CHAPTER V.

APPEALS TO ROME.

So long as the acts of the Spanish Inquisition were not final but were subject to revision by the Roman curia, its jurisdiction was incomplete. To emancipate itself from this it struggled for more than two centuries, aided unreservedly by all the power of the Spanish crown. This long-protracted and intricate contest is full of interest and merits a somewhat detailed investigation.

Soon after the Inquisition commenced its work, complaints of its remorseless cruelty poured in upon the sovereigns. They sent around, as we are told, certain conscientious prelates to investigate and report, who informed them that four thousand houses had been abandoned in Andalusia, but this seems only to have inflamed Isabella's ardor and the business of vindicating the faith was prosecuted with undiminished energy.[277] The only refuge of the victims was the Holy See, which had always been open to appeals from the sentences of the Inquisition.

[Sidenote: _APPEALS TO ROME_]

Papal predominance had its foundation in the universal supreme jurisdiction, original and appellate, of Rome in all matters of faith and the unlimited area of affairs contingent on faith. This had been gradually acquired during the dark ages and was strenuously upheld, as it was the source of wealth as well as of power, and without it the Bishop of Rome would speedily shrink to his original primacy of honor. That he should divest himself of it was not to be expected, especially for the benefit of inquisitors, whose jurisdiction was a delegation from him and whose claim to superiority over bishops was based on the functions of the latter being merely "ordinary" while theirs were "apostolic." It is true that Nicholas V, in his projected Castilian Inquisition of 1451, had granted jurisdiction without appeal, but this could have been withdrawn at any time and the whole attempt had been so soon forgotten that no allusion was ever made to it in the subsequent controversy. In the Old Inquisition, appeals to the pope were recognized, but it was an intricate and costly process, only possible to those familiar with canon law and, as the victims then were mostly peasants or ascetic missionaries, it was rarely employed and still more rarely successful.

Now, however, the situation was wholly different. The class assailed consisted largely of men of wealth or learning--merchants, bankers, lawyers, high officials, theologians and prelates, able to command the services of skilful canonists and ready to sacrifice a portion of their fortunes to save their persons from the stake and their estates from confiscation. The curia of the period, moreover, was notorious for shameless venality--a place where everything was for sale, from cardinalates to pardons, and where the supreme jurisdiction of the papacy was exploited to the utmost. It did not take long for the keen-witted Conversos to recognize that the mercy denied them in Spain could be bought in the open market of Rome and the curia, which had mourned the lost opportunity of sharing in the confiscations, welcomed the prospect of selling exemptions from confiscation.

Everything therefore pointed to an exercise of the supreme appellate jurisdiction of the Holy See which would seriously limit the activity of the Spanish Inquisition, or at least would confine it to those whose poverty rendered them unprofitable subjects of persecution. Ferdinand soon became alive to the situation and manifested little reverence for the papacy in his resolute resistance to the protection which it sold to all applicants.

[Sidenote: _CONFESSIONAL LETTERS_]

The earliest recourse was naturally to the papal Penitentiary. It had long been in the habit of selling confessional letters, empowering any confessor, whom the purchaser might select, to absolve him from all sins, including those reserved to the Holy See. Originally these were understood to be good only in the forum of conscience, but the further step was easily taken of making them effective also in the judicial forum, thus anticipating or annulling the action of the courts and selling immunity for crime as well as pardon for sin.[278] There was no difficulty in obtaining such letters for anyone, and they were sought by the Conversos as a means of protection in advance and of setting aside sentences after conviction. In the Appendix will be found a specimen, issued December 4, 1481, by the Major Penitentiary, to Francisco Fernández of Seville and his wife and mother. It purports to be granted by the direct command of the pope and authorizes the recipient to select any confessor who, after secret abjuration, can absolve him for all acts of heresy, apostasy, relapse and dogmatism and annul all sentences by whomsoever pronounced after trial and conviction, redintegrating him into the Church, removing all stain of heresy, restoring him to all his rights and releasing him from all punishment, only imposing on him salutary penance--which, at that period, was understood to be a money payment for the benefit of the poor, _i. e._ the Church or its members. A final clause grants the further faculty of overcoming all opposition by the use of censures under papal authority.

It was impossible for Ferdinand and Torquemada to allow the Inquisition to be reduced to impotence by the speculative activity of the curia in selling such exemptions, which were not only good for the future but had a retroactive effect in annulling its acts. No reverence for the Holy See could restrain them from visiting their wrath on all who were concerned in rendering effective this purchasable clemency. We have a glimpse at the methods adopted by both sides, in a notarial act, evidently part of a process to set aside a papal letter of a somewhat different kind, and to punish those engaged in its use, the narrative showing that all concerned felt that they were incurring serious perils. The notary, Anton Peláez, deposes that in Xeres de la Frontera he received from the Duke of Medina Sidonia a letter of April 16, 1482, calling him to San Lucar de Barrameda to draw certain business papers. He went and, while engaged on them in the house of Juan Matheos, on April 20th, at 2 P.M. a messenger summoned him to the duke, whom he found in company with the duchess, the Teniente de Bora, Fray Thomas, prior of the Order of Santa María de Barrameda, and others. Then entered Juan Ferrández of Seville, the duke's contador, or auditor, carrying a bull with a lead seal, said to be from the pope, Sixtus IV, and ordered Peláez to read it to the prior. He was alarmed and refused, but finally yielded to the entreaties of the duke and duchess. Then Fray Thomas refused to accept it, as he had been inhibited verbally by the inquisitors, and promised to produce the inhibition in writing within eight days. The duchess left the room in anger, but, in a quarter of an hour, Ferrández brought Fernando de Troxillo, prior of the universidad of Xeres and not of the church of San Salvador, as described in the bull. The duke told him that this made no difference and urged him to accept it, throwing his arms around him and promising that he would expose his whole rank and dignity to make good whatever he might suffer in person or property. Troxillo accepted the bull with the greatest reverence and kissed it. Then, as apostolic judge under it, he ordered Juan Matheos, cura and vicar of San Lucar, to absolve Ferrández and his wife of any sentence of excommunication, interdict, suspension etc. placed on him by the inquisitors, on his giving security, which was promptly furnished by Gonzalo Peráez, Ruy Perráez and Ferrand Riquel, swearing that Ferrández would stand to the mandates of the Church, as required in the bull. Thereupon Troxillo, as apostolic judge, ordered Juan Matheos to absolve Ferrández and his wife, which was duly performed. The duke's lawyers drew up an inhibition to the inquisitors, which the deponent engrossed; the duke wanted Troxillo to sign it, but the deponent privately advised him not to do so until he should consult his counsel at Xeres and, whether he did so or not, the deponent could not say.[279]

[Sidenote: _POWER OF THE PENITENTIARY_]

This gives us an inside view of the struggle to escape the Inquisition which was going on in every corner of the land. It was useless, for these papal letters were disregarded and the purchasers could look for no redress from the curia, for Pope Sixtus had no scruple in abandoning his customers. It was a lucrative business, this disposing of exemptions and then allowing them to be annulled for a consideration. Both sides thus contributed to the papal treasury and, as it all came from the Conversos in the end, the curia indirectly got its share of the confiscations, and the Inquisition was but nominally restricted. One device for accomplishing this is revealed in a cruzada indulgence, granted March 8, 1483, ostensibly in aid of the war with Granada, but, as Sixtus bargained for one-third of the proceeds, his share was sufficient inducement for sacrificing the purchasers of his confessional letters. A special clause of the indulgence empowered any confessor to absolve the possessor of it--the price being six reales--for killing or despoiling those seeking the Roman court, or for preventing the execution of papal letters, or for forbidding notaries to draw up acts concerning such letters, or for detaining them from those to whom they belonged,--all of which was evidently framed to allow the sovereigns to annul the papal briefs in any way they deemed best.[280]

