking of the ambition of 
the Italians^ " is, as far as can be^understood, 
incurable j and it is a great error to attempt 
the cure of sick persons who with medicines 
get worse. Plus habet aliquando discriminis 
tentata curatio, quam ipse morbus. There 
are disorders which it is better to leave to 
themselves, and let the evil make away with 
the patient, rather than hurry on the physi- 
cian. Badly does he know Rome who pre- 
tends to heal her. Ciiravimus Babylonem, et 
non est sanata. Sick for many years, already 
gone beyond the tertian stage, consumptive, 
the fever confirmed in her bones, her disorder 



106 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. V. 

has at length arrived at such a pitch as to be 
beyond the power of remedy/'* Undoubt* 
edly inquisitorial zeal powerfully contributed 
to sustain this evil, of which among other 
documents ample testimony is found in the 
bull ** In Ccena Domini," published by Paul 
III., the restorer of the Inquisition in Italy, 
and defended with singular firmness by Pius 
v., formerly an inquisitor, and during his 
pontificate a most zealous promoter of the 
tribunal, but repelled in the part relating to 
royal prerogatives, by all the monarchs 
respectively. 

As a last resource Paul V. availed himself 
of the Inquisition in his attempts against the 
sovereign rights of the republic of Venice. 
The senate had published two decrees, one 
of which prohibited the building of new hos- 
pitals or convents, and the establishment of 
fiew corporations ; and the other was a re- 
TJewal of an ancient decree which made it 
unlawful to sell, transfer, or under any title 

* Melchor Cano, m his " Opinion given to the Emperor 
Charles V. respecting a declaration of war against the 
Pope." This paper is inserted in Camponiane's work en- 
titled " Judicio Imparcial,'* &c. or "An Impartial Report 
oo the letters, in the form of briefs, which have been pub- 
lished by the Court of Rome, wherein it is attempted to 
derogate certain edicts of the Prince Infante of Parma." 



CHAP, v.] iNQXnSinO^ UNMASKED. 107 

whatever to dispose of fixed property in 
favour of the clergy without permission of the 
said senate; and it had besides imprisoned 
certain ecclesiastics accused of enormous 
crimes, for the purpose of bringing them to 
trial. The pope commanded the nuncio, his 
representative, to demand the revocation of 
the decrees and the enlargement of the pri- 
soners ; but as his solicitations were disre- 
garded, he addressed two briefs in the form 
of admonitions to the Doge and the republic, 
declaring them excommunicated if they did 
not comply with his orders within the term of 
24« days, and besides placing an interdict on 
the above states if the compliance was de- 
layed three days longer. The Venetian senate 
on seeing this commanded the nuncio to leave 
the country, and the council of the Ten, after- 
wards assembling the prelates and superiors 
of convents, enjoined them to continue cele- 
brating the divine office as usual. Almost all 
obeyed, with the exception of the Jesuit;?, 
for which reason the senate expelled them 
from the territory of the republic for ever, 
giving a just example of severity, afterwards 
successively followed by France, Portugal, 
and Spain, proportionably as the measure of 
their crimes was filled up. 
7 



108 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. V. 

The pope then undertook to declare war 
against the Venetians, and also endeavoured 
to prevail on several princes to do the same, 
but as no one appeared willing to enter into 
the league, since all saw that the war was 
against their own rights, the contest was re- 
duced to apologies and recriminations. The 
Romans, however, did not neglect their 
own ends, but availing themselves of their 
customary allegation, that is, to implicate all 
opposition to their pretensions as heretical, 
they caused the Inquisition to prohibit the 
principal writings of the opposite party. 

This the tribunal carried into effect, pro- 
hibiting among other things a defence of the 
treatise of Gerson respecting excommunica- 
tion written by Father Paolo Sarpi, and at 
the same time ordering the author to appear 
in Rome, who did not obey. Among other 
propositions sustained by the Romans but of 
which the opposite ones were condemned by 
the Inquisition, was this, that the pope is 
the universal monarch of the world, and that 
as such he can deprive princes of their king- 
doms through faults they may have committed 
in their government, and merely on the plea 
of this being conformable to the good of 
the Church ; and that if the latter did not 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 109 

from the beginning display the whole extent 
of her temporal power, it was in order not to 
alarm them. It was not difficult to destroy 
such preposterous assertions; for which reason 
Paul v., seeing that the more his cause was 
discussed the worse it became, endeavoured 
to arrange matters by means of a negotiation 
proposed by Henry IV. Father Sarpi was 
never pardoned for having risen up as the 
champion of his party, and assassins were 
employed who gave him fifteen stabs, but 
fortunately no one proved mortal. Thirty-six 
ecclesiastics were besides confined in prisons 
and deprived of all future promotion, in con- 
sequence of their having evinced most zeal 
for the rights of their nation.* 

In order to give strength to this fatal 
delusion, the Inquisition has at all times 
protected the writers who promoted it, and 
uniformly condemned all those who have had 
the firmness to refute it, or in any way what- 
ever to make it known. Of the latter I will 
only , quote three cases ; which are, Juan de 
Solorzano, Francisco Salgado, and Father 
Belando. The prohibition which the Inqui- 
sition of Rome enacted for the works of the 

* Vita del P. Paolo Sarpi, written by his companion 
Father Fulgenzio. 



no INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. V. 

two first caused Philip IV. to communicate 
the following order to cardinal Borja, his 
ambassador at the above court : " I have 
been informed," says he, " that in the court 
of Rome great care is taken for those who 
print books to write in favour of ecclesi- 
astical jurisdiction, on all the points in which 
controversies and competitions may occur 
with the secular authority j and that, in mat- 
ters relating to immunities, privileges, and 
exemptions of the clergy, they assert and 
uphold those opinions most favourable to the 
latter, by prohibiting and impeding the cir- 
culation of all works published and containing 
a defence of my rights, royal prerogatives, 
and pre-eminences, notwitstanding this is 
done on the best grounds taken out of the 
laws, canons, councils, the doctrines of saints, 
as well as of weighty and ancient doctors. 
I have further been informed, that the Italian 
prelates act on the same principle of vigi- 
lance ; by which means, in the course of a 
short time, they will render all the opinions 
in their own favour general j and, in con- 
formity to them, judgments will be passed 
in all the tribunals. This is a newly intro- 
duced principle that requires a remedy, for 
few authors will wish to expose themselves 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 1 1 1 

to the danger of their works being called in, 
and when any one dares to publish, his la- 
bours will be of no avail. Thus does it 
happen that, of modern authors, scarcely 
one can be found who does not favour the 
clergy. Desirous of putting a stop to this 
evil, it has appeared to me proper to direct 
you to speak to his holiness, requesting of 
him that, in matters which are not of the 
faith, but of controversy respecting jurisdic- 
tion, and other similar subjects, he will be 
pleased to let every one think and deliver 
his sentiments in a free manner. And tell 
his holiness that, if he should order those 
works to be called in which may be pub- 
lished with opinions favourable to secular 
jurisdiction, I will command all those to be 
prohibited which may be written against my 
rights and royal pre-eminences; and give 
him to understand, that this shall really be 
done if his holiness does not agree to what 
is so just and reasonable." * 
• The Civil History of Spain, from the year 
1700 to 1733, by Father Belando, was pro- 
hibited with all kinds of censures by our 
Inquisition ; because in it the author gives 
an account of the disputes respecting royal 

* Royal Order of lOUi April, 163*. 



112 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. V, 

prerogatives, which about that time took 
place between our court and that of Rome. 
Of no avail were the candour and sincerity 
with which this work is written, nor were 
the various approbations it received of any 
service to the author, tliough one of them 
was drawn up by a censor named by the 
king, to whom the work was dedicated. Not- 
withstanding all, the papers he had written 
in his own defence were seized ; and, after 
being confined to a dungeon, and the attor- 
ney who pleaded for him cited before the 
judges, this unfortunate writer was banished 
from Madrid, without ever having been able 
to obtain a hearing, though he incessantly 
solicited it, and died at a very advanced 
age.* Finally, the trial of Lamport, above 
spoken of, not only evinces, that the inqui- 
sitors have attributed to the Church undue 
powers over temporal concerns, but likewise 
that they have raised this their opinion into 
a dogma of the faith. The writing of the 
following proposition was imputed to the 
last-mentioned culprit as a crime : " There 
is no Christian king who is bound to acknow- 

* Consultation held with his Majesty on Nov. 30, 1768, 
on the part of the lords of the extraordinary council and 
prelates holding a vote therein, n. 38 and 39, MS. 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED, 113 

ledge the Pope in any thing temporal, neither 
did Christ give power to St. Peter unless in 
spiritual matters." In like manner, and in 
conformity to this doctrine, he was accused 
of having maintained, that the Pope was not 
authorized to grant to our kings domi- 
nion over America. But could any one 
doubt that if we Spaniards, by the title of 
conquest or any other whatever had a right 
to establish colonies there, the sanction of 
the Pope was then useless; and that if we did 
not possess -this right, that no bull whatsoever 
sufficed to legalize such an acquisition ? 

The Inquisition most assuredly has often 
stumbled in all its affairs ; but, with regard 
to the promulgation of dogmas, few tribunals 
have slided into so many errors as that of 
Mexico. In an edict, dated August 27, 1 808, 
it uses the following words: " Know ye, 
that the sovereign pontiiFs, and among them 
Clement XL, have recommended to the 
holy office of the Inquisition of Spain to be 
careful and watch over the fidelity which 
all their vassals, of whatsoever rank, class, or 
condition they may be, owe to their Catholic 
Majesties." It afterwards adds, " Therefore 
stimulated by our obligation of procuring 
that the throne of our august monarch, 

YOL. II. I 



M4 iNQtrisiTidN "tjNMAmfiD. [chap, v: 

Ferdinand VII., be consolidated, we establish 
as a rule which is to serve as a touch-stone 
to all the propositions ye may read or hear, 
that the king receives his power and au- 
thority from God, and that this ye are bound 
to believe with divine faith." The tribunal 
then concludes : " For the more exact obi 
servance of these principles, we renew our 
prohibition of all and any books and papers^ 
as well as every kind of doctrine which may 
influence, or in any manner co-operate to 
independence of, or insubordination to the 
lawful authorities, whether it be by renewing 
the manifest heresy of the sovereignty of the 
people, according as it has been dogmatised 
and taught by some philosophers, or by 
adopting their system only in part." * With 
such arrogance as this does the tribunal raise 
to an axiom of religion an error not less 
classical in politics than, in mathematics it 
would be, to deny that the whole is greater than 
part, or that this is smaller than the whole. 

One of the worst and most operative effects 
produced among us, through the ignorance 
cherished by this tribunal, has been a false 
devotion, or what we call by another name, 

* This edict was laser ted in the Diary of Mexico of 
5th Sept. of same year 1808. 



CHAP..T,3 INQUISITION UNMASKED. 115 

hypocrisy. As so many individuals^ and even 
corporations, have lived by this vice, it is not 
to be wondered at that the Inquisitiorl hs^s 
been so condescending in this partictilar 
when its existence was intimately interwoven 
with it. It is really pitiful to behold the state 
of fatuity in which pious prejudices, hold ^the 
common people; for, if their, religion is 
examined by the sentiments it excites in the 
heart, it rather resembles polytheism or idola- 
try than a true worship of the divinity. The 
idea they have formed to themselves of the 
Supreme Being is most miserable ;. and, in 
the mean time absorbed iu rapture, they 
almost exclusively raise their supplications 
to the saints, from whom they expect all 
protection. It is not difficult to point out 
the cause of this confusiori, or rathe? it is well 
known. God is in all parts, and is every 
where found by him who implores his aid ; 
but the saints, under this or the other tutelary 
form, are only to be found in the temples; 
for which reason, it is necessary for him who 
.^requires their ajd_ to go there. Hence ^uch 
an infinite diversity of rogations and eccle- 
siastical ceremonies ; many of them injurious 
to the. majesty, of the. Gospel, and which 
rather conduce lo bliint the remorse. of CQ^- 
I 2 



116 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. V. 

science than amend the habits ; rather to 
dissipate the spirit than edify it. Thus is it 
that, in the midst of such a parade of sanc- 
tity, and among such a number who consider 
themselves on the summitof perfection, vices 
in Spain are the same as in other countries, 
and nothing is so scarce as solid virtue. 
"When will it please God to let us have fewer 
devotees, and more upright men ? 

A tinsel virtue, resting on a certain love 
of the marvellous, is what thrives by the side 
of the Inquisition, at the same time that the 
really virtuous are exposed to danger, as 
happened to Saint Ignatius de Loyola, who 
■went from Spain to Paris flying from it ', and 
also to Saint Teresa of Jesus, who some 
assert was imprisoned; and indeed others 
have undergone punishment, as the venerable 
Thomas de Valmacinaya, anchoret of mount 
Gualdo, in Umbria, who, being twice arrested 
by the tribunal of Sienna, did not escape the 
second time till after the torture had been 
inflicted upon him.* 

Who could believe, at the beginning of 
the i9th century, and in the very heart of 
the kingdom, where the want of information 

* Comejo Cronica de la Orden de S. Franciso, part i. 
cap. xxvii. and xxix. 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 117 

has not been so great, that three poor women, 
feigning special favours from heaven, would 
be able to delude multitudes of people, and 
be applauded by ministers of the altar? The 
devotee of Alcala de Henares, sweating blood 
by a supernatural effect, and in memory of 
the passion of Jesus Christ; the one of 
Cuen9a, hypostatically united to the Divine 
word, and in the middle of the day, accom- 
panied with lights as if her person was one 
of the Trinity ; the one also of Madrid, living 
almost on the communion alone, which she 
received in her own house j where, by a dis- 
pensation from Rome, she made a solemn 
profession of the Capuchin order, and where 
day and night she kept the sacrament, in 
consequence of her being unable to go out, 
owing to a state of extreme weakness occa- 
sioned by her penance and intense contempla- 
tions ; — how much have not these instances 
scandalized the public, and how much have 
they not discredited true piety? The Inqui- 
sition at last arrested them, — proved that they 
were impostors, and even prostitutes, — ascer- 
tained that individuals belonging to both 
branches of the clergy, either through igno- 
rance or evil intention, had aided in the Ac- 
tion, — punished those who were proved guilty; 



118 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. V. 

l;)ut of what avail is it to prune the branches 
when the evil lies in the root? Instead of put- 
ting the people on their guard against the fond 
suggestions of self-love, never so dangerous 
as in matters of religion, they have been 
fed up with chimeras, which at one time have 
rendered them rashly confident,and at another 
cast them down, even to despair. Miracles 
■worked by the Omnipotent, as it were for 
amusement, and horrid apparitions of con- 
demned souls, have constituted the ordinary 
reading and conversation of the common 
people ; yet the index of prohibited books, 
so completely crowded with works of learn- 
ing, scarcely contains one of the many which 
liave served to cherish and diffuse this public 
credulity. 

^^The great power of the religious bodies, 
and the burdens and hardships they have 
broiight upon the monarchy, through the 
indefinite number of their convents, as well 
as their immense riches, are principally owing 
to the support they have found in the Inqui- 
sition. Of a singular nature indeed is the 
condemnation of the following proposition, 
to be seen in the index of prohibited books 
for the year 1584, page 75 : " Monachi non 
iantum oratwni vacare debent ; sed etiam 

4 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 119 

operarl" " Monks ought not only to pray, 
but also to work." Another equally curious 
is read in page 85. " Fortassis e.rpediat ret' 
publicce 7nonasteriorum esse modum.'* " It 
might possibly be for the good of the state 
to reduce the number of convents." Neither 
is the favour this tribunal has shewn to those 
religious orders which are not possessed of 
real property less remarkable. The ministry 
of preaching, which like a branch of industry 
therein supplies the want of property, and 
even affords an income to the members, after 
being in a great measure withdrawn from 
the inspection of the bishops, became adul- 
terated by numberless abuses consequent to 
such an emancipation ; abuses which many 
zealous men were nevertheless compelled to 
respect by their silence, although they shud- 
dered at the idea of such dereliction and 
venality. This is evinced in Father Isla; 
whose sportive " History of Father Gerund 
de Campazas " was proscribed by the Inqui- 
sition, because he therein depicts, in natural 
colours, the vices of the friars in their mode 
of preaching. Thua whilst our neighbours 
the French, by banishing from their pulpits 
the depraved taste introduced by the pseudo- 
scholars of the 1 7th century, beheld a Chry- 



120 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. V. 

sostom, a Gregory Nazianzen, revive in their 
Flechiers, Bourdaloues, and Massillons, — in 
the pulpits of Spain all was vulgarity, extra- 
vagance, and folly j and this is in a great 
measure the case even up to the present day. 
The above-mentioned work of Father Isla 
was received in, as well as out of, Spain with 
extraordinary applause; and no other than 
the regular orders, and indeed not all of 
them, together with some seculars, declared 
themselves enemies against it ; and these, 
according to the author's words in a letter 
to Don Nicolas de Ayala, his brother-in-law, 
had either not read it, or were incapable of 
any other sentiments than those suggested 
by the former. When the Inquisition ordered 
the re-impression of the first volume to be 
suspended, (the first edition having been sold 
off in twenty-four hours,) and also the printing 
of the second, till both were examined, the 
work was recommended to the Inquisitor Ge- 
neral, by the president of the council, the car- 
dinal archbishop of Seville, the archbishop of 
Zaragoza,the commissary-general of La Cruza- 
da, the bishop of Leon, the bishop of Guadix, 
and other great personages : nevertheless the 
friars prevailed, and the tribunal condemned 
it under sentence of the 10th of May, 1760, 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKJSD. 121 

because it contained, according to the tenor 
thereof, " many propositions ill-sounding, 
erroneous, heretical, or sapientes haresim" 
The reason of the unsuccessful issue of this 
affair had already been stated by the author 
to his afore-mentioned brother-in-law in the 
following words : " Sixty thousand enemies 
at least who are continually howling, aided 
by highly respectable wigs, and even some 
mitres with or without cowls, are not ante- 
cedents from which happy consequences can 
be inferred. It is indeed certain, that the 
party favourable to the work is incomparably 
more numerous and of much higher respect ; 
but as it does not raise its cries so high, for 
pleasure never excites a scream so loud as 
pain, it is to be feared that this party cannot 
be considered so much interested as it really 
is by reason and religion. On the whole, 
I neither despair nor confide, except with 
that confidence which I have placed in God 
alone, whose cause I think I am defend- 
ing."* The Spanish people by calling, with 
Father Isla, bad preachers Gerunds has given 
to the work the most honourable approbation. 

* Vide his " Familiar Letters," vol ii, letter Ixviii. Ixx. 
and Ixxi., and vol. vi. letter cxxxviii. Vide also his Life, 
wrritten by Don Jose Ignacio de Salas, 



122 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. V. 

Having shown that this tribunal has perse- 
cuted Hterary characters, in their persons and 
writings, and that it has moreover dissemi- 
nated fatal errors, — as a necessary conse- 
quence we deduce, that among us it has 
obstructed the progress of science and con- 
tributed to diminish its ancient splendour, 
which constituted the object of the present 
chapter. I say that the Inquisition has con- 
tributed to this decline, because, if of itself 
it was capable of producing such an effect, it 
cannot be denied that various causes have also 
conspired to the same end. The annihilation 
of the public treasury, which commenced 
on the close of the reign of Philip II. in 
consequence of the immense expenses brought 
upon this prince by his ambition, and which 
increased to a great extreme during the weak 
reigns of Philip III., Philip IV., and Charles 
II. J the depopulation of the Peninsula, from 
the continual emigrations of its inhabitants 
to the New World, — the military expeditions 
to Italy and the Low Countries, — the garri- 
soning of strong places, — together with the 
unlimited protection, or rather encourage- 
ment, given to ecclesiastical celibacy by their 
Catholic Majesties, and a large portion of 
property faUing into mortmain ; such, among 



«|HAP. v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 125 

Others, were tlie political errors associated 
■with this tribunal, most of them sustained 
by it, in order to undermine and destroy all 
the knowledge that still remained among us. 
Its apologists will nevertheless object to 
the deductions here drawn, by asking whether 
the happy reigns of Ferdinand the Catholic, 
Charles V., and Philip II., which united cer- 
tainly form the golden age of Spain, — when 
our literary, equal to our military, glory ex- 
ceeded that of other nations, — does not suffice 
to destroy all these allegations respecting the 
oppression endured by men of talents under 
the Inquisition ; since it was at that period 
that the latter extended itself and enjoyed 
greater authority ? In order to do away with 
this argument, it is merely necessary to ob- 
serve, that the ancient knowledge of which 
we Spaniards boast, although great, never- 
theless possessed much exaggeration ; it was 
not so general as was to be wished ; it had 
not arrived at the pitch of which it was 
capable, neither was it comparable to that 
of Greece or Rome, or equalto that of other 
nations now enlightened. True it is, that 
Spain at that time appeai'ed in the eyes of 
Europe as an unequalled object of greatness j 
but it was in consequence of the sudden 



124r INaUlSITION UNMASKED. [CHAP.V. 

accession of new dominions, obtained either 
hy marriage, the inheritance of her princes, 
or finally by the discovery of America. Yet 
this was not a greatness founded on and 
cemented by a good system of legislation, 
nor supported by the wise institutions which 
make an empire solidly happy. On the other 
hand, it is necessary to observe, that this 
tribunal in its persecutions has not always 
followed the same course, but various ones; 
and that, on its establishment in Seville, the 
sciences were not the objects which at first 
occupied its attention. Their Catholic Ma- 
jesties Ferdinand and Isabella adopted it for 
the purpose of ridding themselves, through 
its means, of the Jews and Moors; whose 
number and riches, it was said, threatened 
the kingdom ; and, in fact, it put an end 
to them, without causing at that lime any 
other great ravages. Several theological 
disputes afterwards occurred, and with them 
the disturbances of the north ; and the tri- 
bunal did not stop till, under that pretext, 
and in order to serve the purpose of the 
school cabals and other interested views, it 
had terrified and caused the great divines, 
and professors of the other sciences connected 
with religion, to disappear. Finally, other 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 125 

nations within the two last centuries having 
made considerable advances in politics, as 
well as in church discipline, it has omitted 
nothing that might tend to destroy the seeds 
which, in spite of its exertions, and in the 
face of a thousand dangers, some national 
writers, not less deserving of tlie Church 
than the state, have sown on our soil ; and, 
beyond doubt, it would have proceeded on 
in the same barbarous course, had it not 
been stopped in its career by the present 
unexpected revolution. 

But has not the Inquisition likewise lorded 
it over Italy, without preventing the sciences 
from flourishing there, the same as in other 
countries ; and is this not the same Italy 
that gave shelter to the learned Greeks who, 
flying from the Ottoman invasion, spread the 
relics of science throughout the west ? This 
new objection however proves nothing against 
the truth of my assertions ; for, independent 
of terror in the above kingdom never having 
equalled that which was exercised among us, 
two powerful causes there concurred to dimi- 
nish, and almost to neutralize, the influence 
of the tribunal over letters. One is the policy 
with which the Italians have at all times con- 
sulted their pecuniary interests, postponing 



1 2^ INQUISITION . UNMASKED, [CHA-P.-T^ 

|p, them every other consideration. For this 
reason they have been sufficiently tolerant, 
even so far as to ^llow the Jewish worship 
among them whilst, by means of the Inqui- 
jsition, it v/as destroyed in other countries. 
The other reason of difference, at least as far 
as relates to the states of the Church, is that 
the popes, being at the same time temporal 
princes, had no occasion there, as in other 
parts, to undermine the rights of the secular 
authorities ; consequently the ignorance of 
their subjects was less useful to them, and 
less necessary was the aid of the Inquisition.* 

e--)r. " ■ - ■ .: 

* Whether ought we to attribute to the Inquisition, or 
to a want of natural disposition, as some pretend, the 
greater backwardness in science, principaDy in the ec- 
clesiastical branches, which is remarkable in Catalonia 
compared with the other provinces of the kingdom? 
That this backwardness really exists, independent of other 
proofs, is evinced by the literary histories in which we 
find no learned men of the first order natives of the above 
principality, and very few of the second. A singular phe- 
nomenon indeed, if we reflect that Catalonia, in the 14th 
century, was by her traffic and navigation the mistress ^f 
the Mediterranean ; independent of her abundant popula- 
tion and well-known industry, which one would imagine 
■would promise the same rich fruits in literature as those 
she reaps in agriculture, arts, and commerce. Our sur- 
prise, however, ceases when we reflect that the Inquisition 
was established in this province two centuries and a half 



CHAP, v.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 127 

sooner than in the interior of the kingdom; and that 
besides this having taken place prior to the revival of 
letters, inquisitorial fanaticism must have therein taken 
deeper root, by entering with all that fury acquired from 
its recent organisation. Why then go in search of any 
other cause for this backwardness in science ? This will 
not be the case as soon as the author of her prejudices is 
exterminated, and his yoke completely shaken off. Never- 
theless it is indispensably necessary that the Catalonians 
should abandon their provincial language, or else cultivate 
it. so* as to approximate it in every possible degree to the 
Castilian (which probably would not be difficult) if it is 
their desire, under the new institutions, to be more closely 
connected with the rest of the nation, and stand on an 
iequal footing. Let us now undeceive ourselves and under- 
iStand that the Catalonian otherwise will always be as a 
foreigner in his own country, and consequently deprived 
of a large share of that knowledge obtained by a reciprocal 
communication of ideas, an advantage alone enjoyed by 
one who possesses the national language as his own. 



iUil t. 



CHAPTER VL 

This Tribunal has supported the Despotism of 
Kings, and has itself exercised it. 

I^OULD an establishment under every res- 
pect vicious, and in which hypocrisy and 
cruelty have been wielded as principal abuses, 
fail to be a proper instrument to serve the 
purposes of despots ? None of the latter make 
a boast of being such ; on the contrary, all 
keep up appearances ; and, whilst abusing 
their authority, in some measure consult the 
public opinion, with which they avoid openly 
clashing. If so, what other more adequate 
means could they desire to conciliate their 
tyranny with public sentiment, than for this 
tribunal to intervene between their crimes ? 
Would not the obscurity with which the 
latter shrouds its proceedings, and the inex- 
tricable mazes it spreads around its paths, 
greatly facilitate the execution of their plans, 
but more especially when the mysterious 
parade of religion is added thereto ? Expe- 
rience, alas ! has too fully substantiated this 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 129 

sad truth. The obligations of the prince 
towards his people thence became con- 
founded, and the nghts of the latter dis- 
figured by the mean policy which, as we 
have already shown, has been observed by 
the Inquisition in the prohibition of books. 
The latter has not been satisfied with pro- 
curing to kings an undue and overgrown 
authority, but it has likewise lent itself in 
determined cases as a blind instrument to the 
co-operation of their designs of vengeance, 
or of any other unbridled passion. Some of 
■ these cases most remarkable in history will 
demonstrate the truth of this first part of my 
proposition. 

The first I shall adduce is the prosecution 
of the Templars. There can be no doubt that 
every religious order, as \vell as every corpo- 
ration of whatever class it may be, ought to 
be abolished from the moment it becomes 
burdensome to society ; and from this evi- 
dent rule monarchs enjoy a full power to 
suppress them. Notwithstanding this, and 
that the Templars by their numerous con- 
vents and incalculable riches brought consi- 
siderable injury upon the nations, Phihp IV., 
King of France, offended apparently because 
in his disputes with Boniface VIII. some of 

VOL. II. K 



130 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

the above knights had supplied this pope 
with money to carry on the war against him, 
preferred imbruing his hands in the blood of 
the whole order in a manner that will eter- 
nally dishonour him. The chair of St. Peter 
was at this time occupied by Clement V., a 
Frenchman and immoral in his character, who, 
having been raised to the papal see through 
the intrigues of Philip, depended entirely 
on the will of his patron. The latter, secure 
of meeting with no obstacles on the part of 
the pope, proceeded to carry his projects 
into execution by receiving two apostate 
persons belonging to the same order as ac- 
cusers who were then confined within its 
prisons, and by seeking out a tribunal whose 
dark proceedings might facilitate the com- 
pletion of his design. Such was the Inqui- 
sition, which at that time still existed in 
Prance. 

The crimes imputed to the Templars were 
various, and all of a most heinous nature. 
It was said, among other things, that at the 
time they made their profession, after certain 
obscene ceremonies, they promised to deli- 
ver themselves up to the lewdness of their 
companions, and that, in reality, sodomy was 
frequent among them j that they abjured the 



CHAP. VI.] INaUISITION UNMASiKED. 181 

Christian religion by spitting on a crucifix ; 
and that they adored a head similar to that of 
a man, covered with black and curly hairs, 
and having a gold ornament round the neck. 
More than two hundred witnesses deposed 
against the accused, and even of the latter 
as many as one hundred and one confessed 
themselves guilty before the chief inquisitor 
of Paris. Seventy-one others did the same 
in Poitiers, where the pope himself was, 
they having been judged by a tribunal com- 
posed of three cardinals ; and it is besides 
added, that before the same the grand master 
of Cyprus, the masters of Poitou, Vienne, and 
Normandy, also acknowledged themselves 
guilty. If we were to abide by these asser- 
tions, the crimes of the Templars would 
be undeniable ; and indeed their probabi- 
lity is greatly increased in consequence of 
the extinction of the order having been 
decreed by the general council of Vienne, 
assembled for this express purpose. Their 
innocence nevertheless is generally held as 
certain by most authors, if we except the 
French, whose pens have been guided by 
flattery or partiality ; and even among them 
some are not wanting, ancient as well as 
modern, who have acknowledged it. Th^ 
K 2 



13« INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

following are the reasons on which they 
ground themselves : 

In the first place, the greatest part of the 
declarations of the witnesses against the 
Templars were vague, and very few such 
as substantiated the charge of their abjuring 
religion. And, in truth, what could they 
have gained by disowning a religion by 
means of which they lived with splendour ? 
In the second place, the infamous ceremony 
used at their reception into the order is ab- 
solutely improbable, since there never was 
seen a re-union of men sustaining themselves 
by a depravation of manners, and much less 
by an abominable prostitution. In the third 
place, the head or idol which it was attempted 
to suppose they adored, adding that it existed 
in Marseilles, was neither presented to the 
judges, as it ought to have been since it con- 
stituted one of the points of guilt, nor did 
they take any pains to find it out. Besides, 
how was it possible that excesses of such a 
nature, when they were common to the whole 
fraternity, could have remained secret for 
such a number of years? Would they not have 
been revealed, as a relief to the conscience, 
by ^ome of the Templars who died out of 
their convent ? Neither ought the confession 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 13S 

be taken as a proof of their criminality, 
since it was extorted through the force of 
torments ; more especially when, according 
to the practice of the Inquisition itself, im- 
punity was granted to those who confessed 
themselves guilty. In like manner no con- 
vincing argument to prove their criminality 
can be deduced from the extinction of their 
order, which followed the sentence pro- 
nounced by the tribunal ; since, as may be 
collected from the context of the decree, this 
had become a measure of prudence which 
circumstances imperiously demanded.* 

On the other hand, the conjectures in 
favour of the Templars are extremely strong, 
and at the same time prove the odium with 
which they were persecuted, as well as the 
injustice of this persecution. Such is the fact 
of seventy-four of them, who were not ac- 
cused, having stepped forward to defend the 
order, and their defence was not admitted ; 

* Clement V. in his bull " Ad Providamy* read in the 
Council of Vienna, thus expresses himself: " Ejtis ordinis 
statiiniy habitum atque nomen non sine cordis amaritudine et 
dolore, sacro approbante Concilio, non per modiim definitive 
sententicey qimm earn super hoc secundum inquisitiones, et 
processus super fiis habitos non possemus Jerre de jure, sed 
'per viam provisionis seu ordinationis ApostoliccB irrefraga» 
bill et perpetuo vcditiira sustidinms sandione.^'* 



134 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

such was the circumstance of fifty-nine of 
them in Paris, in one day, suffering them- 
selves to be burnt alive, rather than confess 
crimes of which they protested they were in- 
nocent ; such, in short, is the harangue which 
Jacob Mola, grand-master and general of the 
order, addressed to the people of the above ca- 
pital from the place of execution ; and which, 
extracted from Mariana's History of Spain, is 
in the following words : " As the end of life is 
not the time to utter falsehoods even though 
advantage would follow,! swear by every thing 
sacred, that what has been alleged as a crime 
against the Templars, and is now referred in 
the sentence pronounced against me, is falsd 
and unfounded, for this order is holy and 
Catholic. It is I who merit death, for having 
raised false testimony against it, by imputing 
to it crimes devoid of all truth, fi-om being 
persuaded so to do by the pope and the king, 
and which would to heavens I had never 
done. It now only remains for me to pray to 
God to pardon me ; and I at the same time 
request, that the torments I am to endure 
may be as severe as possible, if happily, by 
this means, the divine anger against me can 
be appeased. My life I neither wish nor 
want, since it would be stained with so great 



GHAP.VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 135 

a crime as that they now invite me to commit 
afresh." * As a stronger confirmation of the 
outrage committed against those unfortunate 
people by the Inquisition of France, I ought 
to add that in the other kingdoms, such as 
Spain, Italy, Germany, and England, where 
no interest existed in finding them guilty, 
and where the inquisitors did not intervene, 
or gave their sentence united with the 
bishops in a provincial synod, they were ge- 
nerally absolved, nor was capital punishment 
inflicted on a single one.t 

The criminal suit instituted against Prince 
Charles, eldest son of Philip II. king of Spain, 
and the death which followed it, is one of 
the passages of history most disgraceful to 
the name of that monarch, and another of 
the most convincing proofs that the Inqui- 
sition has at all times been the instrument of 
despots. Foreign writers, who possibly may 
be charged with animosity, draw a picture 
of this event in which the cruelty and hypo- 
crisy of Philip shine in the most glaring 

* Mariana, Historia de Espana, lib, xv. cap. x. 

t Feijoo, torn. i. cart, xxviii. Campomanes, Disertaciones 
Historicas del Orden de los Templarios, from v, to viii. 
Racine, Abrege de I'Hist. Eclesiast. tora. vi. siecl. xiV. 
Encyclop. art. Templiers. 



136 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VL 

colours ; whilst on the contrary, our own re- 
present him in such a manner as to do honour 
to his clemency and generosity. I at once 
ought to coincide with the latter as supposing 
them best informed, if the character of that 
monarch was less known to me, and our his- 
torians had then been at full liberty to express 
their real sentiments; but will the authority of 
men to whom it was forbidden to write the 
failings of great personages be sufficient for 
our guidance ? Not wishing however to take 
my readers by surprise in an affair so obscure 
but yet so interesting, and of which we have 
seen a mock imitation in our own days, I 
will briefly present the arguments of either 
party before I establish my own opinion. 

One of the preliminaries of peace between 
the Emperor Charles V. and Henry II. King 
of France, during the truce of five years, 
celebrated in the abbey of Baucelles in the 
year 1 553, was the future marriage of Prince 
Charles, grandson of the first, with Madam 
Elisabeth, eldest daughter of the latter, and 
a princess gifted with singular beauty ; but 
Philip II. having lost his second wife, Mary 
queen of England, before the projected union 
was carried into effect, demanded the princess 
betrothed to his son, and actually married 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 137 

to her. The consequences of so irregular a 
measure were such as might naturally be 
expected; viz. the resentment of a youth 
who saw himself sported with, a correspond- 
ence to his love on the part of a woman who 
had been forced against her own will, and 
the jealousy and anger of an aged father who 
had been wrongly advised and misled. Any 
longer to reside in the palace having be- 
come insupportable to Prince Charles, not 
only for the above reasons, but because the 
king, far from seeking to marry him to ano- 
ther person, seemed to consider him as un- 
deserving of succeeding to the crown, he 
determined to pass over to the Low Countries 
to take upon himself the government of those 
states, relying on the affection, or rather 
com.passion, which every body had for him. 
Philip, being informed of this resolution, or- 
dered him to be arrested in his own apart- 
ments, and a suit to be instituted against him 
as a defaulter to the faith, in order to stop the 
mouths of the people- He was then strangled, 
or, as others will have it, he was bled to 
death. This is, in substance, the report of 
the event as handed down by foreign writers. 
The manner in which this same affair is 
described bv our own authors is as follows : 



1S8 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

Prince Charles was of an inflexible and 
giddy character; and, notwithstanding the 
great care King Philip took to have him pro- 
perly educated, he turned out so badly in- 
clined, that he not only ill treated his servants, 
in words and in deeds, but he was also ex- 
tremely rude to his preceptor and other 
persons of quality. They relate, among other 
occurrences, that keeping up a good under- 
standing with the rebels in the Low Countries, 
and not approving of the election made by 
his father of the general who was to command 
the army there, in the person of the Duke of 
Alva, he made an attack on the latter with a 
dagger in order to kill him, which so much 
offended the king that he threatened soon to 
correct his ferocious temper, either by fair or 
foul means. Finally, they add, that having 
resolved to quit Spain, with a view to put him- 
self under the protection of his uncle, Maxi- 
milian Emperor of Germany, whose daughter 
Ann he sought to espouse, and bring over 
the Flemish to his faction, he was thrown 
into confinement by his father ; and that, 
some months afterwards in a state of repent- 
ance and having asked his pardon, he died 
of a dysentery, occasioned by his excesses in 
eating and drinking. Consequently most of 
1 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 139 

our authors pass over in silence the trial 
which the others allude to, without mention- 
ing a single word of the story relating to the 
Inquisition. 

The institution of proceedings against him 
is however mentioned in a positive manner 
by Cabrera de Cordova, a cotemporary au- 
thor, and one of the persons employed in 
the palace, and the more deserving of credit 
in this matter because, in writing the life of 
Philip II. under the reign of his son, Philip 
III., he loses no opportunity of exciting the 
benevolence of the king by exalting the me- 
mory of his father. He speaks in the follow- 
ing terms: " King Philip called a council, 
composed of cardinal Espinosa," (then Inqui- 
sitor General,) " Ruigomez de Silva, and 
Licentiate Birviesca, member of the privy- 
council, in order to establish a suit and justify 
the arrest and measures resorted to against 
the prince. He sent to the archbishop of 
Barcelona for the file of proceedings which 
John II., king of Aragon, had instituted 
against his eldest son Charles IV. prince of 
Viana, ordering him to translate it from the 
Catalonian language into Castilian, that he 
might see how the charge was preferred, and 
the proceedings instituted. Both are in the 



140 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

archives of Simancas; where in the year 1592 
they were deposited by Don Christoval de 
Mora, one of the king's privy-counsellors, in 
a small green chest, in which they are still 
preserved.*' * It is therefore clear, that the 
prince underwent a trial, and this by no 
other tribunal than the Inquisition, consti- 
tuted under some certain special form, in 
consideration to the character of the culprit; 
neither was rigorous secrecy wanting on this 
occasion, since an oath was imposed on the 
grandees and other servants who attended 
the prince that they would not reveal any 
part of what they might hear from his mouth, 
or might see or understand. There are never- 
theless sufficient grounds for believing, and 
on behalf of justice let it be said, that the 
inquisitors, in this instance, granted the cul- 
prit all the favour in their power; but the 
characteristic darkness of the tribunal was 
sufficient for Philip to satiate his rancour. 
This is as far as relates to the question whe- 
ther or not a suit was instituted against the 
prince by the Inquisition. 

With regard to his crimes, Cabrera himself 
brings forward a letter from the king to his 

* Cabrera de Cordoba, Vida de D. Feb'pe II. lib. vii. 
cap. xxii. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 141 

sister the empress, in which, stating to her 
the arrest of the prince, he uses the following 
words : " The grounds of this determination 
do not rest on faults or disrespect, nor is it 
intended as a punishment which, although 
for this there has been sufficient reason, might 
have its time and end. Neither has this been 
adopted as a means whereby he may reform 
his disorders. This affair has another begin- 
ning and root, and its remedy does not con- 
sist in time nor means; an object of greater 
importance and consideration induces rae to 
comply with the obligations I owe to God."* 
If, on the part of the prince, no fault or 
disrespect could be alleged in order to in- 
duce the king to take so harsh a determina- 
tion against him, how is it that he took it ? 
The same author, asking this question, an- 
swers it by observing, " that he considered 
him as impaired in his intellects." It there- 
fore results, according to the confession of 
King Philip himself, that the crimes of his 
son either were none, or at least that they 
were not such as to merit an unbounded 
punishment, nor ought the affair to have 
taken the turn it did. Besides if, as Cabrera 
* Cabrera de Cordoba, ibid. 



142 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

affirms, he was mad, or disordered in the 
brain, his conduct is still more deserving of 
reprehension ; because by what rule of justice 
or of humanity could an invalid of this nature 
be delivered over to the rigour of a tribunal? 

He, in fact, believed it was his duty to 
sacrifice his son under a plea of religion ; 
however he thereby did no more than com- 
ply with what he had promised in the auto 
of the faith celebrated in Valladolid ; when 
asked by Don Carlos Sese, of noble descent 
and condemned to the flames, why he suffered 
him to die in that manner ? the king made 
answer, that under similar circumstances he 
would do the same with his own son.* 

Finally, that Prince Charles was innocent 
is testified, though in an incidental manner, 
by secretary Antonio Perez ; who even seems 
to indicate that he was really punished with 
the penalty of death ; since, speaking of 
Father Diego de Chaves, confessor to the 
kins: and one of the most bare-faced of his 
flatterers, he says thus : " The confessor was 
offended with Prince Ruigomez for a dilemma 
in which he placed him at the time he was 
confessor to Prince Charles, owing to the 

* Colmenares Historia de Segovia, cap.xlii. § iii. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 143 

unhandsome manner in which he approved 
of the act committed on the person of the 
prince ; a circumstance deserving of being 
known as part of the above history, and 
tending to show the tattered state of the said 
theologian's conscience. How the prince 
suffered is not for this place. I have con- 
signed it to my Memoirs, in that part which 
relates to similar executions ; there they will 
understand me." * These memoirs, which he 
himself, in another place, affirms were to 
the number of twelve, it appears he never 
printed j but he says enough in the expres- 
sions just quoted. From them, in the first 
place, is deduced, that Prince Charles died 
innocent; and in the second, that he endured 
a violent death ; for otherwise it was useless 
for the author to avail himself of enigmas, by 
delaying his explanation for a better time, if 
after all he only had to tell us that he died 
a natural death, unless we interpret his words 
as if speaking of the true cause of the prince's 
arrest, and not of the manner in which he 
came by his end. Another proof of the out- 
rage committed on the prince by his father 
under shadow of the Inquisition arises out of 
the circumstance of the expected satisfaction 

* Antonio Perez, Relacion del 24 de Mayo. 



144 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

not having been given to Europe by the 
result of the trial being published, together 
with the antecedents which gave rise to it, 
as public justice and the honour of the prince 
required.* 

* Voltaire avails himself of the same argument to prove 
that Peter I. Emperor of Russia, by condemning his son 
Prince Alexi Petrowitz to death acted from the impulse 
of a pure zeal for justice, and that Philip II., on the con- 
trary, suflFered himself to be borne away by a wicked 
passion. His words are these: " Some authors assert 
that the Czar ordered the proceedings against Prince 
Charles, condemned to death by his father Philip II., to 
be brought to him from Spain, whereas such proceedings 
never existed. Peter I., on that occasion, behaved in a 
very different manner to Philip. The latter gave no ac- 
count to to the public of the motives he had for arresting- 
Prince Charles, nor did he explain in what manner he 
died ; he merely wrote to the Pope and the Empress, but 
in contradictory terras. Neither did he give any answer 
to William Prince of Orange, who accused him of having 
barbarously sacrificed his spouse (Elizabeth de Valois the 
third of his four wives) as well as his son, acting not as a 
severe judge, but as a jealous husband and an unnatural 
father. Not so the Emperor of Russia, who declaring to 
the whole world that the welfare of the nation was more 
interesting to him than the life of his son, submitted to the 
legal judgment the clergy and grandees might pronounce 
on his conduct." Histoire de I'Ernpire de Russie sous 
Pierre le Grand, torn. ii. cbi>p. x. The above author is 
nevertheless mistaken when he denies thac proceedings- 
were instituted against Prince Charles. 
7 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 145 

The loss of the rights and liberties of Ara- 
gon, under the reign of Philip II., is another 
proof tending to demonstrate that this tri- 
bunal is the completest instrument of despot- 
ism. This monarch, as may be collected from 
what has already been said, was as cruel as 
he was vainly religious, and as perfidious as 
he was cruel ; holding it as a maxim, also 
approved by Father Chaves, that kings may, 
when witnesses are found against a person, 
secretly order him to suffer death without 
trial or any other formality. Thus believing 
that his brother Don John of Austria, at that 
time absent, intended, at the instigation of 
his secretary Juan de Escobedo, to seize on 
part of his dominions, he resolved to take 
away the life of the latter when on business 
at Madrid, whither he had been sent by his 
master ; a step which required the greatest 
circumspection, because it was apprehended 
that Don John would hasten his attempt if 
he discovered any distrust on the part of 
the king. 

The above-mentioned Antonio Perez, long 
secretary to Philip, his intimate confidant, and 
of no better a conscience than Father Chaves 
whom he censures, having been bred up at 
court from a child, was consummately dex- 

VOL. 11. L 



146 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

trous in the contrivances of despotism and 
flattery. Of him the king availed himself to 
obtain from the post-office the letters of those 
persons whose fidelity he suspected, and which 
he afterwards closed as if they had never been 
touched. The king had also employed him 
for the purpose of giving poison to an astro- 
loger named Pedro de la Era, from a dread 
that he might divulge certain affairs respect- 
ing which he had consulted him ; and this 
crime was aggravated by the atrocious cir- 
cumstance of the astrologer being a country- 
man and friend of Perez, as well as of the 
poison being administered in a dose of physic 
at a time when he was sick. The king was 
consequently unable to find a more suitable 
person than hig Own secretary to rid himself 
of Escdbedo with all possible secrecy and 
despatch; and no sooner did Perez undertake 
the charge than he fcund out assassins who, 
following up their victim, killed him with 
stabs. The king did not even spare his bro- 
ther ; since he was the cause of his death 
through poisoned boots which he sent to him. 
Perez had agreed with Philip in case any 
of the assassins were taken, a circumstance 
which never occurred, that he himself would 
fly away as if he had been the principal 



CHAP. Vr.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. l^T 

aggressor, in order that the murder might not 
be attributed to the king. Such are the lengths 
to which dissimulation and baseness can go 1 
The relations of the deceased complained 
against Perez, merely on the grounds of a cer- 
tain pique which existed between the two, 
and he was sent to confinement. The king, 
foreseeing that the cause would take so serious 
a turn as even to subject the culprit to the 
torture, prevailed on Father Chaves to collect 
in the notes and other documents signed by 
his own hand by which Perez might have 
proved that he had acted by royal order ; all 
which was done by deceiving and offering 
great promises of protection to Perez's wife, 
who had carefully put them away. As soon 
as the king succeeded in withdrawing them, 
though not all, as he had believed, he aban- 
doned Perez to his own fate, intending to pro- 
ceed against him on a charge of calumny, in 
case he should justify himself when exposed to 
the torture by alleging that the act had been 
committed by the king's order ; which in 
fact he did. Perez finding himself in so dan- 
gerous a situation escaped under the disguise 
of his wife's clothes, whom the judge had 
allowed to see him, and proceeded on by post 
to Aragon his native country, there to take 
L 2 



148 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

refuge in the tribunal of the Manifest acion, 
to which every Aragonese recurred when 
aggrieved by the king. Phihp immediately 
gave orders for him to be judged by the des- 
potic tribunal of the Enquesta, or civil inqui- 
sition, as one of his own servants ; but having 
been notified that this former privilege of the 
kings of Aragon had expired by the union of 
the two crowns, he commanded that he 
should be judged by the tribunal of the faith. 
In order to subject Perez to this form of 
trial it was necessary to make him guilty of 
heresy. The inquisitors therefore, together 
with certain magistrates belonging to the 
king's party, forged three crimes, and in order 
to establish them by evidence they bribed 
several delinquents then under trial, some 
of them actually criminals, by giving them 
money, and offering them pardon. Three of 
the principal ones afterwards confessed, one 
of them revealing the fact in presence of a 
parish priest and witnesses when on the point 
of death, and the others before the Zalme- 
dina, or governor of the city ; the first of 
whom added that, not knowing Perez even 
by sight they presented him on the part of 
one of the inquisitors v/ith a paper for him 
to sign, reciting to him the contents, that he 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 149 

might swear he had heard them. The first 
crime they accused him of was, that it was his 
intention to pass over to Bern, Holland, or 
Zealand, all countries belonging to heretics ; 
the second, that he was pleased because the 
arms of Henry IV., the Hugonot, prospered ; 
and the third that he made use of charms in 
order to attract people to his devotion. It is 
proper here to observe that Perez was a man 
of a fine figure, and although his principles 
were so bad, he nevertheless disguised them 
with as much success as the designing monarch 
whom he served. 

The inquisitors, after drawing up their 
summary charge, ordered that the culprit 
should be transferred to their tribunal, with- 
out waiting for the Justicia, or supreme ma- 
gistrate of the kingdom, and the other judges 
of the Manisfestacion to give their sentences. 
The people, however who saw their rights 
trampled upon, rose up against the Inqui- 
sition and, calling out liberty, prepared to 
resist the king on the authority of ancient 
privileges. Philip, unable to endure any check 
to his power, had for some time been secretly 
blowing the fire of discord in Aragon,and seek- 
ing a pretext to enter the country by force, 
and destroy those rights and immunities 



150 INQUISITION UNMASKED, [cHAP. VI. 

which so much humbled his haughty pride. 
Considering this a suitable opportunity, he 
sent Don Alonso Vargas, a warlike soldier, 
with an army of 12,000 infantry and 2000 
horse, in order to quell the mutiny, overawe 
the Aragonese, and fill them with terror. 

At this time Don Juan de Lanuza was 
the Justicia, or chief magistrate of the king- 
dom, a valiant youth, but inexperienced 
in the government to which he had been 
elected on the death of his father, a circum- 
stance that occurred a few days before the 
insurrection. The people, although impelled 
by a love of liberty, were unprovided with 
arms, and besides without a chief, as Perez 
had fled to France, and the grandees of 
the kingdom, who ouffht to have led them 
on, had declined interfering. The king's 
army therefore entered Zaragoza almost with- 
out opposition, and its leader placing the 
artillery in the Coso, or principal street inter- 
secting the city, and distributing his troops 
in the different parts of the town, kept the 
inhabitants for some time in a state of alarm. 
AVhen General Vargas had taken all his 
necessary measures in conformity to the in- 
structions of Philip, and deceived the chiefs 
of the commotion with fair promises, he pro- 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 1.51 

ceeded to arrest and punish them, beginning 
-with the Justicia, whom, without any consi- 
deration of the inviolability of his person, or 
previous trial, he ordered to be beheaded 
and his house to be torn down to the very 
foundations. He did the same, though after 
instituting proceedings against them, with 
Don Diego Heredia and Don Juan de Luna, 
persons of great distinction in Aragon. The 
inquisitors likewise on their part ordered the 
witnesses, who had confessed the bribery be- 
fore the Zalmedina, to be arrested and brought 
out in a private auto de fe, as well as one 
celebrated in the square, condemning them 
to two hundred lashes and sending them to 
the galleys for six years ; nor did they spare 
the Zalmedina, whom they deprived of his 
office and sent to Oran for the same term. 
In like manner they delivered the effigy of 
Perez over to the flames, and besides burnt six 
others in person, for having resisted the king's 
troops when they were about to give aid to 
the tribunal. 

Finally, I cannot but add, as a further 
proof that Philip II. availed himself of the 
Inquisition to make away with persons dis- 
pleasing to him, the words addressed by 
the above-mentioned secretary to the king, 



152 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI, 

at a time when he feared one of his snares, 
and speaking to him with a freedom conge- 
nial to one who was acquainted with his 
crimes, and an accomplice in many of them: 
** Let your Majesty,'* says he, " order me to be 
brought forth with a coroza on my head, for 
I believe that it is in this I shall end, as a 
return for all I have done.'' As an ex- 
ample Perez himself quotes the persecution 
of Archbishop Carranza, which he gives to 
understand was done at the instigation of the 
above monarch, either to appease certain 
resentments, or in order to seize on the re- 
venue of his diocese, which he destined for 
the monastery of the Escurial, a monument 
of his hypocrisy as well as of his vanity.* 

* Antonio Perez, Relacion del 24 de Septiembre. — 
Lupercio Leonardo de Argensola, Informacion de los Su- 
cesos de Aragon, cap. liii. Macanaz, in his Critical Defence 
of the Inquisition (part ii. chap. i. n. 24^), acknowledges 
the death of Don John of Austria to have occurred in the 
manner I have stated, although he causes the odium of the 
event as well as that of the loss of the privileges of Aragon 
to fall on Queen Elizabeth of England, who being the 
enemy of Philip, excited dissensions in Spain. This leni- 
tive, or some other similar one, was necessary for the author 
to expect his work to circulate without being rescinded ; 
for, divested of such a clause, it could not even have 
been published under the reign of Charles III., when a 
greater degree of liberty was enjoyed. 



CHAP. VI.] IXQUISITION UNMASKED. 153 

The history of Philip II., more especially 
in that part which relates to his subjection of 
the Aragonese, proves the very great pre- 
caution with which those authors ought to be 
read who have written the lives of monarchs 
under the ferula of the Inquisition. All of 
them represent him to us as a model of 
princes, in whose praise no encomiums are 
too great ; whilst his secretary, from whom 
the greatest part of the facts I have just 
stated are derived, writing in France, and 
consequently out of the reach of theHribunal, 
depicts him as a monster of iniquity. It ap- 
pears to me impossible, according to the rules 
of sound judgment, to refuse a preference to 
the testimony of the latter over all others, as 
well because he had better means of being 
informed of the occurrences, as that he was 
besides enabled to write them with full 
liberty. It may perhaps be alleged that 
hatred and a spirit of revenge induced him 
to depress the reputation of his persecutor. 
Such an objection could only be made by 
one who has not seen the writings of Perez ; 
since in them, notwithstanding the mournful 
ditties by which he seeks to excite compas- 
sion towards himself, he exhibits such a 
strain of connivance towards Phihp, so much 

1 



154 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

bordering on humiliation, that they cannot 
be read without sensations of disgust. 

In a word, the above minister, from being 
educated in the palace, had his heart cor- 
rupted by the pestilential air breathed therein j 
and amidst his complaints we discover his de- 
sires to return to the confidence of the king, 
even at the expense of the greatest humilia- 
tion — desires which he 'did not hesitate to 
manifest in letters written from Aragon to 
the monarch, as well as to his coufessor. To 
what has been said we may fuither add, that 
he considers the principal data as proved in 
the tribunal of the Manifest acion, and con- 
sequently notorious to the whole kingdom ; 
how then could he have dared to represent 
facts as well known and juridically proved, 
which only existed in his own imagination ? 
Would he not have drawn down upon himself 
general contempt, instead of the esteem 
which he sought to preserve. The same 
ought to be said of the iniquitous conduct of 
the Inquisition, which was so public that he 
affirms a report was drawn up on the subject, 
and an authentic copy transmitted to Philip, 
as well as to the Inquisitor General. 

In short, not only the unbridled passions 
of kings, but also the ambition or vengeance 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 155 

of private individuals in this tribunal, have, 
at all times, found the most ready and effica- 
cious aid. In proof of this I could still ad- 
duce many other examples of persons distin- 
guished for their piety and other good quali- 
ties who have been persecuted by the Inqui- 
sition ; but I shall content myself with only 
two. The first is the illustrious Spaniard, 
Joseph de Calasanz, founder of the charity 
schools, against whom a secret information 
was lodged in Rome, when he was eighty- 
six years old, by a member of the same 
order, named Father Mario, who aspired 
to the generalship of the same. The vene- 
rable old man being arrested and conveyed 
before the tribunal at noon-day, whilst waiting 
in the anti-chamber, fell asleep; in conse- 
quence of which as well as owing to the gene- 
ral reputation for virtue he enjoyed, and also 
as many persons might probably have inter- 
ceded for him in gratitude to the beneficence 
he had for many years exercised in educating 
the children of the poor, the inquisitors libe- 
rated him, considering that so much tran- 
quillity and resignation could not exist in a 
guilty person.* 

The other is Cardinal John Moron, who 

* Vide any of the authors who have written his life. 



156 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI, 

was president of the council of Trent, and 
one of the prelates most distinguished for 
science and moderation of his age. He was 
hated by the Carrafas, nephews to Paul IV., 
well known for the protection they enjoyed 
with their uncle, which really amounted to a 
most scandalous nepotism, and they dreaded 
nothing so much as to see the cardinal obtain 
the pontificate for which he had previously 
received twenty-eight votes. In order to 
render him unfit for this dignity they accused 
him before the Inquisition, taking for pretext 
the affability with which he had treated the 
Protestants during his legation to the diet of 
Augsburgh in the time of Julius III. This 
stratagem had its desired effect, for although 
Moron was declared innocent by Pius IV., 
and had the good wishes of the Roman peo- 
ple in his favour, merely owing to the above 
accusation he was not elected in the next 
vacancy, the tiara being conferred on Pius V.* 
This pope, notwithstanding he was fully 
sensible that Moron had been calumniated, 
which he acknowledged w^hen the latter feli- 
citated him on his accession, refused him his 
vote in the conclave of cardinals, and even 

* Cabrera de Cordoba, Vlda de D. Felipe ii. lib. ii. cap. I, 
lib. V. cap. iv, and lib. vii. cap. i. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 157 

induced others to withold theirs, on account 
of the suspicion of heresy incurred by all 
those who, having been tried by the Inquisi- 
tion, refuse, as he did, to purge away the 
surmises in a canonical manner.* It is ne- 
cessary here to observe, that a canonical 
purgation is accompanied, at least by an ab- 
juration de Icevi, and to this infamy is at- 
tached ; for which reason, and not for any 
other, Moron refused to abjure. It .is thus 
clear that the aim of the Carrafas against this 
worthy prelate could not have been better 
directed, for whether he abjured or not he 
remained injured in reputation ; the stigma 
of infamy or of suspicion against the faith 
falling upon him to a certain degree. On 
this principle alone the ecclesiastical chapters, 
in cases of application for prebends, admit 
no one who has been tried by the Inquisi- 
tion, although his accusation may have been 
the most glaringly unjust. 

We shall now proceed to exhibit in the 
second part of our chapter the excesses this 
tribunal has committed, and which fully es- 
tablish its tyranny and arbitrariness ; previ- 
ously adding something further respecting its 

* Antonio de Fuenmayor, Vida y Hechos de Pio V. 
Pontifice Romano, lib. i. 



158 INQT/ISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

bent and propensities before we enter fully 
into the matter in hand. Three are the at- 
tributes which characterize a tyrant j viz. 
his illegal intrusion into the command, or, in 
other words, his usurpation of the authority; 
the pride which makes him look down on 
other men as beings of an inferior race ; and, 
lastly, the hardness of heart, or rather cruelty 
emanating from this same pride. That the 
Inquisition has intruded and encroached 
wherever it has been established, is amply 
demonstrated by the insurrections of various 
nations exhibited during the course of the 
third chapter. Confining myself at present 
to Spain, and reducing the question to a nar- 
rower compass, let me ask the patrons and 
apologists of this tribunal, whether they can 
present a free and spontaneous decree of the 
nation assembled in Cortes, either of Castile 
or Aragon, sanctioning its establishment as 
the laws and rights of the country required, 
since so substantial a part of the national 
legislation was thereby overturned. On the 
contrary, the history of those times, notwith- 
standing the great care taken to darken its 
annals, leaves no doubt of the sentiments of 
both kingdoms having been openly opposed 
to its admission. As far as relates to Cas- 

3 



CHAP. VI.] maUISITION UNMASKED. 159 

•tile let us listen to the testimony of Mariana, 
who in matters belonging to the Inquisi- 
tion is less suspicious, because, if we are 
to abide by his own words, he thought fa- 
vourably of the institution. After speaking 
of the torture, death by fire, perpetual im- 
prisonment, confiscation of property, punish- 
ment by infamy, and the exposure to shame 
made use of by this tribunal, he thus ex- 
presses himself. " At the beginning this in- 
stitution was extremely disgusting to the in- 
habitants. What appeared to them most 
strange was, that children were answerable 
for the crimes of their parents j that the ac- 
cuser should be neither known nor made to 
appear; and that no confrontation of the 
parties or cross-examination of the witnesses 
was allowed, a principle so much opposed to 
what was usually the practice of other tribu- 
nals in former times." 

" Besides this," he adds, " it appeared to 
them quite a new thing that similar offences 
should be punished with the penalty of death. 
But what was still more grievous was, that 
by means of such secret inquiries the people 
were deprived of the freedom of hearing and 
speaking among themselves, because persons 
existed in the cities, towns, and villages, 



160 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI, 

who gave advice of what was passing ; a cir- 
cumstance which to some persons appeared 
to wear the form of a most painful slavery, 
equally as bad as death. Thus at that time 
different opinions prevailed. Some held that 
the punishment of death ought not to be in- 
flicted on such delinquents, yet they con- 
fessed it was just for them to be punished by 
some other kind of infliction. Among others 
of this way of thinking was Ferdinand de 
Pulgar, a man of an acute and elegant mind, 
whose history of the life and transactions of 
the king Don Ferdinand is in print."* In 
these terms Father Mariana speaks of Pulgar, 
having before him a letter written by the 
latter to the Cardinal of Spain and Archbi- 
shop of Seville, Don Pedro Gonzalez de 
Mendoza, which, thanks to the Inquisition, 
is not to be found among the printed ones of 
this celebrated author, though there is another, 
viz. -the 21st, in which he vindicates himself 
from the charges alleged against him for 
penning the one omitted. This gives us to 
understand that, at the commencement, the 
Inquisition did not busy itself so much in the 
extermination of the followers of Moses and 
Mahomet as to prevent it from also attending 
* Mariana, Historia de Espana, lib, xxiv. cap.xvii. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 161 

to the means of enthralling the mind, by 
suppressing the works of the learned, at least 
those which militated against its authority. 

With regard to the Aragonese, being less 
shackled than the Castilians, they were better 
enabled to express the horror with which they 
beheld the Inquisition. This much we col- 
lect from Zurita, who, notwithstanding the 
want of freedom then common to all writers, 
and the individual prejudices by which he 
was influenced from having been one of its 
officers, says enough to establish the fact. 
" Those who had lately been converted from 
the persuasion of the Jews," says he, " and 
moreover many gentlemen and persons of 
distinction, began to feel displeased and raise 
a tumult, crying out that such manner of 
proceeding was contrary to the liberties of 
tke kingdom 5 because for this crime their 
property was confiscated, and the names of 
the witnesses who deposed against the cul- 
prits were not made known to them, two 
things entirely new and never before prac- 
tised, and also extrjemely prejudicial to the 
state. In this way they endeavoured to im- 
pede and disturb the exercise of the Holy 
Office, and to obtain inhibitions and injunc- 

VOL. II. M 



1 62 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

tions from the Justicia of Aragon respecting 
property ; giving to understand that if con- 
fiscation was not taken away, the Holy Office 
would not last long. They offered large 
sums of money, and resolved that some 
signal service should be rendered to the king 
and queen, in order that confiscation might 
be removed ; and in a more particular manner 
they sought to prevail on the queen, saying 
that it was she who most favoured the general 
Inquisition." He adds, that they likewise 
sent money to Rome, and concludes in these 
words : " and as they were rich people, and 
on that account upheld the liberty of the 
kingdom, they found great favour generally, 
and had sufficient power for all the kingdom 
and the four estates thereof to assemble in 
the hall of deputies, as is done when the 
cause is universal and relating to all ; and 
they deliberated about sending their ambas- 
sadors to the king, who were, the Prior of 
St. Augustin, named Pedro Miguel, and 
Pedro de Luna, a counsellor at law." A re- 
monstrance in which the whole kingdom took 
part, so much so as to cause the four estates 
representing it to assemble in Cortes, denotes, 
notwithstanding the care Zurita took to hide 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 16S 

the circumstance, that the interest was ge- 
neral and not peculiar to this or the other 
faction. 

But granting that the Cortes of Aragon, 
and even of Castile, by yielding to the pre- 
ponderance of the throne might expressly or 
tacitly have sanctioned the Inquisition, would 
the general will of one and the other king- 
dom on that account have been fess trampled 
upon ? The testimonies I have already ad- 
duced fully manifest how weak and unsub- 
stantial the national representation was, if 
that name can be given to a representation 
granted only by royal privilege to certain 
cities. Another proof of this truth is fur- 
nished by Diego de Colmenares, an author 
not less favourable to the tribunal than the 
two just quoted. He affirms that the Cortes 
of Toledo for the year 1480, whom he also 
eulogizes for decreeing the establishment of 
the Inquisition, after many debates having 
terminated the urgent incorporation to the 
crown of several seigniories alienated by 
Henry IV., their CathoHc Majesties neverthe- 
less made a grant to the governor of the castle 
of Segovia of 1200 vassals belonging to the ju- 
risdiction of that city, originally under the title 
M 2 



164i INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

of pledge, intending afterwards to give him an 
equivalent under a proper form in another 
part.* The impolicy and injustice of this arbi- 
trary act, acknowledged by the author himself, 
was even then the cause of a serious disturb- 
ance in Segovia, and afterwards of many mis- 
fortunes and law-suits, which lasted for the 
space of 1 1 2 years. I say nothing of the vain 
efforts of the Cortes to free the people from 
the vexations of the Germans in tlie follow- 
ing reign, nor of the civil war that broke out 
on that account. Could a representative 
body therefore, in which only a small part of 
the nation concurred, and of which the mo- 
narch took no notice, unless it was to offer 
it insults, and at the end of its sessions to 
obtain taxes and the usual grants of money, 
be supposed capable of legally authorizing 
the introduction of so extraordinary a tri- 
bunal? - 

If it is thus manifest that in Spain the In- 
quisition has intruded itself into power, it is 
not less so that the second quahty of despots, 
viz. pride, has also been its constant com- 
panion. Indeed the recluse manner in which 

* Diego de Colmenares, Historia de Segovia, cap. xxxiv. 
§ 16, and xlvi. § 12. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 165 

the inquisitors formerly lived, never appear- 
ing in sight of the people but behind curtains, 
whence they pronounced their oracles like 
the sybil from her cave, or issued their de- 
crees as the Sultan from his seraglio, must 
necessarily have created in them a haugh- 
tiness equal to the abjection with which 
they were always consulted and obeyed. 
" There is established in this city as well as 
in the other principal ones of Spain," says 
Lupercio de Argensola, speaking of Zara- 
gosa, " a tribunal of the Inquisition against 
heretical pravity and apostasy; its ministers 
in Aragon are more sacred than the tribunes 
were to the plebeians of Rome. In Spain the 
Inquisition, by another name is called the 
Holy Office, and truly with much propriety, 
because all its actions are holy, the pro- 
vinces which do not enjoy this good have lost 
the true religion. The tribunal and prison 
of the Holy Office, together with the habi- 
tation of the Inquisitors, are within the palace 
called the Aljaferia, from its having been 
built by a certain Moorish king of the name 
of Aljafar; and this palace is situated in the 
country, about 300 paces from the city. 
There are usually three Inquisitors in Zara- 
gosa, who seldom go out of this palace, 



166 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

where they reside under great veneration and 
majesty.* 

I cannot conceive how this Aragonese 
writer could compare the Inquisitors to Ro- 
man tribunes, when the functions of each 
were not only unlike but even opposed. Such 
a comparison might very well have suited the 
office of the Justicia de Aragon, and to it 
our forefathers must have applied this idea; 
but Argensola without reflection accom- 
modates it to the ministers of the Inquisi- 
tion, because no more noble image occurred 
to him with which to enhance their dignity. 
This abstraction from the world, or rather 
this absence from public society in the inqui- 
sitors, instead of being a virtue, as may be 
deduced from the ordinances of the tribunal 
of Portugal, was a new artifice, by which, 
avoiding being treated by the people with 
less decorum than they considered due, they 
more effectually secured their respect and sub- 
mission.! If to the idea which this exterior 

* Argensola, Informacion de los Sucesos de Aragon, 
cap. xiv. 

t Ordinances of the Holy Office for the year 1640, 
book i. tit. iii. n. 8. " Os inquisidores, terao grande tento 
em vev com que pessoas hao de communicar, e nao visitarao 
senao aquellas que forem muito graves e de bons costumes 
na vida ; nao irao a acompanhamentos nem a outros autos 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. l67 

pomp of the Inquisition and its magnificent 
edicts present, we unite that of its authority 
which it pretends to exercise over monarchs, 
we shall readily conclude, that the vain pride 
of this tribunal has been without example. 
A doctrine so absurd and defended by Ey- 
meric and Paramo, in the kingdom of Por- 
tugal, was practised towards John IV. against 
whom," after his death, the inquisitors insti- 
tuted a suit, and caused his body to be dis- 
interred in order to absolve him from the 
excommunication they supposed he had in- 
curred, in consequence of his not having per- 
mitted the confiscation of Jewish property.* 
From this unlimited power the latter arrogated 
to themselvesjt arises the servile language 

publicos, porque nao acontega estar nelles com menos de- 
cencia da que he devida a suas pessoas e a seus cargos." 

* Eymeric, Director. Inquisitor, part iii. qusest. xxx. 
and xxi. Alvarez de Calmenar. Annales d'Espagne et 
de Portugal, torn. iv. 

t Luis Velez de Guevara, in his novel of the Devil on 
Two Sticks, chap. i. criticises, though in an obscure man- 
ner, the excessive power of the inquisitors, when he 
causes the devil, from a glass bottle in which he was con- 
fined, to say that he should be extremely glad to be a fa- 
miliar of the Holy Office, to put some of them into another 
bottle of brick and mortar. The interpretation I here 
give to this passage was also given to it by Le Sage in his 
translation or rather improvement of the above work ; when 



168 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

which our writers, and among them the one 
just quoted, apply to this tribunal whenever 
they have occasion to mention it, crowning it 
with eulogiums the most flattering and the 
least deserved. Finally, that vulgar saying so 
general as well as so just, Con tl Rey y la In- 
quisicion, Chitoji! (with tlie king and the In- 
quisition, hush 1) manifests in a very clear 
manner to what a height it carried this pre- 
dominancy, at one time occupying the throne 
jointly with kings, and at others bearing away 
the sovereignty.* 

in vol. i. chap. vi. after describing the anxiety manifested 
by all to entertain one of these judges, he introduces As- 
modeus affirming, that as Alexander tlie Great used to say, 
that if he were not what he was he should wish to be 
Diogenes, so he, if he were not a devil, ^vould like to 
be an inquisitor, 

* As a counterpart to the above proverb we will quote 
another, proving that our ancestors were more unfortunate 
than stupid in enduring the yoke of the Inquisition. It is 
as follows: *' Tres Santas y un Honrado tiejien al reino 
agoviado ;" (Three holies and one honourable have bent 
the kingdom to the ground): meaning the tribunals of the 
Holy Inquisition, of the Holy Brotherhood, of the Holy 
Crusada, and the Honourable Council of the Mesta. 
Most assuredly it has been a species of fatality that es- 
tablishments should have Jbeen recommended with brilliant 
titles which never deserved them. With regard to the 
Council of the Mesta, now abolished, as it served not so 
much to encourage the pasturage of emigrating flocks, 
^'ts orincipal object,) as to counteract, according to Jo-» 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 169 

"With regard to the harshness with which 
the Inquisition has conducted itself, even 
when acting within the limits prefixed, it will 
suffice to bear in mind its mode of judicial 
process, in order to prove that it has incom- 
parably exceeded all other tribunals, as well 
in the institution of causes in themselves, as 
in what relates to their execution. This un- 
heard of rigour obliged Ganganelli, when 
writing to an English lord, to use the follow- 
ing words : " It is usually believed but I 

vellanos, (Informe de la Sociedad Economica de Madrid, 
en el Expediente de la Ley Agraria, n. 14-6), the cultiva- 
tion of lands and the improvement of stationary cattle, it 
is clear that the appellation of honourable was very ill 
suited to it. With regard to the Holy Brotherhood esta- 
blished for the security of roads, and which also has been 
abolished, Mateo Aleman, in his Life of the rogue Gusman 
de Alfarache, (part i. book i. chap, vii.) says that its 
troopers are all wicked and hardened wretches, and many 
of them for a mere trifle would swear against thee what 
thou never didst, or they never saw, from no other impulse 
than money or the jug of wine given them for their false 
testimony ; Cervantes also calls them " gangs of thieves 
and highwaymen under the licence of the Holy Brother- 
hood," (Histor. de D. Quixote, part i. cap. xlv.) The 
Crusada, created by the popes for the purpose of waging 
war against infidels still exists, but who doubts that it 
ought not to exist ? When other motives for its abolition 
could not be found, would it not suffice that its institution 
coincides with that of the Inquisition ? 
1 



170 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

know not why, that the ecclesiastical govern- 
ment wields an iron sceptre. Any one con- 
versant in history knows that the Christian 
religion abolished slavery, and experience has 
evinced that no empire is more sweet than 
that of the popes. The cause why the cha- 
racter of persecutors is given to the clergy 
undoubtedly originates with the tribunal of 
the Inquisition ; but notwithstanding the mo- 
narchs who authorised it may be as culpable as 
those who induced them, the people of Rome 
are never seen delivering themselves up to the 
barbarous pleasure of burning citizens be- 
cause they have not received the faith, or 
because they have lost it. If at any time the 
ministers of God have breathed sentiments 
of cruelty it has been through an enormous 
abuse of religion, which, being all charity, 
only teaches sweetness and peace.*' It ought 
here to be observed, that this great pope does 
not less blame the monarchs than the eccle- 
siastics who founded the tribunal, by which 
he seems to insinuate that secular princes as 
well as the popes were influenced by inte- 
rested views, and other motives little conform- 
able to justice and religion, which was the 
pretext under which they disguised them. 
The above letter which is the 91st of vol. ii. 
4 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 171 

of the Paris edition (1777), and which Nifo 
in his Spanish translation has inserted under 
a mutilated form, the Inquisition ordered to 
be rescinded by an edict of the 3d of 
June, 1781 ; " because it contains," says 
the edict, " propositions respectively false, 
rash, suspicious of heresy, favourable to to- 
leration, and injurious to the popes, to the 
author himself, as well as to the sovereigns 
who have established the Holy Office in their 
dominions, and because there are solid 
grounds for inferring that the same has 
been falsely attributed to his Holiness 
Clement XIV.'* The grounds for believing 
the aforesaid letter to be spurious, and which 
the qualificators and the tribunal roundly 
affirm to exist, are only attributable to the 
contents, as if a pope was unable to know and 
confess the monstruosity of this institution. 
Even if, in all the writings of Ganganelli, 
evangelical meekness and the breathings of 
an unprejudiced mind were not visible, does 
not his 109th letter, quoted in chap. iv. suf- 
ficiently manifest his opinion in this particu- 
lar ? But if the above did not suffice, his 
two treatises on Zeal and on the Spirit of the 
Church clear up the point, in which pur- 
posely examining the matter, he establishes 



172 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

and proves these same principles. However 
it is not a new thing for the partizans of the 
Inquisition to despise the authority of the 
popes, when this does not accord with their 
own opinions 5 whilst on the other hand, if 
in any way favourable, they raise it up to the 
stars, granting to it a supremacy and infalli- 
bility beyond what is possessed by a council 
of the church. Such was the case in Rome 
•with regard to the brief in which Pius VI. 
gave permission for the reading of the Bible 
in the vulgar tongue, a circumstance which 
some treated as impeachable before the In- 
quisition.* 

As it would not be possible for me, by 
means of a philosophical analysis, to enter 
into a full examination of the harshness of 
the punishments inflicted by the Inquisition, 
since the research would be interminable, and 
as I am fidly satisfied with what has been 
already said on this subject when treating of 
its judicial mode of process, I shall, for the 
present, merely subjoin some circumstances 
Avhich tended to increase this rigour, partly 
arisino; out of the casual combination of na- 
tural causes, partly from the innate ferocity 

* Apologia dll Breve dll somrno Pontefice Pio VI. a 
Monsigu. Martini, arcivescobo di Firenza, cap. i. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 173 

of the ministers of this tribunal, and also, in 
some measure, from the ministry itself. In 
the first place, no object can be presented to 
the imagination more gloomy than the period 
of the regeneration of this establishment in 
Seville. It seems as if at sight of it nature her- 
self had shuddered, or that she wished to con- 
summate the infelicity of Spain, so unseason- 
able and great were the hurricanes of the year 
1481, when the Inquisition began to display 
its fury. " This year of 1481," says an eye- 
witness, Andres Bernaldez, curate of the town 
of Palacios, and chaplain to the Inquisitor- 
Genefal, Deza, " was a year of great rains 
and inundations, commencing at Christmas 
and continuing onwards in such manner that 
the Guadalquivir bore away and destroyed 
the village of Copero, in which were eighty 
families, as well as many other places on the 
banks, and the flood rose up through the bat- 
tlements of Seville and the outlet of Co- 
ria higher than it was ever known, where it 
remained stationary for three days, and the 
whole city was under the greatest apprehen- 
sions of being destroyed by water." According 
to this very author a; distemper also broke out 
in the sameyear, which desolated this southern 
part of the kingdom till 1488. " This year," 



V 



1 74 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

says he, " was quite out of the common order 
of nature in Andalusia, being, on the contrary, 
marked with a great and general pestilence, 
which occasioned an extreme mortality in all 
the cities, towns, and villages. In Seville 
more than 15,000 persons died, and in Cor- 
dova the same number; and Xerez and 
Ecija lost each from 8000 to 9000, and the 
other towns and villages in the same propor- 
tion." He afterwards adds, that in the fol- 
lowing year a similar distemper returned with 
more or less activity, till at last it raged with 
great fury, causing the same destruction and 
ravages as in the first. Thus ominous were" 
the auspices under which the re-organised In- 
quisition hoisted its bloody standard.* 

This tribunal proceeding to fulfil the object 
of its institution;, which was to search out 
confessed or converted jews, who having been 
baptised in order to escape the anger of the 
people, in secret still retained their primitive 
religion, gave orders for a burning place to 
be constructed in a field not far distant from 
the city, on which it was about to offer so 
many holocausts to Moloch. " Those first 

* Andres Bernaldez or Bernal, Historia de los Reyes 
Catolicos, Fernando e Isabel, cap. xliv. This work cir- 
culates under a manuscript form. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 175 

inquisitors," says Bernaldez, " caused the 
burning-place to be built on a raised platform 
with the four prophets in plaister, (these 
were four statues placed on pedestals at the 
four corners, vide Plate xi.) and in very few 
days, by divers ways and means, they found 
out the truth of that wicked heretical pravity, 
and began to arrest men and women the 
most guilty as well as the most honourable, 
some from among the magistrates, jurists, 
bachelors, and lawyers, and also men of great 
reputation. And they began to sentence them 
to be burnt with fire; and brought for the 
first time, to be consumed on the platform, 
six men and women whom they cast into the 
flames. And a sermon was preached by 
Father Alonso Hojeda of St. Paul's, (a con- 
vent of Dominicans) zealous in the faith of 
Jesus Christ, and the greatest promoter of 
this Inquisition in Seville. And a few days 
afterwards they burnt tliree of the principal 
persons of the city, or of the richest ; who 
were Diego de Susan, whose property was 
said to be worth 10,000,000, and he was 
a great rabbin, though according to appear- 
ances he died as a Christian ; and the others 
were Manuel Sauli, and Bartholomew To- 
ralva." 



1 7G INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

"And they arrested," continues he, " Pedro 
Fernandez Benedeba, steward of the church 
of the dean and chapter, who was one of the 
most principal of them, and had in his house 
arms to equip 100 men ; also Juan Fernandez 
Abalasia, who had long been a chief-justice 
and was a great lawyer, as well as many other 
principal persons and very rich, whom like- 
wise they burnt, and their riches were of no 
avail to them." And how could their riches 
avail them any thing I would ask, if it was 
these, as will be seen hereafter, which be- 
came a new incentive to persecute them with 
out mercy ? " And with this," adds the same 
author, " all the confessed heretics were 
alarmed and cast into great consternation, and 
fled from the city and archbishoprick ; and 
in Seville, an injunction was laid for no one 
to abscond under the penalty of death, and 
guards were placed at the gates of the city ; 
and they arrested so many that there was no 
place to put them in, and many fled to the 
estates of lords, to Portugal, and to the 
country of the Moors." He had already 
stated that the inquisitors burnt an infinite 
number of bones out of the grave-yards of 
the Trinity, St. Augustin, and St. Bernard,* 
belonging to the confessed heretics, who had 



.CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 177 

been buried there each one by himself, ac- 
cording to the Jewish custom, and that by 
means of the pubhc cryer they cited before 
them many of those who had fled away.* 

In this same burning-place of Seville, which, 
as we have just seen, the Inquisition used for 
the first time in the year 1481, on the persons 
of six men and women of the Jewish persua- 
sion, the tribunal performed its last tragedy 
in the year 1782, by the execution of a woman 
for being a Molinist. Persons who were there 
present relate that the prisoner was placed on 
a raised platform sustained by four beams, 
resting on the four pillars ; that these and the 
works which served as a base were adorned 
with a lining painted black, on which were 
seen the usual fooleries of dragons and devils 
in white, and on the tops were four figures in 
penitential garments; finally, that the prisoner 
after being strangled, (she had been converted 
whilst going to the place of execution, and 
thereby met with this favour) was burnt, to- 
gether with the whole platform and frame, 
for which purpose barrels of pitch, fagots of 
vine-cuttings, and a large quantity of wood 
had been placed underneath. The object of 
the pillars is consequently explained, though 

* Bernaldez, ibid. 
VOL. II. N 



178 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. Tl» 

I am of opinion that the chief and most an- 
cient purpose was that they, as well as the 
statues, might serve by way of ornament. 
The above six followers of the Jewish rites 
were executed, according to Pedro de Torres, 
canon of Calahorra, and also a cotemporary 
author, on the 10th of January, as well as 
seventeen others on the 26th of March, and a 
great many more on the 21st of April ; those 
who died up to the 4th of November amount- 
ing to 298 ; and besides seventy-nine others 
were condemned to perpetual imprisonment.* 
Where then is the necessary interval of time 
not only for them really to have relapsed, 
but even for them to have been tried, more 
especially those who died in the first auto? 
It suited the Inquisition to install itself in an 
impressive manner, and beyond doubt, it at- 
tained its object so much the more, because 
the above punishments, besides falling on 
persons of quality, were more sudden and un- 
expected. The custom of burying the dead 
each one by himself, belongs to other nations 
as well as the Jews, who place a tomb-stone 
upright and near the head, on which an epi- 
taph is inscribed. Consequently, to insult 
the ashes of those converts and to deprive 
* Llorente, Anales de la Inquisicion, cap. ii. n. 34!. 
1 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 179 

their heirs of their property, a practice per- 
fectly indifferent to religion, sufficed, in like 
manner as an irresistible terror was sufficient 
plea to declare those guilty of death who had 
fled away. 