Yet while Sixtus thus was content, for a moderate compensation, to permit those who were seeking his court to be detained or slain and to have his letters contemptuously annulled, yet when their market was threatened by the assertion that the Penitentiary was only a court of conscience and its absolutions were good only in the interior forum, his indignation burst forth in a bull of May 9, 1484, stigmatizing all such opinions as contumacious and sacrilegious. The Penitentiary, he declared, could grant absolutions good in either forum and those for the judicial forum were good in both spiritual and secular courts. This monstrous assumption, which claimed for the Penitentiary the power to anticipate or set aside the judgement of every criminal court in Europe, for the benefit of culprits who could pay the moderate fee demanded for its letters, was not merely a temporary policy adopted by Sixtus for this occasion. Having once been asserted, it was persisted in. Paul III, July 5, 1549, confirmed the bull of 1484 and subjected to the anathemas of the bull _in Coena Domini_ all who called in question the validity of such letters; when confined to the forum of conscience they were sealed and addressed to the confessor, when intended for the judicial forum they were patent. As Paul died, November 10, 1549, before the publication of this brief, it was confirmed and issued, February 22, 1550, by Julius III.[281] It was the settled purpose of the Holy See of the period to continue this profitable business of selling pardons so long as purchasers could be found for them; they continued to plague the Inquisition and we shall see what stern measures Ferdinand found necessary for their suppression. Yet Ferdinand was justified and the curia was self-condemned for, when the Roman Inquisition was reorganized and found its operations similarly impeded by the letters of the Penitentiary, it ordered, September 26, 1550, its subordinates to pay no attention to them.[282]

Meanwhile the struggle continued in Spain. Isabella applied in 1482 to Sixtus to give her inquisitors power to pronounce final judgements that should not be subject to revision or appeal. He replied, February 23, 1483, that he would take counsel with the Sacred College, the result of which was a bull of May 25th, in which he conferred on Iñigo Manrique, Archbishop of Seville, appellate jurisdiction from the inquisitors, deputizing him in place of the pope for the Spanish dominions.[283] This expedient brought no relief to the Conversos. The inquisitors paid no respect to it and would-be appellants found that it was not safe to go to Seville for revision of their cases by the archbishop. It was the same with the letters of absolution that continued to be issued; they were disregarded and many fugitives who had procured them found on their return that they had been burnt in effigy during their absence and that the document on which they relied was of no avail. They needed something more and Sixtus was nothing loath to grant it. As early as August 2nd, he followed the bull of May 25th with another, for which we may safely assume that the Conversos paid roundly, for in it he evoked to Rome all pending cases of appeal, he ordered the Spanish bishops to protect at all hazards the bearers of papal letters of absolution, even to the invocation of the secular arm, and he entreated Ferdinand and Isabella to show mercy to their subjects as they hoped for mercy from God.[284]

[Sidenote: _STRUGGLES WITH THE CURIA_]

Whatever was paid for this was money vainly thrown into the bottomless sea of the curia. Eleven days later, with shameless effrontery, Sixtus wrote to the sovereigns that it had been issued without proper deliberation and that he suspended it. This reinstated Manrique as appellate judge, and Juan of Seville, who had carried the previous brief to the Bishop of Evora for multiplying, was brought, with his companions, before the archbishop, who condemned them.[285] The gold of the victims was vainly pitted against the unalterable will of the sovereigns, for the Holy See had no scruple in selling exemptions and abandoning the purchasers. The delegation to Archbishop Manrique by no means inferred that Sixtus relinquished his own profitable appellate jurisdiction and, to encourage appeals, it was necessary to manifest indignation when the inquisitors rated the papal action at its true value. How little they respected it is manifested in a brief of July 4, 1484, addressed to the inquisitors Miguel de Morillo and Juan de San Martin, reciting that the Dean of Mondoñedo, two canons of Seville and several others, whom they were prosecuting and whose property they had sequestrated, had appealed from them; that Sixtus had referred the cases to the Bishop of Terracina and some auditors of the Sacred Palace, at whose instance the inquisitors had been ordered to cease proceedings, to grant absolution _ad cautelam_ and to lift the sequestration which deprived the parties of the means to carry on the appeal; that the inquisitors had not only flatly refused obedience and had kept possession of the property, but had constrained the appellants under oath and threat of censures not to prosecute the appeal or even to write to Rome, on the ground that they had the jurisdiction and would render judgement. Wherefore Sixtus now pronounces null and void all proceedings since the issue of the inhibitory order and prohibits further action under threat of excommunication; the sequestration is to be lifted and all the papers are to be sent to Rome.[286] There was no reason why this should command obedience more than the previous order and we may feel sure that the appellants fared no better in consequence. The case has interest only as a specimen of innumerable others which were bringing an abundant harvest to the officials of the curia, without affording relief to the victims, who were like a shuttlecock between two battledores, yielding sport to the players, as they were driven from one to the other.

Archbishop Manrique's position as appellate judge must also have been lucrative for, on his death in 1485, the succession was eagerly sought for and was obtained by the papal vice-chancellor, Rodrigo Borgia, but Ferdinand had had experience of him in Valencia and the sovereigns remonstrated so effectually that he was obliged to withdraw in favor of their nominee, Cardinal Hurtado de Mendoza, Bishop of Palencia.[287]

Sixtus IV had died, August 12, 1484, to be succeeded by Innocent VIII. The Inquisition might hope for an improvement, but was resolved to resist with greater energy than before, if the new pope should imitate his predecessor. In a series of instructions, issued December 6, 1484, Torquemada provided for a resident agent in Rome, whose expenses were to be defrayed from the confiscations; he complained of the extraordinary and illegal letters so profusely granted by Sixtus and announced that the sovereigns would suspend the operation of such letters, but that action would be withheld until it should be seen whether Innocent continued a practice so prejudicial.[288] Innocent must already have given evidence that his methods were the same as those of Sixtus, for, in less than ten days, Ferdinand issued, December 15th, a savage pragmática far more decisive than Torquemada had forecast, for it decreed death and confiscation for all who should use such letters, whether emanating from the pope or his subordinates, unless they should have received the royal exequatur, and all notaries and scriveners who should act under them or make transcripts of them were deprived of their offices.[289]

[Sidenote: _STRUGGLES WITH THE CURIA_]