The Inquisition rendered vain with these 
essays, and still thirsting after more blood, 
proceeded to carry desolation not only into 
the provinces where hitherto it was unknown, 
but also to the kingdom of Aragon, where, 
by the usages of the people continually strug- 
gling against it, its ancient rigour had been 
slackened. " This Holy Inquisition,'* con- 
tinues Bernaldez, " had its beginning in Se- 
ville, and afterwards inquisitors were stationed 
throughout all Castile and Aragon, and infi- 
nite numbers were burnt, condemned, recon- 
ciled, and imprisoned, from all the archbi- 
shoprics and bishoprics of Castile and Aragon; 
and many of the reconciled again judaized, 
who, on this account, were burnt in Seville 
and in other parts of Castile." He concludes 
by saying, " I do not wish now to write any. 
more respecting the mischiefs of this heretical 
pravity ; suffice it to say, that since the fire 
is enkindled, it shall burn till no more w^ood 
can be found, and that it will be necessary 
for it to blaze till all those who have judaized 

N 2 



180 INQUISITION t'NBCASKErr. [cHAP. "VT.. 

are spent or dead, and not one remains ; and 
even their children, being twenty years old and 
upwards ; and if they are all of the same le- 
prosy, even though they are younger."* If 
such was the zeal which animated the chap- 
lain of the inquisitor-general, how much more 
ardent must not have been that of the inqui- 
sitor himself and of his tribunal? Such, in 
fact it was, for in the year 1520, that is, forty 
years after the Inquisition had been esta- 
blished in Seville, the persons who had been 
burnt in that archbishopric alone exceeded 
4,000, and the reconciled and banished 
amounted to 100,000 in only Andalusia, 
where more than 5,000 houses remained shut, 
whose inhabitants either in one way or other 
had been exterminated by it.t 

This destruction, to which must be added 
that caused by the other tribunals of the 
kingdom up to the middle of the sixteenth 
century, each annually celebrating one or 
more autos de fe, although great in itself, 
was rendered still more so by the discovery 
of America, which unfortunately took place 

* Bernaldez, Historia de los Reyes Catolicos, &c» 
cap. xliv. 
t Pararao, De Origine S, Inquislt. lib. ii. tit. ii. eap. iv. 



*CHAP. VI. J I>TQUISITION UNMASKED. 181 

about this period.* Among the various atro- 
cities history relates as having been commit- 
ted by our people on the innocent and help- 
less antipodes, a taste for burnings is most 
remarkable, and one which certainly must 
have been inspired into them by this tribunal; 
and, in truth, what hesitation could we ex- 
pect on the part of adventurers, many of 
whom were sailors and soldiers, to treat the 
unfortunate natives in an inhuman manner 
under pretext of their following another re- 
ligion, when, in the Peninsula, they had left 
the ministers of the sanctuary doing the same 
with their fellow citizens. Although the sen- 
sibility of Father Bartholomew de las Casas, 
as an eye-witness, may be considered as too 
extreme, this will not prevent his report of 
the destruction of the Indians from ever being 
a discredit to the Spanish name. 

It was in the year 1557 that the great per- 
secution took place against those who wished 
a reform in the church, whom our people de- 
signated by the name of Lutherans, and whose 
chief assemblies were in Valladolid, at that 

* Juan Siliceo, who wrote about the middle of the same 
century, assures us that in Cuenca.Tews were burnt every 
year. Our historians frequently take notice of two, three, 
and even four autos taking place in one year in the same 
'>Tibunal. 



183 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

time the capital of the monarchy; and also 
in Seville, one of the most commercial cities; 
a persecution which included many men held 
to possess great learning, and of irreproach- 
able character. At the auto celebrated in 
the first of the above cities on the 21st of 
May, 1559j at which the princess Dona Juana, 
regent of the kingdom, and prince Charles, 
assisted, Augustin Cazalla was burnt, toge- 
ther wdth his brother, a parish curate of Pre- 
dosa, a devotee-sister, his brother-in-law, and 
one of his servants, besides three nuns, 
one friar, and others, making in all fourteen 
persons, and sixteen more also did public pe- 
nance. On the 1 8th of October at an auto, at- 
tended, as v/e have already seen, by Philip II. 
lately arrived from the Low Countries, D. Car- 
los Sese, of a distinguished family of Logro^o 
was burnt, together with twenty-seven others, 
among whom were the bones an^ ; eliigy of Leo- 
nor de Vivero, mother of Cazi;lla, and on the 
same occasion twelve more had penance im- 
posed upon them.* In Seville as many as 

* Paramo, De Orig. S. Inquisit. lib. ii. tit. iii. cap. v. 
n. 1. — Colmenares, Hist, de Se^^ovia, cap. xlii. § iii. 
Mifiana, Contiuuacion de la Histoiia de.Espaiia, lib. v. 
cap xi. In the number of Cazaiia's brothers authors vary 
considerably. What ihave above stated, is derived from 
the original .)j oceedings taken out of the Inquisition of 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. i 83 

eighty individuals having been discovered, 
they were all punished, most of them by fire, 
some after the others, in groups of fifteen 
or twenty. In the year 1560, the same 
fate also befel Constantine Ponce Fuente, 
canon of the cathedral, and likewise Ca- 
zalla, preacher to Charles V., a most eloquent 
man and divested of all ambition ; as well as 
John Egidio, or Gil, also a canon, both of 
whom died in prison. At the same time was 
also burnt in person Cristoval de Arellano, of 
the convent of St. Isidore, a most learned man 
even according to the confession of the in- 
quisitors themselves ; together with professor 
Garci Arias Blanco, who, having abjured 
through the dread of punishment, and 
preached against the projected reform, again 
declared himself for it, and died with asto- 
nishing serenity after upbraiding his judges 
to their faces with their incapacity in matters 
of the faith.* It was then that the friars, as 
well as the tribunal, alarmed at such exam- 
ples, began to look with distrust not only on 
every one who deviated in the least from 

Valladolid, conformably to the information of the person 
who possesses them. 

* Cipriano de Valera, Tratado del Papa y de su Au- 
toridad. 



184 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. Vf. 

strictly monkish theology, but also on those 
who evinced the smallest erudition, or pro- 
fessed any other than Aristotelian philosophy. 
These spectacles have not been so frequent 
in Italy, owing to the reasons expressed in the 
preceding chapter. The most remarkable 
ones however took place about the above 
time, and for the same cause Aonius Palea- 
rius suffered, together with those who died 
during the pontificate of Pius V. who rather 
ought to have been styled Severus, a name 
he most likely would have assumed, if instead 
of a pope he had been an emperor. Those 
who were delivered over to the flames by the 
Inquisition of Portugal, from its foundation 
to the year 1732, when for the last time exe- 
cutions of this kind were witnessed, amount 
to 1454, most of them for being of the Jew- 
ish profession ; and the number of persons 
who had public penance imposed upon them, 
to 23068.* Although the above number 
bears no proportion with those who have pe- 
rished in Spain, it ought nevertheless by no 
means to be considered small, when we reflect 

* This is affirmed by king Joseph Emanuel in his de- 
cree of the 1st of September 1774, in wliich he approves 
the ne%v regulations of the tribunal arranged by the Inqui« 
sitor General, Cardinal Da Cunha, 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 185 

that this tribunal was established in the latter 
kingdom, at a time when it had already ex- 
hausted its first impetuosity, and when that 
violent hatred against the Jews, had in great 
measure diminished. The influence also 
which England has always had there, although 
not the most useful to the trade or decorous 
to the Portuguese name, had nevertheless 
communicated to that country a certain de- 
gree of toleration. The British government 
has even there debilitated the power of the 
Inquisition, by obtaining in virtue of one 
treaty that it should be abolished in Goa, and 
by another that it was never to be established 
in the Brazils. 

If in a general sense, harshness towards 
prisoners is blameable in a tribunal, it is ren- 
dered absolutely unpardonable when it ex- 
tends to persons of the female sex. Astonish- 
ment is excited at the multitude of victims 
of this class which the proceedings of the In- 
quisition present, immolated, not so much 
on account of their opinions, for rather than 
being their own they were those of their fa- 
thers, husbands, or, perhaps, of some delud- 
ing or seductive director, as owing to the 
whim and cruelty of the inquisitors. It may 
be established as a certain fact, that scarcely 
an auto has been performed in which some 



186 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

woman has not come forth condemned to 
death, or subjected to a public penance ; and 
in the second of the two celebrated in Toledo, 
in February 1501, sixty-seven of them were 
delivered over to the flames for Jewish prac- 
tices.* In the duchy of Lorrain, the inqui- 
sitor Nicholas Remigio alone inflicted the 
same punishment on 900 females for being 
witches. t Thus the supposed Circes and 
Medeas, who met with a similar fate at the 
hands of the Inquisition, in the space of 
only 150 years exceeded thirty thousand. J 
Even when tender age and beauty were 
united to the loveliness of the sex, still 
were they unable to soften the hard bowels 
of the unfeeling and haughty inquisitor. 
In a small auto celebrated in Madrid, 
four months after the general auto of 
Charles II., in which seven men and eight 
women were brought forth, who might be 
considered as the gleanings of the former 
harvest, a young female, fifteen years old and 
of a handsome person, was condemned to be 
burnt alive, ^s a negative follower of the Jewish 
rites ; and it was only by conforming to her 

* Llorente, Anales de la Inquisicion, cap.viii. n. 8. 
f He himself afnrras it in his Daemonolatria, quoted bj 
Feijoo, Teatr. Crit. torn. ii. disc, v, 

X Paramo, De Origine S. Inquisit. tit. iii. cap. iv. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 187 

sentence that she liberated herself from the 
capital punishment, which was commuted into 
perpetual conrinement.* It is unnecessary 
to state, that, in the infliction of the torture, 
females have not been treated with more con- 
sideration than during the last stages of pu- 
nishment. The tribunal of Seville adminis- 
tered the rack on a lady lately delivered of 
her child, named Dona Juana Ponce de 
Leon, sister of Count de Baylen, and wife of 
Lord de la Higuera, and arrested in 1557 
for being a Lutheran, with so much rigour 
that the ropes fixed on her arms, legs, and 
thighs, entered as far as her bones, when 
she remained senseless, casting up quantities 
of blood; and died at the expiration of eight 

* Jose del Olmo, Relacion Historicadel Auto General 
de Fe, celebrado en Madrid in 1680. The result of the 
sentence, according to the above author, is as followTs; 
*' Blanca Nogueira, unmarried, native of a town in the 
kingdom of Portugal, knows not which, and resident in 
this court, fifteen years old, tall, thick nose, large black 
eyes, pointed chin, and fair. She was brought out in the 
auto in a penitential habit and sanbenito, for being an 
observer of the law of Moses ; and as a negative heretic 
she was condemned to be delivered over to the civil magis- 
trate, but on the sentence being notified to her, she de» 
clared herself pertinacious, (that is, confessed being a 
Jewess) and was reconciled in due Ibrm under a confisca- 
tion of property ; but irrevocably condemned to wear a 
penitential habit, and to endure perpetual imprisonment." 



188 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [^CHAP. VI. 

days, without any other attendance than a 
young female who had also undergone the 
torture.* 

And what shall we say of the horrid scenes 
in which an infinite number of culprits, 
through love to their belief, or actuated by 
that impulse of defiance so natural in one 
who feels himself wounded in the most deli- 
cate fibre of his heart, have braved the ven- 
geance of this tribunal, either by suffering 
the agonies of death with all their bitterness, 
or facing them with prodigious insensibility ? 
In the third of the four autos de fe, cele- 
brated in Majorca in the year 1691, in which 
thirty-four culprits were delivered over to the 
flames after being hung, three were burnt 
alive on the ground of being impenitent 
Jews, whose names were Raphael Vails, Ra- 
phael Terongi, and Catherine Terongi. " On 
seeing the flames near them," says the Jesuit, 
also author of the report, and one of the 
clergymen who assisted them, " they began 
to shew the greatest fury, struggling to free 
themselves from the ring to which they were 
bound, which Terongi at length effected, 
although he could no longer hold himself 
upright, and he fell side-long on the fire. 

* Cipriano de Valera, Tratado del Papa y de su Au- 
torklad. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 189 

Catherine, as soon as the flames began to en- 
circle her, screamed out repeatedly for them 
to withdraw her from thence, although uni- 
formly persisting not to invoke the name of 
Jesus. On the flames touching Vails, he co- 
vered himself, resisted, and struggled as long 
as he was able. Being fat he took fire in his 
inside, in such manner that before the flames 
had entwined around him, his flesh burnt like 
a coal, and bursting in the middle his entrails 
fell out."* Deserving indeed of being seen 
were these poor unhappy victims, all three 
of them amidst painful writhings and violent 
contortions raising up their cries to heaven, 
and though made the scoff of the inquisitors 
and their executioners, still firm in their own 
law ; nor could a God of charity fail to re- 
ceive, as most sweet incense, the offering 
which his priests were presenting to him, 
really congenial to no other than Caribbees. 
This is as far as relates to the prisoners who 
in a stout and manly manner fought, if we 
may be allowed the expression, with the pain 
they endured, rather than yield to the phari- 
saical Inquisition. 

With regard to the persons who went so 

* Francisco Garau, Le Fe Triumfante, en Quatro Auto$ 
celebrados en Mallorca, el ano 1691. 
5 



J 90 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

fur as to despise death, and even, became in- 
sensible to all its rigours, my attention is 
principally called to those who went out to 
meet it, willingly offering themselves to the 
voracity of the flames, or in any other way 
accelerating the end of their lives, of whom 
I shall present a few examples. In the report 
of the auto of Mexico which took place in 
that capital in the year 1549, we read the 
following words relating to certain judaizing 
culprits. " Thirteen victims in person were 
cast into the burning-place, all of whom 
through mercy were strangled before they 
were burnt, except Thomas Trebino de So- 
bremonte, in consequence of his insolent 
rebellion and diabolical fury with which, 
though before he was put on the scaffold he 
had been made to feel on his face the fire 
that awaited him, he broke out in execrable 
blasphemies and with his feet drew the blaz- 
ing fagots towards him. In the same fire 
they also consumed the bones of forty-seven 
persons together with their effigies, besides 
those corresponding to ten fugitives."* In 
the other auto de fe celebrated in the Fiime 
city in 1659, William Lamport, of whom I 
have already spoken several times, was con- 
* Diario de Mexico, de 6 de Abril de 1807, 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 191 

demned to be burnt to death for being in- 
fected with the errors of Luther, Calvin, Pa- 
lagius, WicklifF, and John Huss ; in a word, 
because he was guilty of all imaginable here- 
sies, according to the terms of the proceed- 
ings, and being desirous of depriving the 
tribunal of the pleasure of seeing him burn 
alive, and at the same time give to it a testi- 
mony of the readiness of mind with which 
he met death, as soon as he was seated at the 
foot of the stake, and his neck placed in the 
ring, he let himself fall and broke his own 
neck. " William Lamport, or Lampart," 
says the original report, " under the hopes 
he evinced on the preceding evening that the 
devil, his familiar, would relieve him, went 
through the streets looking up towards the 
clouds to see if the superior power he ex- 
pected was coming ; but when placed on a 
seat for execution, and the ring fixed about 
his neck, finding that all his hopes were vain, 
he strangled himself by letting his body fall 
down suddenly, and in a short time that in- 
fernal man was converted into ashes.*'* It 
suffices to know that Lamport, by merely 
abjuring, might have saved his own life, 

* Rodrigo Ruiz de Zepeda, Auto General de la Fe cele- 
brado en Mexico, en 1659. 



192 INQUISITION UNMASKED* [cHAP. VU 

whence it is clear tliat the author of the re- 
port interprets the event according to his own 
pleasure, by presenting it under an aspect 
foreign to the truth. 

We have already seen, when speaking of 
the mode of procedure in this tribunal, that 
during the auto of Madrid performed in 1680 
some of the persons sentenced, being before- 
hand with the ministers, voluntarily rushed 
into the flames, in order to give this fresh 
proof of adhesion to their own sect. Things 
extremely remarkable and capable of embit- 
tering the pleasure of the inquisitors must 
have then happened, since Jose del Olmo, 
notwithstanding he is extremely minute in 
the narrative of all the facts, scarcely makes 
mention of the execution of the sentences, 
when it is this part that is most likely to 
awaken curiosity. Possibly for this very rea- 
son, and owing to the impertinent excuse of 
inquisitorial secrecy, he also omitted to ex- 
tract the proceedings read in the auto of 
those who were delivered over in person, as 
is customary in similar reports, and as wa^s 
necessary in order that posterity, for whom 
he wrote his work, might do justice to the 
rectitude of the tribunal. In an auto cele- 
brated in Tholouse, soon after the establish- 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 193 

ment of the Inquisition, SOO Albigenses, ac- 
cording to some authors, and 400 according 
to others, did the same, despising the pardon 
tendered to them ; and the same afterwards 
happened to 240 more in various cities of 
Languedoc. The Catholics began to stagger 
on observing so much courage in the Albi- 
genses, and the Inquisitor, S. Dominick de 
Guzman, thenceforwards determined to refute 
them in public contests ; but apparently he 
failed to put his determination into practice, 
or, if he did, it was not efficacious ; in which 
case the inconvenience he sought to avoid 
remained precisely the same, or else the Do- 
minicans did not wish to follow his example.* 
Indeed so far have the latter been from think- 
ing well of public disputes with heretics, that 
in Italy they established, as a maxim of the 
tribunal, not to endeavour to reduce them 
unless within prison walls, and through inflic- 
tive means.t When they have such little con- 

* Paramo, De Grig. S. Inquisit. lib. ii. tit. i. cap. ii. 

f Massini, Prattica della Santa Inquisizione, part x. 
avvert. Ixxxii. Egli non si conviene disputar pubblicamento 
co' perfidi eretici, ma in carcere colle ammonizioni de' 
giudici e colla dottrina de teologhi sforzarsi di convincerii; 
perehe quantunque siano pertinaci, chi sa pero che ve- 
xatio tandem non (let illis intellectiim . 

VOL. II. O 



194 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

Mence in themselves, do they not authorize 
us to compare their stories of inquisitors con- 
founding heretics with the picture drawn by 
iEsop of a man tearing a lion to pieces? 
Fathers Bolandi, Echard, and Turon, and 
together with them the Abbe Bergier, deny 
that this saint interfered in autos de fe, 
asserting, that he did not become an inqui- 
sitor, because they add, he died before his 
friars took charge of the tribtmal.* For my 
own part I am grateful for the good will with 
which these writers vindicate the reputation 
of a respectable individual of our nation, and 
consequently that of the nation itself; but on 
this account I am not tenacious that their 
opinion should prevail. The founder of an 
order which, having always been the most 
addicted to literary oddities, has likewise been 
most zealous in promoting inquisitorial super- 
stition, will always excite gloomy reflections 
in the breasts of the lovers of truth and hu- 
manity ; and Spain has sufficient reasons to 
blush for having adopted the Inquisition in a 
manner that seemed to render it constitu- 
tional to us. 

It will be proper in this place to state 
another effect produced in the people by 
* Encyclop. Art. Inquisiteur. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 195 

similar punishments, and at the same time 
tending to prove the harshness of this tribu- 
nal. This is a certain stupor, delirium, or 
enthusiastical fury mixed with terror, which 
deranging the imagination, caused it to pic- 
ture to itself rare portents and forbodings, 
as well as horrid spectres. In seven or eight 
autos de fe, which the Inquisition celebrated 
in Llerena, during the time it was established 
in Guadaloupe, we are told that at least sixty 
prodigies happened. God worked them 
through the intercession of the Virgin, in. 
order to manifest how much he was pleased 
with the residence of the Inquisition in that 
quarter ; and the latter attained such a repu- 
tation and ascendency, that the inquisitors 
decreed heavy penalties against all Jews 
found within the said district, notwithstand- 
ing they were then tolerated in Spain.* In 
the auto of Mexico corresponding to the 
year 1649, on carrying the aforesaid Thomas 
Trebino, to the place of execution, " it hap- 
pened,'* says the report, " that on the officers 
mounting him on a beast of burden, as broken- 
down, dull, and tame as most animals of this 
kind generally are, no sooner did the beast 
begin to feel his load than he sought to shake 

* P4ramo, De Orig. S. Inquisit, lib. ii. tit. ii. cap. iv. 
o 2 



196 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. Ti. 

it ofFin a most furious manner, and breaking 
loose rushed among the bye-standers. An- 
other was brought, and still the same again 
happened. As many as six were changed, 
and some of those tried on which the other 
condemned persons had travelled without 
any repugnance for some distance, and as if 
even the animals were horror-struck at the 
sight of such a monster, not one admitted 
him on his back. The unhappy wretch tra- 
velled for some time on foot; but as all that 
had occurred indicated something extremely 
mysterious. Divine Providence at length 
brought forward a horse, which allowed the 
prisoner to mount, in order to deliver so 
cursed a load more quickly over to the 
flames." A horse, so noble an animal, mira- 
culously replacing a lesser beast of burden 
for the purpose of bearing away a culprit to 
an earlier death, who, as was soon afterwards 
seen, desired nothing so much as to end his 
days, instead of proving his criminality would 
rather argue that of the tribunal. In like 
manner, the day after Augustin Cazalla had 
been burnt in Valladolid, a while horse was 
seen passing through the streets of the city, 
governed by an invisible rider, and supposed 
to be the shade of Cazalla himself, as he had 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 19? 

foretold would happen before he died.* 
Thus did the phrenzy of the ignorant people 
accord with that of the intolerant and re- 
vengeful Inquisition. 

In reflecting on the cruelty of these autos 
de fe, it seems as if I beheld the triumph of 
the savages of Canada over some of their 
enemies' prisoners. On one of the latter 
they brutally satiate their rage : bound to a 
pole they raise him up on high, tear down 
his flesh by mouthfuls, cut away his members 
one by one ; and in the meantime the suffer- 
ing victim, without expressing the smallest 
token of pain, though foaming with rage, 
breathing defiance, and presenting the spec- 
tacle of all the furious passions of the human 
soul, provokes and mocks his executioners 
with the most irritating reproaches, urging 
them on to employ every means of torture, 
whilst he himself glories in the triumph as 
long as he has overcome them in ferocity. 
Instances of this kind have really been wit- 
nessed in the autos of this tribunal. The 
magnificence of the platform, the presence of 
the kings when at court, and of the viceroys 
in the province, the attendance of the coun- 

* Paramo, De Orig. S. Inquisit. lib. ii. tit. iii, cap. v. 
n. J, 



198 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI 

cils and other tribunals, universities and other 
corporations ; finally, the presence of immense 
crowds of spectators with which the Inquisi- 
tion has ostentatiously exhibited its victories, 
frequently served no other purpose than for 
the culprits to contemn and sport with the 
religion of Jesus Christ; which has lost more 
by the scandal incurred than it was possible 
to gain by hundreds of conversions obtained 
through such means, even when it was pos- 
sible they could redound to the honour of 
the institution. " Francisco Lopez de 
Aponte," says the report of the auto of 
Mexico for the year 1 659, " a most contu- 
macious and malicious atheist, stood on the 
platform of the stage, and resembling a de- 
mon, cast forth sparks from his eyes, and 
beforehand gave signs of his eternal con- 
demnation. When they carried him from the 
half moon to the centre of the theatre to hear 
his sentence, he proceeded with a haughty step 
along the avenue, and instead of standing up 
on the raised platform as he ought to have 
done whilst his sentence was reading, he soon 
sat down. When he returned to the half 
moon, mocking the confessors who assisted 
the other condemned persons, (for this in- 
fernal man refused to admit any spiritual 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 199 

guide, and remained alone) he said to them : 
* Well Fathers, what do you think of it, have 
I not played my part well ?'* 

In like manner as the Inquisition, by adopt- 
ing in its judicial proceedings the plan of the 
tyrants of Rome, carried its monstrosity to a 
still higher pitch through the aid of new 
frauds and deceit j so also did it add new 
degrees to its cruelty by refusing its culprits 
and victims all kinds of human consolation. 
Neither Nero, Dioclesian, nor any of the 
emperors who were a scourge to Christianity, 
prevented the martyrs from communicating 
with each other, either during the period of 
their confinement or in the act of their exe- 
cution ; since it is fully established that in 
the prisons they were visited by their relations 
and the other faithful, and that in their last 
moments they reciprocally exhorted each 
other to suffer death. This tribunal, on the 
contrary, perhaps holding in confinement a 
husband and wife for the space of many years, 
without one knowing of the arrest and sad 
endurance of the other, brings them forth to 
the place of execution, where, astonished at 
their meeting, for the first time they learn the 
wretched situation of each other, and must 



200 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

part for ever without an embrace or even a last 
adieu. " Francisco Botello," says the report, 
" behaved so shamefully on the stage, that 
Vi^hen one of the confessors, who undertook 
to convert him from Judaism, desired him to 
observe his wife, who was also there and 
penanced on the same account, he raised up 
his eyes to behold her with as much joy and 
gladness as if it had been the happiest day of 
his life, and made great exertions to speak to 
her ; but this he was unable to attain because 
they removed him two steps lower down.'* 
These unfortunate victims then, since every 
thing else was denied them, exhorted each 
other by signs to remain firm in the religion 
they professed, or to continue stedfast in their 
purpose when they did not profess any. 
" Diego Diaz," adds the same report, " whilst 
on the stage actually declared himself to be a 
Jew, and together with the two other culprits, 
Aponte and Botello,was making signs as if ani- 
mating each other to die in his own lame faith; 
and on being reproved by one of the friars 
who attended him, he answered, '* So Father, 
is it not well that we should exhort each other 
to die for God ? '* However, on being an- 
swered that as a Jew he did not die for Godj 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 201 

but rather in his disgrace and under offence 
to him, he became totally hardened, refusing 
any longer to hold the holy cross in his hands. 
Such rigour and odium have uniformly 
accompanied the acts of the Inquisition, that 
the very pardon of life, which for a single 
time it granted to the penitent, (Phalaris also, 
of the brazen bull and the greatest of the 
tyrants of Sicily, pardoned Melanipus and 
Chariton) became detestable in the mode of 
its concession ; because, independent of the 
cruel humiliation and degrading ceremony to 
which they were subjected, and independent 
also of this being a tribunal as boastful as it 
has been ignorant, which constituting itself 
as the avenger of the Divinity was the 
first to usurp its rights, it may be asked 
whether the confiscation of property and 
the infamy and ruin of his family were not 
misfortunes such as the culprit with difficulty 
could survive ? " Sebastian Alvarez, a Lu- 
theran and Sacramentarian heretic," says the 
report, " was well aware that he was still in 
a state to receive mercy, by laying aside his 
errors ; but he was restrained by motives he 
often explained to the friars who assisted 
him, viz. that on mercy being solicited and 
granted to him they would give him two 
1 



202 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

hundred lashes, and that he did not wish to 
live under such a stigma and disgrace.*' 

In such terms did a common man and be- 
sides a mad one, (ibr the reader ought to be 
informed that the culprit alluded to was really 
Buch,) express himself when speaking of the 
loss of his honour : what tlien would not be 
the feeling and sentiments of a sensible and 
reputable man in a similar case ? I say that 
the above-mentioned culprit was deranged in 
his senses, and this is even proved by his 
own words. Behold here then another of 
the cruelties unfortunately too common in 
the Inquisition ; for such most assuredly it 
was to send to tlie place of execution many 
persons who ought to have been in a mad- 
house, with a strait-waistcoat on, or in a 
workhouse subduing their unbridled imagi- 
ginations by means of corporeal labour. But 
all this was instigated by the lure of confisca- 
tions, by the vanity of the tribunal to bring out 
in its autos the greatest number of culprits, as 
well as by a fiilse point of honour to prevent 
its being said that its ministers had impri- 
soned persons labouring under so dreadful a 
disorder. The report of the proceedings 
and sentence here alluded to in substance is 
as follows : 



UHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 203 

" Sebastian Alvarez, alias Rodriguez, native 
of Bayona in Galicia, and resident in Mexico, 
more than 63 years of age, unmarried, and by 
trade a goldsmith. He wa? arrested and his 
property sequestrated on the grounds of his 
being a sectarian of Luther, belonging to the 
Sacramentarians and other heretics, and as the 
inventor of many and new heresies ; of which 
he was fully convicted and the same proved 
by his papers. In the third hearing granted 
to him, he said that about thirty years before 
he had written down some remarks which, in 
consequence of his not having read the Scrip- 
tures, he was aware contained many errors; 
and that afterwards, when he had read them, 
he had written others which bore testimony 
that he was Jesus Christ, and that the omni- 
potence of the Eternal Father could do no 
more than was laid down in his writings, 
because they contained all the treasure of his 
infinite knowledge." — The report adds, '' on 
several experiments being made respecting 
the senses of this culprit, it was ascertained 
that they were in a sufficiently perfect state, 
and that he was aided by the powers of the 
devil, although not habitually, by which 
means he perverted the Scriptures to found his 
doctrines.'* I ought to advert that in no part 



204 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

of the report is any mention made of medical 
persons having examined the state of the 
prisoner*s senses, which was only done by 
the members of the Royal Audiencia and the 
counsellors of the tribunal, and the latter had 
to solicit permission so to do, as otherwise 
they would not have dared to vote in the 
cause. It is not consequently astonishing 
that they should have declared Alvarez to be 
possessed of the devil at determined periods, 
since he was a madman with lucid intervals, 
as will be better seen by the remaining part 
of the report, which goes on as follows : — 

" This heretic was so incoherent in his 
discourse the night preceding the day of the 
auto, and so unrestrained in his blasphemies, 
that each word was a new heresy, wherefore 
to defend one he uttered a thousand more. 
He affirmed, as he always had done before, 
that he was Jesus Christ, and that such he 
would be as long as God was God. The 
friars who assisted him admonished him to 
ask mercy, and he answered them : ' Do not 
fatigue yourselves, Fathers, for I well know 
that they send you to make proof of my con- 
stancy, but I am so firm in being Jesus Christ 
that I will be he in spite of you all, and 
I will rise again after three days and a half, 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 20,5 

to judge the living and the dead.' He said 
there were thousands of worlds, and that in 
each Jesus Christ was to die twice, and that 
having died once on the cross, he again came 
into it to die by fire ; ' adding, * watch. 
Fathers, and if you do not behold me arise 
again in three days, do not believe me : ' and 
he was extremely glad to die, in order to 
come to resurrection again. He persisted in 
the heresy of the transmigration of souls 
from one body to another, and in conse- 
quence of the many horrible and heretical 
blasphemies he uttered, the friars requested a 
gag might be put into his mouth, even whilst 
he was yet in prison. At midnight he en- 
tered into a profound silence, indicating, by 
the movement of his lips, some signs that he 
was engaged in prayer ; and being told that 
it was not time to sleep but to wake, in order 
to prepare for death, he answered : ' Would 
to God it had already come, for then I should 
have arisen again to judge men. He also said 
that the Eternal Father had communicated to 
him the gift of interpreting the Scriptures ; 
that he had the soul of Solomon, and that he 
had untied the seven seals of the Apocalypse. 
*' Being placed on the platform," con- 
tinues the report, " he requested an hearing. 



206 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

And who would have imagined but that it was 
to anathematize his errors ? Nevertheless it 
was not so, for on being returned to the prisons 
of the Inquisition, and two days after asked 
by the judges for his christian and surname, 
he replied, ' that for the Holy Tribunal he 
was Jesus Christ, and for the people, Sebas- 
tian Alvarez ;' adding, ' that so he had said 
when brought out to the auto, in presence 
of the religious divines who went with him, 
and afterwards of his Excellency (the Vice- 
roy) and the inquisitors when he begged an 
hearing on the stage.' He concluded by re- 
marking to them, that if he did not arise 
after the third day they might burn all his 
papers and hold them as false. And he signed 
his declaration under the following title ; 
* The slave of the Lord, and the said slave is 
Jesus Christ, the son of the female slave of 
the Lord.' His obstinacy being manifest, he 
was delivered over to the secular magistrate 
to be consumed in live flames, without being 
previously strangled, unless he returned into 
himself and became converted." At length, 
however, he was converted, or rather he 
feigned so, for this far from being called a 
conversion, was rather an additional proof of 
the derangement of his senses, and of the 

4 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 207 

want of courage which is consequent thereto, 
since it had no other origin than his being 
moved to compassion on beholding the priest 
who accompanied him to the place of execu- 
tion shed tears. " In carrying him to the 
place of execution/' concludes the report, 
" Licentiate Francisco Corchero Carreno in 
tears and extremely affected, admonished him 
to consider that he was then travelling on to 
hell ; and as the prisoner perceived the cler- 
gyman was crying, he said to him, ' Father, 
why do you cry?* He answered him, on 
account of his soul which would be lost. 
The prisoner then said, ^ Well, Father, and 
what is it you wish me to do ?' ' To lay 
aside your errors,' replied he." The culprit, 
in order to silence him, retracted and con- 
fessed all he was ordered to retract and 
confess. At this the executioner put an end 
to his life with a dagger before he cast him 
into the flames. 

More in his senses than Alvarez scarcely 
could have been Francisco deStabili, otherwise 
named Cecco de Ascoli, a poet and professor 
of astrology and philosophy in Bologna. 
When seventy years old he was accused be- 
fore the Inquisition of having announced to 
the Duke of Calabria, through the aspect of 



208 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

the stars, that his wife and daughter would give 
themselves up to prostitution ; and as he had 
before undergone a public penance for attri- 
buting to the influenceof two contrary constel- 
lations and of certain malignant spirits which, 
according to him, therein preside, the poverty 
in which Jesus Christ lived, and the future 
riches of Antichrist, he was burnt alive in the 
year 1327.* 

I am still desirous of adding another proof 
of death being more supportable to many 
culprits than the penalty into which this was 
commuted. In the tribunal of Madrid at the 
time Xaramillo and Prada were inquisitors, 
of whom the latter is still living, one of the 
king's life-guards, a native of Marseilles, was 
condemned to be brought out in a private 
auto with a rope round his neck. The culprit 
acquiesced in his sentence, except the part 
relating to the rope; and he frequently, 
though uselessly, solicited that such an igno- 
miny should be dispensed with. Seeing that 
his prayers were of no avail, he ' made an 
attempt on his own life, by breaking one of 
the dishes in which his victuals were carried 
to him and swallowing the pieces. The keeper 

* Peignot, Dtctionaire des Livres condamnes au Feu 
Art. Cecco. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 209 

of the prison gave information of this to the 
inquisitors; and these, sending to the general 
hospital for one of the iron beds used for 
mad persons, ordered him to be bound down 
upon it. When the prisoner was left alone 
he extricated one of his arms by main force, 
and, taking the untwisted end of the rope, 
and passing it round the head of the bed, he 
made a slip-noose and hung himself His 
body was buried in the fields, without the 
gate called de los Pozos.* 

In fine, if suicide, the last misfortune that 
can happen to man, and the greatest madness 
it is possible for him to commit, has been so 
frequent in the Inquisition, notwithstanding 
so many precautions, it must principally be 
attributed to the sad and gloomy solitude in 
which these victims were obliged to live, and 
the crooked and irregular conduct of its mi- 
nisters. In former times, Constantine Ponce 
by some persons is asserted to have killed 
himself in Seville, though others affirm that 
he died through sickness occasioned by the 
ill-treatment he received, and that the above 
report was circulated by the inquisitors in 
order to discredit a deserving man and his 

* D. Juan Antonio Rodrigalvarez, Apuntes sobre la 
Inquisicion, M S. above quoted. 

VOL. ri. p 



210 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

party.* If, in fact, they circulated it for this 
purpose, this is not the first time they have 
recurred to similar tricks. They caused the 
common people to believe that the proper 
name of Antonio Perez was not Perez but 
another which they did not designate, and 
that he descended from a Jewish family ; 
whereas his lineage was well known, and his 
paternal grandfather had been secretary of 
the tribunal, and consequently underwent 
the customary proofs of the purity of his 
descent, as well for himself as his wife ; and 
even before, one of his ancestors had filled a 
similar office. t 

Recently in the tribunal of Madrid, in addi- 
tion to the life-guard above-mentioned, a soli- 
citor in the supreme courts, standing upright 
on the table in his cell, threw himself with his 
head foremost against the ground and dashed 
out his brains. In that of Mexico, a captain 
belonging to the Interior Provinces, feigning 

* Cipriano de Valera in his Tratado del Papa y de su 
Autoridad, denies the circumstance on the verbal testimony 
of the person who attended Ponce during his illness and 
at his death. Paramo himself (De Orig. S. Inquisit. lib. 
ii. tit. iii. cap. v. n. 12.) mentions it in a dubious light. 

t Lupercio Leonardo de Argensola, Inforraacion de 
lot Sucesos de Aragon, cap. liii. — Aotonio Perez, ^llelacion 
^el 4 de Mayo. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 211 

himself sick, seized the sword worn by the 
physician who attended him, loudly threaten- 
ing that he would kill him first and then 
himself, if they did not let them go out to- 
gether into the street. In this manner were 
the prisoner, physician, inquisitors, and their 
dependents, struggling for some hours ; and 
in the mean time the city, where the news 
had spread, was in a state of consternation ; 
till at length the prisoner, being completely 
tired, fixed the handle of the sword in one of 
the corners of the prison, and letting himself 
drop with all his force on the point, his body 
was run through. A little time afterwards, 
in the same Inquisition, a physician also mur- 
dered himself by opening an artery with a 
pair of snuffers. 

In sketching the cruelty of this tribunal 
I cannot pass over in silence the manner in 
which it treated the Jews and Moors, at the 
time of their expulsion from Spain. Begin- 
ning with that of the Jews, which took place 
in 1492, when some politicians having re- 
presented to their Catholic Majesties the 
injury that would thereby result to the state ; 
and the Jews, in their own behalf, offering 
large donations to relieve the public exi- 
gencies, Torquemada, the king's confessor, 
P 2 



212 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

went up to the palace and, assuming the atti- 
tude and language of a true fanatic, pulled 
out a crucifix, and implored them not to 
prefer gold and silver to the cause of that 
Lord who to save the world had deigned to be 
bouffht and sold.* The roval determination 
was consequently carried forward, and Tor- 
quemada published an edict prohibiting Chris- 
tians, under the strongest anathemas, to admi- 
nister to the Jews any kinds of aliments after 
the period assigned for their expatriation had 
expired.t An edict of this kind was extremely 
congenial to such an inquisitor, the same as 
it was to propose to his council, on seeing 
that notwithstanding such rigorous punish- 
ments there was still scope for more perse- 
cution, whether it would not be proper to 
increase the severity, t 

• Paramo, De Orig. S. Inquisit. lib, ii, tit. ii. cap. iii. 

\ Ibid. cap. vi, n. 7. 

% This consultation is found half-copied in a collection 
of original papers in two volumes folio which I have seen, 
and belonging to the private library of the King, some of 
them signed and sealed by Torqueraada and by King Fer- 
dinand the Catholic. They appear to have been collected 
and arranged by some curious person who did not discri- 
minate whether they were important or complete, being 
satisfied with their belonging to the Inquisition. Hence does 
it happen tliat among them is a mandate of arrest against 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 213 

AVith this the expelled left the country, to 
the number of 800,000 persons ; and, taking 
various directions, some went to Portugal, 
France, Italy, and Germany ; and others, 
taking shipping, went over to the kingdoms 
of Tremesan and Fez, and the empire of 
Turkey. The persecution endured by the 
Jews would have been more supportable, had 
they only been deprived of a country which 
devoured its own inhabitants; but misfortune 
being coupled to the policy of government, or 
rather to the intrigues of the clergy, caused 
the destruction of the greatest part of them, 
through storms and pirates at sea, as well as 
the wandering Arabs of Africa ; who, not 
content with robbing them, also violated their 

a woman, returned no doubt by the bailiff after he had 
performed his duty, and also one or more accounts relating 
to property, together . with a brief statement of the death 
of St. Peter de Arbues, very badly written. With regard 
to the point above alluded to, the counsellors answer, that 
they cannot approve of the measure, founding themselves 
on that rule of public justice : Ubi lex non disthigttit, nee 
nos distinguere debemus. The seal used by Torquemada 
does not exceed the diameter of a rial of plate, without 
any other form than a cross dividing it into four equal 
parts, in which are initials. The Inquisition therefore did 
not adopt the sword in its coat of arms, till its cruelties 
had rendered it deserving of this emblazoned distinction. 



214 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

children and wives. Many of those who re- 
mained alive, after losing all their property 
and weighed down by such accumulated mis- 
fortunes, returned to Spain and received 
baptism, till, their numbers increasing, the 
door was shut against them, on the grounds 
of their conversion being forced. How great 
must have been the affliction and misery of 
those unhappy people when Bernaldez, who, 
as he himself affirms, baptised as many as a 
hundred with his own hands, evinces senti- 
ments of compassion towards them ! The 
disasters however did not stop here to which 
the Inquisition gave rise by wresting and 
promoting the above fatal decree. Nine ves- 
sels loaded with Jews having arrived at Na- 
ples, owing to the remains of the former 
plague carried with them, as well as other 
disorders contracted during their voyage, they 
caused such an epidemic complaint in that 
kingdom as scarcely had been before wit- 
nessed, of which more than 20,000 persons 
died in the capital alone.* 

The Jews compare this catastrophe to the 
captivity of their people in Babylon, the 

* Bernaldez, Historia de los Reyes Catolicos, cap. xlir. 
— Paramo, De Orig. S. Inquisit. lib. ii. tit. iii. «ap. vi, n, 11 
et 12. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 215 

taking of Jerusalem, and the destruction of 
the same city by Titus and Vespasian, not 
only because the evils then brought upon 
them equalled those they at that time suf- 
fered, but also because having been esta- 
blished in the Peninsula since the time of 
the Roman empire, they considered it as 
another Palestine, or, what is the same, as 
their own native land. Hence that predilec- 
tion for Spain which they evince even up to 
the present day, esteeming it as a great 
honour to have descended from that country, 
and speaking our language with all possible 
purity •, but always declaiming against the 
Inquisition, which they describe as a haughty 
and cruel monster. To it they apply seve- 
ral of the prophecies of the Old Testament j 
and as these, when gloomy, generally end in 
promises of consolation, as the persecutions 
of the tribunal against them increased, the 
more were they confirmed in their belief, 
hoping for the day of their redemption. 
Among the writings in which similar allusions 
occur, one is deserving of particular notice j 
and this is a Spanish translation of the Psalms 
jn various kinds of metre, published in Lon- 
don at the beginning of the last century. Its 
^author, Daniel Israel Lopez Laguna, who. 



216 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI, 

the preface mentions, had been confined by 
the Inquisition, wrote it for the purpose of 
aiding, in the understanding of the above 
book, his Spanish and Portuguese brethren 
passing from Spain over to England who 
were ignorant of the Hebrew. The two 
following octaves on the Tenth Psalm, ac- 
cording to the original text, and the Ninth 
according to the Vulgate, particularly deserve 
to be read, as they will suffice to show the 
idea the Jews have of the rigour of this tri- 
bunal. They are as follows : 

Verse 22. " Ut quid, Domine, recessisti 
longe'* S^c. — verse 23. " Dum superbit im- 
pius" S^c. — verse 24. '* Quoniam laudatur 
peccator" 8^c, 

" Porque, Seiior, te encubres a lo lexos 
A nuestro ruego en horas del quebranto ? 
Piadosos nos alumbren tus reflexos, 
Quando sobervio el malo causa espanto 
Al pobre persiguiendole en consejos 
Del Tribunal que infieles llaman Santo. 
Preso sea el malsin que tal se alaba, 
Pues aunque 61 se bendice, en mal acaba." 

Thy presence why withdraw'st thou, Lord, 

Why hid'st thou now thy face, 
"When dismal times of deep distress 

Call for thy wonted grace ? 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 217 

The tribunal they faithful call 

Has made the poor its prey ; 
Oh let them fall by those designs 

Which they for others lay. 

Verse 29. " Sedet in insidiis," (§rc.— verse 
30. " Ocidi ejus in pauperem respiciu7it" S^c. 
verse 31. " iw laqueo suo humiliabit eimi," 8^c. 

" Asechador violento en las aldeas 

Qual oso hambriento embiste al inocente ; 

Sus ojos sin temer que tu los veas 

Atalayan, qual leon de lo eminente 

De su gruta, a las mlseras plebeas 

Gentes que asalta audaz quanto inclemente ', 

Pues lisongeando hipocrita abatidos 

Coge en la red rebanos de afligidos." • 

Near public roads they lie conceal'd 

And all their art employ 
The innocent and poor at once 

To rifle and destroy. 
Not lions couching in their dens 

Surprise their heedless prey 
With greater cunning, or express 

More savage rage than they. 

If the conduct of the Inquisition towards 
the Jews was atrocious, it was no less so with 

* Daniel Israel Lopez Laguna, Espejo fiel de vidas 
que contiene los salmos de David en verso. London, 
year 5480, according to the Jewish computation, or 1720 
of the vulgar era. 



21-8 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI, 

regard to the Moors. The plan of their 
expulsion, which, as far as relates to those of 
Granada, began in 1502 and continued till 
1257, when those who had not gone over to 
Africa were transferred to Castile, the king- 
dom of Seville, and Estremadura, according 
to the authorities of Luis del Marmol, Diego 
Hurtado de Mendoza, and Father Prudencio 
Sandoval, was traced out and instigated by 
certain prelates and other religious persons ; 
•whence we have a right to suppose that it 
•was the same, or others. of their class, who 
had previously planned the expulsion of the 
Jews. With regard to those of Portugal, this 
is roundly asserted by Vicente da Costa 
Matos, and even also with respect to Spain.* 
Granada had surrendered to the arms of King 
Ferdinand in 1492, after eight months ri- 
gorous siege and continued attacks, under 
a capitulation extremely advantageous to the 
besieged ; two of the principal articles being 
the free use of their religion, and the total 
independence of their nation, with regard to 
the Hebrews. It ought not to be forgotten 
that the Mahometans, following up the opi- 
nions of their legislator, who, in the Koran, 
indulges in invectives against the Jews, look 
* Discurso contra a heretica perfidia do Judaismo, cap. xri. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 219 

upon the latter with the greatest contempt 
and horror ; consequently those of Granada 
beheld and detested such a species of sub- 
jection as the last degree of slavery. With 
regard to the rest, in solemnly stipulating 
the freedom of their worship, they did not 
consider themselves satisfied unless express 
mention of renegades was made, notwith- 
standing they might be considered as com- 
prehended in the general clause.* Our kings 

* Luis del Marmol Caravajal, Historia del Rebelion del 
Reino de Granada, lib. i. cap. xxiii. — Diego Hurtado de 
Mendoza, Historia de Granada, lib. i. — Fr. Prudencio 
Sandoval, Historia del Emperador Carlos V. lib. xiv. ^18. 
— The article by which their Catholic Majesties granted 
freedom of worship to the Moors is as follows : " That 
their Highnesses and their successors for ever will allow 
King Abi Abdilehi, his governors, cadis, mesti?, bailiffs, 
chiefs, and good men, as well as all the common people, 
high and low, to live according to their own law ; and will 
not suffer their temples, towers, or invokers to prayer to 
be taken away ; neither will the}' touch their property or 
revenue they may have for tlie same, nor interfere with 
the usages and customs under which they live." And in 
another article : " That no Moor or Mooress shall be com- 
pelled to become Christians against their will; and that if 
any maiden, married woman, or widow, from motives of 
love should wish to embrace Christianity, she shall not be 
received till after she has been interrogated." The security 
of the renegades was established in tlic following manner: 
*' That no person shall be allowed to ill-treat, by deed or 



220 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

at the beginning fulfilled the conditions sti- 
pulated; for if they early sought to bring the 
Moors to Christianity, it was only through 
the medium of preaching. This fact is proved 
by nothing better than the king's sending his 
own confessor, Father Hernando de Talavera, 
and bishop of Avila, as archbishop, to Gra- 
nada ; when this apostolic man, in order that 
the nomination which he himself had solicited 

word, the Christian men and women who before this capi- 
tulation might have become Moors ; and that if any Moor 
should have a renegade woman for his wife she shall not 
be compelled to turn Christian agahist her will, but that she 
shall be interrogated in presence of Christians and Moors, 
and her own wish shall be complied with ; and the same 
. shall be understood of the male and female children born 
of a Christian woman and a Moor." The article by which 
they guaranteed their independence with regard to the 
Jews is in this form : " That their Highnesses will not 
allow the Jews to have any power or command over the 
Moors, neither will they suffer them to become collectors 
of any revenue." The words with which their Majesties 
bound themselves to observe the contents of the capitula- 
tion are these : " We promise and swear to you by our 
faith and royal word, that each oi^e of you may go out to 
cultivate your estates, and pass wherever you choose, in 
these our kingdoms, to search your livelihood wherever it 
can be found ; and we will command that you be left in 
your own law and customs, and with your temples as you 
now are." — Miirmol, Historia del Rebelion del Reino d« 
Granada, lib. i. cap. xix. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 221 

might not be attributed to interested views, 
renounced the income of the new archbishop- 
ric, contenting himself with only a sufficiency 
for his subsistence. 

" The great exertions, the example of a 
holy life, and the sweet conversation of so 
worthy a prelate," says the said Marmol 
Carvajal, " had such an effect on the minds 
of the Moors, that nothing more dear and 
grateful reached their ears than the name of 
the archbishop, whom they called the great 
Alfaqui of the Christians. Hence did it hap- 
pen, that many spontaneously came to be 
converted, and possibly with greater zeal 
than others afterwards did. He began to 
teach the Moors the things belonging to the 
faith of God ; which he gave them to under- 
stand with such sweet and loving words, that 
not only the Alfaquis themselves took no 
umbrage if they were called upon to hear his 
doctrine, but even many of them came to 
hear it without being called. For those who 
wished to be converted he had particular 
houses, where he went every day to preach 
and teach them good precepts by means of 
faithful interpreters ; and, even for this pur- 
pose, he took the greatest care that some 
clergymen learnt the Arabic language, and 

4 



222 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHaP. VI. 

he himself in his old age endeavoured to 
learn it, at least as much as was necessary 
to teach them the commandments, the articles 
of the faith, prayers, and to hear their con- 
fessions."* So far the words of our historian. 
The fruit this holy archbishop derived 
from his labours, compared with the useless 
efforts of other ecclesiastics who adopted a 
contrary system, is of itself sufficient to prove 
how weak all violence is in matters of religion. 
They considered it too much trouble to learn 
the language of the catechumens, particularly 
Ximenes, a hard and enterprising man, whom 
the government sent to aid, or rather to em- 
barrass, the metropolitan of Granada in his 
ministry. They were of opinion that Maho* 
metanism ought early to be banished from 
Spain, and that this might be done by assign- 
ing a peremptory period to the Moors, in 
which they were either to be baptized or 
leave the country. Their Majesties at first 
disapproved the measure, either because the 
conquered people, not having entirely laid 
down their arms, might again rise up; or else 
because such a forfeiture of the royal word, 
if every where censured, might render ulte- 
rior conquests more difficult; inconveniences, 
• Marrool, ibid. cap. xxi. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 223 

as they themselves declared, so much the more 
deserving of attention, inasmuch as it was to be 
hoped that the Moors, by the society and kind 
treatment of the Christians, would at length 
embrace our religion ; adopting, like other 
nations, the language and creed of the con- 
queror. However, when was it that a theo- 
logian failed to overcome the most irresistible 
argument ; or when did our monarchs with- 
stand the importunate suggestions of a divine? 
Ximenes and his faction, apparently desisting 
from their purpose, promoted it with greater 
ardour, by obliging the renegades, contrary 
to what was stipulated in the capitulation, 
and under pretext of the right held over 
them by the Church, to return to the fold, 
and allow their children to be baptised. In 
consequence of this, the inhabitants of Gra- 
nada rose up ; and the cardinal from that time 
sustained that they might be compelled to 
receive the faith, because they had been 
wanting to the subordination stipulated in 
the treaties ; not adverting that the Christians, 
by infringing them first, had by this very cir- 
cumstance authorised the insurrection.* In 
the early part of this work I fully demon- 
strated that the Church possesses no right to 

* Marmol, ibid. cap. xxiii. 
8 



224 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

force those to return to its communion who 
have separated from it ; how absurd therefore 
must be the doctrine of those schools by 
which Ximenes was guided, viz. that the 
children of such parents as the above may 
be baptised against their will. 

Twenty-four years had elapsed from the 
time the Moors received baptism when our 
people perceived that their conversion for 
the greatest part had been illusive ; because, 
contenting themselves with forcing them into 
a religion they did not know, instead of 
gaining them by love and instructing them 
in the dogmas of the Christian faith, they 
merely sought to strip them of their estates, 
to wrest from them their money by means of 
arbitrary exactions, or to deprive them of it 
by manifest robberies, and stain the honour of 
their wives, and expose them to all kinds of 
vexations. The converted Moors had com- 
plained to the Emperor Charles V. in 1526, 
when he was in Granada, beseeching justice 
of him in such terms that he was convinced 
their prayer was more than founded. " There 
came to the Emperor," says Sandoval, " Don 
Fernando Venegas, Don Miguel de Aragon, 
and Diego Lopez Banaxara, aldermen of 
Granada, and they presented to him in the 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 225 

name of the Moors of the whole kingdom, 
a memorial of the injuries they received from 
the clergy, judges, baihffs, and notaries; which 
memorial being seen by the Emperor, he was 
greatly scandalized at the Christians who did 
such things."* Nevertheless the Emperor, 
instead of punishing these disorders, forget-^ 
ting that in the war of the Communidades 
the Moors were the first who took up arms 
in his favour, and conducting himself in all 
as if the oppressed, and not the oppressors^ 
were the most blameable, transferred the In- 
quisitorial Tribunal of Jaen to Granada, in 
order to oppress them the- more easily ; com-^ 
manding it to proceed against them, as well as 
against the converted Jews, who had taken 
refuge there from many quarters, if they did 
not amend. 

" Proceedings," says Hurtado de Mendoza, 
writing on this subject, " were instituted to 
prosecute offences connected with their laws, 
their property, and the uses of life, as well 
relating to its necessaries as luxuries, to 
which this nation is greatly addicted. Where- 
fore the Inquisition began to press them 
more than had been usual. The King or- 

* Sandoval, Historia del Emperador Carlos V. lib. xir. 
j xviii. 

VOL. II. Q 



226 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

dered them, (through the medium of the tri- 
bunal, and in this all our historians agree) to 
lay aside the Moorish tongue, and with it the 
commerce and intercourse held among them- 
selves ; they were deprived of the services of 
black slaves whom they bred up for the sake 
of their children, and also of their Moorish 
dress, in which they had large property in- 
vested. They were obliged to adopt the 
Castilian habit under costly forms; and it was 
commanded that their women should go with 
their faces uncovered, and that their houses, 
accustomed to be shut, should remain open ; 
both the one and the other extremely insup- 
portable to persons of so jealous a disposition. 
It was reported that orders were besides 
given to take away their children, and trans- 
fer them to Castile. They forbade them the 
use of baths, which constituted their cleanli- 
ness and entertainment, having previously 
precluded them from the use of music, songs, 
feasts, and marriages conformably to their 
customs, as well as all kinds of assemblies 
and pastimes."* It is indeed true, as the 
same author himself adds, that the Moors of 
Granada had in agitation several years before 
to deliver up the kingdom to the Barbary 
* Hurtado tie IMendoza, Guerra de Granada, lib. i. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 22? 

powers, or to the Grand Turk ; but this was 
in consequence of seeing themselves tyran- 
nized over by the Christians, as is confirmed 
by what he himself says respecting those of 
Valencia, who, notwithstanding they were 
better armed, refused to take part in this 
conspiracy, owing to their being less injured. 
Further evidence of the insupportable 
slavery under which the Moors lived will 
result from an extract of one of the two in- 
tercepted letters they had written to Africa, 
which Marmol inserts, translated from the 
Arabic to Spanish by the interpreter of the 
tribunal of Granada. The original was in 
verse, after the manner of an elegy or lamenta- 
tion in the style of the Asiatics, who are in 
the habits of exciting strong sensations by 
the melody of rhyme and the force of poetic 
images. In it, after making profession of 
the Mahometan faith, they strongly inveigh 
against the violence their spirit endured, by 
being compelled to follow a religion and 
assist at ceremonies of whose truth and utility 
they were not convinced ; and then pass on 
to enumerate the outrages they suffered on 
the part of government and the ecclesiastical 
state. Above all, the picture they draw of 
the Inquisition is elegant and proper. I have 
q2 



228 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VJ, 

consequently judged it advisable to offer an 
extract, interserting brief comments on those 
passages which, from containing an Oriental 
phrase, or certain allusions not altogether 
obvious, might not be perfectly understood. 

" In the name of the all-beneficent and 
merciful God. After magnifying God, who 
is alone in the heavens, (that is, who is one 
not only in essence but also in person,) let 
sanctification be with his chosen (Mahomet) 
and with his honoured disciples. Andalusia 
it is well known is famed throughout the 
whole world, and at the present day it is 
surrounded and hemmed in by heretics who 
encompass it on all sides ; we are among 
them subjected as lost slieep, or as the rider 
with an unbridled horse. They have tor- 
mented us with cruelty ; they teach us deceits 
and subtleties, (that is, they persecute us un- 
der specious pretexts and vain cavils) till 
man w^ould wish to die with the pain he feels. 
They have put our people into their law, 
and forced them to adore figures with them, 
compelling them without any one daring to 
speak. Oh ! how many persons are afflicted 
among the unbelieving 1 They call us toge- 
ther by the sound of be:ll, and from the time 
we are collected in the church a preacher 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 229 

rises up with the voice of a screech-owl, and 
names wine and hog's-flesh, and the mass is 
performed with wine. If ye were to hear him 
humble himself and say, — This is the good 
law, — ye would afterwards see that the most 
sanctified priest of them knows not what 
thing is lawful and what unlawful. (Does 
not distinguish in his conduct the one from 
the other.) They fast during one month and 
a half; and their fast is like that of the cows 
which eat at mid-day." 

" Let us speak," continues the document, 
" of the priest for confession, and afterwards 
of the priest for communion, (meaning the 
parish-priest and the Easter precept). With 
the latter the law of the unbelieving is ful- 
filled ; and it is necessary that this should be 
done, for otherwise there are among them 
cruel judges who take away the estates of the 
Moors, and fleece them as shearers fleece the 
flocks. And there are others among them 
who are dignified and undo all the laws, 
(doctors and lawyers who trample on all 
rights, alluding to the inquisitors). Oh ! how 
much do they run and labour in accord to 
lay wait for the people in every meeting and 
place ! And any one who praises God by his 
own tongue (in Arabic) cannot escape being 



230 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

lost ; and he, whom they find doing so once, 
has an officer sent after him, who finds him 
but though he may be a thousand leagues off, 
and, having taken him, they cast him into the 
large prison, and by day and by night they fill 
him with dread, saying to him, — Remember 
thyself. (Alluding to the practice of forcing 
the culprit to guess the crime of which he is 
accused). The wretch is left to reflect within 
himself, with his tears flowing string after 
string, on hearing this admonition of remem- 
ber thyself, and he has no other support than 
patience. They put him into a frightful large 
palace, and there he remains for a long time, 
and they open a thousand oceans to him 
(stratagems) from which no good swimmer 
can come out, for it is a sea that cannot be 
passed. From thence they carry him to the 
room of torture, and they bind him to inflict 
the same upon him, and they inflict it till 
they break his bones. After this they agree 
in the square of Hatabin, and there erect a 
large stage, and they make all resemble the 
day of judgment ; and he that frees himself 
from them is clothed in a yellow mantle, and 
the rest are carried to the flames with effigies 
and horrible figures.'* 

The concluding part adds, " This enemy 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 231 

(the Inquisition) has greatly distressed us in 
all quarters, and encompassed us like fire. 
We are under an oppression it is impossible 
for us to bear. The feasts and Sunday we 
keep; on Friday and the Sabbath we fast, and 
after all we do not satisfy them. This wicked- 
ness has increased near their magistrates and 
governors ; to each it appeared that the law 
ought to be made one, and they resolved 
thereon. And they hung up a cutting sword, 
and ordered that every door should be 
opened j and they prohibited our dresses and 
baths, and Arabs to be in the land. This 
enemy has consented and placed us in the 
hands of the Jews ; in order that, in the col- 
lecting of the tributes, they may do with us 
what they please, without their having any 
blame therein, (that is, no responsibility). The 
clergymen and friars were all pleased at 
the law being made one, and that we were 
placed under their feet j (alluding to the pro- 
ject of extending their dominion over us). 
This is what has befallen our nation, as if it 
were to reward infidelity; (that is, treating the 
Moorish nation, as a return for its services, 
with as much severity as if it had been the 
most disloyal). It (the tribunal) has become 
wrathful upon us ; it has grown furious like a 



232 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

dragon, and we are all in its hands as the 
dove in the claws of the hawk." * 

Such was the conduct of the Spanish clergy, 
and particularly of the Inquisition, towards 
the Moors of Granada during the progressive 
period of their expulsion. Those belonging 
to the crown of Aragon, and together with 
them all remaining in the other provinces, to 
the number of 500,000, were expelled in the 
year 1609, under the reign of Philip III.; 
whereby the total number of those who were 
driven away from the year 1502 to the above 
period, according to the calculation of vari- 
ous authors, nearly amounted to a million of 
persons.t In every other respect, those who 
promoted the persecution of the Jews and 
Moors, through the reasons they alleged, as 
well as the manner in which they conducted 
themselves, fully manifested that they had 
studied in the school of the persecutors of 
all ages. In the days of heathen Rome the 
priests, in order to instigate the emperors 
against Christians, made them believe, on the 
authority of their oracles, that misfortunes 

* Marmol, Historia del Rebelion del Eeino de Granada, 
lib. iii, cap. ix. 

t Fr, Jaime Bleda Cronica de los Moros de Espaiia.— 
In the Latin Inscription placed at the end. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 233 

would never cease in the empire till they 
were exterminated ; and this same reason was 
alleged by our priests against the Jews as a 
means to induce our monarchs to effect their 
extirpation.*- When Pharaoh had resolved to 
oppress the people of Israel, he commanded 
Egyptian niidwives to attend their women 
during child-birth, and to cast all their male 
infants into the Nile ; in like manner, our 
priests in Valencia, trampling to the ground 
the most sacred rights of paternal authority, 
deputed Christian midwives to watch over 
the state of pregnancy in the Moorish women, 
who seizing their children carried them away, 
if not to kill them, which by many parents 
would have been less sensibly felt, at least to 
baptize them.t 

Finally, this tribunal has tormented the 
spirit still more than the body, by enthralling 
the consciences of the people and outraging 
nature in its most tender feelings. When 
established in Toledo, in the year 1485, the 
inquisitors, at the expiration of the forty days' 
grace, called together the Rabbins of the 

* Da Costa Matos Discorso contra a heretica Pravidade 
do Judaismo, cap. xvi. 

+ Fr. Jaime Bleda, Cronica de los Moros de Espana, 
libj vjii. C3p. xi. 



234 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

Synagogue and made them swear, according 
to their own laws, that within thirty days 
more they would give information of the 
Jews who, being baptized, still professed the 
Jewish religion, threatening them with capi- 
tal punishment if they did not comply there- 
with; nay, they moreover ordered them to 
establish an excommunication in their Syna- 
gogues, conformably to the Hebrew rites, 
against those who did not lodge information 
in the form above prescribed. The inquisi- 
tors on that occasion relied on the respect 
the Jews had for their own law, and obliged 
them to preserve it in the part that concerned 
them ; but in that which did not they forced 
them to trample upon it.* The above is as 
far as relates to the violation of consciences : 
-with regard to that of the most tender feel- 
ings of the heart, we can state that the tri- 
bunal of Zaragoza in the year 1486, having 
burnt Gaspar de Santa Cruz in effigy as an 
accomplice in the death of the inquisitor 
Saint Peter Arbues, after he had fled to 
Tholouse in France, condemned his son, who 
from an impulse of filial affection had aided 
his father in his escape, to proceed to the 
above city of Tholouse, carry there the sen- 
* Llorente, Anales de la Inquisicion, cap. iii, n. 22. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED, 2S5 

tence of his deceased parent, and to unbury 
and burn his body ; bringing back to Zara- 
goza, as in fact he did, authentic testimony 
of his having executed the sentence.* 

Having now amply proved that the Inqui- 
sition, even when acting according to its own 
spirit and system, and consequently within 
the limits assigned to it, pre-eminently unites 
the peculiar qualities of a tyrant ; it is high 
time for us to examine whether its ministers, 
in the use they have made of those facul- 
ties, have belied or confirmed this character. 
Nothing will better decide this 'question than 
the repeated complaints which all kinds of 
persons and corporations have addressed to 
the superior authorities against the tribunal. 
Wherefore, taking up the thread of its history 
from the time of its re-establisment, when, 
extended through all Spain, it attained its 
highest greatness and power ; and descending 
down to our own days, I will present in chro- 
nological order an uninterrupted series of 
remonstrances, either from individuals, mostly 
bishops, or councils and other tribunals, 
as well as from the kingdom assembled in 
Cortes, evidently proving that its conduct 
has constantly been the most arbitrary and 
♦ Llorente, ibid, n, 30, 



2S6 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

atrocious. Indeed from its commencement 
Fernando del Pulgar assures us, " that certain 
relations of the prisoners and condemned 
persons remonstrated, by saying that this In- 
quisition and its inflictions were more rigor- 
ous than they ought to be ; and that, in 
the manner in which the proceedings were 
usually instituted, as well as in the execution 
of the sentences, the ministers and executors 
thereof evinced that they were actuated by 
odium against the above persons." * 

Thus a year after the tribunal had been 
installed in Seville, Pope Sixtus IV., moved 
by the clamours addressed to him, but, on 
the other hand, unwilling to deprive the first 
inquisitors. Fathers Juan de San Martin and 
Miguel de Morillo, of their offices, not to 
offend their Catholic Majesties who had 
named them, informed the latter that it was 
his will the diocesan bishop should also take 
part in the trials for heresy. The complain- 
ants stated, in their remonstrance, that the 
aforesaid inquisitors imprisoned many with- 
out any cause therefor ; that they tortured 
them cruelly in order to compel them to con- 
fess crimes they had never dreamt of commit- 

* Pulgar, Cronica de los Reyes Catolicos, part ii. cap. 
Ixxvii. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 237 

ting ; and that, after being condemned, they 
delivered them over to the secular arm, and 
confiscated their property ; forcing others 
through dread to leave their families not- 
withstanding they professed the true faith.* 
At that time Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, 
and Majorca, were in a similar state, labour- 
ing under the despotism of the tribunal, as 
appears by the complaints thence addressed 
to the same pontiff; who, in consequence 
thereof, in 1489 deposed Father Christoval 
Galvez, inquisitor of Valencia, alleging his 
indiscretion and cruelty as the motive. I 
ought however to advert> that the blame in 
great measure rested on Sixtus IV., owing 
to his having undertaken to re-establish in 
the above Inquisitions, by a brief of the 1 7th 
of April, 1482, the primitive rigour of this in- 
stitution, and consequently its arbitrariness.! 
The brief just quoted was written by the 
pope to their Catholic Majesties, in answer to 
a request they had presented, beseeching him 
to reform certain alterations he had made in 
the mode of trial used in Aragon, by which 

* Llorente, Anales de la Inquisicion, cap. ii. n.41. 
t Zurita, Anales de Aragon, torn. iv. lib. xx. cap. xlix. 
— Llorente, Anales de la Inquisicion, cap. ii. n. 46. 



6 



2S8 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

he had estranged it still more from the com- 
mon law. In it he tells them that, before 
making such a regulation, he had considered 
the matter well, consulting about it with the 
cardinals, and offering to examine it afresh ; 
but that in the mean time the causes were to 
be instituted in conformity to the rules he had 
prescribed. In another brief to the queen, 
dated the 2Sd of February, 1483, applauding 
her zeal for the Inquisition, he does not dis- 
guise the vexation he experienced at the oppo- 
sition he had met with on the part of the magi- 
strates of Sicily to some innovations relating to 
the tribunal.* These two facts induce me to 
suspect that, if Ferdinand and Isabella have 
hitherto been considered as the authors of the 
establishment of the Inquisition in Castile, the 
project was nevertheless formed by Sixtus IV., 
who caused it to be proposed to them by 
Torquemada ; nor can it be believed that the 
pope, evincing so much resolution with regard 
to some provinces, would remain indifferent 
with respect to others. We therefore think 
that, whilst their Catholic Majesties sought 
to give proofs of their piety by soliciting the 
establishment and enlargement of the tri- 
* Llorente, Anales de la Inquisicion, cap. ii. n, 52. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 239 

bunal, they were themselves, without knowing 
it, instruments of the court of Rome and of 
the friars who surrounded them. 

Neither did it follow, because their Majes- 
ties were allowed to name an Inquisitor 
General to exercise his authority with the 
aid of a council, that the Inquisition was 
more moderate ; the establishment was intrin- 
sically vicious in itself, and, on that account, 
incapable of substantial improvement. This 
is proved by the outrages committed by 
Lucero in Cordova at the beginning of the 
16th century, under the government of the 
Inquisitor General Deza, and which gave 
rise to the popular commotion alluded to 
when speaking of others of a similar kind. 
Whether it was that the above inquisitor, 
following the impulse of his characteristic 
fanaticism, beheld the Jews with feelings of 
aversion ; or, as is most probable, his conduct 
proceeded from the desire of revenge, avarice, 
or some other equally base passion, his ex- 
cesses were of such a nature that the bishop, 
on the one hand, and the municipality and 
the city council, on the other, sent up dele- 
gates to government, beseeching a remedy 
to such enormous proceedings. Lucero sup- 
posed that synagogues existed in the above 
1 



240 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI* 

city in which all the ceremonies were cele- 
brated according to the Mosaic rites, and 
that they were frequented by persons of all 
ages, classes, and conditions, brought there 
from afar by the devil under the form of a 
he-goat. Certain prisoners, hoping that their 
fate would be less unhappy by the number 
of the calumniated being greater and more 
respectable, implicated several persons of dis- 
tinction in their own suits, in such manner 
that many of the principal families of Gastile 
and Andalusia incurred the stigma of defama- 
tion. " Who but Lucero,'* says the Italian 
Peter Martir de Angleria, who wrote about 
that time and enjoyed the dignity of the prior- 
ship of the cathedral of Granada, and was also 
member of the Council of the Indies j " who 
but Lucero,'' says he, " could have listened 
to such fables, and thereby promote the con- 
demnation of any one, thus bringing a stigma 
on all Spain ? The council (a special one 
named by the king) is now searching out 
the origin of this evil ; its members read all 
the trials, and revise with continued labour 
the sentences of so many persons burnt and 
fined.*'* 

Granada being at that time subject to the 
* Pedro Martir de Angleria, epist. ccclxxv. 



CHAP.VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 241 

Inquisition of Cordova, it was impossible that 
a prelate of the character of Father Hernando 
de Talavera, whose conduct formed a most 
striking contrast to the tribunal, could escape 
its persecution. It being held by no means de- 
grading to enter into matrimonial alliance with 
the daughter or grand-daughter of Jews vo- 
luntarily converted, not only several bishops, 
but also many persons of all ranks of nobility 
in the female line descended from these mar- 
riages. Of a pretext of this nature it appears 
the Inquisition availed itself for the purpose 
of injuring the above worthy metropolitan ; 
and whether or not such origin was real, no 
sooner was his patroness, Queen Isabella, 
dead than it aimed its darts against him, by 
instituting a suit and arresting several of his 
relations, as well as some prebendaries belong- 
ing to his church. In addition to the odium 
which the tribunal bore towards the prelate, 
it happened that the queen did not recom- 
mend the Inquisition in her last will, as her 
husband afterwards did, and as it was ex- 
pected she would have done, since its founda- 
tion in Castile was her own work; an omission 
attributed to a want of inclination with which 
the archbishop had inspired her. The latter 
recurred to the king, not only imploring his 

VOL. II. R 



242 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

authority against the oppression by which he 
himself, as well as all the people, were in- 
volved, but also beseeching him in the most 
tender manner to proceed to Cordova in per- 
son, for he expected that otherwise the evil 
would not be stopped. The following are his 
own words, by which it will be seen that the 
Inquisition, before it had existed 25 years 
under its new plan, had given sufficient proofs 
that its defects and conduct were such as to 
denote in after ages no other than a perpetual 
chain of unjust acts : 

" The archbishop of Granada says he knows 
not to whom he can complain, nor to whom 
he is able to tell his anguish, so as to receive 
condolence, consolation, and aid, unless it is 
to your highness, to whom his affairs belong. 
It is notorious to your highness, and to all 
those who have heard what has been done to 
his relations and the persons and officers of 
his household, that this must bring upon him 
great discredit and dishonour. From this also 
great offence arises to our Lord ; for no one 
has seen or read that a prelate so high and so 
much respected was ever before so ill-treated, 
dishonoured, and defamed, when his charac- 
ter, honour, and reputation were so necessary 
and advantageous to the good example of the 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 243 

above people and newly Christian kingdom. 
To seek to dishonour him, not only in his 
person and household, but also in the officers 
of his church, of whose assistance he availed 
himself for the good government of the same, 
as w^ll as the benefit of the people, at the 
same time that they were esteemed as good 
Christians and no misconduct had preceded, 
appears to have originated from no other wish 
than to blacken his reputation. For besides 
seizing their persons, in the manner of so 
doing and carrying them away, they have 
performed every thing possible that the same 
might happen in the most dishonourable, 
public, and injurious manner, with words ex- 
tremely offensive to them and to the person 
of the archbishop himself." 

" It appears to the archbishop,** he adds, 
" that in so great and weighty an affair the 
true remedy would be for your highness your- 
self, if it were possible, to pass over to the 
above place in person, and examine the whole 
yourself; since this would be as necessary for 
the increase of our holy Catholic faith, and 
as great a service to our Lord, as a conquest 
performed over infidels. If this cannot be 
done by your royal person, (which would be 
the most necessary and the most advantage- 
r2 



244 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI, 

ous; as, by your highness hearing the ag- 
grieved, they will dare to speak the truth, 
and will have freedom and courage to mani- 
fest their injuries,) if your highness cannot 
come, (which without urgent reasons you 
ought not to excuse,) he beseeches that some 
one may come who can impartially see into 
the whole affair ; and, above all, let the in- 
quisitors be suspended. And if the arch- 
bishop of Seville (Deza, Inquisitor General,) 
is to go, let your highness command that 
some other prelate accompany him, as well 
as other persons who may act impartially ; 
by inquiring into the infamy, as well general 
as particular to each person, and when they 
have obtained the necessary information, as 
is consistent with the laws, let the parties be 
arrested, and kept in prison till the truth is 
known j but not to straiten or confine them 
harshly or cruelly, as is usually done, but 
merely to prevent them from escaping, treat- 
ing them with mildness both in words and 
actions, and allowing them to have lawyers 
of their own choice. They ought not to be 
taken out of their own provinces for trial ; 
let the names of the witnesses be given to 
them, except to the powerful, because this is 
conformable to right j let all have a day, 
6 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 225 

month, year, and place, and let them appeal 
on just pleas from the inferior to the superior 
courts, rejecting those judges as suspicious 
who may have just cause to be rejected ; and 
let all and every thing which the laws ordain 
and order be granted to the culprit for his 
defence, for otherwise he cannot defend 
himself, and defence is of divine and human 
right." 

He thus concludes, " and with regard to 
the past, let the inquisitors undergo a full 
examination, because thereby your highness 
will be better and more truly informed j for 
among other things you will find one which 
causes great suspicions, since they have fre- 
quently given out that some of the prisoners 
are reconciled when they are not, and accord- 
ing to appearances never had been, for after- 
wards proceedings were carried on against 
them and their trials continued in the usual 
forms. And they have harassed and troubled 
others by many unjust acts to cause them to 
say and confess in divers manners and forms 
not permitted but rather forbidden by law, 
whence great suspicions arise against those 
who act in this way, as well as great injury to 
the prisoners, and great infamy to their rela- 
tions. He (the archbishop) makes known to 



246 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

your highness, that nothing of what you or- 
dered has been done, nor have they (the in- 
quisitors) ceased proceeding; and he be- 
seeches your highness to command this in a 
more impressive manner that the same may 
be fulfilled, so as not to give room for the 
culprits to be judged, because they and every 
body are of opinion that they are dealt with 
unjustly."* 

So far the persecuted metropolitan. What 
he says with regard to the inquisitors, who 
gave out that many were reconciled, when in 
reality they were not, and the proceedings 
against them continued, I understand as 
another of the means furnished by the incon- 
sistent forms of this tribunal in order to 
trample on the culprit with impunity. Did 
the inquisitors seek to ruin one whose life was 
for the first time pardoned by the law on 
condition of his repenting? The way to 
effect this was for the proctor to retain some 
of the charges till after the reconciliation had 
taken place. On this being done, the trial 
was opened afresh, when the inquisitors de- 
claring the former confession of the culprit 
as defective, condemned him to the flames 
on the charge of false repentance. Under 

* Llorente, Anales de la Inquisicion, cap. ix. n, S3. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 24? 

such evil auspices as these did the Inquisition 
make its appearance, and even when it sought 
to be compassionate it was cruel. This is 
treating the inquisitors with equity, for it 
would be more natural to say, that from the 
very first they condemned culprits as relapsed 
heretics. 

The aforesaid Peter Martir de Angleria, 
writing to D. Inigo Lopez de Mendoza, Count 
de Tendilla, and governor of the kingdom 
of Granada, respecting the state of the causes 
sentenced by Lucero and carried before the 
council, particularly that of his intimate 
friend Father Hernando, observes to him as 
follows. " Little by little the innocence of 
the oppressed appears. It is now notorious 
in every quarter, that the accusation against 
the deceased archbishop, so dear to you, 
was invented by an infernal fury. The wit- 
nesses are now well known, of whose testi- 
mony, both vain and foolish, as well as ini- 
quitous and abominable, the son of darkness 
(thus he calls inquisitor Lucero), availed 
himself to torment so many bodies, disturb 
so many souls, and fill innumerable families 
with infamy. Oh ! unfortunate Spain, mother 
of so many illustrious sons, now unjustly 
stained with so foul a blot ! The son of dark- 

4 



248 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

iiess is now a prisoner in the castle of Burgos, 
and the keeper has been commanded to guard 
him with all care. But what do we gain by 
this ? Can this Thersites, perchance, by one 
death compensate for the calamities of so 
many Hectors ? Can its being made public, 
that those unfortunate persons were con- 
demned without reason by an iniquitous 
judge, bring any alleviation to the parties 
interested?"* The abovementioned prelate 
of Granada was consequently declared in- 
nocent by the pope, to whose tribunal the 
cause was lastly carried j but not on this ac- 
count did the Inquisition respect his memory, 
since it included in the list of prohibited 
books for the year 1583, as well as in the 
following, one of the works he left written, 
thus giving vent to its inextinguishable ran- 
cour.! Notwithstanding this happened so 
soon after the foundation of the tribunal, the 
above was not the first prelate it had com- 
pelled to recur to Rome in order to de- 
fend himself from the imputed stigma of 

■* Pedro Martir de Angleria, Epist. cccxciii. 

f The work is called, " Impugnacion Catolica del 
hereticD Libelo que en el Ano pasado 1480 fue divulgado 
en la Ciudad^ de Sevilla," and found under the article of 
Talayera. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 249 

Judaism. As early as the year 1490, and 
this after a long and expensive law-suit, it 
placed D. Juan Arias de Avila, bishop of 
Segovia, and one of the most worthy prelates 
that church ever possessed, under the neces- 
sity of going there in person.* 

The Aragonese, in the Cortes of Monzon, 
for the year 1510, exhibited to king Ferdi- 
nand various injuries the tribunal brought 
upon them, either by taking cognizance of 
crimes which have no connexion whatever 
with heresy, by withdrawing the civil causes 
of the inquisitors and their dependants from 
the ordinary jurisdiction, or finally, by ex- 
empting the latter from public charges.t 
Exactly similar were the complaints of the 
Catalonians in the Cortes they celebrated in 
the same city, in the year 1512, adding 
among others, that the bishops were unjustly 
deprived of the means of exercising judica- 
ture in cases of heresy, through the exhor- 
tations the king addressed to them, request- 

* Colmenares, Historia de Segovia, cap. xxxv. § vii. 
and xiii. This author does not expressly say that the per- 
secution was on the part of the Inquisition, but Paramq 
does. 

t Llorente, Anales de la Inquisicion, cap. x. n. 9, 



250 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI, 

ing them to abstain from the same.* In 
order that this may be better understood, it 
is necessary to advert, that the inquisitors^ 
availing themselves of the mediation of the 
queen, had endeavoured to prevail on Sixtus 
IV. to inhibit the said prelates from taking 
cognizance of the causes of converted here- 
tics ; which was the same as to exclude them 
from the Inquisition, since nearly all those 

* The tract relating to these Cortes, written in the 
Lemosin or Catalonian language, bears the following title. 
** Capitols y Modificacions fetes y otorgades por lo Inqui- 
sidor General en les presents Corts de Mongo, del any 
1512, per los Ministres y oficials de la Inquisicio, e sobre 
lo Modo dc procehir." The clause which commands that 
bishops shall not be prevented from assisting at the sittings 
of the tribunal, is the xxvith, and it bears this heading : 
*' Que los ordinaris no sien formats per letres del senyor 
rey en cometre als inquisidors la conexensa ; ans puguen 
entrevenir com son tenguts en les sentencies y declara- 
cions." The body of the clause is as follows : " Item per 
quant per disposicio de dret los ordinaris e diocesans 
han de concorrer ab los inquisidors en la cognicio y dis- 
cisio dels crims e causes de heretgia, y per letres e pre- 
garies de sa altesa fins aqui efectualment no se observe, 
tant per los ordinaris fer comissio als inquisidors et als, 
que placia a sa altesa abstenlrse de semblants letres e 
pregaries ; e lexar als ordinaris que se hajen en la cogni- 
cio y declaracio e execucio segons per dret comu es dis- 
posal e ordenat no toque a sa senyoria.*' 



CHAP. Vr.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 251 

at that time agitated were of this kind. That 
such a request was made to the pope appears 
by his own words to queen Isabella, which 
are as follow. " With regard to the desire 
you express, oh ! dearest daughter, that the 
causes of the new Christians be confided to 
the inquisitors alone, as this is an affair of great 
importance, w'e will consult on it with some 
of the cardinals, our venerable brethren, by 
whose accord we will endeavour to comply 
with your wishes in every thing we con- 
scientiously can."* The pope did not ac- 
cede to the solicitations of the queen, but he 
issued two briefs, the one addressed to Don 
Alonso de Fonseca, archbishop of Santiago, 
and the other to Cardinal Mendoza, then 
archbishop of Toledo, charging them to 
admonish the bishops of the Hebrew line, to 
commission their coadjutors and diocesan 

* This brief is inserted entire by Llorente, at the end 
of his work entitled, " Memoria Historica sobre qual ha 
sido la Opinion nacional de Espana acerca del Tribunal de 
la Inquisicion." These are the words of the text 
" Quantum vero attinet ncl- negotium neophytorum quod 
solum inqiilsitoribus deputatis demandari velles, quo)\iam res 
est magni momenti, ndhibebimus aliquos ex venerahilihis 
Jratribus nostris Sacrce Romance Ecclesics Cardinalibus, et 
eorum consilio quantum cum Deo poterimuSy tuce voluntati 
annuere conabimur'* 



252 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. * 

vicars to assist at the above causes, provided 
they did not also come of Jewish extraction, 
and were not in any way connected with such 
heretics, or rendered suspicious from some 
motive or other.* Nothing more was neces- 
sary for the authority of the pastors to remain 
"at the mercy of the tribunal ; since it was 
easy to excite doubts against them respecting 
their birth and relationship, in which case, 
and whilst these doubts were clearing up, 
the bishops had to continue inhibited. And 
who, to sustain the rights of his mitre, would 
consent to subject himself to a purification, 
which, by not turning out well, might prove 
fatal to him ? The aforesaid inspection, first 
of all given in charge to the archbishops of 
Santiago and Toledo, and afterwards trans- 
ferred to the king, from adding to the former 
inconvenience the respect due to the sove- 
reign, completely paralysed the episcopal 
jurisdiction j and such was the state of the 
latter, when the Catalonians cried out for 
their ancient representation to be restored to 
the bishops. 