As a matter of course the change of pontiffs worked no change in the lucrative business, except that perhaps under Innocent the practice of taking money and betraying those who paid it became more unblushing than before and promises to both sides were made and broken with still greater facility. To this end, care was taken to maintain the papal jurisdiction, for when the new pope was asked to confirm or renew Torquemada's commission and power was asked for him to disregard the exemptions issued in blank for names to be filled in and absolutions granted on false confessions, and other abuses impeding in every way the Inquisition, Innocent turned a deaf ear and the commission was only renewed, not enlarged.[290] Then the sovereigns assumed the power denied to Torquemada and issued circular letters, July 29, 1485, addressed to all the ecclesiastical authorities, reciting how, to the scandal of religion, disregard of the royal pre-eminence and damage to the fisc, certain parties obtained bulls, rescripts, provisions and confessional letters, from Sixtus IV and Innocent VIII, to protect themselves in their crimes. As it is not to be supposed that the popes would do this knowingly, all such letters are suspended until the papal intention, after due information, can be ascertained and obeyed. Meanwhile no such briefs are to be enforced until after submission to the sovereigns for their approval.[291]

It is not easy to follow the rapid tergiversations of the pope, for the pledges given to either side were impartially violated almost as soon as given, the only explanation being that both sides could get what briefs they desired provided they were willing to pay what was demanded. For awhile the influence of Ferdinand and Isabella prevailed and, in a solemn repetition of Torquenada's commission, April 24, 1486, Innocent directed that all appeals should be made to him and not to the Holy See.[292] Still more emphatic was a disgraceful brief of November 10, 1487, by which he declared inoperative all the letters issued by the Penitentiary, whose purchasers he thus surrendered to the inquisitors, whom he authorized to proceed in spite of the inhibitions contained in them.[293] Possibly he may have recognized that this breach of faith was likely to damage the market by destroying confidence, for the ink was scarce dry on this brief when he issued another, November 27th, ordering that, when such letters were produced, they, or authentic copies of them, should be sent, with details of the case, and that, until his decision was announced, proceedings should be suspended.[294]

Ferdinand thereupon forbade the inquisitors to accept such letters, notwithstanding which their issue continued without intermission for, on May 17, 1488, Innocent declares that they should be invalid unless presented within a month of that date.[295] Simultaneous with this was an elaborate bull of the same date, doubtless procured by the Converses of Aragon, addressed to the Bishop of Majorca, reciting the daily appeals from the kingdoms of Aragon which were committed to judges in the curia who issued inhibitions to the inquisitors. As this impeded the Inquisition the pope evoked to himself all pending cases and committed them to the bishop to be decided without appeal, his commission continuing during the papal pleasure.[296] We may reasonably doubt whether Ferdinand permitted the bishop to exercise these functions; even if he did so the Conversos profited little, for the good bishop died in about six months and there is no trace of the appointment of a successor.

Yet when Ferdinand wanted to save those whom he favored from the Inquisition, he sometimes had recourse to procuring for them papal letters to which he granted his exequatur. He did this for his treasurer, Gabriel Sánchez and for the vice-chancellor of Aragon, Alonso de la Caballería; Gabriel Sánchez also obtained letters for his brothers Alonso and Guillen, which Ferdinand approved and had some difficulty, in 1498, in preventing the tribunal of Saragossa from seizing and suppressing them.[297] There was an even more significant recognition of the appellate power of the Holy See in the case of Gonsalvo Alfonsi, defunct, in 1493. The _consulta de fe_ was unable to reach unanimity and, in place of referring it to the Suprema, the consultors referred it to Alexander VI, who, by brief of August 13th, appointed the Bishop of Córdova and the Benedictine Prior of Valladolid to decide the case, at the same time inhibiting the inquisitors from further cognizance.[298]

[Sidenote: _STRUGGLES WITH THE CURIA_]

The year 1492 saw the conquest of Granada achieved and the death of Innocent VIII. The one event greatly increased the reputation and influence of Ferdinand and the other placed in the papal chair Rodrigo Borgia, better known as Alexander VI. Both men were unscrupulous, but the political situation brought them into close relations and the services rendered by the king to the pope--or still more, perhaps, the disservice which he could render--made the latter eager to gratify him. In 1494 he confirmed and enlarged the letters of Innocent VIII prescribing that appeals should be made to the inquisitor-general and not to the Holy See.[299] To render this effective he commissioned, as we have seen, one of the inquisitors-general, Francisco de la Fuente, as appellate judge to hear all cases. The brief of appointment, November 4, 1494, shows in what a tangled condition these matters had been brought by the shifting and shiftless papal policy, governed alone by the expectation of profit. It recites that Innocent VIII, at the instance of Spanish suspects of heresy, had committed their cases, both original and appellate, to various auditors of the Sacred Palace, where they remained pending for lack of evidence not obtainable in Rome, wherefore Innocent had evoked them all to himself, but had appointed no judge to hear them and no further progress was made. Besides, under their commissions, the said auditors had issued letters compulsory, inhibitory and citatory on inquisitors and other officials, in consequence of which they were under excommunication and against this they appealed. To put an end to these dangers and scandals, Alexander therefore evoked anew all these cases to himself and committed them to la Fuente, together with all arising in future, granting him full power for their final determination.[300]

Still the lucrative business of issuing letters of absolution and redintegration went on unchecked, until pressure from Spain, which was insufficient to restrain their manufacture and sale, at least induced Alexander to betray those who had bought them. On August 29, 1497, he issued a bull reciting how heretics, who had been burnt in effigy, had obtained from him absolution, rehabilitation and exemption from inquisitorial jurisdiction, to the scandal of the faithful, wherefore, at the request of Ferdinand and Isabella, he now withdraws and annuls all these letters, except in the forum of conscience.[301] Even this did not satisfy Ferdinand who, under the pretext that a papal secretary named Bartolommeo Florido had issued false ones, ordered the inquisitors to seize them when presented and send them to him in order that he might communicate with the pope about them. This was followed by decrees of the Suprema, January 8 and February 12, 1498, commanding all who had obtained absolutions and dispensations from Rome to deliver them within a given time to the inquisitors, who would forward them to the inquisitor-general for verification of their genuineness, thus obtaining possession of all letters, to the general terror of the owners. Ferdinand, as we have seen, was obliged to write to Saragossa to protect Alonso de la Caballería and the brothers Sánchez, while Isabella interceded, June 26th, for a servant of hers who had procured such a letter and could not produce it.[302] Then Alexander was called upon for a more absolute surrender of those who had dealt with him and, on September 17th, he addressed a brief to the Spanish inquisitors empowering them to proceed against all heretics, notwithstanding all letters of absolution and redintegration heretofore or hereafter issued, for all such letters were to be held as having been granted inadvertently.[303] What with Spanish fanaticism and papal faithlessness the Conversos were between the hammer and the anvil.

[Sidenote: _STRUGGLES WITH THE CURIA_]

Their only recourse was exile. Many abandoned Spain and a portion of these found in Rome a refuge, for Alexander welcomed them in view of the heavy imposts which they paid for safety and toleration. They also furnished him with material for a speculative outburst of persecution when, in 1498, he was in need of funds to furnish forth the magnificent embassy of his son Cæsar, sent to bear to Louis XIII the bull of divorce from Queen Jeanne. He appointed as inquisitors Cardinal Pietro Isuali and the Master of the Sacred Palace, Fra Paolo de Monelia, who proclaimed a term of grace during which the Spaniards suspect of heresy could come forward. Two hundred and thirty presented themselves; the form of receiving and examining their confessions was gone through with; they were admitted to mercy and a salutary penance was imposed in lieu of the penalties that might have been inflicted in Spain. What was the amount of this cannot be known, but it must have been considerable, for the inquisitors could ransom them at discretion. A solemn auto de fe was celebrated in St. Peter's, July 29th, in the presence of Alexander and his cardinals. The penitents were marched thither in pairs, were reconciled to the Church, abjured their heresies and were sentenced to wear the sanbenito and to undergo penance, after which they were taken in procession to Santa Maria sopra Minerva, where they were relieved of the sanbenitos and discharged. The performance evidently was expected not to be pleasing to the Spanish sovereigns, for part of the penance assigned was to furnish a notarial attestation that they would not return to Spain without licence from the Catholic kings under pain of relaxation as relapsed.[304]

There were doubtless intimations of Ferdinand's displeasure which drew from these impromptu inquisitors a letter of September 10th to their Spanish brethren and one of October 5th from Alexander to the sovereigns, in which the provision respecting return to Spain was emphasized. Ferdinand however was not to be thus placated; indeed he had already, on August 2nd, issued an edict, designed to frustrate further attempts by the papacy to share in the profits of persecution. In this he ordered the execution, without trial, of all who had fled from condemnation by the Inquisition and who should venture to return, no matter what exemptions, reconciliations, safe-conducts or privileges they might allege. Any property they might possess was apportioned in thirds to the informer, the official and the fisc and any one harboring them and any official neglecting to execute the edict was threatened with confiscation.[305] The prevention of further speculative performances of the kind was doubtless the motive for the stringent regulations, which we have seen above, in 1499 and 1500, to prevent the escape of Conversos.[306]

Ferdinand sometimes recognized the papal letters as in the case of some parties named Beltram, in 1499, which he permitted to be heard by the commissioners appointed by the pope,[307] but there was too much at stake for him to abandon the struggle and the papacy followed its practice of sacrificing those who sought its protection, while never failing to promise it. Early in 1502, the sovereigns remonstrated forcibly as to the great damage to the faith resulting from these letters transferring cases to special commissioners, and Alexander promptly responded by a bull evoking to himself all such cases and committing them to Inquisitor-general Deza, to be decided by him personally or with assessors whom he might call in. To this Ferdinand objected, under pretext of the hardship which it would inflict on the appellants, as Deza had to follow the migratory court and Alexander, with his usual pliancy, empowered Deza, August 31st, to appoint deputies to decide cases. Deza availed himself of this to restore the cases to the tribunals, instructing them to proceed to final judgement without regard to any papal letters that might be presented, and thus again the unlucky appellants were delivered back to their persecutors without recourse.[308]

Julius II was elected November 1, 1503, and the next day, even before his coronation, he issued a _motu proprio_ to Ferdinand and Isabella, confirming all graces and privileges granted by his predecessors and especially those to the Inquisition. Still, appeals to the Holy See continued to pour in and to be welcomed and, in 1505, Ferdinand remonstrated energetically, asking a recall of all commissions and drawing a doleful picture of the religious condition of Spain, which was saved only by the Inquisition from a schism worse than that of Arius.[309] Philip of Austria, however, in his eagerness to win papal support, abandoned the claims of the Inquisition and admitted to the Holy See that it could not refuse to entertain the appeals of those who sought its protection.[310] Julius had no intention of divesting himself of the supreme jurisdiction which was so profitable and he took care to assert it in the commissions issued, in 1507, to Ximenes and Bishop Enguera, as inquisitors-general respectively of Castile and Aragon, by evoking to himself all cases pending in the tribunals and committing them to the new incumbents and those whom they might deputize.[311]

[Sidenote: _STRUGGLES WITH THE CURIA_]

Like his predecessors, Julius, with one hand, sold letters of absolution and inhibition while, with the other, he declared them invalid. A brief of November 9, 1507, recites that some persons, pretending to be aggrieved, have appealed to the Holy See, whereby the Inquisition is impeded; therefore he decrees that all appeals must be to the inquisitor-general, while those to Rome are to be regarded as null; the inquisitors are to disregard them and not to delay on account of them.[312] Still, the output of these letters was unchecked and for awhile Ferdinand fluctuated in his policy with regard to them. Sometimes, as in a Sardinia case, in 1508, he orders the inquisitor to arrest and punish severely those concerned in procuring them, assuring him of the royal protection against the indignation of Rome.[313] Sometimes, as in a Valladolid case, in 1509, he assumes the current convenient fiction that the letters are issued surreptitiously, that the pope, on better information, will withdraw them, and meanwhile they are held suspended; the trial is to go on and the sequestrations are not to be lifted.[314] Finally, in a pragmática of August 31, 1509, a definite policy was adopted combining both methods and based on the principle that, if the letters were surreptitious, those who obtained them deserved condign punishment. This required all such briefs to be submitted to the Suprema for examination and reference back to Rome; if found to be rightly issued, exequatur would be granted, but without this any one presenting such letters to inquisitors incurred, as in the pragmática of December 15, 1484, irremissible death and confiscation; notaries acting under them were deprived of office, while secular officials were commanded to execute the edict under pain of five thousand florins and ecclesiastics under seizure of temporalities and perpetual exile.[315]

The ferocity of this, after a constant struggle with the curia for twenty-five years, shows the importance attached by Ferdinand to the autonomy of the Inquisition and his determination to suppress all papal interference. Still that interference continued and Ferdinand could not but recognize that it was legal. In a case occurring in 1510, when a certain Augustinian Fray Dionisio, on trial before the tribunal of Seville, obtained letters committing the case to a judge who inhibited the tribunal, Ferdinand requested the pope to evoke the case and commit it to Cardinal Ximenes and further that all future cases of the kind should be similarly treated.[316]

In all this long wrangle the diplomatic reserve is observable which assumed that the Holy See was actuated by motives that, if mistaken, were at least disinterested. The financial element underlying its action was fully recognized, however, and, when the Spanish delegates were sent to the Lateran Council in 1512, among the instructions which they bore was one which said that Rome must not in future defend, as it had been defending, the apostates of Jewish race who were burnt in effigy at home while they purchased for money dispensations in the curia. In fact, Charles V, in a letter of April 30, 1519, to his ambassador Luis Carroz, openly asserted that the briefs issued in the time of Ferdinand had been obtained by the Conversos through the payment of heavy sums.[317]

The delegates to the Lateran council of course effected nothing, and Leo X, while his penitentiaries and auditors were as busy as ever, was even more regardless than his predecessors of the papal dignity, in annulling their acts after the fees had been paid. In a _motu proprio_ of May 31, 1513, he alludes to the letters negligently granted by Julius II and himself, through which the business of the Inquisition was impeded, wherefore he empowers Ximenes to inhibit, under excommunication and other penalties, all persons, even of episcopal rank, from using such letters of commission to entertain appeals.[318]

[Sidenote: _STRUGGLES WITH THE CURIA_]