Another similar petition was laid before 
Charles V. by the Castilians in the Cortes of 

* Llorente, Anales de la Inquislcion, cap. ii. n. 62 
and C3. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 25S 

Valladolid, in the year 1518, coucbed in the 
following terms : " Moreover, we pray your 
highness to command measures to be taken 
that in the office of the Holy Inquisition, 
they proceed in such manner as to keep en- 
tire justice ; that the wicked be punished, 
and the good and innocent do not suffer, 
abiding by the sacred canons and the com- 
mon law enacted for such cases. And we 
further pray, that the judges who may be 
chosen for these purposes, be generous, of 
good character and conscience, of the age 
the law prescribes, and such as it is presumed 
will do justice ; and further, that the bishops 
be allowed to sit as judges conformably to 
right."* 

* This petition is inserted in a royal edict, then withheld, 
but copied by Llorente in his Anales, cap. xviii. n. 30. 
It is also inserted by Sandoval, but with some variation, 
and ending in the following manner : " That the diocesan 
bishops be the judges in conformity to justice ;'' in which 
the article the, preceding the word judges, is deserving of 
particular notice, as it thereby might be believed, con- 
trary to the letter of the petition itself, that the deputies 
of the kingdom had therein proposed that the causes of 
heresy should be taken from the inquisitors and restored 
to the diocesan bishops, which in reality was to abolish the 
Inquisition, There is, however, a manuscript of the year 
1786 preserved in the archives of the Cortes, and entitled, 
*• Coleccion de Cortes y documentos a ellas perteneci- 



254 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

Charles V. exceeded his predecessor in 
despotism, and consequently could not fail 
to patronize an establishment modelled after 
his own heart. The complaints, therefore, 
of the aforesaid Cortes of Valladolid, as well 
as those of Zaragoza for the following year, 
were attended with no effect. In the first, 
the representatives of the kingdom projected 
a plan of reform, and presented a grant of 
10,000 ducats to John Salvax, a celebrated 
Flemish jurisconsult, and chancellor to the 
emperor, that by his ascendency over the re- 
solutions of the latter, he might incline his 

entes," (torn. xxi. fol. 123), which accords with the au- 
thority of Sandoval, Nevertheless, the palpable contra* 
diction this reading involves prevents me from hesitating 
an instant to prefer that of the ancient royal edict. The 
corruption in the two latter authorities^ beyond doubt, 
arises from the transcribers not being acquainted with the 
antecedents, and seeing that the canons never forbade 
bishops from intervening in trials of the faith ; and, on the 
other hand, not being able to suspect so much audacity 
in the inquisitors as an attempt to exclude them, they 
considered the petition as useless unless it was taken in 
the other sense, for which it was necessary to add the 
above article to the word judges. The truth of this ob- 
servation is proved by the brief of Sixtus IV. to the queen, 
the two briefs to the archbishop of Santiago and Cardinal 
Mendoza, together with the clause of the Cortes of Cata- 
lonia, when the same are respectively compared. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 255 

royal mind towards them, offering 10,000 
more, payable the day on which the decree was 
issued. This decree, addressed to the persons 
and tribunals in the regular forms, and which I 
am now about to present to my readers under 
an abreviated form, by prescribing the rules 
which thenceforward the Inquisition was to 
follow, clearly points out the vices belonging 
to it, as well as those which were afterwards 
added. It is as follows : 

" Be it known, that I the king being in 
my earldom of Flanders, report was made to 
me by many and divers persons of these our 
kingdoms and lordships, that it might be 
about forty years since general inquisition 
was therein made for the detection of here- 
tical pravity and apostasy, and that although 
the Office is in itself good and holy, the form 
and order established therein is so rigid and 
harsh, and accompanied with so much se- 
crecy and imprisonment, that great room has 
been given for many false witnesses, as well 
as for the malice and deceit of some wicked 
officers and ministers. In consequence 
of which many innocent persons have suffered 
death, injuries, oppressions, infamy, and in- 
tolerable hardships, and their sons and 
daughters harsh treatment, which has given 



256 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

rise to the commission of many other excesses, 
and caused many of our vassals to depart and 
absent themselves from these our kingdoms. 
Wherefore, they have prayed us to command 
and provide such forms as ought hencefor- 
ward to be adopted in judging the above 
causes conformably to justice ; and for this 
purpose they have presented to us many 
heads of the wrongs which have hitherto 
been committed. And lately in the Cortes 
which have been celebrated in Valladolid, the 
representatives of the kingdom of Castile, 
Leon, and Granada, among other points, 
have prayed us to take such measures that in 
the Office of the Holy Inquisition justice be 
done." (Here he inserts the petition already 
alluded to.) " And the said representa- 
tives," continues he, " informed us of the 
hardships which these our kingdoms and the 
inhabitants thereof have endured, and they 
subjoined the opinions of learned per- 
sons respecting the manner and order that 
ought to be observed, which we commanded 
to be placed under the consideration of some 
members of our council, and of other persons 
of science and conscience, in certain colleges 
and places of general study, as well within 
as out of ou. kingdoms, and the same have 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED, 257 

informed us that, in order that justice may be 
administered in the said Holy Office, it was 
advisable to abide by the following rules. 

" First, to provide good judges and minis- 
ters, of the age of more than forty years; that 
their salaries be fixed, and not paid out of 
the condemnations they may perform and the 
penances they may impose; thatyour Highness 
promise to make no grant to any judge or 
officer of property, office, or benefice be- 
longing to condemned persons ; that if any 
inquisitor should be recused by a prisoner, 
arbitrators shall be chosen to take cognizance 
of any such exception, and if they should con- 
sider him duly recused, he shall not be al- 
lowed to interfere in the cause ; that every 
two years persons shall be sent on a visitation 
to the respective provinces, to inquire how 
the inquisitors execute their offices, and that 
the judges and officers, who have not com- 
plied well with their duty, be deprived of 
their employments ; and that those who com- 
plain of wrongs be allowed so to do, and 
be not on that account imprisoned or ill- 
treated ; that the judges do not go about 
seeking out witnesses against persons whose 
reputation is not injured, nor question the 
prisoners or those on whom they may inflict 

vol.. II. s 



258 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VZ, 

the torture respecting them ; that whenever 
any witness steps forward to lodge an accusa- 
tion against another person, he be examined 
by the judges upon oath, to discover whether 
he be an enemy of the parties, or whether he 
have been bribed or suborned, what his age is, 
and that they cause him to undergo all the 
other scrutinies necessary to discover the 
truth. 

** Item: that whereas from the imprisonment 
for this crime great infamy and injury result 
to the imprisoned, as well as to the relations 
thereof, no one shall be arrested unless such 
proofs be previously obtained as may furnish 
strong inductions that the prisoner will be 
condemned according to law ; also that the 
prisoners be placed in a public and decent 
prison, such as may serve for security and 
not for punishment, and that mass be there 
said to them and the holy sacraments admi- 
nistered, as is just and proper ; that every 
time they wish they may be visited by their 
"wives, children, relations, and friends ; and 
that they choose their own lawyers and attor- 
neys for their defence, even though these 
may be related to them ; that as soon as they 
have been confined, their accusation shall be 
drawn up, in which nothing shall be inserted 
3 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 259 

that may not have been denounced against 
them, and they shall be notified of the time 
and place in which the witnesses declare they 
committed the crime j that, together with the 
accusation, they be also furnished with a copy 
of the entire information lodged against them 
as the same may have been received, together 
with the names of the witnesses ; that out 
most Holy Father ( the pope) do declare, that 
the text which says, that the divulging of the 
witnesses may be refused whenever the power 
of the accused is so great that the security of 
the said witnesses is justly endangered, be 
understood only of grandees and prelates, 
and not of any other persons, because ex- 
perience has taught that, by leaving this to the 
will of the judges, they have universally 
denied it to allj that when the divulging of 
the witnesses is to be refused to the powerful, 
the judge is to declare the same by an actual 
decree ; and that from this decree the accused 
parties shall be allowed to appeal to our most 
Holy Father. 

" That the torture be administered in a 
moderate manner, conformably to the ex- 
isting inductions and proofs, and that use be 
not made of harsh and new inventions as 
hitherto practised in this Office j that he who 
s2 



260 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

may have been once tortured shall not be 
again obliged to endure the same, nor 
threatened, unless on fresh grounds ; that 
from the sentences, as well interlocutory as 
definitive, appeal shall be allowed before our 
most Holy Father ; that when the proceed- 
ings are to be examined in order to proceed 
to sentence, the parties with their lawyers and 
attorneys shall be present, to see if any part 
of the evidence be wanting ; that when the 
accused is to be absolved in consequence of 
sufficient proofs not being found against him, 
the judges shall not condemn or mulct him 
in any sum of money, or impose any other 
penalty, by saying that although proofs do 
not exist, they nevertheless have suspicions, 
and for that reason condemn him ; nor shall 
they take upon themselves any other plea for 
condemning him, when he ought to be ab- 
solved J that when any one seeks to clear up the 
testimony lodged against him, the judges shall 
allow him to name all the witnesses he may 
wish, and in default of some, he may name 
others; that the witnesses may on proper 
grounds be rejected, and those who may turn 
out false shall be punished with the talion- 

" Item : whereas, in past times, some per- 



.€HAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 26l 

sons have confessed their faults and after- 
wards lived in a Catholic manner, though 
through forgetfulness it is believed they 
might omit to state some offences, or other 
circumstances tending to prove the existence 
of criminality ; or in like manner neglect 
to acknowledge the same respecting their 
mothers, fathers, children, brothers, and re- 
lations, and wives of their husbands, with 
whom they may have been participators in the 
said crimes, or seen them commit the same, on 
which account many have been condemned, 
and their property taken away on the plea of 
their being feigned penitents, from which 
circumstances great injury has arisen ; hence- 
forward let those who may be arrested on simi- 
lar grounds be absolved, since it is presum- 
able that as they confessed the one they also 
would the other if they had remembered it, 
and on this account they ought not to under- 
go the penalty of money, or any other. 

" Item : whereas some judges have at- 
tempted to cite before them, by a general 
edict, the children and grandchildren of con- 
demned and reconciled persons, and obliged 
them to furnish their names and ages in writ- 
ing, together with the particulars of all their 
genealogy and relations, and very frequently 

4 



262 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

proceeded against them without any previous 
denunciation, and merely on the grounds that 
they were educated with such condemned 
and reconciled persons, and consequently 
must have seen them commit crimes or else 
be participators in the same, and if they do 
not institute regular proceedings on these 
grounds, they impose penalties and penance, 
from which great injury and infamy result, 
let it be commanded that this and other simi- 
lar hardships shall cease. 

" Item : that whereas in the churches 
and monasteries dresses are hung up, on 
which the names of those who may have 
been condemned and reconciled are written, 
whence great infamy arises to their descen- 
dants living in a Catholic manner, and some 
of the reconciled are besides compelled to 
wear their names on their clothes, let it be 
ordained that all such dresses shall be taken 
down from the churches and from the persons 
who may have to wear them j and that those 
persons v/ho are in perpetual confinement 
may have their punishment commuted into 
another penalty, because there they die of 
hunger and do not serve God. 

" Item : that as in some brotherhoods and 
orders, statutes have been enacted, purport- 



CHAP. VI.3 INQUISITION UNMASKED. 268 

ing that persons descending from the line of 
converted heretics, even when they are Ca- 
tholics, shall not be allowed to enter therein, 
let the said statutes be taken away and erased, 
since they are made contrary to all divine and 
human right. 

*' Item : that when any one is arrested, 
his property, goods, or estates, shall not be 
taken away or sold, an account shall only be 
taken of them in order that the same may 
not be transferred ; that out of them the pri- 
soners shall be allowed to expend what is 
necessary for their own maintenance, as well 
as of their wives, children, and families, and 
also for their defence, and whatever else may 
be necessary, without any obstacles being 
put in their way ; that their children or other 
Catholic descendants inherit their property ; 
and that in all the form and order of the 
common canonical law be observed."* 

Chancellor Salvax died before this project 
was laid before the Emperor, and with his 
death the hopes of the Castilians were frus- 
trated ; nevertheless, the Aragonese were 
not dismayed, but collecting the principal 
points therein contained, they warmly prayed 
for their approval. Charles V., however, 
* Llorente, Anales de la Inquisicion, cap. xii. n. 28, &c. 



264 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

paid the greatest deference to the smallest 
insinuation from his former pedagogue, Car- 
dinal Adrian Florencio, dean of Utrecht, 
Inquisitor General, and soon afterwards the 
seventh pope of that name ; wherefore he 
merely answered them that it was his will, 
that in each and every one of the above 
articles, the canons, ordinances, and decrees 
of the Apostolic See should be observed ; 
that if any one wished to lodge a com- 
plaint against the inquisitors, or any other 
ministers of the Inquisition, for excesses com- 
mitted in their duties, the same might be 
done before the Inquisitor General ; finally, 
that he swore, and would cause to be sworn, 
the observance of this his will, together with 
the interpretation the sovereign pontiff should 
be pleased to give to the aforesaid articles. 
The Aragonese, either because they did not 
advert to the dupHcity of a resolution which, 
by inculcating the observance ,of the ponti- 
fical bulls, sanctioned more and more the 
vices of the tribunal, or else because they 
expected to find favour at Rome, received 
and proclaimed the above as a real triumph. 
The latter appears most probable, for Leo 
issued three briefs, one addressed to the Em- 
peror, one to the Inquisitor General, and the 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 265 

Other to the inquisitors of Zaragoza, in which 
he made the mode of trial in the Inquisition 
uniform with that of the other ecclesiastical 
courts. The briefs came to Spain ; and the 
Emperor, suspending their publication, soli- 
cited the pope to revoke them, and thus 
avoid all innovation in the affair.* 

In an age in which monarchs were every 
thing and the people nothing, it was of little 
consequence to Leo X. to disgust the Spanish 
nation, provided only he pleased its chief; 
consequently he revoked the above briefs, 
but admonished Cardinal Adrian to watch 
over the conduct of the inquisitors, in such 
terms as gave him to understand the quality 
of the complaints which had been received 
against them. " Respecting the reform of 
the Inquisition," says he, " and the punish- 
ment of the crimes of some ministers, of 
whose avarice and iniquity complaints reach 
us every day, and from every quarter, we 
had begun to take the necessary measures, 
because we cannot fail to defend the cause of 
the omnipotent God, which appeared to be 
injured by the infamous conduct of such 
persons ; and, besides, we are bound to 
watch over our own honour and that of this 
* Llorente, ibid, cap. xiii. n. 15, $ic. 



266 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

Holy See, whose authority they have too often 
disregarded, with a certain kind of insolence 
hitherto unknown. To the end that this 
tribunal may be governed conformably to 
justice and true piety, and the inquisitors do 
not convert right into wrong, and zeal into 
avarice, your goodness ought to put you on 
your guard as to such practices, and not 
allow you to give too much credit to their 
assertions. Wherefore we confide this matter 
to your charge and circumspection, enjoin- 
ing you conscientiously to watch over the 
judges and other subalterns; in order that they 
do not institute causes relating to the faith 
from a principle of odium or a thirst after 
gain, but for truth and justice ; since for the 
evils they commit you will be answerable to 
God and man, as by your own will and our 
authority you took upon yourself the govern- 
ment of the Inquisition."* Let the wishes 
of Charles V. for a reform in the tribunals of 
Valladolid and Zaragoza have been what 
they may, it cannot be doubted, that in 
Barcelona his way of thinking was different ; 
for being called upon by the Aragonese de- 
puties, who waited upon him in order to pro- 
mote a reform, he answered them, that on 

• Llorente, ibW. cap. xiii. n. 20. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 267 

no account would he forget his soul, and 
that he would rather lose part of his domi- 
nions than permit any thing to be therein 
done contrary to the honour of God and the 
authority of the Holy Office.* 

Both the Castilians and Aragonese, on see- 
ing the unfortunate issue of their solicita- 
tions, from that time abandoned their hopes 
of a radical reform ; and considering them- 
selves as sufficiently happy if they succeeded 
in softening a yoke it was impossible to dis- 
lodge, they confined themselves in future to 
declaiming against the abuses of the tribunal. 
Hence did the Cortes celebrated in Corunna 
and Santiago, in the year 1520, lay the fol- 
lowing petition before the Emperor. " Let 
your Majesty command that the members of 
the council and officers of the Holy Inquisi- 
tion, be persons of good character, of sci- 
ence, and conscientious, because such will 
do justice ; and let them be paid by fixed 
salaries, and not out of the property of con- 
demned persons ; since of the necessity of 
this being done, if your Majesty be pleased, 
full and ample testimony shall be given for 
the discharge of your royal conscience." 

* Dormer, Anales de Aragon, lib. i. cap. xxvi. 

* Coleccion de Cortes, torn. xxi. fol, ISO. MS, 



268 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

The Emperor answered them, that he un- 
dertook the charge of seeing that the Inqui- 
sitor General and his subalterns thencefor- 
ward did their duty in a proper manner. 
This he promised to do, but he did not comply 
with his promise, or else the inquisitors dis- 
regarded his orders ; nor can any other con- 
clusion be drawn, since on the one hand the 
excesses continued, and on the other the 
remonstrances were unabated. The Cata- 
lonians, in the Cortes of Monzon for the same 
year, brought forward the agreement sworn 
to by the King and the Inquisitor General, 
insisting on its observance ; but the tribunal 
even then was so far from complying with 
its stipulations that, in the Cortes of Bar- 
celona for the year 1^559, they had again to 
impress the same obligation. The CastiHans 
complained afresh against the abuses of the 
Inquisition, in the Cortes of Valladolid for 

1525, and in those of Toledo for 1525 ; as 
w'ell as the Aragonese in those of Zaragoza in 

1526, and those of Monzon in 1528. Of 
the latter the following articles deserve par- 
ticular notice. 

" Item : whereas in the Cortes lately cele- 
brated by his Majesty in the city of Zaragoza, 
on the part of the kingdom it was prayed 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 269 

that, as a remedy to the abuses which the 
officers of the Inquisition committed in this 
said kingdom, his Majesty would be pleased 
to entreat the enactment of a bull from our 
most Holy Father respecting certain com- 
plaints laid before his Majesty; and whereas 
the measures taken on this subject were not 
such as to accord with the good of the king- 
dom and the cause of justice; let his Majesty 
be entreated that the most reverend Lord 
Inquisitor command the other inquisitors to 
abide by the regulations which are subjoined 
at the end of each complaint, and for greater 
security that a bull be obtained confirming 
the same ; and that it be therein specified 
that the dowries given to daughters by per- 
sons reputed to belong to the faithful, al- 
though they may be afterwards discovered to 
be heretics, even through crimes committed 
prior to the transfer of said dowries, cannot 
be confiscated. 

" Item: whereas the inquisitors interfere 
in many matters unconnected with crimes of 
heresy, under the plea of their office, and 
even take out apostolic commissions to act 
in private concerns, in which they proceed 
rigorously as if the same belonged to the In- 
quisition, let his Majesty be entreated to take 



270 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

such measures as may prevent them from in- 
terfering in other matters than those merely 
belonging to the crime of heresy, conform- 
ably to the regulations of the canonical law 
and the apostolic ordinances in corpore juris, 
and in no other manner ; and that they be not 
allowed to accept apostolic commissions, or 
private ones ; for, besides exceeding the limits 
prescribed for the exercise of the Inquisition, 
they do considerable injury to the parties 
concerned. 

" Item : whereas the inquisitors interfere 
in various causes against secular persons by 
the way of inquisition or search, all which is 
prohibited by law, let his Majesty be entreated 
to order that they do not interfere in the 
said causes; leaving them to the ordinary 
judges conformably to the regulations of the 
courts of justice. 

" Item : and whereas the conversion of the 
Moors of this kingdom has been performed 
more by virtue of the regulations of his 
Majesty than through the devotion of the 
converted, if the Inquisition interferes in a 
case of this kind, without giving them time 
to instruct themselves in the faith, this will be 
attended with most serious consequences ; let 
his Majesty be entreated that the same time 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 271 

be given to them as was allowed to those of 
Granada." * 

In fact when Charles V. established the 
tribunal in Granada, he exempted the Moors 
from confiscation ; because the latter, as soon as 
they learnt that attempts were making to place 
the Inquisition over them, held a numerous 
assembly in which they agreed to remonstrate 
against the measure, offering, in order the 
better to obtain their end, to pay to him an 
extraordinary contribution of 80,000 ducats. 
With so good a recommendation their solici- 
tation was not altogether disregarded, for the 
Emperor ordered that their property should 
not be confiscated, and that they should not 
be troubled on account of their dress. What 
likewise contributed to the success of this 
remonstrance was the favour of certain indi- 
viduals who came in for a share of the 
money .t Nevertheless the above order was 
soon forgotten or revoked, since the Moors 
in their letter to those of Africa complain 
that the inquisitors deprived them of their 
estates, and obliged them to dress after the 
Spanish fashion. After the manner of those 
of Granada, and for similar reasons, the Moors 
of Valencia also obtained a grant from the 

* Dormer, Anales de Aragon, lib. ii. cap. xli. 

t Sandoval, Historia de Carlos V. lib. xiv. § xviii. 



272 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

Emperor, that till after the expiration of forty 
years the tribunal should not exercise juris- 
diction over them.* 

One of the petitions of the Cortes of To- 
ledo abve referred to, respecting the means 
of restraining the disorders of the Inquisition, 
contains the following words : " That the 
chief magistrates should obtain due informa- 
tion of all such disorders and not allow them, 
but report the same to his Majesty and to his 
most high council, in order to provide for it 
a suitable remedy." This, in substance, was 
to request that the injured should be allowed 
an appeal to a superior authority. So just a de- 
mand at that time produced no effect; but the 
complaints against the inquisitors were such 
and so frequent, that in 1535 the Emperor was 
moved, notwithstanding his former protesta- 
tions never to interfere with the faculties of 
the tribunal. The latter therefore remained 
divested of so fatal a privilege till the year 
1545, when Philip II., governing the kingdom 
in the absence of his father, restored it to 
the Inquisition, secure of therein finding the 
strongest bulwark of his despotism.t From 
that period, the Tiberius of Spain, by favour- 

* Dormer, Anales de Aragon, lib. ii. cap. xli. 
t Covarrubias Maximas sobre recursos de fuerza, 
ti^ xxxii. 



tiAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 273 

ing the holy Tribunal of the Faith with an 
unlimited protection, as well as its partisan 
writers of all kinds, especially the Ascetics, 
and among » them St. Teresa of Jesus and 
Father Luis de Granada, who canonized it 
more and more by their eulogiums, since 
their knowledge in this particular was far in- 
ferior to their piety, at length affixed a seal 
to the slavery of the nation. 

About the year 1560, Sefior Enriquez, 
abbot of the then collegiate church of Valla- 
dolid, laid a remonstrance before Philip II. 
against the Inquisition of that city, in which 
he «peaks of the arbitrariness and avarice of 
its ministers, and how extremely advisable it 
would be for magistrates of the crown to take 
part in its trials. In proof of its designing 
conduct he asserts that in the cause of Canon 
Cazalla, the officers had allowed the nuns, 
who like him were imprisoned on the plea of 
Lutheranism, to converse with each other, in 
order that by confirming themselves the 
stronger in their errors they might be enabled 
to condemn them. As an additional proof of 
this and of the vice having extended to other 
tribunals, he adds that, having himself en- 
tered in company with the bishop of Palencia 
into the prisons of the Inquisition of Toledo, 
and reduced a Flemish prisoner to penance 
yoL. II. X 



274 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

who had not relapsed, the inquisitors refused 
to grant him the pardon of his life owing to 
the auto of the faith being ah-eady proclaimed, 
whereas according to practice he had not lost 
his right to receive pardon till his sentence 
was read on the platform. As a testimony 
of their avarice, he affirms that ihe inquisitor* 
of Valladolid had a shameful dispute among 
themselves respecting the distribution of the 
confiscated money belonging to the unfor- 
tunate Cazalla.* Probably through a similar 
spirit of avarice, rather than just grounds, 
they also condemned the memory of his 
mother, a very devout lady eighty years old, 
and besides deaf and blind ; nor were her 
daughter and grandchildren, who defended 
her, able to prevent their inheritance from 
being equally confiscated. 

The Aragonese, in the Cortes of Monzon^ 
for the year 1564, pointed out the necessity 
of a new agreement with the King and the 
Inquisition, and being then unable to regu- 
late the matter, they gave it in charge to a 
committee, on whose proposal Philip II. and 
the Inquisitor General, among other things, 
bound themselves to abide by the following 

* Such is the purport of the original document which, 
together with the file of proceedings against Cazalla, was 
. lately withdrawn fi-om the tribunal of Valladolid, 



CHAP. Vl.] INQUISlflON UNMASKED, 275 

rules : '^ That iii Zaragoza the inquisitors 
should call in all the commissions given to 
titular officers, and in th^ said city name 
only sixty familiars ; and in the other towns 
containing as many as one thousand persons, 
no more than eight, (and so on in the same 
proportion) all of whom were to be peaceable 
persons, honest and not powerful, not homi- 
cides nor robbers, nor persons having been 
tried for criminal offences, nor imprisoned 
for enormous and weighty cases. That when 
they have to proceed to any inhibition against 
the viceroy of his Majesty, th€ council, or 
royal high court of justice, they shall send a 
notary belonging to the court to give in- 
formation of the affair, in ord^r that the pro-. 
ceedings may be returned to the Inquisition, 
so as to prevent the above officers and judges 
from being cited to an hearing before the 
Holy Office. That they do not interfere so 
as to take cognizance of matrimonial causes, 
respecting the bonds of matrimony, nor tythes, 
although the same may appertain to officers 
and familiars of the Holy Office. That, with 
the exception of cases of heresy, they do not 
impede the king's judges in tlie administration 
of justice, under a plea that such delinquents 
have committed crimes whose cognizance 
belongs to them j but that when similar cases 
T 2 



276 I??QUISmON UNMASKED. [CHAP. VJ, 

occur, and the civil magistrate has first per- 
formed the arrest, the secular judges shall be 
allowed to proceed. That they do not de- 
fend and give aid to familiars who may hoard 
up grain or other provisions contrary to law ; 
and in time of pestilence that they do not 
aid and defend them in the contravention of 
such regulati(3\is as may be enacted to pre- 
vent contagion ; and that they also allow the 
goods and other property which the said 
familiars bring into Zaragoza and other towns 
of the district to be examined. 

" That the inquisitors and their commis- 
saries be very careful not to issue any edicts 
with ecclesiastical censures for the discovery 
of robberies, debts, or other secret crimes, 
which may have been committed against 
the counsellors, officers, and familiars of the 
Holy Office •, neither shall they be allowed 
to cite, by means of edicts containing the 
said censures, persons who may have been 
guilty, unless in cases of heresy or appertain- 
ing thereto. That when a merchant or any 
other person should fail, or become bankrupt 
in his credit, the inquisitors shall not inter- 
fere in and take cognizance of such matters, 
under pretext that the merchant who thus 
failed was indebted to some familiar ov mini- 
ster of the Holy Office, but they shall leave all 



•UHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED* 277 

such causes to the secular judges, excepting 
when the said bankrupt is himself a famihar, in 
which case the inquisitors shall do justice."* 

Such are the leading articles ; and many 
observations could I make upon them were I 
not fearful of being tedious ; nevertheless I 
particularly call the attention of my readers 
to the criminal patronage the Inquisition 
bestowed upon every wicked person who soli- 
cited it, by investing him with its privileges, 
or mofe properly by covering him with its 
cloak. This is a piece of deception it mani- 
fested from the beginning of its establishment, 
since so early as in the year 1321, Pope John 
XXII. reproved the inquisitors of Bologna 
on a similar charge.t The preceding agree- 
ment was not more efficacious than the former 
ones in restraining the Inquisition, as is 
proved by the circumstance of the Cortes of 
Monzon and Binefar, in the year 1585, and 
those of Barbastro and Calatayud in 1626, pro- 
posing another, which at length was enacted 
in the Cortes of Zaragoza in 1646.t 

* Concordia hecha entre la C. y R. Mag. del Rey D. 
jFelipe y el tribunal del Santo Oficio, a 17 de Julio de 
1568. It is found at the end of the book entitled, " Actos 
de Cortes jdel Reino de Aragon." 

f The brief is inserted by Eymeric at the end of the 
Inquisitors' Directory. 

J Dormer, Anales de Aragon, lib. i, cap. xxvi. 



578 INQUISITION UNBIASKED^ [CHAP. VI, 

The above-mentioned Cortes of Monzon 
for the year 1585 were fully sensible of the 
repugnance of the Inquisition to all kinds of 
reform, or any measure that might counteract 
its despotism ; since having stated various griev-^ 
ances which the kingdom had suffered and was 
suffering from it, and having also agreed that^ 
within six months arbitrators should be named, 
they added, that in case this nomination was 
not carried into effect recurrence should be 
had to the pope for a remedy ; which in fact 
was done, as the nomination did not take place 
owing to a default on the part of the tribunal. 
About the same time the lord-lieutenant of 
the kingdom also recurred to Rome, owing 
to the inquisitors of Zaragoza having ex- 
communicated him because he refused to 
deliver up to them a culprit who had taken 
refuge in the tribunal of the Manifestacion,* 

* After the expulsion of the Moors from Aragon the 
people conferred the crown on the son of Sancho the 
Great, on condition of his granting them eminent privi- 
leges and Hberties, so binding to the royal authority that 
they remained nearly in a state of political independence. 
Among these privileges was their being allowed to have a 
chief of the state, known by the name of El Justicia, 
authorised to watch over the conduct of the king, and to 
accuse him before the estates of the realm for any abuse of 
the power confided to him. The Justicia administered the 
coronation oath, and was in fact the g\iardian of the 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 279 

who dying whilst the suit was pending the 
inquisitors opposed ecclesiastical burial being- 
granted to him, in consequence of which his 
body was preserved embalmed till a favourable 
declaration arrived from Rome, when he was 
interred in a most splendid manner.* The 
Aragonese, however, were not equally for- 
tunate in an attack which the tribunal a few 
years afterwards made on their liberties, under 
the pretext of another arrest. 

In the year 159S the Inquisition of Seville, 
from a principle of etiquette, gave rise to one 
of those scandals to which all of them have 
propended. The above city, on the 25th of 
November, in the same year, was celebrating 
the funeral obsequies of Philip II. in the ca- 
thedral church, attended by the municipality, 
the high court of justice, and the tribunal of 
the Inquisition, when the latter began to ful- 
minate excommunications, without any other 

people's rights. By one of these privileges the Aragonese, 
when condemned to death, could have recourse to the law 
of the Manifestacion, which operated as a species of habeas 
corpus. By it the Justicia could take the prisoner out of the 
hands of the judges who had condemned him, and keep hira 
in custody till he had ascertained whether the forms of law 
applied against him had been regular. This law formed the 
basis of the ancient civil liberty of the Aragonese. — Tr, 
* Antonio Perez, Relacion del 24 de Setiembre. 



280 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

plea than because the chief judge of the said 
court had covered his seat with a black cloth. 
The disorder was such that the officiating 
priest had to leave the altar and pass into the 
sacristy to conclude his mass, the tribunals 
remaining in their places the greatest part of 
the day, occupied in drawing up proceedings, 
protests, and intimations, till at length, 
through the mediation of the Marquis de 
Algaba, Don Francisco de Guzman, the In- 
quisition became more calm, and consented 
to give absolution, when both parties carried 
their affair before the king and council. The 
decision did not come down till the end of 
December, when the funeral honours were 
repeated, and during the whole of this inter- 
val the cenotaph, together with all the other 
mournful preparations, remained standing in 
the church, notwithstanding the feast of Christ- 
mas intervened. What this decision was our 
historian does not relate, and for this same 
reason we ought to presume it was not very 
favourable to the tribunal.* 

;* Zuiiiga, Anales de Sevilla, lib. xvi. The above alter- 
cation is burlesqued in a delicate manner by Miguel de 
Cervantes, who happened to be at Seville at the time, in 
a sonnet, in which, imitating the bombastic style of the 
natives of that city, he celebrates the cenotaph and its 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED, 281 

Among the many prelates on whom the 
Inquisition has trampled and whose com- 
plaints have reached the throne, the case of 
Father Antonio de Trexo, bishop of Cartha- 
gena and Murcia, deserves particular notice, 
in consequence of the insulting encroach- 
ments he experienced in his jurisdiction in 
the year 1622. The inquisitors took upon 
themselves to exempt one of their familiars 
from performing the duty of receiver of the 
king's taxes on property sold, to which office 
he had been named by the city of Lorca; and 
as the chief justice would not consent to this 
pretension, they demanded aid of the mayor 
of Murcia, who, complying with his duty, re- 
fused it. The inquisitors, exasperated at such 
a repulse, threatened the mayor with ecclesi- 

duration, as already mentioned by the author of his life 
placed at the head of the edition of Don Quixote pub- 
lished by the Spanish Academy. Cervantes himself, in his 
Viage al Parnaso, chap, iv., calls this same sonnet ** the 
principal honour of his writings." It begins as follow! : 

Voto a Dios ! que me espanta esta grandeza, 
Y que diera un doblon por describilla ; 
Porque, a quien no suspende y maravilla 
Esta maquina insigne, esta braveza i 

Por Jesucristo vivo cad a pieza 
Vale mas que un millon y que es mancilla 
Que esto no dure un siglo, &c. 



282 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

astical censures, then declared he had in*. 
currred them, and put up an interdict against 
him in the churches of the city. The bishop 
seeing such an outrage committed against his 
jurisdiction by the adoption of measures in 
which he had not been consulted, and unable 
to obtain their revocation, notwithstanding 
the capital of his diocese was under symptoms 
of insurrection, ordered proclamations to be 
made that the interdiction was not binding. 
The inquisitors then ordained all the edicts, 
answers, and proceedings instituted by the 
bishop to be called in, as being of a scanda- 
lous nature, containing bad doctrine and pre- 
judicial to the authority of the Holy Office, 
adding that, in case they had been registered 
in any books or archives, they were to be 
blotted out in such manner that they could 
not be read. The Inquisitor General consi- 
dering this prohibition as too small a punish- 
ment, notwithstanding it had been read on the 
day of St. Augustin in his own church at the 
hour of high mass, immediately proceeded to 
condemn the bishop to a fine of 8,000 ducats, 
commanding him under a penalty of 4,000 
more to appear at court, in order to answer to 
the complaint lodged against him by the 
proctor. A remarkable circumstance in this 
affair is, that the tribunal did not stop pro 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 283 

ceeding therein, even after the king had in- 
terposed his authority and had referred the 
cognizance of the whole to the Council of 
Castile, in order to decide this question of 
competition, or determine what the latter 
might deem most proper. Nor is it less de- 
serving of notice that the bishop and chapter 
of Murcia having sent up the dean and a 
canor to Madrid to defend their cause, the 
Council of the Supreme caused bills of excom- 
munication to be posted up against both, and 
prohibited them from speaking on the sub- 
ject ; thus depriving the parties interested of 
every measure of defence, and interposing 
difficulties in the way of a just decision. 

The bishop appealed to the King, and in 
ord^r to convince him of the impropriety of 
the whole affair reminded him of the disturb- 
ances and tumults which the excesses of the 
inquisitors had caused in Sicily, Sardinia, 
Aragon, and Catalonia, in the use of their 
jurisdiction. The Council of Castile also 
remonstrated in support of the bishop's re- 
presentation, in pursuance to a consultation 
held on the 3d of October in the same year, 
of which document the following clauses de* 
serve insertion here : " Let your Majesty 
consider whether it is not sufficient to excite 



284 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

tears to behold this dignity (that of the 
bishop) so high in itself, and so much vene- 
rated by all, now trampled upon ; its authority 
cast down and debased, defamed in the pul- 
pits, dragged along the roads, degraded by 
the tribunals ; and that all this should be the 
work of an Inquisitor General, and of a Coun- 
cil of the Inquisition, who when they ought 
most to uphold the authority of religion, take 
it away from the first fathers of the same, by 
abusing the privileges introduced for the 
causes and matters of the faith, and employ- 
ing th^m to stigmatise the natural defenders 
tliereof, who are the bishops. Due and most 
just are all considerations to the faith as well 
as the Inquisition in matters relating to it; 
but great care ought to be taken that the 
latter uses its privileges in a proper manner, 
and does not avail itself wrongfully of them. 
Otherwise kings will be frequently exposed to 
alarms, and the people will have to endure 
great distress. In this court of your Majesty 
persons of various nations and sects assemble, 
and there are also many secret heretics. 
Let your Majesty be pleased to consider what 
they will say and write ; what courage and 
spirits will they not acquire in their errors, 
^ud what hopes can we entertain of seeing 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 285 

them confounded and overcome ? Most as- 
suredly no precedent can be found by which 
they (the bishops) have been commanded to 
appear by any tribunal, unless it is by your 
Majesty on some occasion of state or superior 
government."* 

The inquisitors of Valladolid, in 1630, 
committed another of their customary insults 
against the episcopal dignity, by pretending, on 
an occasion when they were about to publish an 
edict prohibitive of books in the cathedral, that 
the bishop, at that time president of the chan- 
cery of the above city, should have the canopy 
taken down which had been prepared for him 
to celebrate mass in a pontifical manner, and 
they had already begun to put up ladders 
for the purpose. The scandal such a measure 
produced on a festival day, and at the pre- 
cise hour of the publication of the edict, was 
80 great, that the prebendaries were obliged 
to request them to suspend it. The inquisi- 
tors at length desisted, being restrained, not 
so much by the supplications of the former, 
as the vigorous remonstrances of the bishop ; 

* Report of the Council of Castile, quoted by the king's 
proctors Campomanes and Moiiino in their report respect- 
ing the prohibition of books, laid before Charles III. on 
the 30th of Nov. 1768, n. 53. 