In the kingdoms of Aragon, the Córtes of Monzon, in 1510, agreed that no one should appeal from the tribunals to the pope, but only to the inquisitor-general.[319] Possibly this may have led to the invention of a method of reprisals which was infinitely annoying and difficult to meet. A certain Baldiri Meteli procured from Rome a citation to appear addressed to Mossen Coda, the judge of confiscations in Barcelona, and some other officials. This completely nonplussed the tribunal and Ferdinand was driven to instructing, November 2, 1510, his Lieutenant-general of Catalonia to consult with Inquisitor-general Enguera as to the best mode of inducing Meteli to withdraw the citation. He was obstinate, especially as he had meanwhile procured citations on other officials, and Ferdinand could find no other remedy than notifying the diputados that the agreement of Monzon was a totality and that, if the clause respecting appeals was violated, Enguera would disregard the rest.[320] What was the result the documents fail to inform us, but an even more troublesome case occurred in Saragossa when Sánchez de Romeral on being prosecuted fled to Rome. March 11, 1511, Ferdinand wrote to his ambassador to request the pope to send him back to the inquisitor-general, but the pope declined and Ferdinand was moved to lively wrath, in 1513, on learning that Romeral, who had meanwhile been burnt in effigy, had procured citations on all the officials, from inquisitors down, including even the consultors who had acted in the consulta de fe, and that he had managed to get the citations published in Tudela and Cascante. Ferdinand wrote to Rome in terms of vigorous indignation and ordered the Archbishop of Saragossa, the Captain-general of Navarre and the inquisitors to consult with lawyers as to the best means of punishing this audacious attack on the Inquisition. Apparently there were no means of parrying such an attack save coming to terms with the other side, so long as the curia was willing to lend itself to this guerrilla warfare. This was seen in a somewhat similar case in Sicily, in 1511, when a certain Cola de Ayelo, condemned to perpetual imprisonment by Inquisitor Belorado, managed to escape; he took himself to Rome as a penitent and there commenced suit against Belorado and his colleague the Bishop of Cefalù. The bishop was obliged to obey a summons to Rome; the affair was protracted and gave so much trouble that, when Ayelo wanted to return to Sicily and offered to withdraw the suit, Ferdinand agreed to let him come back, pardoned his offences, including gaol-breaking, and gave him a safe-conduct against further prosecution. This method of fighting the Inquisition would probably have been more frequently adopted but for the risk to which were exposed the notaries and scriveners whose ministrations were essential. In the present case the one who sent the citation to the bishop was seized by the viceroy, tortured and probably punished severely.[321]

One or two cases will illustrate the chaotic condition produced by these contending elements, especially after the death of Ferdinand, January 23, 1516, had removed from the scene of action his resolute will and ceaseless activity. Miguel Vedreña, suspected of complicity in the murder of Bernardo Castelli, assessor of the tribunal of Balaguer, appealed to the pope from the prison of the tribunal of Barcelona. The Suprema of Aragon vainly instructed its Roman agent to make every effort to defeat the appeal. Leo X committed the case to the Bishop of Ascoli, who ordered the tribunal to release Vedreña on his giving security to constitute himself a prisoner in Rome. The inquisitors had lost all respect for papal letters and refused obedience, whereupon the bishop appointed certain local prelates as commissioners to prosecute them and inflict censures. The Suprema inhibited these commissioners from acting, but not before they had excommunicated the inquisitors, who applied to Leo for relief. Leo had already, at least in appearance, abandoned Vedreña, in a brief of May 5, 1517, addressed to Cardinal Adrian, then Inquisitor-general of Aragon, styling Vedreña "that son of iniquity," evoking the case to himself and committing it to Adrian. But accompanying this brief and of the same date was another of private instructions, in which Vedreña was alluded to as his dearest son and Adrian was told that the case was committed to him in order that his dexterity might compound it; the evidence was doubtful and Vedreña had purged it sufficiently; it would seem that he should rather be acquitted than condemned but if Adrian thought otherwise he was to send a statement, when Leo would give final orders. Some three months later there was another brief to Adrian about the excommunicated inquisitors; if the censures were subsequent to the withdrawal of the case from the Bishop of Ascoli, they were invalid, but the whole matter was left to Adrian.[322] We have no means of knowing what was the final outcome of the case, but it sufficiently indicates the entanglements caused by the conflicting jurisdictions and the contradictory actions of the pope as his officials were bought by one side or the other.

[Sidenote: _STRUGGLES WITH THE CURIA_]

Another aspect of these affairs is exhibited in the case of the heirs of Juan Enríquez de Medina, whose bones were condemned, by the tribunal of Cuenca, to be exhumed and burnt. The heirs appealed to Ximenes, who commissioned judges to revise the sentence, but these refused to the heirs a copy of the proceedings, by which alone they could rebut the evidence. Then they appealed to Pope Leo, who appointed three commissioners to hear the case and communicate the proceedings to the heirs, on their giving security not to harm the witnesses. The parties appointed, doubtless fearing to incur the enmity of the Inquisition, declined to serve and the last we hear of the case is a brief of May 19, 1517, threatening them with excommunication for persistence.[323]

With the appointment of Cardinal Adrian, as inquisitor-general of Castile as well as of Aragon, Leo, in 1518, confirmed the decrees of Innocent VIII and Alexander VI, granting to him exclusive appellate jurisdiction and Adrian, when pope, repeated this in 1523, in favor of Manrique.[324] Yet this in no way interfered with the reception in Rome of the multitudinous applications, both appellate and in first instance, which Charles V, in a letter of October 29, 1518, to Cardinal Santiquatro, broadly hinted was accomplished by the free use of money.[325] How recklessly, indeed, the papal jurisdiction was prostituted at the service of the first comer, is evidenced in the case of a mill in Paterna, purchased by Juan Claver from the confiscated estate of Jufre Rinsech. The Infante Enrique laid claim to it; the tribunal of Valencia decided in favor of Claver and imposed perpetual silence on Enrique. On the death of Claver, Enrique brought suit against his heir before a judge of his own selection, whom the tribunal promptly inhibited. Enrique then procured a papal brief inhibiting the tribunal and committing the case to this judge. Then Charles V intervened, October 29, 1518, ordering Enrique to bring his suit before the tribunal.[326] Papal letters issued after such fashion had no moral weight and were lightly disregarded. The contempt felt for them was increased by Leo's perpetual vacillations. A brief of September 9, 1518, to Adrian states that, in view of the iniquity and injustice of the tribunal of Palermo and some others, he had placed all such matters in the hands of his vicar, the Cardinal of S. Bartolommeo in Insula, with faculties to decide them and coerce the inquisitors with censures and fines, but now he thinks it better that these affairs shall be confided to Adrian, to whom he commits them with full powers.[327]

[Sidenote: _STRUGGLES WITH THE CURIA_]

A contemporary case, which attracted much attention at the time, shows Leo in a more favorable light. Blanquina Díaz was an octogenarian widow of Valencia, whose orthodoxy had never been suspected, but in 1517 she was denounced for Judaism and thrown into the secret prison. An appeal to the pope brought orders that she be released on good security, be allowed defence and the case be speedily tried. This brief never reached the tribunal, being apparently suppressed by the Suprema, whereupon Leo issued a second one, March 4, 1518, evoking the case to himself and committing it to two ecclesiastics of Valencia, Blanquina being meanwhile placed in a convent and Cardinal Adrian being especially prohibited from intervening, anything that he might do being declared invalid. It was probably before this was received that the tribunal submitted the case to Adrian, who assembled a consulta de fe and condemned Blanquina to perpetual imprisonment and confiscation. The papal intervention seems to have aroused much feeling; Charles was ready to sign anything drawn up for him by Adrian, and, in two letters, of May 18th and June 18th to his Roman agent Luis Carroz, he ordered the latter to disregard all other business in the effort to procure the withdrawal of the two briefs. If the safety of all his dominions had been at stake he could not have been more emphatic; such interference with the Inquisition was unexampled; unless the pope would revoke the briefs and promise never to issue similar ones, the Holy Office would be totally destroyed, and heresy would flourish unpunished, for every one would seek relief at the curia and the service of God would become impossible. He also wrote to the pope and the cardinals, while Adrian and the Suprema sent pressing letters. Leo, however, was firm in substance, though he yielded in form. In briefs of July 5th and 7th to Adrian he ordered that everything done since his letters of March 4th should be annulled, Blanquina being restored to her good fame, her sanbenito being removed and she being placed, under bail, in a convent or in the house of a kinsman. As the evidence against her consisted of trifles committed in childhood, he again evoked the case to himself and committed it to Adrian. There had been active work on both sides in Rome, for the brief of July 5th gave Adrian full power to decide the case while that of the 7th limited him to sending the results to Leo and awaiting instructions as to the sentence. Leo thus kept Blanquina's fate in his hands; Adrian was only his mouthpiece and the sentence pronounced her to be lightly suspect of heresy and discharged her without imprisonment or confiscation.[328]

A further instance of Leo's vacillation is the coincidence that the brief of March 4th in Blanquina's favor was dated the same day as Adrian's commission as inquisitor-general of Castile, in which Leo evoked to himself all pending cases, whether in the tribunals or the curia, and committed them to Adrian with full power to inhibit all persons from assuming cognizance of them.[329] With this before him it is scarce a subject of surprise that Charles V on April 30th instructed his ambassador to tell the pope that no letters prejudicial to the Inquisition would be admitted.[330] This threat he carried out in a contemporaneous case which for some years embroiled the Inquisition with the curia. Bernardino Díaz had been tried and discharged by the tribunal of Toledo, after which he had a quarrel with Bartolomé Martínez, whom he accused of perjury in his case, and killed him. Díaz fled to Rome, while the tribunal not only burnt him in effigy but seized his wife and mother and some of his friends as accomplices in his escape. In Rome he secured pardon in both the interior and exterior forum on condition of satisfying the kindred of Martínez, to the great indignation of Charles, who complained, not without reason, of this invasion of jurisdiction. Díaz also procured a brief ordering the liberation of the prisoners and the release of their property, but when the executors named in it endeavored to enforce it, the Toledo tribunal seized their procurator and compelled its surrender. This realization of Charles's threat exasperated the curia and the auditor-general of the Camera summoned the inquisitors to obey the brief or answer personally in Rome for their contumacy; they did neither and were duly excommunicated. Charles wrote repeatedly and bitterly about this unexampled persecution of those who had merely administered justice; the case dragged on for some three years and its ultimate outcome does not appear, but the family of Díaz were probably released for, in 1520, we hear of the removal of the excommunication in connection with the revocation by the inquisitors of their proceedings against Juan de Salazar, a canon of Toledo, residing in Rome in the papal service, whom they had deprived of citizenship and temporalities for some action of his in prejudice of the Inquisition.[331]

[Sidenote: _STRUGGLES WITH THE CURIA_]

Another person who, about this time, gave infinite vexation to Charles and Adrian was Diego de las Casas of Seville, the agent who bore to Rome the contested proceedings of the Córtes of Aragon and labored for their confirmation. He was well supplied with funds and naturally was a _persona grata_ to the curia. The Inquisition speedily attacked him, in its customary unscrupulous manner, by not only prosecuting him _in absentia_ but by seizing his brothers, Francisco and Juan, and their wives. To meet this he procured a brief committing the cases to Adrian and to Ferdinand de Arce, Bishop of Canaries, with a provision that the parties should present themselves to Adrian and Arce and keep such prison as might be designated for them, and further permitting them to select advocates for their defence. Equitable as were these provisions, the brief excited hot indignation. When laid before the royal council it was pronounced scandalous and of evil example and its execution was refused. Charles wrote in haste to Leo, April 30, 1519, that it was scandalous and would destroy the Inquisition; he instructed his agents to procure its revocation to be forwarded by the next courier and he invoked by letters the cardinals in the Spanish interest to bring what pressure they could upon the pope. His urgency was fruitless and when, in September, he sent Lope Hurtado de Mendoza to Rome, as special ambassador in the quarrel with Aragon, his instructions were to represent to the pope the impropriety of harboring in Rome fugitives from the Inquisition, especially Diego de las Casas and his colleague Juan Gutiérrez, whose parents and grandparents and kindred had been reconciled or burnt; they should be expelled, and Mendoza was to labor for the revocation of their briefs and all other exemptions and commissions in favor of Conversos. Mendoza exerted all his diplomatic ability, but, although Leo admitted, in a brief of July 13, 1520, to Adrian that the evocation of cases to Rome, both on appeal and in first instance, led to delays, impunity for offenders and encouragement of offences, still he would not abandon Diego de las Casas. The grant by Sixtus IV of appellate jurisdiction to the inquisitor-general, he admitted had been beneficial and, in hopes that Adrian would use it with integrity and justice, he evoked to himself all cases pending in the Roman courts and committed them to Adrian with full powers, but he made no promises as to the future and he especially excepted his physician, Ferdinand de Aragon and his wife, Diego de las Casas, Juan Gutiérrez and the deceased Juan de Covarrubias, whose cases had long been in dispute.

To all these, and to their kindred to the third degree and their property, Leo granted letters exempting them from the jurisdiction of the Inquisition and committing them to the Archbishop of Saragossa and certain other ecclesiastical dignitaries. Complaints soon arose as to the manner in which these commissioners exercised their powers to the dishonor of the Inquisition; Leo yielded by a brief of January 8, 1521, in which he substituted Adrian and the nuncio Vianesio de' Albergati, with full power to inhibit their predecessors. Then, in a more formal brief of January 20th he deprecated the evil caused by the cases which were daily brought to Rome and committed them all to Adrian, saving those of the five exempts, in which the nuncio was to be conjoined with him, and at the same time he revoked the letters exempting them and their kindred and empowering them to select judges for themselves.[332] It was a practical surrender, although Leo distinguished las Casas and Gutiérrez by styling them his beloved children.

These cases will suffice to show how the traditional policy of the curia continued, of taking the money of the refugees and appellants for protecting briefs, and then abandoning them by revocations issued, without even a sense of shame, when their funds were exhausted in the protracted struggle. Yet, undeterred by this, there was a constant succession of new applicants, who had no other refuge on earth, and the valueless briefs were granted with unfailing readiness. It was a source of perpetual irritation and Charles was untiring in his efforts to counteract it, not always observing due courtesy, as when, March 25, 1525, he wrote to Clement VII, in violent language, to revoke and erase from the registers a brief granted to Luis Colon and to order his officials not to issue such letters, as they were scandalous.[333] He no longer had the excuse of his youthful tutelage under Adrian and yet his subserviency to the Inquisition was complete. This was manifested in the case of Bernardo de Orda, a servant of Cardinal Colonna, who had a suit against Doctor Saldaña about the treasurership of the church of Leon. Saldaña was a member of the Suprema and, when Orda came to Spain, it was not difficult to have him charged with heresy and arrested by the tribunal of Valladolid. He escaped to Rome and the prosecution was continued against him _in absentia_, whereupon Charles demeaned himself by writing to Colonna, July 30, 1528, asking him to prevent Orda from obtaining a brief of exemption, as it would be an injury to the faith, and also not to favor him in his suit with Saldaña.[334]