286 iNQUlSITION UNMASKED. [CHA1». VI. 

but they carried with them, as prisoners, from 
the church, in a disorderly manner and with 
their officiating garments on, the first digni^ 
tary of the said cathedral, Don Alonso Nino, 
and a canon of the name of Don Francisco 
Maria Milan, both persons of distinction and 
great virtue. The royal council, consulting 
with his Majesty to whom the aggrieved 
parties appealed, exclaims in the following 
terms : " This case has appeared to the 
council, new, extraordinary, full of rigour 
and of violence, extremely discrediting to the 
authority of the Inquisition, and one in which 
your Majesty ought to interpose your royal 
authority, as well in consequence of the pro- 
tection you owe to the cathedral churches 
as being their only patron, (and such a de- 
grading act and outrage committed against 
them greatly takes from the right of patron- 
age,) as because there is an obligation on the 
part of your Majesty to endeavour that the 
tribunals destined to act in matters of the 
faith be restrained within due authority and 
decency, since such matters can never be 
placed in m6re evident danger of being lost 
than by such irregular proceedings, so foreign 
to the modesty which ought to actuate their 
authors/* 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 287 

The council then proceeds to make various 
reflections, and concludes in these terms: 
" And since it is because the general Inqui- 
sition has not punished similar excesses with 
due rigour that the inferior tribunals take 
occasion to continue them, the council is of 
opinion that your Majesty ought, with your 
holy zeal, at once to interfere in this matter, 
in such manner that the inquisitors may un- 
derstand that monarchs have not conferred 
upon them the privileges they enjoy for the 
purpose of extending them beyond matters 
relating to the faith ; this is the subject and 
nature of their occupations and privileges, 
and beyond it they ought not to extend. 
The cause of the faith is not promoted by 
outraging the fathers and defenders thereof^ 
nor are the people edified, or heretics 'con- 
founded, by witnessing divisions and scandals 
in the church. And the Inquisition will 
only preserve itself in authority and respect 
as long as it is restrained within the bounds 
of modesty, and interferes in no other than 
matters of the faith, without diverting its 
jurisdiction to othei' affairs and cases in 
which, by acting with publicity and in- 
jury to third persons, it becomes subject 
to the censure of all, and runs the risk 



288 INQUISITION UNMASKED. - [CHAP. VI^ 

of seeing its decrees revoked with stigma to 
itself.'' * 

The Inquisition of Seville, in the year 
1637, gave occasion for the same council to 
lay another consultation before the king re- 
specting its conduct. The high court of 
justice of the above city had entered into a 
dispute with the inquisitors respecting juris- 
diction, in consequence of a disrespectful act 
committed towards some of its members by 
Don Alonso Tello, familiar of the Holy 
Office, when the assembly for this purpose 
held in Madrid, and at which according to 
custom two ministers of the council of Inqui- 
sition attended, after various sessions, declared 
that the cognizance of the affair in question 
belonged to the high court of justice. The 
same opinion was sustained by the king's 
attorney-general, Don Juan Perez de Lara, 
in a memoir under a judicial form, which he 
printed. When the time came for putting^ 
the resolution of the assembly into execution 
the inquisitors committed various disrespect- 
ful acts, and issued edicts ordering the above 
memoir to be called. in, though it was no 
other than a defence of the royal jurisdiction 

* Report of the Council of 16th March, 1630, quotei 
by the said proctors. Ibid. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 289 

written by a magistrate in the fulfilment of 
his ministry. The council representing to 
Philip IV. the arbitrary nature of this pro- 
ceeding, among other things, alleged the 
following : " The lawyers and ministers of 
your Majesty who, with so much care and 
zeal exert themselves in your service and in 
defence of the royal jurisdiction, ought to be 
duly protected and upheld in the exercise of 
their duty, more particularly when they are 
engaged in the defence of your Majesty and 
your tribunals ; since, from persons who have 
been so carefully selected for these ministries, 
it is presumable that the opinions they give, 
in word and writing, are properly founded 
and within the limits of the law. Even if 
the irregularity of any act were clear and evi- 
dent, the best measure would be to lay the 
case before your Majesty, that you may com- 
mand the party to be punished as a warning, 
it being a public discredit, without this having 
previously been done, to order that a docu- 
ment should be called in, in which it is 
understood there is nothing that warrants 
such a step ; and even if there was, it would 
accord with the service of your Majesty for 
this to be scrutinized by ministers free from 
the suspicion of party, since the contrary 

VOL. II. u 



290 INQUISITIO>f UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI, 

would be detrimental to your royal privileges, 
as well as that jurisdiction which all your tri- 
bunals administer in your royal name. 

" When the question arises,** proceeds the 
report, " out of a paper or papers, it is then 
proper that the case be viewed and executed 
in this manner ; for, although orders may 
afterwards be issued for what has been pro- 
hibited to circulate, by this license the in- 
delible stigma previously incurred is by no 
means counteracted. And if, in the compli- 
ance of their duty and the fulfilment of their 
obligations^, the lawyers and ministers of your 
majesty are to be otposed to these risks and 
disrespect, it will intimidate and place them 
in such a situation that none will dare to act 
up to those obligations under which they 
stand ; whence evident injury must arise to 
the jurisdiction of the crown ; which, from 
being left defenceless, is in danger of being 
lost.'* In consequence of this exposition of 
the Council of Castile, the king ordered that 
the Council of the Inquisition should have 
the allegations of the Attorney General, Perez 
de Lara, examined by impartial theologians 
and lawyers, and that thencefarward, when- 
ever it should be nttempted to censure of 
qualify books or papers written by his mjoi* 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 2t91 

sters in defe^nce of the royal jurisdiction, that 
this should be done by ti:8 opinions not only 
of theologians but also of jurists; and that 
before the council of the Inquisition adopted 
a measure of this nature, it should consult 
his majesty.* 

Among th,e bishops whom the Inquisition 
has cruelly persecuted, and who have been 
made victims of its despotism, the venerable 
Palafox holds a most distinguished place. It 
was not only his writings which, as already 
pointed out, experienced the fury of the in- 
quisitors of Mexico, but his person and even 
his dignity also were exposed to their con- 
tumelies. Some of the abuses which required 
prompt and radical reform when this prelate 
entered on the administration of his diocess 
of La Puebla de los Angeles (in New Spain) 
arose out of the proceedings of the Jesuits, 
whose thirst for riches and ambition of power 
knew no bounds. They daily purchased new 
estates ; and as these, by privilege granted 
to the regular clergy, were exempt from 
tythes, Palafox notified to his flock the obli- 
gation of reserving them entire whenever 
they should execute similar transfers. They 
besides preached and administered confession 
• Report of the Council of Castile, &c. n. 64. 
U 2 



vriibant: &e fciii. of fiae^ocaesm 1mhn||p, 
CanDci of Tiial, md he Ja^gfeuiul tke pio- 

~ ■ to 




It 

SO fierce a tempK^ 
ike lis^op flf L£ PDcbia thai, to 
he awm fife, be tock. refuge in the 
^ ^i^ere Le remaiDed Ibor zzxiBtks 
fi Mq^ ia a smfl csMl. mDfm irbeDC^ be 
tD tke Pfl pe, d ie ^^^gs A*d the IxMjm- 
GeKsaL ffiikllertoikr latter is daifid 
Iffl^ 1647; iB«yc&hc 




CH.\P. TI.] IXQUISmOX UNMASKED. 293 

" I beseech your most illustrious Lordship, 
and in the name of the Almightj, to read 
this letter with that attention the matter and 
outrages require, for these are so weighty and 
prejudicial to these provinces, as well as to 
the souls under my charge, that 1 doubt 
much, from the time the Holy Office was 
introduced into the kingdoms of Spain, and 
even in those of the whole Christian world, 
whether any thing was ever done through its 
means more foreign to the purposes for which 
it was erected. By the fleet I have already 
written you that the archbishop (of Mexico) 
Don Juan de Manosca, f ordinary inquisitor 
and ^"isito^ of the Inquisition) and the inqui- 
sitor his cousin, were the persons who brought 
forward against the ministers and prebenda- 
ries of this diocess that famous libel (the 
question related to tythes) which I have al- 
ready forwarded to you ; they have also now 
resolved, in order to trouble me still more 
and trample upon my jurisdiction and dignitA", 
to interfere in the dispute pending between 
the presumed consersators and my vicar- 
general respecting the members of the Com- 
pany of Jesus manifesting their licences to 
hear confessions. This they have done bj 
publishing edicts throughout all New Spain, 
in which, as you will have seen, they give 



294 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

to understand that the excesses committed 
by the members of the said order ought to 
be imputed to my jurisdiction, as if the epis- 
copal dignity were not superior to the other 
states of the Church ; and as if tlie conversion 
of the faithful in all parts of the world were 
not due to this same dignity. They busy 
themselves in extolling and enhancing the 
services of the religious orders, and how 
much heretics abhor them, giving to under- 
stand that to contend with them is to resem- 
ble the latter. The inquisitors then proceed 
to prohibit and call in all that has been wi'it- 
ten in defence of my jurisdiction, when the 
same is composed of the allegations of bulls 
and apostolical decrees, of conciliar canons, 
declarations of cardinals, constitutions of the 
Jesuits themselves, and of the constant au- 
thority of all the doctors of the Church ; thus 
deprivirg the cause of its proper defence: 
and it creates great scandal among the people 
to see a tribunal so holy treating the episco- 
pal dignity in this manner, and representing 
it to the faithful so inferior in respect to the 
religious orders, which must cause those who 
are not properly informed to entertain a very 
low conception of so high a dignity." 

" Among the matters which they com- 
mandeql under the heaviest penalties are these 



«HAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 295 

three : First, that no one should take down 
the edicts or ecclesiastical censures of the 
conservators; when my vicar-general, by edict, 
had ordered the same to be taken down in 
consequence of the illegal nomination of the 
conservators, and the scandalous tendency 
of their censures. And, as if the said censures 
of the conservators were articles of faith, the 
taking them down was made an affair cogni- 
zable by the Inquisition ; when, conformably 
to right, any ordinary ecclesiastical judge 
may order null and invalid censures which 
have been imposed within his jurisdiction to 
be taken away, and more so when they are 
against his person. Secondly, they com- 
manded that the conservators should not be 
ill-treated, neither their holy order of St. 
Dominick, the Jesuits, nor the other parties, 
as if they did not know how to defend tiiem- 
selves in such manner that full scope was 
given for the said religious orders to speak 
with the greatest liberty, and utter most in- 
jurious words against a consecrated prelate ; 
but if a priest or secular defended him, they 
accused him of acting against the said reli- 
gious institutions, whereas religion in itself 
is very different to an order of friars rashly 
usurping the jurisdiction of a bishop. Thirdly, 
the inquisitors perceiving the difficulty of 



296 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

interfering in this affair, from its in no way 
belonging to them, inserted in the same 
edict another clause, enjoining, " that nobody 
should dare to doubt whether the Holy Office 
was possessed of jurisdiction in this matter;" 
by which means they place every one under 
the disagreeable necessity of never comment- 
ing or speaking on a subject not in itself 
dubious ; since it is certain and unquestion- 
able that the Holy Tribunal neither wishes 
nor can take cognizance of matters which do 
not belong to it." 

The venerable bishop then proceeds to say 
that the inquisitors, on being informed that 
gome persons of La Puebla censured the mea- 
sures they and the conservators had taken in 
this affair, commissioned a clergyman to pro- 
ceed to the above city in order to arrest 
the guilty ; which commissioner, as soon as 
he arrived, accompanied by fourteen or six- 
teen familiars and without any previous mes- 
sage, directed his steps to the episcopal palace, 
where he entered with great rudeness ; all 
which was done under an arrangement made, 
with the inquisitors, and for the purpose of 
forcing the prelate to quarrel with him, and 
entangle him with the tribunal. Palafox, 
relating such an irregular mode of proceeding 
^nd again appealing to the Inquisitor General, 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 297 

thus exclaims: " Consider, yourself, whether 
this is proper conduct on the part of Christian 
persons, and of a tribunal so holy, to treat 
bishops of the Church in this manner, even 
though I did not besides hold the office of 
counsellor of the Indies, as well as that of 
president and visitor-general of these king- 
doms, having moreover governed them ; and 
when at all times, in as many posts as I have 
filled, which have been the highest in these 
provinces, I have favoured the Inquisition by 
particular demonstrations." He then gives a 
minute detail of the outrages committed by 
the above commissioner against various re- 
sidents of La Puebla, as well ecclesiastics as 
seculars, of which the following are most 
worthy of attention : 

A priest of the name of Don Antonio 
Suarez, and a physician of the greatest repute, 
for having said that the Jesuits were in the 
wrong in this dispute, and that this was not 
an affair of the Inquisition ; together with the 
curate of the parish of St. Joseph, one of the 
most illustrious of the city, and called Don 
Sebastian Paraza, because one of the con- 
servators* edicts was wanting in his church ; 
were all arrested by the commissioner's or- 
ders, their property sequestrated, and sent 
to Mexico to the prisons of the tribunal. 



298 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

They were even brought out on the road at 
mid-day ; the two first on mules with pack- 
saddles, and irons on both legs ; the parish 
priest, through great intercession, on a saddle- 
tnule, and for the recovery of his liberty it 
was necessary to obtain the mediation of 
the Jesuits in his favour ; " who,'' says the 
bishop, " are they who avenge themselves, 
and threaten all they choose with the hand of 
the Inquisition." 

Also an Indian, who, through the sugges- 
tions of another inhabitant of La Puebla of 
the name of Carcamo, had torn down one of 
the edicts, without regarding that this class 
of people from their incapacity are not sub- 
ject to the tribunal, was cited by the com- 
missioner up to the convent of St. Augustin, 
where he lodged ; and who, sending to the 
public prison for one of the instruments of tor- 
ture as well as the executioner, forced him 
through fear to declare who had induced him 
to take down the edict. He then ordered him 
to be brought out of the principal door of 
the church, paraded through the streets, and 
afterwards inflicted upon him four hundred | 
Jashes; which punishment was executed upon I 
him in presence of a party of the ministers \ \ 
of the Holy Office on horseback, with their | 
insignias, diamond clasps, and other ornar 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 299 

ments; and the stripes were inflicted in so 
rigorous a manner that the poor Indian was 
at the point of death. Carcamo was treated in 
the same manner as the above, and three hun- 
dred dollars were besides exacted from him for 
the expenses of his journey to Mexico, when 
twenty were more than sufficient, and indeed 
they did the same with others. 

The venerable prelate proceeds to describe 
what passed in the following words : " The 
town began to be alarmed on beholding 
these rigorous measures ; and as it happened 
that some persons had spoken against the 
jurisdiction of the conservators, — others had 
doubted whether this was an affair belonging 
to the Inquisition, — some again were appre- 
hensive for having taken down edicts, and 
others for having seen it done and kept se- 
cresy, — the town was filled with confusion 
and scruples, the people accused each other, 
many hid themselves, and numerous secret 
informations were lodged respecting an aflair 
which, in itself, had no more substance than 
what was derived from vengeance and pre- 
judice. They dared to command my subjects 
not to obey me, to fix on my own door eccle- 
siastical censures against myself, and to com- 
mit other innumerable outrages, under the 
protection and cover of the tribunals nay, 



300 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI, 

they even resolved to seize my person, in 
order to banish me, as they did with arch- 
bishop Guerrero in Manilla. Having learnt 
this their determination, and seeing that re- 
sistance on my part would be attended with 
great scandal and deaths, so indignant were 
the people against these resolutions ; and 
finding also that, if I subjected my jurisdic- 
tion to their irregularities, the total ruin 
of my dignity would follow; yielding to such 
terrible violence, I resolved to retire to a 
secure place till the remedy arrived from the 
tribunals to whom the matter belongs. In 
this state, sir, is my church, in consequence 
of the conduct of these inquisitors; and I now 
appeal to you, as being well aware of the 
obligation we prelates are under to defend 
our jurisdiction, in order that you may pro- 
vide a remedy to so many, and such grievous, 
injuries they have done to my church, to the 
clergy, to my own person, as well as to the 
virtuous priests and inhabitants of LaPuebla; 
and you will be pleased to consider how much 
they and their families have been ill-treatedand 
disgraced by such ignominious proceedings, 
I can assure you, with all truth, that it seems in 
this affair as if they had sought the punishment 
of the priests most renowned for virtue to be 
found in the whole of this diocess." 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 301 

In the concluding part he then adds : " Fi- 
nally, Sir, you will be pleased to judge what 
a serious thing it is to make an ecclesiastical 
dispute a matter of the faith, by those who 
govern this Holy Tribunal placing themselves 
on the side of those who resist the holy Coun- 
cil of Trent. What satisfaction can be made 
for the Inquisition writing against a bishop 
who, through the goodness of God, does not 
occupy himself in any thing else than what 
he considers best for the service of his Creator 
and the good of souls ? And if, in defending 
the revenue of my church and the due admi- 
nistration of the sacraments, because this 
cannot be done but by clashing with the order 
of the Jesuits and the others, is the Inquisi- 
tion to bring forward edicts against those 
engaged in disputes with these said religious 
orders, as if we were suspicious characters ? 
Most assuredly to submit to this would be to 
abandon the episcopal dignity, and place the 
crozier and mitre in the hands of the religious 
orders for them to do what they please with 
us as well as with the souls God has commit- 
ted to our charge. In what article of the 
faith have these gentlemen found that, be- 
cause a prelate writes a pastoral letter to his 
ilock to console them in times of such great 



302 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

affliction, that the Inquisition is to go about 
calling it in ; and in the mean time that the 
lord archbishop, as if I did not also defend 
his own jurisdiction, should be publicly re- 
presenting comedies in the archiepiscopal 
house, where his oratory served as a dressing 
room to extremely unclean women ; and in- 
viting the religious orders to assist thereat, 
because these festive entertainments were 
given in consequence of these said orders 
having overcome the bishop of La Puebia 
and cast him from his see?" 

" In what article of the faith have they 
found that two ministers of the Inquisition 
are authorized to write a most bloody libel 
against a bishop, priests, and gentlemen of all 
classes of the community, calling them here- 
tics, hypocrites^, sodomites, thieves, and stigma- 
tizing them by other infamous appellations; 
and after this, that the same tribunal should 
persecute all the persons injured, because 
they answer in their own defence, when its 
justice ought rather to turn against those 
who had committed such excesses ? Where 
have they therein found that the lord arch- 
bishop and visitor is allowed to intercept the 
letters and dispatches going to the ministers 
of his majesty under the public safeguard? 
6 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. SOS 

and, not content with stopping them, should 
open them ; and, not satisfied with this, should 
publish them ; and after all should publish 
them under an adulterated form, in order to 
have a plea for the ruin of the unfortunate 
prebendary Don Antonio Peralta, who was 
innocently writing what passed in these pro* 
vinces to a counsellor who beseeched him so 
to do ? Finally, in what article of the faith 
have they found that, because a priest named 
Don Francisco de Aguilar, in answer to ano- 
ther person who said that since the Jesuits 
heard confessions it was because they were 
authorized so to do. replied that the Jesuits 
were not canonized saints and consequently 
susceptible of mistake, is to be cited to ap- 
pear before the Inquisition, kept there several 
days, and then sent away admonished and dis- 
graced, when it is at the same time evident 
that the said Jesuits are not canonized saints^ 
nor can they be such as long as they do acts 
like these.'* * So far Senor Palafox. 

* Carta del Ilmo. Exrao. y muy V. Senor D. Ju»n de 
Palafox y Mendoza al Senor Inquisidor General, MS. the 
original of which is preserved in the college of St. Joachim 
belonging to the barefooted Carmelites, in the vicinity of 
Mexico. 

The Author published it with notes atCadiz in 1813. Ts, 



S04 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VIv 

In Europe we know nothing with regard to 
the persecution of the archbishop of Manilla. 
All I have been able to ascertain is, that the 
house in which the above prelate lived, and be- 
longing to a religious community of the same 
city, fell to ruins from no person wishing to 
rent it, in consequence of the people acquiring 
the habit of calling it the house of the excom- 
municated. The venerable prelate also ob- 
serves, that the same tribunal deprived one of 
the counsellors as well as the attorney engaged 
in the cause of their offices ; the first because 
he did justice according to the merits of the 
case, and the second because he undertook 
his defence. In speaking of the archbishop 
of Mexico, he further adds, that the govern- 
ment having commissioned him to perform a 
visit to Quito, they were afterwards under 
the necessity of withdrawing this charge from 
him, in consequence of the excesses he com- 
mitted there under cover of the authority of 
the Inquisition. He throws out another im- 
portant hint respecting the conduct of the 
inquisitors at the end of his letter, which I 
reserve for a more suitable place. 

In the year 1686, in consequence of the 
bishop of Carthagena de Indias, D. Antonio 
de Benavide y la Piedrola, having subjected 
4 



CHAP.VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED* 305 

to his jurisdiction the community of the nuns 
of St. Clare, before dependant on that of the 
Franciscans, the inquisitor D. Franoisco 
Varela, having previously excommunicated 
him and published an interdict of cessation 
a divhiis, had the rashness to arrest him. 
Clement XI. sensible of this outrage, issued 
and remitted, through the medium of the 
Nuncio, two briefs to the Inquisitor General, 
ordering him, in the first, to call over to 
Madrid the inquisitors and counsellors by 
whose accord the former had proceeded; and 
in the second, remonstrating and threatening 
him for his failure to comply with the first 
mandate. The Inquisitor General took no 
notice of either of these briefs, but rather 
practising the usual policy of the tribunal, 
viz. of recurring to the king when straitened 
by the pope, and to the latter when it sought 
to elude the orders of the king, implored the 
aid of Charles II. against the urgent preten- 
sions of Rome. Clement XI. seeing his 
evasion, in an assembly of cardinals, by a 
bull dated March 19, 1706, declared the acts 
and proceedings of the bishop to be just and 
valid, and on the contrary, null and disorderly 
those of the inquisitor and other ministers of 
the Holy Office ; moreover, stating that the 
VOL. ir. X 



505 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP.n. 

imprisonment, exile, and other punishments 
inflicted on the persons adhering to the pre- 
late, ought not to injure their good name, 
and much less disable them from obtaining 
any kind of office or benefice ; and that, ac- 
cordingly, their fines should be returned to 
them and satisfaction given them for the 
damages they had incurred, adding, that it 
•was his will that the tribunal should be sup- 
pressed in Carthagena.* The bishop was 
called over to court, but refusing to be pre- 
ferred to another bishopric, he died in this 
city of Cadiz. An instance of insubordina- 
tion equal and even greater than the above 
was witnessed about the same period in Por- 
tugal, where the inquisitors mocked the 
authority of Peter II. as well as of the 
pope.t 

Complaints having greatly increased res- 
pecting the abuse of jurisdiction on the part 
of the tribunal, Charles II. ordered a junta 
to be assembled, composed of twelve minis- 
ters out of the six councils which then 
existed, besides that of the Inquisition ; viz. 
the council of State, of Castile, Aragon, 

• The Proctors Componianes and Monino, ibid. n. 48. 
i Deduc9ao Analitica e Cronologica citadapor D. Jos& 
da Costa en sii Narrativa da Persegui9ao. 
8 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 307 

Italy, Indies, and of the Military Orders, 
with a view to their furnishing him with the 
means of at once putting a stop to this evil. 
To the end that they might proceed witb 
more perfect knowledge of the matter, the 
junta petitioned the king to order the coun- 
sellors to examine their respective archives, 
and give them a circumstantial detail of all 
the excesses of this kind previously com- 
mitted, as well as copies of the agreements 
entered into with the tribunal. " On exa- 
mination of these papers," say the above 
ministers in their minutes, dated May 21, 
1696, " it appears that this confusion of ju- 
risdictions is very ancient and universal in 
the dominions of your Majesty where there 
are tribunals of the Holy Office, in conse- 
quence of the incessant application with 
which the inquisitors have obstinately strug- 
gled to extend their own jurisdiction ; and 
this in so irregular and disorderly a manner, 
in cases as well as persons, that scarcely have 
they left any exercise to the ordinary royal 
jurisdiction, nor authority to those who ad* 
minister it. There is no kind of aflair, how- 
ever foreign to their institution and powers, 
of which, under the most trifling plea, they 
do not arrogate to themselves the cogni- 
X 2 



SOS INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VS. 

zance ; no vassal, however independent he 
may be of their power, whom they do not 
treat as an immediate subject of their own, 
making him subservient to their mandates, 
censures, fines, imprisonment, and what is 
more, to the stigma of these their inflictions; 
there is no cifence or sh'ght inattention to 
their domestics, that they do not consider 
and punish as a crime of rehgion, without 
distinguishing the manner or rigour." 

" They not only extend," proceeds the 
junta, " their privileges to their dependents 
and familiars, but they also defend them with 
equal rigour in their black and infidel slaves. 
They are not content with exempting the 
persons and properties of their officers from 
all charges and public contributions, however 
privileged these may be, but they even seek 
that their houses and dwellings should enjoy 
the immunity of shelter to guilty persons, 
and of not being searched by the civil magis- 
trates, which should the latter pretend to do, 
they experience the same demonstrations as 
if they had violated a temple. In the form 
of their proceedings and the style of their dis- 
patches, they use and affect means whereby 
to depress the estimation of the royal ordin- 
ary judges, and even the authority of the 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 309 

superior magistrates ; in short, not only in 
judicial and contentious matters, but also in 
points of political and economical govern- 
ment, they make an ostenatious show of this 
same independence, totally disregarding the 
sovereignty. The effects of this pernicious 
disorder have at length reached so dangerous 
a height, that they have already frequently 
called forth measures on the part of our mo- 
narchs, and roused the higher tribunals of 
the crown to their bounden duty of carefully 
discovering a remedy. Yet, notwithstanding 
these prudent measures have been repeated 
in every reign, they have not sufficed to se- 
cure the object in view, viz. to moderate the 
excesses of the inquisitors ; on the contrary 
by their inobservance and disobedience they 
have very frequently given just occasion for 
severe reprehensions, fines, and orders to 
appear at court, as well as banishment from 
the kingdom, privation of temporalities, and 
other demonstrations corresponding to the 
cases in which such measures have been re- 
sorted to, and by no means conformable to 
the greater decorum of the tribunals of the 
Holy Office, a consideration which out of 
respect due to themselves ought to have r&. 
strained the ministers thereof," 



310 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

The junta then concludes in these words : 
" The Inquisition owes to the august ances- 
tors of your Majesty its erection and forma- 
tion in these kingdoms, as well as under the 
crown of Aragon and of the Indies, and also 
its elevation to the rank and honour of a 
royal council, the creation of the dignity of 
Inquisitor General, together with all the 
special and superior prerogatives it enjoys, 
added to the grant of so many exemptions 
and privileges to its officers and familiars, the 
royal jurisdiction it exercises in them, and 
above all the most singular demonstration of 
royal confidence, by extending to it the sus- 
pension of the right of appeal to the civil 
magistrate. But the abuse with which all 
this has been treated, has produced grief in 
the vassals, disunion in the ministers, dis- 
grace to the tribunals, and no small share of 
trouble to your Majesty, in the decision of 
such repeated and obstinate contentions." 
The junta here calls to mind the revocation 
of the above privilege by Charles V., and its 
new concession granted by Philip II., al- 
though confined to certain conditions or in- 
structions, " which have been," the report 
says, " very badly observed, because the ex- 
treme forbearance with which matters belong- 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 311 

ing to the inquisitors have been treated, has 
encouraged them to convert* this tolerance 
into an acknowledged right, in such manner 
as to make them so entirely forget what they 
have received from the pious liberality of 
our kings, that now they affirm and seek to 
sustain with most strange animosity, that the 
jurisdiction they exercise in every thing re- 
lating to the persons, property, rights, and 
dependencies of their ministers, officers, fa- 
miliars and domestics, is both apostolical and 
ecclesiastical, and consequently independent 
of every secular power whatever, however 
supreme it may be." 

The junta then proceeds to point out its 
own opinion, amounting to a belief that if 
the Inquisition was capable of any reform, this 
could only be done by assimilating, as much 
as possible, its system to that of the other 
tribunals ; but whether it was that the mem- 
bers did not hit on the principal root of the 
evil, or that they were aware of the opposi- 
tion a more extensive project would meet 
.with in so pious a monarch as Charles II., 
certain it is, that they confined themselves to 
the display of four abuses and their proposed 
remedies. The first was that of ecclesiastical 
censures in matters not relating to the faith ; 



312 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

which induced many individuals, and even 
magistrates to condescend with the whims of 
the inquisitors, to the prejudice of their own 
rights and in default of justice. To this 
point the junta added, by way of analogy, the 
practice of the tribunal shutting up, not only 
in its secret prisons, but also in its deep dun- 
geons, persons not precisely guilty of heresy 
but only of injuries done to its dependents, or 
of any other similar offence, notwithstanding 
in that case it merely proceeded on the 
ground of temporal jurisdiction. The second 
abuse was, the impossibility under which the 
prisoner laboured when aggrieved by the In- 
quisition, of complaining to any other tri- 
bunal, or even to the king, in consequence 
of all appeal being denied to him. The ne- 
cessity of correcting this abuse in the judi- 
cial proceedings of the tribunal, the ministers 
confirm by quoting various causes called up 
by superior orders, and remitted to the Coun- 
cil of Castile, in consequence of our kings 
being unable to resist the clamours of so 
many whom the Inquisition had outraged. 

The third abuse was the extension of pri- 
vileges, including the active and passive im- 
munity granted to all inmates and servants of 
the inquisitors, whether they were lackeys^ 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 313 

coachmen, or slaves, whose haughtiness and 
insolence rose to such a height, that if in 
the markets the best that was sold was not 
reserved for them, or any disagreeable ex- 
pression used towards them, their masters 
instantly fulminated censures, and ordered 
arrests to be executed. The fourth abuse 
consisted in the continual and interminable 
competitions of the Inquisition with the other 
tribunals, excited by the inquisitors when- 
ever they took an interest in any bad law- 
suit J whereby the proofs were either ren- 
dered difficult or destroyed, the property 
secreted, or the recovery frustrated to the 
injury of the creditors, when the cause was 
civil ; and the truth of the facts disfigured, 
or the flight of the delinquent promoted, 
when the suit was criminal. In confirmation 
of all the above, the junta brings forward 
certain cases which occurred in the course of 
the seventeenth century, but for the sake of 
brevity I will only state two which took place 
during the above reign, and amply demon- 
strate the necessity of at least remedying the 
^buse of censures and secret imprisonments 
in matters not concerning religion. 

A negro, slave to a receiver of the Inqui- 
sition of Cordova, entered furtively and by 

6 



314 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI, 

night into the house of a respectable resident 
of that city, in search of a female slave with 
whom he was connected. The mistress on 
hearing the noise came out, and meeting 
with the negro, received from him a stab in 
the breast of which she died. The husband 
came forward at the screams of his wife, as 
well as several other persons, who, seizing 
the aggressor, delivered him over to justice, 
and he was condemned to be hung. On his 
being placed in the chapel,* the inquisitors 
claimed him, and although the judge an- 
swered that this was an interference with his 
jurisdiction, nothing was sufficient to prevent 
them from interposing their ecclesiastical 
censures and other penalties, till the latter 
became quite alarmed, and delivered the cri- 
minal over to them. The royal council had 
several consultations with his Majesty respect- 
ing the case, insisting that the Inquisition 
ought to return the slave, and strongly urging 
the dangerous consequences that would fol- 
low so daring an act. The king gave orders 

* In Spain it is customary for the criminal condemned 
for execution to be placed in a chapel during three days 
previous t© the infliction of his sentence, where he re- 
mains in prayer with a guard over him, accoropaaied only 
by his coolessor. Tk. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 315 

to the Inquisitor General that this should be 
done, and the inquisitors punished in an ex- 
emplary manner ; but the chief of the tri- 
bunal resolving to uphold the irregularities 
of his subjects, addressed several remon- 
strances to the throne, for the purpose of 
gaining time. The council of Castile on its 
part also presented several others, and even 
the city of Cordova demanded satisfaction 
for so grievous and scandalous a proceeding. 
The king at length for the fourth time, com- 
manded that his orders should be fulfilled, 
but the inquisitors seeing that no subterfuge 
was left, secretly set the negro at liberty, 
saying that he had escaped. The other cir- 
cumstance relating to the inordinate practice 
of the Inquisition confining persons not 
guilty of heresy in its secret prisons, took 
place in Granada, where a woman who had 
had words with the wife of one of the secre- 
taries of the tribunal, on seeing the bailiffs 
enter her house to carry her off a prisoner, 
filled with terror, cast herself out of the win- 
dow, and broke both her legs. 

The junta moreover observes, in proof of 
the perpetual tendency of the inquisitors to 
exceed the limits of justice, that as early as 



Sl6 INQUISITION UNMASKED. j^CHAP. VI, 

the year 1311, the Fathers of the council of 
Vienna, as appears from the Clementine de- 
cretals, cried out against them, declaring 
that they converted the authority confided to 
them for the increase of the faith, to the 
discredit of the same ; and that under the 
pretext of piety, they trampled upon many 
innocent persons, and ill-treated others, un- 
der a plea that they impeded the exercise of 
their jurisdiction. After mature examina- 
tion of all the premises, the ministers con- 
clude by thus addressing the king. " Sire, 
this junta is fully -sensible, that to the irre- 
gularities committed by the tribunals of the 
Holy Office other more rigorous measures 
would accord. Your Majesty has before you 
the reports, which for a considerable lapse of 
time have been brought up, and do not cease 
to arrive, relating to the unprecedented acts 
attempted and executed by the inquisitors 
in all the dominions of yoUr Majesty, and 
the painful agitation under which they keep 
the royal ministers. What inconveniences 
might not have been produced by the cases 
of Carthagena de Indias, Mexico, and La 
Puebla, as well as the more recent ones of 
Barcelona and Zaragoza, if the most vigilant 



CHAP. VT.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 317 

attention of your Majesty had not devised 
timely measures ? And even still the inqui- 
sitors do not desist, because they are already 
so much accustomed to enjoy toleration, that 
obedience by them is entirely forgotten." 
So far the junta. The Count de Frigiliana, 
counsellor of Castile, in all agreed with the 
opinion of his colleagues, and besides re- 
quested, in consequence of the tribunal 
of Valencia having refused to render in to 
him an account of the property belonging to 
the Exchequer, when he was there in the 
quality of viceroy, that his Majesty would be 
pleased to give orders that it should be ascer- 
tained, whether or not the Inquisition was 
privileged not to account for such property.* 
Another fact of a similar nature is also men- 
tioned by Solorzano, relating to the tribunal 
of Lima.t 

Although it is true that the occurrences of 
which I have just spoken, by their gravity 
were sufficient to inspire Charles II. with 
the project of efficaciously restraining the 

* This report is brought forward by the proctors of the 
councils of Castile and the Indies, Don Melchor Macanaz 
and Don Martin de Miraval, and inserted in another re- 
port of November 3, ni*, part.!, art, i, 

t Solorzano, Politica Indiana, lib. iv. cap. xxiv. n. 8. 



S18 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

inquisitors, nevertheless the debility and 
ineptitude of this monarch prevented him 
from carrying forward the work he had com- 
menced. The inquisitors were soon made 
acquainted with the contents of the report 
of the junta, and foreseeing the diminution 
their authority would experience if the re- 
form was carried into effect, they availed 
themselves of the favourable opportunity of 
having among the members of the council of 
the Supreme, Father Pedro Matilla, confes- 
sor to the king, whom they prevailed upon 
to mediate with his Majesty in order to sus- 
pend all proceedings ; pledging their word 
to spare him all cause of future displeasure. 

They indeed conducted themselves better 
during the lifetime of Charles II., but as soon 
as he died, which was in 1700, and iri the 
very act of proclaiming his successor Philip 
v., they gave a fresh proof of their vices 
being incorrigible. It happened that the 
municipality of Cordova having made ar- 
rangements to celebrate this ceremony in the 
Alcazar or Moorish castle, where the tribu- 
nal resided, and the people being already 
assembled in the cathedral church to assist at 
the benediction of the royal standard, advices 
were received, that one of the inquisitors. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. Sl9 

during the sickness of his other companions, 
had given orders for a canopy to be erected 
for him. The bishop and cardinal, Father 
Pedro de Salazar, unable to brook so public 
and shameful a contempt of his authority, 
ordered another canopy to be also erected 
for himself. The mayor as well as the muni- 
cipality were equally opposed to such an 
encroachment, and besought both the bishop 
and the inquisitor in the most courteous 
manner to give orders for the removal of the 
canopies, and to assist at the ceremony in 
the usual manner. The first instantly yielded, 
but the second did not, whereby it became 
necessary to transfer the theatre of the pro- 
clamation from the castle to the main square. 
As a punishment for this rashness, and from 
a sense of the danger to which public tran- 
quillity had been exposed at a time when this 
was more than ever necessary, the govern- 
mental junta of the monarchy banished the 
inquisitor from the realm.* 

The same Inquisition of Cordova in the 
year 1712 excommunicated the mayor and 
aldermen of the above city for having ex- 
cluded from the municipality Don Diego 

* The said proctors Macanaz and Miraval, in the afore- 
said report, part i. art. ii. 



S20 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

Perez de Guzman, lieutenant of the high 
bailiff of the tribunal j who, contrary to the 
royal ordinance, never assisted unless when 
some emolument was to be had. In punish- 
ment of this rash act the king, on a consul- 
tation held with the Councilof Castile, ordered 
that the oldest inquisitor should appear at 
court, and that the council should call up 
Perez de Guzman, in order that both might 
receive a strong reprehension.* 

About the same time the tribunal of the 
Canaries, seeking to compel the chapter, in 
consequence of the canonry the Inquisition 
enjoys in all cathedral and collegiate churches, 
to render in an account of the revenue of the 
church as well as its disbursement, proceeded 
to fulminate censures against it. The Council 
of Castile on the 23d of August, 1713, con- 
sulted the king on this violent mode of pro- 
ceeding, and his Majesty ordered the inqui- 
sitors and proctor to appear in Madrid, and 
the affair ended in their being deprived of 
their employments. He likewise reproved 
the Inquisitor General, because, in addition 
to his having manifested a want of submission 
to the royal decrees by a thousand studied 
delays, he had threatened the commissioner 
* The said proctors, Macanaz and Miraval, &c» 



GHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 321 

of the chapter for no other reason than his 
having printed the memorial in which he had 
laid before the king the conduct of the tri- 
bunal of the Canaries.* 

In the following year of 1714, owing to a 
consultation held by the Council of the Indies, 
respecting the inquisitors of Lima taking away 
the administration of certain fixed property 
in arrears to the royal treasury, from the 
person charged therewith by the board of ac- 
counts, on a plea that the owner of the same 
was likewise indebted to the Inquisition, the 
king ordered Don Melchor de Macanaz, 
proctor of the Council of Castile, together 
with Don Martin de Miraval, proctor of that 
of the Indies, to draw up a comprehensive 
exposition of all the points on which the tri- 
bunal ought to be reformed ; which they did, 
and laid it before the king on the 3d of No- 
vember in the same year. In it they quote the 
substance of various consultations held on the 
same subject in the course of that reign as 
well as in the preceding one, such as that 
lately referred to, drawn up by twelve minis- 
ters chosen from all the councils ; two others 
instituted by the Council of Castile; and 
another by that of the Inquisition, in conse- 
* The said proctors, Macanaz, &c. 

VOL. U, Y 



^9^ INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

quence of the disputes which took place 
between the latter and the Inquisitor General 
Mendoza respecting the persecution of Father 
Froilan Diaz. They also allude to the pro- 
hibition of the report of proctor Macanaz on 
the subject of royal prerogatives enacted by 
Cardinal de Judice, and propose the reform 
of the tribunal on fifteen points, of which the 
following are the most material : 

First, that the culprits should be allowed 
a regular appeal, not only in causes relating 
to temporal matters, as proposed by the mi- 
nisters named by Charles II., but also in those 
connected with crimes against the faith. The 
proctors observe, in explaining the motives 
of this part of their opinion, that " although 
the ministers of the aforesaid celebrated 
Junta excluded the latter causes (of the faith) 
altogether, the proctors of your Majesty would 
be happy to follow them in this, and they 
would do it if they were not sensible that the 
ministers of the Inquisition were men liable 
to err ; if they did not notice that the things 
which are not of the fliith are by them treated 
in a different manner to those which are ; if 
these ministers were more learned, expe- 
rienced, and cautious, than those whom your 
Majesty employs in your royal tribunals j if 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION tJNMASKED. 323 

the sad experience of more than 160 years had 
not proved that generally there is more pre- 
judice and vanity than charity and knowledge 
in not a few of its ministers ; in short, if 
these appeals in matters of the faith in the 
king's tribunals were new and never before 
practised j but they consider this recourse is 
of such a nature that, if it were entirely taken 
away, it would be totally to deprive the vas- 
sals of your Majesty of their natural rights, 
and your Majesty of the most precious stone 
that adorns your crown.'* 

The second point was, that a scale of ap- 
peals should be established, which the said 
proctors uphold on the grounds of the diffi- 
culty of judging aright, as well as the greater 
moment attached to the causes of the Inqui- 
sition compared with those of other tribunals. 
The third, that on no pretext whatever the 
two counsellors of Castile named for this 
purpose should fail to assist at the Council 
of the Supreme, and that the latter should 
not omit calling them ; and that besides one 
of his Majesty's secretaries should assist, in. 
order to render in to him an account of 
all therein transacted ; and that, moreover, 
ip the provincial tribunals two members of 
the high courts of justice, or chanceries, 

Y2 



524 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI^ 

should attend for the same purposes. Fourth, 
that the offices should be given away by the 
king, and not by the Inquisitor General. On 
this subject the proctors say, " The Inquisi- 
tors General with absolute authority have 
placed in these offices whatever persons they 
have thought fit, and not unfrequently with- 
out any other merit than favour; when as 
these people consider themselves the work 
of the Inquisitor General, and from him 
alone expect their promotions, in order to 
ingratiate themselves with him, they do not 
care whether justice goes on well or ill ad- 
ministered, or if the royal prerogatives and 
jurisdiction, as well as the vassals of your 
Majesty, are trampled upon ; whereas it is 
certain that, if they were to see that their 
promotions depended on your Majesty, they 
would live under greater vigilance, and avoid 
'JL multitude of scandals they now occasion." 