[Sidenote: _STRUGGLES WITH THE CURIA_]

Meanwhile the popes continued to propitiate Charles's growing power by granting, with as much facility as ever, what was nominally exclusive appellate jurisdiction to the inquisitor-general. In 1523, Adrian VI, as we have seen, confirmed in favor of Manrique the bulls of Sixtus IV and Alexander VI. Clement VII went even farther for, in a bull of January 6, 1524, he not only evoked all pending cases and committed them to Manrique but decreed that any commissions which he might thereafter issue should be invalid without the express assent of Charles, while all appeals were to be made to the inquisitor-general and not to the Holy See, and this he repeated, June 16, 1525. Still appeals continued to be made to Rome and briefs to be granted requiring repeated confirmations of the bulls of 1524 and 1525 with inclusion of the letters obtained in the interval, of which we have examples in 1532 and 1534.[335] Charles was thus justified in enforcing Ferdinand's pragmática of 1509, as when, in 1537, he ordered the corregidor of Murcia to prevent the publication of certain letters understood to have been procured from the pope against the Inquisition; if presented they were to be sent to the Council of Castile for its action, and parties endeavoring to use them were to be arrested and dealt with as might be deemed most advantageous to the Holy Office.[336]

The position of Charles, as the master of Italy and the protagonist of the Church in its struggle with Lutheranism, had thus enabled him to obtain for the Inquisition virtual, though not acknowledged, independence of Rome. There is a very striking illustration of this, in 1531, when Clement VII intervened in favor of Fray Francisco Ortiz, a celebrated Observantine preacher, prosecuted for audaciously criticizing the Inquisition from the pulpit. He had lain in prison for more than two years, obstinately refusing to retract, when the interposition of Clement was sought. He did not evoke the case but, in terms of remarkable deference, July 1, 1531, he suggested to Manrique that, if nothing else was alleged against Ortiz, he might be held as sufficiently punished by his long imprisonment and might be restored to liberty, in view of his blameless life and the profit to souls to be expected from his preaching. This Clement asked as a favor, moved only by Christian charity and zeal for the salvation of souls.[337] To this carefully guarded request the Inquisition turned a deaf ear. If the trial of Ortiz came to an end in February, 1532, it was because he voluntarily submitted himself completely and his sentence was by no means light, including public penance, which was rarely inflicted on an ecclesiastic.[338] Paul III was more decided when his intervention was asked by Charles V, who, in spite of his bitter protests against papal interference, found himself obliged to appeal in behalf of his favorite preacher, Fray Alonso Virues. The Seville tribunal had prosecuted the latter on a charge of Lutheranism, had kept him imprisoned for four years and had sentenced him to reclusion in a convent for two years and suspension from preaching for two more. Charles, who had vainly sought to protect him during his trial, supported an appeal to the pope and obtained a brief of May 29, 1538, which not only annulled the sentence but forbade his future molestation.[339]

When, in 1542, Paul III reorganized the moribund papal Inquisition by forming a congregation of cardinals as inquisitors-general for all Christendom, there was a not unnatural apprehension that this, even if not so intended, might interfere with the independence of the Spanish Holy Office. To representations of this he responded by a brief of April 1, 1548, in which he characterized such fears as baseless; he declared that it was not designed to interfere with the authority of inquisitors in Spain and he formally revoked anything to their prejudice that might be found in the decree establishing the Congregation.[340] This brief remained to the end the charter to which the Spanish Inquisition appealed in its frequent collisions with the Roman Congregation and, but for such a declaration, it would probably have been subordinated.[341]

This in no way affected the continual applications to Rome for relief, nor the effort of the Inquisition to suppress them. It was a singular departure from the settled policy of the government in this matter which led the Suprema, in 1548, to utter a bitter complaint to Charles V, setting forth the facility with which citations and inhibitions and commissions were granted in Rome and the daily royal cédulas despatched to prevent them, and yet when recently a Converso presented to the Royal Council a petition stating that he did not dare to notify the inquisitor-general of letters concerning a case which had been decided, the Council issued an order permitting any notary to serve the papers and testify to the service, with penalties for impeding it.[342] The popes were more consistent in their inconsistency. We have seen how Paul III, in 1549 and Julius III in 1551, confirmed the 1484 bull of Sixtus IV insisting on the validity of papal letters in both the interior and judicial forum and threatening the curses of the bull _in Cæna Domini_ on all who should impede them, yet in 1550 a case in which papal letters were obtained led to vigorous remonstrance and Julius, by a brief of December 15, 1551, confirmed those of Clement VII and Paul III, besides evoking all pending cases and committing them to Inquisitor-general Valdés.[343]

[Sidenote: _STRUGGLES WITH THE CURIA_]

Yet the very fact of doing this inferred the papal possession of supreme jurisdiction which it merely delegated, a point of which the Holy See never lost sight. The commissions to the successive inquisitors-general during the century contains a clause by which all unfinished business was evoked and committed to the appointee. It is true that there was also a provision that no appeals from the tribunals should lie except to the inquisitor-general, all other appeals, even to the Holy See, being invalid and referred back to him, who was empowered to use censures to prevent interference even by cardinals.[344] The popes could afford to be thus liberal in their grants, for their irresponsible power enabled them to disregard or to modify these delegated faculties at discretion, and these provisions never prevented them from entertaining appeals.

This was shown in the friction which continued throughout the long reign of Philip II, who was no less earnest than his father in maintaining the independence of the Inquisition, although his attitude was more deferential. In 1568 we find him complaining to his ambassador, Juan de Zuñiga, that appeals were made from Sardinia to Rome, not only in cases of faith, but in matters of confiscation, and in civil cases concerning familiars and officials, all of which was damaging to the Inquisition and in derogation of the royal jurisdiction. Zuñiga was therefore ordered to supplicate the pope to refuse admission to all such appeals, while the viceroy of Sardinia was instructed to prevent testimony from being taken in such cases.[345] This effort was fruitless as likewise was that of Abbot Brizeño, sent in 1580 as special commissioner on the subject to Gregory XIII, to remonstrate with the utmost earnestness against the reception accorded in Rome to fugitives from the Inquisition.[346]

Soon after this a case occurred which strained the relations between the courts. Jean de Berri, a Frenchman on trial by the tribunal of Saragossa, managed to escape to Rome, whereupon he was condemned in contumacy and burnt in effigy. He presented himself to the Congregation of the Inquisition which admitted him to bail and he went to reside in Orbitello. The case must have been the subject of active recrimination for Juan de Zuñiga, at that time Viceroy of Naples, with superabundant zeal, kidnapped him and despatched him to Spain. Instantly the papal court was aflame; Zuñiga was promptly excommunicated, but the censure was suspended for four months to allow him to return the fugitive. A rupture seemed imminent and Zuñiga, conscious of his mistake, on learning that the galeasses had been driven back to Palermo, sent thither in hot haste, but his messenger was too late and Jean de Berri was carried to Spain. Papal despatches couched in vigorous language were forthwith sent to the nuncio, to Philip, to Inquisitor-general Quiroga and to the Saragossa tribunal, the nuncio being ordered to prosecute Quiroga if the prisoner was not remanded. Philip had no alternative; Quiroga, in a letter of September 12, 1582 to Gregory announced Berri's departure, at the same time remonstrating against the asylum to fugitives offered by Rome. Berri was duly delivered to the Roman Inquisition, but there was probably a secret understanding for, at a meeting of the Congregation, June 13, 1583, presided over by Gregory, it was decreed that he should be placed in the hands of Quiroga, who should judge his case. Quiroga did nothing of the kind; he was sent to Saragossa and the last we hear of him is a letter of the Suprema, August 3rd, to that tribunal ordering it to do justice--the customary formula for confirming a sentence.[347] As usual, the curia abandoned those whom it had undertaken to protect.