Fifth, that the Inquisition should not be 
nllowed to prohibit any book without the 
king's permission ; and that an examination 
should be made for the purpose of restoring 
such propositions relating to royal preroga- 
tives as had been commanded to be erased 
from the works of Bobadilla and other au- 
thors; and that, on the contrary, tliose 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. S25 

writings should be called in which, in detri. 
ment to the civil authorities, attribute to the 
tribunal and the see of Rome rights which 
by no means belong to them. In the intro- 
duction to this report Macanaz brings forward 
a piece of information which I consider de- 
serving of the greatest attention. In it he thus 
expresses himself to the king : " By virtue 
of the orders your Majesty was pleased to give 
me, I have caused the archives of this court 
and of Simancas to be examined, and, not 
confiding this trust altogether to others, I 
have myself frequently visited them. And 
having, to my great regret, found many 
ancient as well as modern reports conducive 
to the object in view, — to the end that they 
may not be mislaid, as happens with innume- 
rable others of the greatest importance, and 
of which nothing now remains but the bitter 
regret of their being marked down in the 
register books, without its having been pos- 
sible to discover what had become of them, 
or to obtain any other information respecting 
them, except that the pope*s nuncios, on the 
one hand, and ministers of the Inquisition, 
on the other, had carried them away, — it has 
appeared to us proper to include them in the 
present report, leaving the originals iji th« 



326 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

archives of the council, to the end that here- 
after, if the copies are mislaid, the latter may- 
be preserved, and such precious monuments 
not be totally lost." 

From this testimony it appears that the 
tribunal of the Inquisition, and with it the 
envoys of Rome, at all times on the alert 
how to consolidate ecclesiastical despotism, 
not only gagged the mouths of the people 
by prohibiting all writings and conversation 
that might unveil their usurpations, but also 
did, or at least attempted to, secure all the 
avenues that might lead to the discovery of 
their deceit ; to the end that the children, 
being unable by any means to reach the dis- 
closure of the truth, might fall into the same 
delusion as their fathers, and the error be 
thus perpetuated.* 

* The aforesaid Report of the Proctors of Castile atid 
the Indies, relating to matters of the Inquisition, art. i. ii. 
iii. From this MS., or a copy of it, the author of the 
French work, entitled " Essai sur I'Espagne," being the 
details of a journey there in 1777 and 1778, obtained all 
the information he brings forward respecting the report 
of the year 1696, in speaking of the Inquisition. The 
MS. is divided into two parts. The first contains the most 
remarkable cases of controversies which have occurred 
on the part of the tribunal, and includes various reports, 
«mong which is the one already quoted of the year 1714. 



CHAP. Vi.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 327 

In the preceding chapter we took occasion 
to notice that Pope Benedict XIV., at the 
request of the Augustine order, transmitted 
an injunction to the Spanish Inquisition, or- 
dering that the works of Cardinal de Norris 
should be expunged from the index of pro- 
hibited books for the year 1747, which, for 
the purpose of temporizing with the Jesuits, 
it had therein included ; conveying to it at 
the same time a severe reprehension. In the 
year 1761 the Council of Castile also con- 
sulted Charles III. respecting the publication 
of the Catechism of Mesangui, in the perusal 
of which this monarch took great delight. 
On entering into the examination of the au- 
thority of government over books, the mem- 
bers observe that Phihp II., notwithstanding 

The secoiid is a treatise on royal privileges, in which 
mention is made of the ambitious attempts of the court of 
Rome. The title therefore of the work of Macanaz mast 
have been the following : " Defence of the Royal Prero- 
gatives against the Attacks of the Inquisition and of the 
Court of Rome." The works of this writer opened the 
way to such men as Campomanes and Jovellanos ; and 
it cannot be denied, that to him, in a great measure, is 
owing the learning we now enjoy among us ; although at 
the same time it must be confessed that his style and me- 
thod, as well as some of his opinions, unavoidably savour 
of the backwardness of the 17th century, at the latter part 
of which he was born. 



528 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI, 

the veneration he professed for the Council 
of Trent, did not admit its index of prohi- 
bited books into the Low Countries, excepting 
as far as related to the writings of heresiarchs; 
and on similar grounds, when the same was 
published in Spain in the year 1570, he left 
out many works which he declared might be 
read. It further adds that the same took place 
with the index of prohibited books for 1601, 
from which Philip III. erased various works, 
and consented to their being read. The coun- 
cil then takes a glance at past times; and, by 
means of examples, proves the arbitrary con- 
duct of the tribunal, laying considerable stress 
on the extravagant report which, in the year 
1642, the Council of the Supreme presented 
in answer to a consultation of the Council of 
Castile promoted by the king's orders, and 
relating to a question of competition which 
had arisen between the Inquisition and crimi- 
nal court of Valladolid. In this document 
the Inquisition pretended to have discovered 
three ill-sounding propositions, viz. its being 
asserted that its jurisdiction in civil causes 
was purely royal; that it was precarious ; and 
that the inquisitors could not defend it by 
means of censures. 

At sight of this the council exclaims, " Such 
i 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 329 

boldness is astonishing, and by no means con- 
formable to right ; it is even impossible not 
to discover the benignity of Philip IV. in 
thus allowing his sovereignty to be divested 
of the origin, nature, and quality of royal 
jurisdiction, which, without abdicating it,* 
he had conferred on the tribunal of the Holy 
Office ; and that the ardour of the inquisitors 
should extend so far as to expose the pro- 
positions of the Supreme Senate of Justice to 
the examination of qualificators on an occa- 
sion when, in fulfilment of the confidence it 
had merited from his piety, it represented to 
him with Christian zeal what was considered 
most conducive to the service of God and of 
his Majesty. If, under such circumstances, so 
high a court is not exempt from the vexation 
of having its propositions criticised as being 
little conformable to reason and religion, with 
what confidence can an individual author 
exercise his talents in defence of the sove- 
reign's rights ?*' 

In speaking of the decisions which the 
Inquisition has been in the habit of giving 
respecting works, the same report observes, 
" The censure of books depends on the in- 
telligence and opinion of the qualificators; 
s^nd, as these in general are religious persons, 



530 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. ▼!. 

by which is meant devout and disregardful of 
worldly objects, from their profession they 
adhere to the Gospel rule of that being 
given to God which belongs to God ; but 
they are not so careful with regard to the 
second part, of that being given to Caesar 
which is Caesar*s." 

Thus did these ministers exert themselves 
in dehneating the unjust prohibitions of the 
tribunal, more to give vent to the feelings of 
their own hearts and persuade the king of 
the necessity of a reform, than to comply 
with the commission he had given them, 
simply intended to have their report respect- 
ing the outrage committed by the Inquisitor 
General and archbishop of Pharsalia, Don 
Manuel Quintano Bonifaz, and his council, 
in publishing the Roman brief which prohi- 
bited the aforesaid catechism, without per- 
mission from his Majesty. The consequences 
of this affair were, that the said inquisitor was 
banished twelve leagues from court and the 
royal residences, although he was afterwards 
restored to the king's favour and re-instated 
in his office, in consequence of having con- 
sented to ask pardon. Don Juan Curiel and 
Don Pedro Samaniego, counsellors of Castile, 
were also deprived of the places they held in 

4- 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 331 

the Council of tlie Supreme, and other per- 
sons were named in heu of them.* 

In the same year, 1714, Cardinal Judice, In- 
quisitor General, and acting as extraordinary- 
ambassador at Paris, issued an edict, which 
our Council of the Supreme afterwards pub- 
lished, whereby he prohibited the works which 
William and John Barclay, father and son, 
a» well as Mr. Talon, advocate of the Paris 
parliament, had written in defence of the 
royal prerogatives ; and, together with them, 
what had also been penned by Macanaz for 
the same purpose. Louis XIV., being in- 
formed of this circumstance, sent a message 
to the cardinal, telling him not to appear 
again at his court ; and at the same time 
demanding satisfaction of his grandson, Phihp 
v., for the offence committed. Our monarch 
on his part, and before he had received the 
complaint from France, after hearing the 
opinion of various divines, commanded the 
above council to suspend the publication of 

* Report of the Council of Castile, in October 1T61, 
(the day is uot expressed) respecting the Edict of the 
Inquisition which prohibits, in the Italian language, the 
Catechism entitled Exposicion de la Doctrina o Instruc- 
cion sobre las Principales Verdades de la Religioo. This 
ii a MS. paper. 



SS2 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VL 

the edict in those towns in which this had 
not already been done, and report the grounds 
on which it had been issued. The council 
answered, that the edict was framed by its 
superior, and by his orders the same had 
been pubhshed. His Majesty then sent an 
express to Paris, ordering Cardinal Judice 
immediately to return to Spain ; and sending 
off at the same time another express to meet 
him at Bayonne, with orders that he should 
revoke the edict before he entered the king- 
dom, or resign his office and return to Italy, 
or wherever else he might please. The car- 
dinal chose the second alternative; excusing 
himself at the same time, in a letter written 
to one of the king's secretaries, alleging that 
all had been done by the Council of the Su- 
preme without his having the least knowledge 
of the affair. His Majesty read the letter and 
gave it to many persons for perusal, and, 
when coming to the passage which asserted 
that all was the doing of the council, he re- 
peatedly said, the cardinal is wanting to the 
truth. He consequently named a new Inqui- 
sitor General ; but his minister of state and 
great adviser. Cardinal Alberoni, soon after- 
wards to the astonishment of the two courts 
of Madrid and Paris allowed Judice to be re- 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 33$ 

instated in his office, thus wresting from the 
king an order in terms equally as shameful as 
those to which we took occasion to advert when 
speaking of the persecution of Macanaz.* 

The writer, who wishes to follow up the 
fiteps of the Inquisition in its violent and 
despotic conduct, will often be under the 
necessity of ranging the most puerile anec- 
dotes by the side of the most serious and 
important occurrences, since its pride has 
impelled it to neglect no opportunity of med- 
dling in the affairs of others. In the year 
1733 the tribunal of the Canaries, in a dis- 
pute whether the servant of one of the chief 
judges of the High Court of Justice ought or 
ought not to wait till the butcher had served 
one of the inquistors* servants, fulminated forth 
its excommunications against the said judge j 
thus obliging the court of which he was a 
member to step forward in his defence by 
recurring to the king. His Majesty sent for 
the Inquisitor General, enjoining him to see 
that his dependents did not disturb the public 

* Macanaz, Dissertacion Historica que sirve de Ex* 
plicacion a algunos Lugares Obscuros de las Cartas, 
Alegaciones y Apologia que ha dado a luz el Cardenal 
Alberoni. This document m iaserted in the Semanari© 
Erudito, vol. xiik. 



334 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

peace ; and Cardinal de Molina, president 
of the council, issued an order commanding 
the inquisitor who presided over the Canaries* 
tribunal, D. Pedro Ramirez Villalon, to appear 
at court. The latter did not obey, in conse- 
quence of the order not going through the 
ordinary channel; but this pretext only served 
to deJay for awhile his removal from his 
office.* 

The above-mentioned archbishop of Phar- 
salia, unable to brook the restrictions placed 
on his authority to the advantage of public 
knowledge and justice, by the royal decree 
issued in 1768 respecting the prohibition of 
books, and also desirous of promoting its 
reform, gave occasion for the assembling of an 
extraordinary council, attended by twelve 
ministers, among whom were five prelates; 
viz. the archbishops of Burgos and Zaragoza, 
and the bishops of Orihuela, Albarracin, and 
Tarazona; and presided by the Count de 
Aranda and the king's proctors. Counts de 
Canqpomanes and Floridablanca. In this con- 
sultation the ministers clearly point out the 
want of fidelity with which the Inquisitor 
General, quoting the bull of Benedict XIV., 

* D. Jose de Viera y Clavijo, Noticias para la Historia 
General de las Islas Canarias, lib. xv. § xliii. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 335 

" SoUicita et provida," <5'C.y in that part which 
speaks of the hearing to be given to writers, 
suppresses important words, to the end that 
the rights of the latter may appear less cer- 
tain, and the will of the pope, that they maj 
be heard, less efficacious. *= They afterwards 
re-produce various complaints unceasingly 
preferred against the Inquisition, among 
which some of those already quoted are to be 
found. According to its context, this con- 
sultation is also accompanied by two docu- 
ments ; which are, the first remonstrance of 
Palafox to the Inquisitor General, to which 
reference is made in the second document, 
already extracted by me, together with a let- 
ter to the same Palafox, written by the proctor 

* We here copy the words of the bull, adverting that 
those which are not marked with Italics are the words omit- 
ted by the Inquisitor General. " Quod scepe alias summa 
cequitatis et priidenticE ratione ab eadem Congregatione 
( Sancti Officii) fact mnfuisse constat , hoc ctiam in posterum 
ab ea seroari magnopere optanms, ut quando res sit de auctore 
Catholico aliqua nominis, et nierito-rum fama illustriy ejiisque 
opus, demptis demendis, in publicum prodire posse dignosca- 
iuTf- vel auctorem ijjsum sitam causam tueri volentem audiat, 
vel unmn ex consultoribus designet, qui ex officio operis pa- 
trocinium, defensionemque suscipiat." Also instead of tha 
particle et, uniting the two words aquitafis and prudentia, 
he ti-anslated as if the disjunctive vel had there occurred 
ia the text, which considerably debilitates its strength. 



3d^ INQUISITION UlTBfASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

of the tribunal of Mexico, Don Antonio 
Gaviola, who from Tepotzotlan, where for 
having defended the bishop's innocence he 
was then confined, exhorts the bishop cou- 
rageously to continue the enterprise he had 
begun, nor to cease till " the affairs of the In- 
quisition," (these are his own words,) " attain 
the remedy they require, so that the institu- 
tion may be kept for that for which it was 
founded, and its iniquitous ministers no longer 
avail themselves of it for the purposes of re- 
venge, as has been seen by the people in so 
scandalous a manner in the present circum- 
stances, as well as by him the said proctor in 
other most weighty matters." 

One of the reasons alleged by the Inqui- 
sitor General for the modification of the above 
royal order was, that the subjection of his 
council to that of Castile, by rendering its 
permit necessary to all edicts, might give 
to understand that his Majesty had not the 
greatest confidence in the Holy Office. The 
ministers answer this objection by these 
words : " The Inquisitor General ought to 
lay aside his apprehensions of any discredit 
arising to the ministers of the Inquisition 
from the circumstance of the previous per- 
mit, and f?x his attention and known judg- 



CHAP. Vt.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. S8^ 

hieht on other points, in order to destroy 
any hold on the part of the ill-intentioned 
with regard to the transactions of the Holy 
Office. The king's proctors, in the various 
documents they have collected in the archives 
of the council, as \Vell as in other quarters, 
have observed the folly of the Inquisition's 
competitions and strenuous disputes with 
bishops and chapters, high courts of justice 
ind chanceries, mayors, intendants, munici- 
palities, and all kinds of persons and tri- 
bunals of justice and finance, relating to 
matters of the most foreign nature. They 
have repeatedly seen royal decrees and re^ 
ports of the council, of juntas possessed of 
high authority, and of weighty persons, res- 
pecting the regulation of these points and the 
restraining of so many differences. In these 
more important matters the most reverend 
Archbishop and Inquisitor may justly employ 
his zeal by promoting with his Majesty every 
thing that may conduce to the desired end 
of fixing limits and establishing rules which 
may do aivay with discussions, leave time to 
the Holy Office to devote itself to the ob- 
jects of its institution, and preserve it from 
a great deal of perplexity and trouble. Au- 

VOL. II. X 



INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI, 

^hoiities, when temperate and acting by rule, 
^re permanent and beloved.'* 

The report concludes in this manner : 
" ^Notwithstanding your Majesty's proctors 
are sensible of the above, they nevertheless 
abstain from proposing any thing relating to 
other matters than the one immediately ad- 
dressed to tlie extraordinary council ; but if 
your Mjjjesty should think proper for any 
thing more : to be taken into consideration, 
they will not fail to contribute by their 
labours to what may best promote the service 
of your Majesty, and accord with the public 
good and the decorum of the Holy Office." 
The same men, speaking of the excesses com- 
mitted by the tribunal of Carthagena d^ 
Indias against the bishop of that place, fur- 
ther observe, that they had derived their 
information on that subject from the register 
of the pope's bulls; for, although it is true that 
two biiefs of his Holiness were transmitted for 
consideration to the council, together with 
royal orders on the 9th of November, 1687, 
and the 9th of March, 1688, neither the con- 
sulfation relating thereto, nor the issue of the 
causes, was to be found in the archives. It i^ 
presumable that these very documents wer^ 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 339 

iamong the number of those which Macanaz 
affirms had disappeared through the manage- 
ment of the inquisitors.* 

In 1772 the cathedral chapter of Toledo 
in its own name, as well as in that of the 
other ecclesiastical chapters of the kingdom, 
laid a remonstrance before Charles III. 
through the medium of the secretary of 
grace and justice, Don Manuel Roda, ex- 
hibiting the great detriment arising to 
churches from the excessive number of pre- 
bends depending on the Inquisition, and 
exempt from personal service by virtue of a 
privilege granted to the tribunal. In it, 
among other things, the chapter says as fol- 
lows : " By the exemption enjoyed by 
persons belonging to the Holy Office, the 
churches are deprived of their assistance, the 
other ministers are overburdened, the pre- 
lates are divested of this aid, and the regular 
order established in each church is over- 
turned ; in addition to which it also happens 
that a canonry is left annexed to the same 
Holy Office which ought to fall to the rest, 
according to the principle of their foundation. 

* Report laid before his Majesty on the 30th of Nov, 
1768, by the lords of the extraordinary council and pre-f 
lates holding vote therein. MS. already quoted. 
Z 2 



340 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. Vl. 

These just reflections have been the cause 
that, from the time its ministers obtained the 
first grant to earn the fruits of their prebends 
and residentiary benefices during their ab- 
sence, the holy churches have not ceased to 
address their humble remonstrances for the 
same to be annulled or moderated, without 
having been able to obtain any thing more 
than trifling limitations; the council of the In- 
quisition declaring in the year 1709, that in 
the metropolitan, cathedral, and collegiate 
churches, the ministers were to be considered 
as present during the whole of the time they 
were busied in matters belonging to the Holy 
Office."* Extremely serious were the com- 
plaints which the chapter of Toledo thus 
affirms to have been lodged against this pri- 
vilege, and against the manner in which it 
was abused. Among others is one presented 
by the bishop of Charcas, Don Gaspar de 
Villaroel, in the 16th century.t Hence also 
undoubtedly arose the custom prevalent in 
most churches of obliging all those who 

* Carta del cabildo de la catedral de Toledo al de Cor-' 
doba, incluyendo copia de una representacion a S. M. 
ftobre la exenclon de residencia de los tnlnistros de la lu- 
quisicion. MS. 

+ Vide his work, Gobierno Eclesiastico.. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 34 1 

♦ obtain official canonries to swear, on taking 
possession, that they wiil accept no office 
under the tribunal. 

Finally, in 1797, the Inquisition of Granada 
scandalously trampled on the authority of 
the archbishop ; and in order to do this with 
more freedom and effijct, its members availed 
themselves of an opportunity when he was 
absent on a visit to his diocese. The Coun- 
cil of the Supreme had issued an edict in the 
year 1781, ordering that in the convents of 
nuns all confessionals should be taken away 
which were not within the compass of the 
church. This measure, as it exceeded the 
faculties of the tribunal, was one of its attacks 
on the episcopal dignity; nevertheless the 
bishops were silent , either from motives of 
indolence or fear, and the order was complied 
with in nearly all the dioceses of the king- 
dom. The monastery of St. Paula of Gra- 
nada, subject to the immediate jurisdiction 
of the archbishop, omitted to comply with 
the order, and notwithstanding sixteen years 
had elapsed since the edict had been pro- 
mulgated, the inquisitors, without giving any 
notice of the step they were about to take, 
and as in common politeness they were 
bound to do, sent bricklayers who, enterino^ 



342 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

into the cloister, walled up a confessional 
comprehended in the above order. The 
bishop's coadjutor, Don Francisco Perez de 
Qiiinones, and dean of the metropolitan 
church, had recourse to the king through the 
medium of the secretary of state, an oflice 
at that time filled by Don Caspar Melchor 
de Jovellanos, stating the insult done to the 
jurisdiction of which he was the administra- 
tor, and at the same time pointing out the 
maxims adopted by the Inquisition, not only 
against the authority of the diocesan bishops, 
but also against that of the monarchs them- 
selves ; and his Majesty having ordered that 
report should be made on the contents of 
the representation, by Don Antonio Tavira, 
then bishop of Osmaand afterwards of Sala- 
manca, and a prelate well-known for his piety 
and learning, among other things he states 
the following : 

" I have reflected on the case before me ; 
and find that, if we were to decide on the 
custom and habit in which the tribunal 
actually stands of doing by its own authority 
these and similar acts, nay even others of 
much greater moment, without the consent 
or previous knowledge of the diocesan 
bishops, it might appear that the Inquisition 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNM A SKEJi^.''^ • ^4^ 

' of Granada had not exceeded its bounds ift 
shutting up the confessional in (Question. 
Scarcely can a diocese be found in which no 
examples of similar acts are to be i¥iet with, 
and perhaps there is not one of previous in- 
formation having been given to the bishop or 
his vicar-general ; and the objection and 
appeal of the dean of Granada might more- 
over appear strange, when all the prelates are 
silent and endure these proceedings. But 
rather I am astonished at this silence and 
toleration in persons who cannot be easily 
excused, and consider that the enlightened 
zeal of the dean, as well as his firmness, is de- 
serving of the highest praise." Bishop Tavira 
then proceeds to explain the origin of the 
privilege granted to the Inquisition of taking 
cognizance of the crime of solicitation during 
the sacrament of penance, and the terms under 
which it was granted, and uses the following 
words : " It would be a manifest outrage on 
the part of the inquisitors to intrude them- 
selves into a judgment respecting the qualifi- 
cations and fitness of confessors, and is it not 
so to fix the situation and place of con- 
fessionals ? If the tribunal found, from the 
proceedings of any cause instituted before i<>, 
that room had been given for wicked prac- 
6 



344 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI, 

tices, it ought to forward a formal letter to 
the diocesan bishop, that he might take the 
proper precautions, and then it would bp 
said that a just correspondence was kept up 
between the two jurisdictions. 

" Most grievous evils," he adds, " have 
always existed in the church ; yet how little 
was seen of this crime in ancient times ? 
"VVe may infer its recency frpm that of the 
measures adopted for its punishment : it is 
little more thai? two hundred years since the 
first bull was issued, and others from that time 
have been repeated. It has been punished 
with rigour, yet it has always been on the in- 
crease, and at the present day it is what most 
occupies the tribunals. 1 am well aware that 
from the above period, a certain principle of 
spirituaUty began to introduce itself, before 
unknown, and from it first came inspirations 
and afterwards Molinism, which, under 
various forms, is always springing out again, 
and is promulgated through the medium of 
spiritual direction, covered by the piysterious 
veil of the sacrament of penance. lam also 
sensible that from the same period disorders 
were introduced in consequence pf long and 
endless confessions, which are nevertheless 
repeated almost daily, more especially in th?t 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 345 

convents of nuns, practices unheard of in 
former ages and productive of many evils, 
respecting which prelates ought to be on the 
alert, by prohibiting this great frequency of 
confession, and giving the proper instructions 
for its administration. All this may have 
had an influence on the extension and fre- 
quency of the evil, but perhaps also some 
influence has been derived from the tribunal 
having arrogated to itself the cognizance of 
these causes, which for a variety of reasons I 
am induced to believe." 

He then proceeds to explain these reasons, 
amounting to this, that as the Inquisition, 
according to its own laws, could not proceed 
on the sole information of one person, the 
confessor escaped with impunity who either 
did not repeat his solicitation or only repeated 
it with the same female penitent ; whilst the 
diocesan bishop, by only one notification and 
the antecedents he might have of the conduct 
of the soliciting clergyman together with the 
changes noticed in him, might reprehend 
him with charity and sweetness, and if cir- 
cumstances required it, with severity. Besides, 
as the mere proceedings of the tribunal con- 
v.eyeci a stigma pf character, many of the 



546 iKftUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

solicited females felt a repugnance to lodge 
information, and even to give their new con- 
fessor permission so to do ; which is not to 
be wondered at, if we reflect that it is neces- 
sary to receive a judicial declaration from 
the person denouncing. And how would it 
be possible for such a female, whether mar- 
ried or single, secular or under religious 
orders, to prevent this from coming to the 
knowledge of the persons with whom she 
lived, or on whom she depended ? How 
many suspicions would not also arise respect- 
ing her own conduct ? and how fatal would 
not be the consequences of these suspicions 
to families ? Even when the above-mentioned 
objections could be guarded against, would 
not the natural timidity and weakness of the 
fair sex present insurmountable difficulties to 
a public complaint ? Would not shame alone 
be sufficient to restrain a woman and even 
drive her to despair, rather than permit her 
to take any such measures ? The same pre- 
late affirms that he had proof of similar cases 
not being unfrequent, whicli would be avoided 
if the solicited females were to understand 
that the bishops had many means of correct- 
ing this disorder in a manner consistent with 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 347 

female delicacy, and by proceeding against 
the delinquents paternally and without judi- 
cial publicity. 

Afterwards descanting on the great de- 
cline of the episcopal jurisdiction, in conse- 
quence of the establishment of the Inqui- 
sition, he uses the following words : " These 
tribunals have reduced the co-operation of 
the diocesan bishop to a mere formality, by 
not calling him in till the cause is on the 
point of being sentenced ; by not giving any 
knowledge thereof to the person who attends 
in his place till the moment of voting ; by 
receiving him with a want of decorum, which 
even happens so to the bishop when he assists 
in person, for which reason all of them justly 
excuse themselves. The bishops are thereby 
deprived of the means of passing their cen- 
sure or approbation on doctrines, and this 
power which they received from divine insti- 
tution, has thus passed over to these new 
judges, who cannot be competent, because 
legal information is not sufficient, and it has 
chiefly been this kind of knowledge that has 
sufficed to obtain the above offices. Whence 
as far as regards the principal object of their 
institution, which is to discern what belongs 



54S INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

to the faith, it may be said they are no other 
than lay judges, since they are unable 
to object to the opinion of the qualificators, 
and these are most generally, as is well 
known, persons of little knowledge and 
filled with prejudices and error, who have 
had sufficient money to procure proofs of what 
least imported them in the charge they were 
about to fill. It even appears that the Holy 
Office aimed its weapons at the prelates, in 
order that they might retire through intimi- 
dation and leave the field open to it." 

Bishop Tavira here alludes to the perse- 
cutions some of them had experienced ; and 
in relating that of Carranza he thus expresses 
himself: " This circumstance alone is suffi- 
cient to give to his Majesty a correct idea of 
the predominance, and I will dare to say, cun- 
ning, with which the Inquisition has sought 
to blight the character of those bishops who, 
from that time, beheld in this unfortunate 
personage and his illustrious companions 
what they themselves had to fear, when nei- 
ther his high dignity, his great merits, nor 
his innocence, sufficed to preserve him from 
becoming the victim of a cabal, to the shame 
and dishonour of the whole bishopric, to the 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED'. 34S> 

scandal of the universal church, and not 
without discredit and even a stigma of infamy 
to the Spanish nation." 

Finally, after agreeing with the dean of 
Granada that this tribunal has not unfre- 
quently blemished the supremacy of kings, 
he upholds his remonstrance by reminding 
his Majesty of another, which he himself ad- 
dresse'd against the tribunal of the Canaries, 
when he obtained the latter see, for having 
pretended that his vicar-general ought to 
undergo an examination ; and he insists on 
the necessity of a reform in th« Inquisition, 
either by regulating its judicial mode of 
process acording to that of the other tribu- 
nals, and consequently allowing the practice 
of appeals, by abolishing the inhuman proof 
of the torture, or, finally, by transferring the 
prohibition of books into other hands.* In 
conformity to these ideas of the most illus- 
trious bishop of Osma, minister Jovellanos 
gave him a commission to draw up a plan for 
the tribunal consistent with justice, which 

* Report drawn up in conformity to the orders of hii 
Majesty, by the most illustrioys Don Antonio Tavira y 
Almazan, bishop of Osma, respecting the proceedings of 
the tribunal of tlie Inq-jlsitior. of Granada; This docu- 
ment was lately printed in Seville. 



350 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI^ 

he actually did, but how was it possible to 
suppose that a measure in which our freedom 
and happiness were so much interested, could 
be carried into effect under the vizirship of a 
Godoy ? Not even the petition of the dean 
of Granada was attended to in the manner 
that was expected.* 

* So congenial to the Inquisition has it at all times 
been to act from mere caprice, that even after the new- 
order of things was established, and whilst the tribunal 
\vas suspended, or at least whilst its authority was dubious 
and under apprehensions of total destruction, its members 
have not known how to conduct themselves in a proper 
manner, as is proved by the two following cases, which^ 
if in gravity they cannot be compared with most of those 
already related, arc nevertheless deserving of notice 
under the circumstances in question. Don Estevan 
Manuel dc Elosua, commissary of the Inquisition of Car- 
thagena de Indias, and residing in the Havannah, in 1810 
addressed an official letter to Don Francisco de Araugo, 
honorary counsellor of the Indies, in which he tells him 
that " as women's dresses, as well as all kinds of cloathing 
bearing sacred insignias upon thcm^ were forbidden by the 
diocesan bishop, and an obligation imposed of delivering 
the same up to the Holy Office, it would be necessary to 
take off the lace or fringe with which his servants' liveries 
were garnished, in consequence of its having crosses em- 
broidered upon it." The party concerned endeavoured 
to obtain from the bishop the real meaning of the edict to 
which the commissary referred, and after several letters 
had passed between them, he at length recurred to Car- 
thagena and stated the particulars of the case. The tri- 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 351 

I will close the preceding series of remon- 
strances addressed to superior authorities 

bunal, uniform in its system of fiction end deceit, for the 
purposes of flattery answered him in the most satisfactory 
terms, by disapproving the conduct of the commissary^ 
which Arango considered as a direct permission to use 
his livery, and consequently returned the corresponding 
thanks. However, he was soon afterwards informed by 
hi? brother, an honorary inquisitor, though under the 
greatest secrecy, that a measure diametrically opposed 
to the first had been ordained. Subjoined is the sub- 
stance of the two official notes. First : Letter of the tri- 
bunal to Arango, signed by the secretary, Don Marcos 
Fernandez de Sotomayor, June 20, 1810 : " In confor. 
mity to what your lordship has exhibited to this Holy 
Tribunal against its commissary resident in the Havannah, 
Don Estevan Manuel de Elosua, in memorials with ac-* 
companying documents, dated March 31, and April 15, 
tilt, it was agreed, that the said commissary should no% 
be allowed to make any alterations in the emblems youf 
lordship is in the habit of using in your livery, or in those 
of any other person authorised to wear the same ; alt 
further proceedings in the present case being stopped^ 
since the same have created in the tribunal the greatest 
displeasure, in consequence of their operating not only as 
an abuse of the authority confided to the commissary 
under the cloak of the superior on whom he depends, but 
^Iso as an offence to the distinguished character of youF 
lordship, as well as the high magistracy yqu hold, alj( 
which is this day- notified to the said Dr. Elosua, and 
now communicated to you by order of the tribunal fof 
your information and satisfaction." Second : Official letter 
to Pod Mariano de Af^^gO) honorary inquisitor, sigae(^ 



352 INQUISITION UNMASKEb. [cHAP. Vt 

against the Inquisition, with an extract from 
the abovementioned memorandums, tran^- 

by D. Juan Jose Oderiz, on the 1 1 th of October the same 
year : " I enclose to your lordship an authentic copy of 
the resolution entered into by this tribunal, respecting the 
lace with which your brother Don Francisco garnishes 
the liveries Of his servants, in order that, being duly in- 
formed thereof, with the greatest decorum and secrecy, 
he may make arraVigements so as to substitute in its place 
some other which does not bear the sacred emblem of the 
cross, it being well understood that the said tribunal, ani- 
mnted by its apostolic zeal, and sensible of the obligations 
imposed upon it by the laws and edicts published at vari- 
ous times by the Holy Office and the eleventh rule of the 
index of px'ohibited books, is absolutely bound to prevent 
the scrj'.idal thereby occasioned to pious persons, as well 
as the derision and irreverence which must result from the 
manner the said emblem is used, reasons which gave rise 
to its use being prohibited in other purposes more decenf 
and unexceptionable; due satisfaction has, nevertheless, 
already been given by this tribunal to the party concerned 
on the 20th of J\ine ult. respecting the want' of attention? 
to his high character and representation with which the 
commissary had acted in calling in the lace, an oversight' 
which obliged him to lodge a complaint under date of 
March 31, and April 15, ult." The other case happened 
in Santiago, to Don Felipe Sobrino Taboada, professor' 
of civil law in the university of that place, and who 
afterwards appealed to the Cortes. When the French- 
occupied the above city, he held the situation of magis- 
trate of police, and signed a proclamation of the director' 
general of the same in which the latter exhorted the Gal- 
licians to lay down their arms, enhancing at the »ame' 

8^ 



* 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. S53 

niitted from the town of Canete by the arch- 
deacon of Cuenca, D. Juan Antonio Rodri- 

time the benefits derived from the decree extinguishing 
the Holy Office as published by his emperor. After the 
evacuation of the French, the university, at the instiga- 
tion of his rivals, refused to readmit him to his professor's 
chair, notwithstanding he had been tried and declared 
free, and his property restored by the Board of Public 
Safety, in Corunna, on the plea that in his difinitive dis- 
charge the restoration of his office was not expressed. 
Toboada having, however, solved this difficulty bj' means 
of a favourable explanation obtained from the said court, 
they denounced him to the Inquisition. Being informed 
of the circumstance he presented himself spontaneously, 
and the result was his detention during five months in the 
secret prisons, without any charge of crime cognizable 
by the tribunal being alledged against him, or for which 
he had not been tried in that of Public Safety, except his 
having approved of the decree of extinction. Leaving 
to one side the innocence or criminality of Taboada, as a 
matter foreign to the question, it is undeniable, that the 
Inquisitors in this case, behaved towards him in an arbi- 
trary manner, by prosecuting him with no other view than 
to uphold the wishes of those who aspired to his professor's 
chair. This is proved by their having proceeded to his 
arrest without previous consultation, notwithstanding he 
was a privileged person ; their having delayed during two 
months to notify to him the motives of his confinement, when 
this ought to have been done at the end of nine days ; by 
having obliged him to close his proceedings without allowing 
him to establish his defence ; by having granted him per- 
mission to return to his own house on his parole to keep 
the same for his prison, and afterwards extended his 
VOL. n. 2 A. 



354 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. Vi. 

gdlvarez to one of his friends, for the pur- 
poses of reference when the present question 
was discussed in the national congress. In 
it some points of information will be noticed, 
which, although interesting, were omitted 
by the authors of the documents previously 
quoted ; and notwithstanding some of the 
expressions he uses may appear too strong, 
they are nevertheless no more than conson- 
ant to his energy and zeal, and by no means 
foreign to the epistolary style. The follow- 
ing are his words : " The inquisitors firmly 
adhering to their principles of subversion and 
despotism, have always pretended to be the 
most privileged ministers of the church, to 
whom servile respect and blind obedience 
were equally due j nor was any one allowed 
to utter a word respecting what they said or 
did under the penalty of being deemed sus- 
picious in his religion. Thus have they car- 
ried forward their whims, whence even in 

bounds to the whole kingdom of Galicia, but enjoining 
him in case he resided in Santiago, to avoid every exte- 
tior act or demeanour that might excite attention, (here 
we have the professor's chair) and by having commanded 
him, without previous reconciliation and contrary to the 
instructions and practice of the tribunal, to comply with 
the Easter precept. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 355 

the present day, both prelates and chapters 
have been compelled to silence, not to expose 
themselves to outrages, since they were fully 
sensible that sooner or later vengeance would 
be hurled against them. In the year 1801, 
the bishop of Cuenca instituted a suit against 
the devotee Maria Isabel Erraiz, and other 
culprits who were ecclesiastics, when he was 
compelled to hand over the original proceed- 
ings to the Inquisition, which judged and 
punished the offenders with much less impar- 
tiality and success than the bishop would 
have done. The woman died in prison, but 
V/hat was the occasion of her death is known 
to God alone and the Inquisition. Infinite 
have been the appeals which the churches 
have made to the king's council respecting 
the non-residence of persons employed in the 
tribunal, but the council has abstained from 
giving' its decision, undoubtedly from a dread 
of seeing its own ministers trampled upon. 
And if this happens with bishops and the 
most respectable bodies, what is there a pri- 
vate individual has not to fear ? 

It really excites astonishment to behold 

the diabolical condescension with which the 

Inquisition acted in the time of Philip IV. 

towards his prime minister, the Duke de 

2 A 2 



356 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

Olivarcs ; a condescension something similar 
to that which in our own days it has observed 
towards another prime minister. Many of 
the crimes which in part it allowed, and in 
part committed, may be read in the manu- 
script cause of Dr. John Espina, and these 
are the bigamy of the successor of the Duke*s 
house, who in Madrid was called the man of 
two names, the son of two fathers, and the 
husband of two wives ; its not liaving pun- 
ished him for his crimes towards the nuns of 
St. Placidus, in whose blood he imbrued his 
hands ; neither for his receiving communion 
every eight days in the imperial college (be- 
longing to the Jesuits) with an unconsecrated 
host ; for having winked at his connexion with 
a woman, as it was said, sold to the devil, 
whom the Duke consulted respecting the mi- 
litary operations of Holland, and through 
whose influence he omitted to garrison the 
fortress of jMaestricht, taken by the allies ; 
and finally for persecuting, at the Duke's re- 
quest, the abovementioned Dr. Espina, trans- 
ferring him from prison to prison till at length 
he died in that of Cuenca. As ignorance 
daily became more general in Spain, no other 
than supernatural effects were to be seen in 
the epilepsies of men and the hysterics of 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 357 

women. Under its influence, as well as 
through the effects of intrigue, the Inquisitor 
General, Rocaberti, as well as the privy 
counsellor Diaz, by their charms and spells 
completely ruined the health of Charles II., 
and thus extinguished his dynasty in him ; 
nay little was wanting for the whole nation, 
already reduced through the tribunal as well 
as through bad goverment, to only 5,000,000 
souls, to consist of nothing but magicians 
and demoniacs." 

" [t would not have been possible," he adds, 
" for the inquisitors to have maintained them- 
selves in their offices, as well as in the enjoy- 
ment of so many privileges, if they had not 
cherished common ignorance as well as the 
corruption of manners. This is not to say 
that in all times learned men were wanting 
in the kingdom, but they have been compelled 
to hold no intercourse but among themselves 
and as it were by stealth. Cardinal Ximenez 
required the possession of another kind of 
virtue and policy, not to patronize an esta- 
blishment inimical to learning and science, at 
the same time he was cherishing their growth. 
From the moment this institution reared its 
head, it woul^ have been destroyed by the 
popes or mOnarchs, if both had not rather 

8 



359 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CH^P. VI. 

wished to experience temporary displeasure 
than be deprived of lasting satisfaction. — 
Little does he know of our history, or little 
has he to thank his own judgment, who 
doubts that the Inquisition har- been tlie 
most powerful and sure arm in the hands of 
despots. Philip II., by promoting the death 
of his own son, and persecuting Carranza^ 
and Antonio Perez, would have appeared 
what he really was, a ferocious and bloody 
monster, if this tribunal had not covered him 
with its cloak. In a word, both princes and 
prime ministers according to the saying of 
a minister of Charles III., have always had 
in it a bull dog to let loose with impunity on 
every one they could not otherwise get into 
their own hands ; nevertheless they have 
been the greatest losers, since by tyrannizing 
over every thing they have lost all. The 
house of Austria especially ought to be pun- 
ished and never again suffered to reign in 
Spain, for having upheld by an unlimited au- 
thority tlie most infamous of tribunals."* 

* It has not been in my pov.er to see the MS. referred 
to by Dean Rollrigalvarez, notwithstanding he affirms it 
is by no means scarce. Dr. Espina seems to have had pro- 
ceedings instituted against him on the score of witchcraft, 
»t least as far as can be inferred from the idea conveyed 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 359 

So far Dean Rodrigalvarez. The above- 
mentioned Duke de Olivares, at whose insti- 
gation Dr. Espina was persecuted by the In- 
quisition, also ordered the poet Francisco de 
Quevedo to be confined in a dungeon, for a 
memorial in verse he addressed to Philip IV., 
or which at least was atributed to him, 
wherein he depicted the deplorable state in 
which the monarchy stood, owing to the mis- 
conduct of the prime minister ; so that 
among us he who has dared to speak of 
abuses, if he has not suffered from inquisito- 
rial, has at least from ministerial despotism. 

Such as I have just delineated, has been 
the regular succession of complaints and re- 
monstrances to which the Inquisition has 
given room by its arbitrary conduct, evinced 
from the time of its establishment in Seville 
up to our own days. I am well aware that, 
conformably to my original plan, I ought 
to present examples of a similar nature in the 
tribunals of Italy and Portugal ; but such 
an exposition could not fail to be long, and 

by the two cotemporary writers, Luis Velez de Guevara in 
his novel, cap. vii. and Philip IV. in his two comedies en- 
titled D. Juan de Espina en su Patria, and D. Juan de 
Espina en Milan; if those are his which, as the title an- 
nounces, were written by one of the wits of the colirt, 
among which these two arc enumerated. 



360 INQUISITION UNMASKED, [cHAP. VI. 

would be tedious to my readers, without fur- 
nishing them with any more positive infor- 
mation respecting the proposition I offered 
to demonstrate, and which I conceive I have 
already amply done. In like manner as the 
Inquisition among us, in power and authority 
has surpassed those of other countries, so 
also has it exceeded them in the abuse of 
this authority ; consequently, it would not 
only be tiresome, but likewise useless, to seek 
out its weaker shadow among foreigners, when 
its exact reality exists among ourselves.* 
Confining myself to Spain, were I desirous 
of pressing this matter still further, to the 
above wrongs I could add many others proved 
by similar documents. Speaking of Cortes 
and agreements entered into with the tribu- 
nal, I could quote those of the years 1580, 
1582, 1597, 1610, 1631, 1635, 1706, and 
1713; in reference to consultations held by 
the Council of Castile with the king, I could 
produce those of 1634, 1669, 1682, and 1770, 
as likewise on speaking of the appeals to 

♦ With regard to Italy, vide the work entitled " Fatti 
attenanti all'Inquisizione e sua istoria generale et particu- 
lare di Toscana," towards the end ; and respecting Por- 
tugal, those entitled " Relation de 1' Inquisicion de Goa, 
cap. xxxviii." by Dellon. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 361 

Rome, I could bring forward a variety of them, 
especially from the year 1482 to 1 508 ; I might, 
in short, produce several royal decrees issued 
during the reigns of Philip II., III., and IV., 
of Charles II., Philip V., Ferdinand VI., and 
of Charles III., all of them intended to re- 
strain the inquisitors and reform the system 
of their institution, but I have ahead v been 
extremely diffuse, and further additions would 
not materially promote the main object in 
view. For this reason I shall content myself 
with a few observations, which will serve to 
throw greater light on the point more imme- 
diately under discussion. 

The first observation I have to make is, 
that, among the multitude of complainants 
who have stepped forward against the Inqui- 
sition, not one is to be found who has hit on 
the true cause of the evil, which is secrecy, 
if we except certain private individuals and 
some of the Cortes held prior to the year 
1521, and even these went no further than 
to solicit that certain restrictions should be 
imposed in this particular ; much less has 
any one attempted to manifest its discordance 
with the Gospel and the ancient discipline of 
the Church, unless it is Fernando del Pulgar 
and some others of the same way of thinking, 



562 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP, VI. 

who opposed its introduction into Castile. 
On the contrary the King's Council itself 
which had so frequently declaimed against 
the evil conduct of the inquisitors, and peti- 
tioned Charles V. during the sitting of the 
Council of Trent, to obtain from the pope the 
reform of various abuses introduced into Spain 
by the court of Rome, even went so far as 
to solicit that the powers of'the Inquisition 
should in no way be curtailed, not adverting 
that the chief of all these abuses was the 
concession of these same faculties.* 

The reason of the erroneous opinions 
formed of the tribunal is no other than the 
terror inspired by the name of the Inquisi- 
tion, owing to which no one, if I may be 
allowed the expression, dared to look it in 
the face ; as well as the deference of those ages 
to the Roman See, a deference in great mea- 
sure occasioned by the doctrines of Thomas 
Aquinas, which had almost exclusively predo- 
minated in the schools. Would it be possible 
to conceive an opinion more singular than 
that society ought to perish, ratlier than a 

• M. Le Vassor, Lettres et rvlemoires de Francois dc 
Vargas, de Pierre de Malvenda, et de quelques Evtquc? 
d' Espagne touchant le Concile de Trent. Note to h\f. 
letter of October 2S, 1 55 1 . 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 363 

single friar should have his renunciation of 
matrimony dispensed with ? Nevertheless a 
decretal, perhaps wrongly understood, was 
sufficient for this opinion to be defended by 
the commentator on the political works of 
Aristotle, causing him not only to forget the 
principles of public law, but, also, (contrary to 
the usual temper of his mind) to treat the ca- 
nonists who were of a different opinion as ig- 
norant men. Consequently we ought not to 
be astonished that our ancestors, even those 
who had been persecuted by the Inquisition, 
should only have reproved it by halves, when 
in order to deceive them the more the very 
laws of the realm concurred, laws sustained 
by an irresistible force, as well as by the preju- 
dices of education not easily overcome. 

The second observation that occurs to me 
relates to the unceasing outrages the bishops 
have experienced on the part of this tribunal. 
That it should have committed a thousand 
excesses against the civil authorities is not so 
much to be wondered at, if we consider the 
pontifical and royal character with which it 
is invested, and also the extraordinary privi- 
leges by which it has been distinguished, uni- 
formly tending to inspire it with an arrogant 
pride equal to the ascendency it enjoyed over 
6 



364 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

the other tribunals ; but that, whilst it pro- 
claimed itself the coadjutor of the pastoral 
ministry, it should have invaded the jurisdic- 
tion of bishops and trampled upon their per- 
sons, is an enigma extremely difficult to ex- 
plain. Nevertheless, methinks I faintly dis- 
cover the reasons of so strange a proceeding. 
The popes of the 13th century judged it 
necessary to palliate an establishment which 
totally overturned the sacerdotal hierarchy, 
and no other pica occurred to them than that 
of providing a remedy against the negligence 
they supposed to exist in the prelates. This 
was the reason on which they laid the great- 
est stress, as is ingenuously confessed, or 
rather vociferated, by the practical authoi^ 
on the tribunal ; whence the institution was 
founded under the supposition that the bi- 
shops, either through ignorance or omission, 
did not then and would not hereafter comply 
with their obligations. How therefore can 
it appear astonishing that the inquisitors 
should have treated them with so little regard, 
when their very institution had for its basis 
the wilful degradation of the bishops, and the 
complete debasement of the pastoral charge ? 
Indeed the little consideration with which 
the Roman See has always treated the epis- 



CHAP. Vr.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 365 

copal order in matters relating to the Inqui- 
sition, is evinced by the ridiculous character 
in which the diocesan bishops appeared dur- 
ing the few short moments they took their 
seat therein, as well as by other regulations, 
all of which were directed and ordained to de- 
press the bishops still more and raise up the 
inquisitors. What function can be imagined 
more congenial to the shepherd, than that 
of leading away his flock from venomous 
pastures ? Notwithstanding this, the popes 
and inquisitors after inhibiting prelates from 
the exercise of this attribute, assimilate them 
in every thing with the individual members 
of their flock, by pointing out to them the 
books they may read without injury, those 
whose reading they are to avoid, and threat- 
enino; them at the same time with the 
penalty of excommunication. This is the 
meaning of Pefia, when he affirms, that bi- 
shops, as such, without an express or tacit 
privilege from Rome, cannot read prohibited 
books ; and even the same was so declared 
by Pius v., when consulted by some of 
them.* Finally, this doctrine so ignominious 
to the episcopal character, was put in prac- 

* Pefia, Ad Director. Inquisitor, part ii. cap. iv. cora. 
3,-~Delrio, Disquisit. Magicar. lib, v. sect. xvii. 



566 IJjQUISltfON tJN5tASlCED. f CHAP. VI*^ 

tice by Urban VIII. with regard to the 
bishops of Spain, by re\oking from them allj 
even though they were metropolitans, patri- 
archs, or primates, the license for reading 
books of the above description, neither more 
nor less than he did to all seculars, and re- 
taining it solely for the Inquisitor General.* 

* This briLf, dated August 17, 1627, is found at the 
beginning of the index of prohibited books for the year 
1632. Its ^vords are " Omnes et svigulas licentias, €t fa- 
eultates legendi libros hcereticorum, seu de liceresi suspectos 
a Romanis Poniificibiis prcedccessoribus nosttisy seu a nobis, 
vel generali hceretkce pravitatis in regnis Hispaniarum 
deputato Inqrusitorc damnatos d reprobntos, quibuscumque 
tarn clericis scecularibus vel rcgidaribics quam laicis in dictis 
regnis degentib^ts, cttjuscuniqiie illi stabcs, gradus, ordinis, 
conditionisf et prcceminenticc existant, etiamsi Abbatia, 
Episcopalif Archiepiscopali, Patriarchali, primaticdi, aui 
alia Ecclesiasiica dignitate, vel mundana, etiam marchionali 
vel ducali uuctoritate, sire excelleniia prefidgeant, Generali 
Ihquisitore ditmtaxat excepto, Apcstolica auctoritate tenora 
prccsentium revocamtis." 

Who could believe that among the patrons of the 
Inquisition many are to be found who ouglit most to 
desire its externiination. The Archbisliops of Tarra- 
gona and Santiago, the Bishops of Lerida, Tortosa, 
Barcelona, Urge], Teruel, Pamplona, Carthagenaj Ori- 
huela, Astorga, Segovia, Orensc, Badajoz, Tui, Mon- 
donedo, Salamanca, Almerla, Cuenca, Plasencia, Albar- 
racin, and many ethers did not hesitate to address them- 
selves to the Sovereign Congress, praying for the Inqui- 
sition to be re-established ia the full use of its faculties 



tHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 367 

The rapacity of this tribunal, which forms 
so prominent a feature in many of the re- 

by various memorials, in which they affirm (and certainly 
I do not disbelieve it) that nearly all their fellow bishops 
were of their opinion. Spanish bishops praying for the 
restoration of the Inquisition ! Prelates of the Protestant 
Church ! To you I address myself, who, educated under 
the shadow of a constitution so liberal as that of England, 
are enabled, whatever be your religious opinions on other 
points, to judge and pity the prejudices of a nation grown 
old under the most oppressive terrorism. What opinion 
will ye have formed of our bishops, on knowing that in 
an enlightened age, forgetful of what they owe to their 
own dignity and the Gospel of which they are ministers, 
they thus debase themselves so far as to uphold a dismem- 
berment of their own native faculties, as monstrous as it 
is illegal ? Such conduct would appear incredible, if ex- 
perience had not taught us that under the darkness of 
slavery, man seeks his own degradation. 

But what are the reasons which have induced these 
reverend prelates to adopt a measure so little creditable 
to their learning and piety ? or rather, in what way 
have these reverend fathers learned to know what thd 
Inquisition is, since they have scarcely been allowed 
to enter it beyond the threshold ? What studies have 
they performed, what documents have they examined, 
to ascertain its good or bad qualities ? Before re- 
solving to plead for it, have they duly weighed the 
contrary arguments I have already adduced, those which 
still remain to be exhibited, as well as others I pass over 
in silence to avoid being tedious? And if they have 
taken due note of these said arguments, why do they 
hesitate to give us their solution? Cold declamations 
against the impious constitute the only contents of their 



368 INQUISITION UNMASKED. (^CHAP. VI. 

monstrances already presented, affords me 
joom for a third observation. Scarcely had 

apologetic re[)resentations, which throw no more light 
on the matter than the petition of the municipality of 
Arzua, the one presented by about fifty military officers 
and others, whose substance merely amounts to this, that 
if our ancestors through will or force endured the tribunal, 
through will or force we also ought to endure it. I have 
said that the lords bishops ground their petition in favour 
of the Inquisition on no reason, but I have said wrong. 
They allege one which they believe to be extremely pow- 
erful, and this is, a want of time to fulfil that part of 
their ministry confided to the tribunal. But what would 
follow from this in sound logic, as well as sound theology, 
is, that these reverend prelates ought rather to solicit the 
early reduction of their dioceses to a smaller compass, to 
the end that, by respectively diminishing the afl'airs of 
each, and in proportion to their greater number, they may 
be able to attend to their obligation of defending the faith, 
whicli is of such great import, that, according to St. 
Paul, this, united to the obligation of teaching it, con- 
stitutes the very essence of the pastoral charge. It also 
follows that these reverend prelates ought, moreover, to 
renounce half, or at least a great part of the revenues 
they derive from their mitres, since they only seek to com- 
ply with one half of the duties imposed upon them, as it 
is by no means just that the nation should allow them 
their full stipends, and have at the same time to maintain 
the Inquisition. 

Their reverend lordships declare that their occupations , 
are great ; yet, what occupation can suffice to exonerate 
them from so essential an obligation ? It cannot be the 
administering of confirmation, because, besides being the 
work of a few minutes, this is but seldom administered.. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 369 

it been established, I do not mean to say in 
Seville, but even in Tholouse, when at the 
court of France, as well as of Rome, the cla- 
mours were heard of thousands of families 
stripped and ruined by men, who, affecting 
a disregard of the world, were burning with 
the most inordinate passions which they 
could not in any other manner satisfy. Of 
the Franciscan Inquisitors, Alvaro Pelagio, 
a friar of the same order, and confessor to 
Pope John XXII., (circumstances which af- 

It cannot be the ordinations they perform, for although 
they invest more persons with sacerdotal power than 
they ought, this is not an occupation so frequent as 
to give room for the existence of the Inquisition. Nei- 
ther can it be their preaching or the visitation of their 
dioceses, since most of them never preach nor visit their 
diocese, or if they do, it is only very seldom. Undoubtedly 
then, it must be the weighty affairs of the ecclesiastical 
. court which consume the time of their reverend lordships 
and that of their coadjutors. If so, nothing is more easy 
than to take this impediment out of their way, but of this 
we shall treat in the next chapter. The representations, 
consequently, of the said reverend bishops, prove nothing 
against the proposition I have established : they merely 
sliow, and foreign nations as well as future generations 
will thereby learn to know, that the church of Spain, at 
the beginning of the 19th century, was more or less in the 
same state as the monarchy itself. 
VOL. II. ' 2 B 



370 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

forded him the best sources of information,) 
observes, that whilst one part of the confis- 
cated property was destined to the public 
funds of the place of which the culprit was 
a native, another to the maintenance of the 
dependents of the tribunal, and a third for 
the official expences of the diocesan bishop, 
in consequence of his having in those times 
more interference in matters of the faith, 
the inquisitors nevertheless usurped all for 
themselves and their order, expressly com- 
muting personal penances into exorbitant 
fines, which they wrested from the miserable 
culprits by force.* Those of the Hebrew 
nation, as being persons of property, they 
stripped in the most inhuman manner, for 
which reason Philip the Fair forbade the use 
of the penalty of confiscation against them.t 
In subsequent times, the conduct of the Do- 
minicans of Seville was not less criminal, as 
on the one hand may be inferred by the 
complaints which took place on this subject 
from the first year of the existence of the 
tribunal there, and on the other, from the 
various convents erected by Torquemada at 

* Alvaro Pelagio, De Planctu Ecclesia;. 
t Fleury, Hist. Ecclesiast. lib. Ixxvi. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 371 

the expense of the culprits, and among them 
that of St. Thomas of Avila.* This is the 
reason why the converted Jews, together 
with the Moors of Granada, Valencia, and 
Aragon, and even the old Christians, when 
they opposed its introduction into the above 
kingdoms, evinced so much dread of confis- 
cations. Some knew by public report and 
others from experience, that the name of the 
Inquisition was to the clergy and the king a 
signal for pillage, from which neither pro- 
perty, alienated long before the condemnation 
of the individual and, though legally pos- 
sessed by a third person, could escape, nor 
the dowries of wives, since these were even an 
additional plea for the latter to be ill-treated 
or abandoned by their husbands. 

In consequence of the numerous remon- 
strances on the subject of the rapacious acts 
committed by the Inquisition, an article was 
early added to its instructions, ordering that 
the salaries of its ministers should be paid by 
thirds in advance.! This was likewise partly 

* Zurita, Anales de Aragon, torn, iv, lib. xx. cap. xlix, 
Marineo Siculo, De las Cosas Memorables de Espana, 
lib. xix. 

f Instructions of the Inquisition of Seville, dated the 
9th of January, 1485, n. 10. 

2 B 2 



372 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

occasioned by the bills for money which the 
King drew on the receiver as depositary of 
the confiscated property ; and hence by 
another article they were also permitted to 
alienate, in case of need, any fixed property 
belonging to the tribunal, and recover its 
value.* However, in due regard to the sin- 
gular economy of the inquisitors, this could 
scarcely ever happen ; for, rather than be de- 
frauded of a single farthing, they sold the cul- 
prits as slaves, for a longer or shorter time, 
according to the expenses of the suit. A fact 
of this kind is to be seen in the auto de fe of 
Mexico for the year 1 659, by virtue of which 
a mestizo, the son of a Spaniard and an Indian 
woman, and two mulattos, male and female, 
were sold to be employed in a manufactory : 
the mestizo for the period of four years, the 
mulatto woman for six, and the man for ten. 
It is not therefore strange that the Cortes of 
Cor'mna and Santiago, for the year 1520, 
should have so strongly urged the necessity of 
a reform in the Inquisition in this particular. 
In 1522, it was calculated in Rome, ac- 
cording to a letter written to Charles V. by 
his ambassador, Don Juan Manuel, that what 

* Instructions -of the Inquisition of Seville, dated the 
fi7th of October, H88, n. 13. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 37S 

our kings had already received from the 
confiscations of persons merely penanced ex- 
ceeded a million of ducats. Undoubtedly 
alluding to this abuse the Pope then said, 
that he was of opinion that monarchs were 
not guided by the best zeal when they 
patronized the Inquisition.* Notwithstand- 
ing this, the same pontiff and cardinals were 
not less diligent in converting its affairs to 
thir own advantage, than the kings of Spain 
in deriving utility from its condemnations. 
The above-mentioned ambassador in another 
letter to Charles V., giving him hopes that 
matters would be arranged in favour of the 
tribunal and against the pretensions of the 
Aragonese, makes use of these words : " With 
regard to the cardinals to whom your Highness 
so frequently writes I will give my opinion. 
Cardinal Santiquatro attends to the dispatch of 
ecclesiastical affairs, and in these he has great 
weight, because he gets what he can for his 
master as well as for himself With the Pope 
he has no authority to do any thing but in this 
manner, in which he is certainly an able 
officer." He afterwards advises the Emperor 
to make him presents from time to time, if 
he wishes to have him disposed in his service, 

* Llorente, Anales de la Inquisicion, cap. xiv. n, 17. 



374 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI, 

adding, that this is what the King of Portugal 
does, and he continues speaking in the same 
style of Cardinal de Ancona, and of several 
others.* With regard to the Pope, in another 
letter he writes as follows : " A person of 
probity has assured me that the Pope pur- 
posely delays these bulls relating to Aragon 
and Catalonia, and that Don Luis Carroz 
is to induce your Highness to be satisfied 
with the bull already received against the 
Inquisition, because by your Highness being 
satisfied therewith the Pope will secure to 
himself forty-six or forty-seven thousand 
ducats.f* Here we have an example how 
inquisitors, kings, and Roman dignitaries 
conducted themselves with regard to monied 
concerns : the first by following up the spoils 
of unfortunate victims, and the latter by put- 
ting out bulls to interest, and trafficking them 
with those who opposed the establishment of 
the tribunal and others who promoted it.t 

* Llorente, ibid. n. 18. f Ibid, n. 3.5. 

i In the celebrated collection of satirical pictures be- 
longing to Don Francisco Goya y Liicientes, painter to 
Charles IV., known under the name of Caprichos, or 
Whims, two are intended to ridicule the Inquisition. In 
the first, No. 23, representing an autillo or small auto of 
the faith, the author repi-oves the avarice of the inquisitors 
in the following manner. He represents a culprit in a 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UN MASKED. 375 

But what crime is there so heinous or so 
foreign to the ministers of the Church that 
has not been committed or harboured by the 

long dress, seated on one of the steps or a small bench 
placed on the stage, habited in a sanbenito and corosa, with 
his arms folded, hishead leaning down on his breast, as if 
ashamed, and the secretary reading his sentence to him from 
the pulpit in presence of a numerous concourse of ecclesi- 
astics. At the bottom this motto is affixed, " Aqiiellos pol- 
vosy" to which ought to be added the second part of the same 
proverb, viz., traxeron estos lodos. (From that dust was made 
this mud.) The explanation handed about in MS. is in 
these terms :— these autillos or small autos are the harvest 
and diversion of a certain class of people. By this it seems 
that the motto ought not to be applied to the culprit, as at 
first sight would appear to be the case, but to the tribunal. 
The second picture is the one immediately following the 
above. No. 24, representing a woman condemned to be 
scourged for being a witch, mounted on an ass, the upper 
part of her body naked, wearing a coroza, surrounded by 
the ministers of justice and followed by the mob. Motto, 
" No hiibo remedio.^^ The manuscript explanation is, 
" Era pobre yjea, no hubo rcmedio.''* (She was poor and 
ugly, of course must be a witch) . We have already shown 
in the preceding chapter that ugliness and raggedness, 
with the inquisitors, were infallible signs of witchcraft. 
The above work, notwithstanding the veil with which the 
author covered his meaning, either by representing the 
objects in caricature or by applying to them vague and in- 
direct mottos, was denounced to the Inquisition. The 
pictures were not, however, lost, for Senor Goya hastened 
to present them to the King, and his Majesty ordered 
them to be deposited in the Chalcography Institute 



376 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

Inquisition ? What species of wrongs could 
be mentioned which it has not in some way 
or other caused, and this with a great excess 
of atrocity? Most holy virginity, received 
by many as Christ in Jerusalem, with palms 
and hosannas, yet sheltered by few ! Thou 
art the richest jewel that adorns the Catholic 
priesthood, but how few are the priests in 
whose hands thy lilies are not faded ! And 
if privation stimulates the appetite of man for 
what is forbidden, and the incentives with 
which opportunity favours him are so much the 
more powerful as he sees impunity the more 
certain, who so much exposed to be borne 
away by his sensual propensities as an inqui- 
sitor ? I will not here bring forward the anec- 
dotes related on this subject by foreign writers, 
such, among others, as the one that took 
place in Seville about the middle of the I6th 
century; another in Portugal, at the end of 
the 17th, and a third in Zaragoza at the be- 
ginning of the 18th century; because, not- 
withstanding all of them are extremely pro- 
bable if the s^'stem of the tribunal is only 
well considered, such odious details, to be 
asserted with any kind of confidence, ought 
to be supported by testimony that admits of 
no doubt. In speaking of these irregularities 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 377 

I shall confine myself to what has been testi- 
fied by our own national and cotemporary 
authors. 

Gonzalo de Ayora, historian to their Ca- 
tholic Majesties and one of the deputies sent 
UD to court by the city of Cordova in conse- 
quence of the outrages committed by Lucero, 
writing to Miguel Perez de Almazan, secre- 
tary of state to King Ferdinand when he 
resumed the government of Castile through 
the death of Philip I., makes use of the fol- 
lowing words : " With regard to the Inqui- 
sition, the measure adopted was, to place so 
much confidence in the archbishop of Seville, 
Lucero, and Juan de la Fuente, (counsellor 
of Castile and of the Supreme Inquisition) 
that they filled all these kingdoms with in- 
famy, and in violation of the laws of God, as 
well as in contradiction to all justice, they 
destroyed the greatest part of them, by killingj 
robbing, and forcing maidens and married 
women, to the great shame and discredit of 
the Christian religion. As far as relates to 
myself, I make known to your Lordship that 
I have already written you that the wrongs 
and injuries which the evil ministers of the 
Inquisition have done in my country are 
^such and so great, that there is no reasonable 

1 



378 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

person acquainted with them who is not filled 
with the keenest regret." * 

If such was the unrulinessof the inquisitors 
of Cordova at the end of the 15th century, 
that of the members of the tribunal of Zara- 
goza was not less so at the close of the 16th. 
Antonio Perez, after relating various outrages 
committed by it, adds as follows : " Of other 
excesses on the part of particular judges, of 
proceedings falsified, curtailed, handled in 
such a manner as to gain favour with the supe- 
riors, and besides stimulated by personal incen- 
tives so loose, disorderly, and notorious, that 
nothing else is to be seen in the proceedings 
agitated in the supreme court of Inquisition, 
and fraught with the piteous complaints of 
sufferers, injured maidens, and newly married 
women, overcome and possessed through the 
stratagems practised in these trials, so revolt- 
ing and disgraceful that no one would fail to 
prefer public shame to such secret dishonour 
— of these things, in short, it is impossible to 
speak; all we can do is to beseech the supreme 
inquisitor of the land to remedy them before 
God sends down some public vengeance, as 
he usually does in such cases of crying in- 
justice on the earth." What he here says of 

* Llorente, Anales de la Inquisicion, cap. ix. n. 18. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 379 

the supreme inquisitor is meant of the Pope, 
without adverting that from this quarter the 
evil originally came. He then concludes in 
these words : *' But no more of this at pre- 
sent, since now-a-days it amounts to a crime 
for any one to complain of his wrongs or to 
bewail public injuries, the same as it is to de- 
mand justice, or even to be possessed of it." 
Of one of the inquisitors he likewise affirms, 
that he was a great friend of the contractor of 
a brothel which at that time existed in Zara- 
goza, and that he was in the habit of going 
out at night in disguise and with arms upon 
him. He afterwards adds, " I merely say 
what is going on — even much less, and only 
relate those things which are public and to 
be found in judicial proceedings ; for were I 
to particularize those which are secret, these 
very ruffians would have to bless themselves.* 
Similar to the above was the dissolute con- 
duct of the inquisitors of Mexico about the 
middle of the 17th century; since the vene- 
rable Palafox, in his letter to the Inquisitor 
General, describes them in the following man- 
ner : " If these gentlemen live thus !" — He 
here makes a stop, and then proceeds to say, 
" Although I feel extremely hurt, I never- 
* Antonio P6rez, Relacion del 24 de Setiembre. 



380 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

theless am silent ; but let not your Lordship 
doubt that they who act in this manner in 
public, with a view to please their superior, 
live in the most melancholy manner, as far as 
regards private life ; and even this is publicly 
known. I wish to lend silence to modesty, 
and will only speak openly by individualizing 
cases and things when your Lordship should 
be of opinion that it is meet for the service 
of God.'* In the postscript he further adds, 
*' These four persons, the archbishop and the 
three inquisitors, are indebted to me for not 
■writing to your Lordship many well known 
and abominable acts of theirs, and very fo- 
reign to their occupations, by which my faith, 
persecuted by them and defended by me, 
would not be the less accredited." Palafox 
does not explain whether the ministers of the 
tribunal of Mexico, in order to gratify their 
passions, actually availed themselves of their 
authority; but, if they did not, we may safely 
conclude it was not through motives of deli- 
cacy ; and as, besides, the terror with which 
the whole of New Spain beheld them was 
such as the holy prelate depicts, what woman 
was there capable of resisting, I do not say 
one of their serious threats, but even the 
slightest insinuation ? 



CHAP. VT.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 381 

Ah ! if every thing that has happened in 
the Inquisition on this subject were only 
known! How often has the beauty of a 
female culprit been the only plea for sub- 
jecting her to the torture, and to the naked- 
ness with which this was administered ! That 
chastity was therein exposed to the great- 
est danger, besides being evident from all 
the accompanying circumstances, is further 
proved by the ordinances of the Holy Office 
of Portugal ; which, for this very reason, en- 
joins that no woman should have the torture 
of the rack inflicted upon her.* If we likewise 
bear in mind that in early times the kinds 
of torture used were not the same after- 
wards designated as the ordinary ones, but 
others chosen according to the whim of the 
inquisitors, this abuse will still appear more 
probable. In Seville about the middle of the 
15th century (and this is a different case to 
the one mentioned by foreign writers) an 
inquisitor commanded a beautiful young fe- 
male, accused of practising Jewish rites, to be 
scourged in his own presence; and, after 
committing lewdness with her, he delivered 
her over to the flames. " Oh ! inquisitors," 

. * Regiraento do Santo Officio de Portugal, lib. ii. tit.xir, 
n.6. 



S82 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [cHAP. VI. 

exclaims the historian who has transmitted 
this anecdote down to us, " oh ! inquisitors, 
savage beasts, how long will God endure your 
tyrannic and cruel acts ! Oh ! Spaniards, who 
are so fondly attached to your wives and chil- 
dren, and watch over them with such jealous 
care, how long will you endure that these old 
libertines of Susannah should behold them 
in a state of nudity, and thus gratify their 
lecherous propensities?"* It is therefore 
undeniable that the spotless maiden, as well 
as the chaste spouse, were alike torn from the 
bosom of their mothers or dragged from the 
nuptial couch, and conveyed to the prisons 
of the Holy Office, through the lasCivious- 
ness of the inquisitors covered with the cloak 
of religion. 

One of the most revolting traits of tyranny 
to be met with in Roman history is the out- 
rage committed by Appius Claudius, member 
of the decemvirate, on Virginia, daughter 
of the centurion of that name and betrothed 
to Icilius formerly a tribune of the people. 
Appius Claudius, unable to devise a means of 

* Cipriano de Valera Tratado del Papa y de su Autori- 
dad. According to him this circumstance was kn own 
throughan inquisitor who jocosely related it as the aet of 
one of his colleagues. 

S 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. S8S 

triumphing over the chastity of the youthful 
maid, after suborning the necessary witnesses, 
caused a friend to claim her as a slave in his 
tribunal, in order that, being adjudged to him 
as the true owner, he might have her at his 
own disposal. So far the Inquisition and the 
tribunal of the decemvir were on a par ; but 
how different have been the r^gults ! Icilius 
appeared in the forum when the sentence 
was about to be pronounced and, upbraiding 
Appius with his despotism and lewdness, pro- 
tested that as long as the husband of Virginia 
lived, no one should stain her honour or de- 
tain her an instant from her paternal roof. 
The father came in haste to the capital from 
the camp of Algidum, where he then was, 
and, crying out in the most pitiful manner, 
demanded of the tyrant whether the reward 
of those who defended their country with their 
blood was to have to endure in their children 
the most painful of all the evils with which a 
victorious enemy can afflict it ? Appius ne- 
vertheless gave the verdict of slavery against 
the maid, and at the same time that of his 
own perdition, for both the army and people 
rose and assassinated him.* Such were the 

* Tit. Liv. Histor. lib. iii. cap. xliv. et seq,— Sext. Aurel. 
Victor. De Vir. lUust. cap. xxi. 



384 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

complaints and remonstrances of the relations 
of Virginia, and such the end of her iniqui- 
tous judge ; but has any one thus dared to 
reproach the inquisitors ? Or, if ever the 
complaints of the injured were able to pene- 
trate to a superior power, was the issue such 
as to warn or keep them in awe ? The cul- 
prits, threatened with infallible ruin in case 
they revealed their wrongs to any one, had 
to pine over them in secret ; — the respect 
to the oath by which they were restrained 
deprived them of utterance ; — heaven itself, 
whose thunderbolts the inquisitors wielded, 
seemed interested that so much oppression 
should escape with impunity.* 

♦ The invectives of Quevedo against the Inquisition, in 
his Historia y Vida del Gran Tacano, chap, vi., are not 
less poignant than ingenious. The objects he particularly 
strikes at are, that false devotion which sometimes it has 
tolerated, and at others cherished in the people, whilst at 
the same time it held them in the greatest terror; the 
frivolity of many of the causes therein tried ; its urgency 
to force the culprits to confess ; and, finally, its avarice 
and attacks on the fair sex, although the two latter vices, 
from their being so very odious, he takes care rather to 
saddle on the dependents of the tribunal. He introduces 
the hero of his fable relating the wicked tricks he per- 
formed in AJcala de Henares, when he was a boy, in the 
house of Don Diego a single gentleman whom he served, 
by robbing him, in accord with the housekeeper, of part 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. S85 

Thus the Inquisition, surpassing the great- 
est tyrants in pride and fierceness, has not 

of the money he gave them for the daily expenses of the 
house, and also fraudulently obtaining from the house- 
keeper herself a quantity of fowls she kept in the yard 
and then eating them. These are his words : 

** It must have been a great deal (what they both robbed 
from their master), yet nobody thought of restitution: 
though the housekeeper went to confession every eight days, 
yet I never knew her think or even dream of returning any; 
nor was she ever troubled with scruples, notwithstanding 
she was, as I have already said, so very sanctified. She 
wore a rosary round her neck, so large that it would have 
been easier to carry a bundle of wood on one's back ; and 
from it hung whole handfuls of images, crosses, and par- 
don beads. On all of these, she said, she prayed every 
night for her benefactors. She used to tell over a hundred 
and odd- saints who were her patrons; and in truth she 
required the whole of these helps to make up for all that 
she sinned," dc. After describing the character of the 
housekeeper, he goes on to relate the principal occurrence 
in this form : 

•' It happened that the housekeeper bred fowls in a 
back-yard, and I had a great longing to eat one of them 
for her. She had twelve or thirteen sizeable chickens, and 
one day, whilst feeding them, shfe began to cry out ' Pio ! 
Pio !' ( the Spanish mode of calling fowls together, cor- 
responding to pur Chuck! Chuck!) and this over and over 
again. I, who heard the manner in which she was calling, 
began to halloo out and say, *In the name of heaven, 
housekeeper, what are you doing? Couldn't you have killed 
a man, stolen coin from the king, or any thing else I might 

VOL. II. 2 C 



SQ6 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAp. VI. 

yielded to them in its arbitrary and despotic 
conduct. Every thing odious to be met with 

have kept secret, and not do what you have done, of which 
I cannot help informing ? How unfortunate am I, and how 
hapless are you !' Seeing me agitated in so serious a man- 
ner, she was alarmed and said, ' How, Paul, I, what have I 
done ? If thou jokest with me, don't make me uneasy any 
more.' ' How joke ? said I, it is real earnest, I cannot help 
laying an information before the Inquisition ; for otherwise 
I shall be excommunicated.* * Inquisition!!!' replied she, 
and immediately began to tremble ; ' how, I, have I done 
any thing against the faith?' * This is the worst part of the 
story,* said I, * don't sport with the inquisitors j say you 
were a booby and that you recall your words, but don*t 
deny the blasphemy and irreverence you have committed.* 
Well, I recall my words ; but prithee tell me why, since, 
as I hope rest to the souls of my departed parents, I vow 
I don't know.' * Is it possible you didn't notice what hap- 
pened ? Don't you remember you said to the chickens 
pio ! pio ! and Pio (Pius) is the name of the popes, vicars 
of God, and heads of the Church ?' " In what follows is 
the criticism to which I alluded : 

" She turned pale and replied, * Paul, I did indeed say 
60 ; but, as I hope forgiveness from God, it was not in the 
way of malice, and I recall my words. See by what means 
thou canst avoid accusing me, for I should die if I was put 
into the Inquisition,' * If you will only swear that you in- 
tended no malice, and my conscience is set at rest, I can 
then forbear accusing you ; but it will be necessary for you 
to give me these two chickens, called together as they 
were to eat by the most holy name of the popes, in order 
that I may convey them to some familiar of the Holy 0£Sce 

4 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 387 

in the iniquitous Enquesta of Aragon, the Bas- 
tile of Paris, or any other of the tremendous 

for him to burn them, because they are polluted ; and you 
must moreover swear not to relapse.* She was very well 
pleased and said, * Well then, Paul, take them away with 
thee now.' To urge her on the more, I answered, ' The 
worst of all is, Cipriana, (for that was her name, ) I myself 
«hall run a risk ; for the familiar may ask me whether I 
committed the offence myself, and in the mean time make 
me suffer ; carry them yourself, since, by my troth, what 
should I gain by it f" * Paul,' said she, on hearing what I 
said, ' for the love of God have pity on me and carry them, 
since nothing can thereby happen to thee.' I let her be- 
seech me for some time, and at length consented. I took 
up the chickens, hid them in my own room, feigned to 
go out, and after awhile returned, saying, ' I've managed 
better than I expected. The rogue of a familiar wanted 
to come back with me to see the woman, but Pve tricked 
him finely and managed the whole affair.' She embraced 
me a thousand times and gave me another chicken for 
myself, which I carried off to where his companions were, 
and had a good stew made of them at a cook's shop, and 
enjoyed my feast in company with the other servants." So 
far our author. 

The idea here meant to be conveyed, as may easily be 
understood by any one the least versed in Spanish phrase- 
ology and the inuendoes of the language, is fully expressed 
in the words " nothing can happen to thee," as the house- 
keeper assures El Tacano, when she requests him to go to 
see the familiar in her stead, as well as in those spoken by 
the hero of the story a'"ter executing his commission ; viz. 
" the rogue of a familiar wanted to come back with me to 
2C 2 



388 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VI. 

establishments erected by despots to oppress 
their people, is found united, and even ex- 
ceeded, in the monstrous tribunal to which 
we allude. AVhilst its ministers were vene- 
rated and feared like Gods on the earth, their 
will has been the only rule of their actions ; 
nor in their eyes have men met with any 
other consideration than if they had been 
born to be trampled under their feet. With 
such a picture before them, well might our 
ancestors have said, if in a matter so serious 
I may be allowed to borrow examples from 
the ancient mythology, what Juno says of 
Jupiter in the mouth of Homer : 

Ml) fJiiiy ^uc Qif/ti, rxuTsc anifio' ejVS-at x.cc,t uuta, 

N>)T<s(, ei Ztin f/tivixUofJiJtv ec^feaevTiif 
"H iTi [Jtjiv fA/i/j/XfJiJiv KccTX7rccv(rt[Ai)i, otTtrcv tovrt^ 
H iTTUy Kt /3ijf 6 ^'x^»ii/tivo<; 8x uXiyt ^it, 
0«;j" cB-tTxi' ^wh y«j t» a^xveiroiTt ^toia-t 
KccfTt'i Tf (rSevu n ^txicfwov uvxi u^ti-oi;. 
T(5 \x>'^6'y 0, TTi »£» vfAtfJiji, Kxxoy TTifAvvia-iy iKUTra. 

HoM. 'lA. C, vers. 93, et seq. 

see the woman." And that no doubt of this being a satire 
against the Inquisition may be entertained, Quevedo 
in the same chapter relates the recent persecution of 
Antonio Perez, though with a mixture of heterogeneous 
ideas, or, what is the same thing, by using those round- 
about expressions so indispensably necessary when truth 
would be a crime in the writer. 



CHAP. VI.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. 389 

Fair Themis first presents the golden bowl, 
And anxious asks what cares disturb her soul ? 
To whom the white-arm'd goddess thus replies : 
Enough thou know'st, the tyrant of the skies 
Severely bent his purpose to fulfil, 
Unmov'd his mind and unrestrain'd his will. 
Supreme he sits, and sees, in pride of sway. 
Your vassal godheads grudgingly obey -, ■ 
Fierce in the majesty of pow'r controuls,— 
Shakes all the thrones of heav'n and bends the poles. 
Submit, immortals, all he wills obey. 

Pope's Homer's Iliad. 



CHAPTER VII. 

As the Inquisition owes its Origin to the 
Decline of Church-discipline and Remissness 
of the Clergy, it opposes Obstacles to their 
Reform, which is absolutely necessary if the 
Nation is to prosper. 

IViOST monstrous as is the plan of the 
Inquisition, and, generally speaking, most 
reprehensible the conduct of its ministers, 
the plan of my work would be still more 
absurd and myself more deserving of reproof 
if, after manifesting the vices of this tribunal, 
I were not to extend my researches to another 
object beyond that of its abolition. Persons 
belonging to the clergy were they who first 
founded it ; clergymen they who dictated its 
laws ; and individuals of the same class those 
who exercised the duties of its judicature and 
sustained its institutions with the greatest 
firmness and zeal. If so, ought not the whole 
responsibility to fall on this same clergy? 
And, if it has been this description of per- 
sons who were the authors of all the evils the 



CHAP. VII.] INQUISITION UNMASKED. S9l 

Inquisition has caused to the world, and in 
them its tyranny is besides rooted, will it suf- 
fice for the tribunal to be suppressed, in order 
that the nation may recover its lost liberties ? 
For any one to be of this opinion would argue 
a want of penetration and an ignorance of 
the intimate connexion that exists between 
effects and their causes, or rather an irreso- 
lution and a want of courage to stem the 
torrent of disorders introduced into society 
by a class of persons who, though bound to 
be the most regular and exemplary, have 
nevertheless degenerated in the most egre- 
gious manner from their primitive institution. 
Nothing should we gain by abolishing the 
Inquisition, if we did not go a step further. 
Of no avail would it be to deprive the tyrant 
of his rod, if we still left his arm in a state to 
wield it again, or perhaps able to procure 
another still worse. It is necessary to restrain 
him within those limits which the happiness 
of the monarchy and the splendour of religion 
would imperiously prescribe. 

It is useless in this place to produce ar- 
guments in order to prove that the discipline 
of the church began to decline from the 
fourth age, or rather from the time our 
priests conciliated the emperors to their inte- 



S92 INQUISITION UNMASKED. [CHAP. VII. 

rests ; nor has any reform that may be called 
radical taken place therein up to the present 
day without aflPecting the dogmas of the faith. 
It is sufficient merely to have glanced at 
ecclesiastical history not to doubt the truth 
of this assertion. The decline of the disci- 
pline, and the relaxation in the manners of 
the clergy, obliged St. Hilary to exclaim, in 
the transports of his grief, that the church 
was already lost, an