[Sidenote: _STRUGGLES WITH THE CURIA_]

From 1582 to 1586, the nuncio, Taberna Bishop of Lodi, was largely occupied with the question of these appeals.[348] It formed one of several grievances arising from the exercise of papal jurisdiction in Spain--a jurisdiction which was becoming an anachronism in the development of absolute monarchy, but, as the faculties of the Inquisition were solely a delegation from the Holy See, papal control of its operations was unassailable and had to be endured. Philip gained nothing by instructing his ambassador Olivares, November 10, 1583, that it was highly important to represent to the pope that appeals should not be entertained but should be remitted back to the inquisitor-general.[349] We have seen how little ceremony was used by Sixtus V, in 1585, when he evoked the case of the Jesuit Provincial Marcen and his colleagues, and how the Suprema was forced to submit.

While Philip thus was unable to dispute the papal right of intervention, he had as little scruple as his predecessors in disregarding papal letters. In 1571 he ordered the surrender of all briefs evoking cases to the Holy See. Some years later the Suprema instructed the tribunal of Lima that, if apostolic letters were presented, it was to "supplicate" against them--that is, to suspend and disregard them--and this was doubtless a circular sent to all tribunals.[350] They were practically treated as a nullity and it is a singular fact that, after so long an experience, the curia still found purchasers credulous enough to seek protection in them. In a Toledo auto de fe of 1591 there appeared twenty-four Judaizers of Alcázar, detected by Inquisitor Alava during a visitation. Among them was Francisco de Vega, a scrivener who, on hearing that the inquisitor was coming, had sent to Rome and procured absolutions for himself, his mother and his sister, thinking to find safety in them, but they were treated with contempt and all three culprits were reconciled with the same penalties as their companions.[351]

While thus the supreme jurisdiction of the Holy See was admitted and evaded, the Inquisition sought to create the belief that it had been abandoned. Zurita who, as secretary of the Suprema, unquestionably knew better, makes such an assertion and Páramo, whose experience as inquisitor in Sicily had taught him the truth, does not hesitate, in 1598, to say that, since Innocent VIII decreed that appeals should be heard by the inquisitor-general, no pope had permitted cases to be carried to the Apostolic see.[352] It is a fair example of the incurable habit of the Inquisition to assert its possession of whatever it desired to obtain.

* * * * *

Under Philip III, the papal supremacy continued to be exercised and was submitted to as reluctantly as ever. In 1602 a Doctor Cozas, under prosecution by the tribunal of Murcia, managed to escape to Rome and to have his case tried there. Philip labored strenuously and persistently to have him remanded, first through his ambassador the Duke of Sesa and then through the succeeding envoy, the Duke of Escalona, to whom, on April 1, 1604 he sent a special courier, urging him to renew his efforts, for every day the Roman Inquisition was intervening in what the popes had granted exclusively to the inquisitor-general, thus threatening the total destruction of the Spanish Inquisition.[353] In 1603 a Portuguese appealed to the Roman Inquisition, alleging that his wife was unjustly held in prison; he obtained an order on the inquisitor-general to transmit the papers and meanwhile to suspend the case; Acevedo demurred, eliciting from Clement VIII a still more peremptory command, whereupon the documents were sent and, while the case was under consideration in Rome, the woman was discharged.[354] It was preferable to let an assumed culprit go free than to allow the Roman Holy Office to exercise jurisdiction.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _STRUGGLES WITH THE CURIA_]

The subserviency of Philip IV to his inquisitors-general was even more marked, and we have seen how vigorously he supported the Inquisition in its extension of its jurisdiction over matters foreign to the faith, leading the clergy of Majorca to procure papal briefs exempting them from it in such cases. The chapter of Valencia was less fortunate and was exposed to the full force of the royal indignation in 1637. Inquisitor-general Sotomayor had obtained a pension of nine hundred ducats on the archdeaconry of Játiva and one of three hundred and forty ducats on a prebend vacated by the death of the canon Villarasa. The chapter refused payment; Sotomayor sued them in the tribunal and of course obtained a decision in his favor. The aggrieved chapter revenged itself by ceasing the customary courtesy of sending two canons to receive the inquisitors at the door of the cathedral on the occasion of publishing the edict; this continued for two years and, on the second, the door of the great chapel was locked and the inquisitors had to await its opening. For this disrespect they prosecuted the chapter, which then appealed to Rome on both suits and obtained briefs committing the cases to a special commission of the Roman Inquisition, granting a faculty to relieve them from any excommunication and citing Sotomayor to appear in Rome. The case was assuming a serious aspect and the Suprema, November 30, 1637, presented to Philip a consulta with letters for his signature, addressed to his ambassador, to the pope, to the viceroy, the archbishop, and the chapter. Philip was in the full ardor of a contest with the pope over the jurisdiction of the nuncio and the Roman condemnation of books supporting the royal prerogative; he was not content with the measures proposed and returned the consulta with the comment that much more vigorous methods were required, nor did it comport with the royal dignity to ask for what he could legally enforce. He had therefore ordered the Council of Aragon to write to the chapter, through the viceroy, expressing his displeasure and his determination to resort to the most extreme steps. Letters were also to be written to the viceroy and the archbishop commanding the prosecution of the chapter in the Banco Real unless the briefs were forthwith surrendered; the Inquisition was not to appear in the matter, but only the archbishop, and a minister of justice was to be at hand when the demand was made, so as to seize the briefs as soon as they were produced. This violent program was duly carried out; Canon Oñate, the custodian of the briefs, was forced to surrender them; through the hands of the Council of Aragon they were passed to Sotomayor and were carefully preserved as trophies in the archives of the Suprema.[355]

If this inspired in ecclesiastics the terror desired it did not influence defendants under trial, who continued to appeal to Rome, for a carta acordada of August 3, 1538, orders the tribunals, when such cases occur, to send reports not only to it but direct to the Roman agent of the Inquisition, in order that no time should be lost by him in working for their withdrawal.[356] A few years later there followed the most bitter and stubborn conflict that had yet occurred between Madrid and Rome on the subject of appeals--the case of Gerónimo de Villanueva, which is so illustrative in various ways that it merits a somewhat detailed examination.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _APPEALS TO ROME_]

Gerónimo de Villanueva, Marquis of Villalba, belonged to an ancient family of Aragon, of which kingdom he was Prothonotary, or secretary of state; while his brother Agustin was Justicia. He won the favor of Olivares, as well as of Philip, and accumulated a plurality of offices, rendering him at last one of the most important personages of the state, for he became a member of the Councils of Aragon, War, Cruzada and Indies, of the Camara of the Council of Indies, Secretary of State and of the "Despacho universal de la Monarquia."[357]

[Sidenote: _VILLANUEVA'S CASE_]

In 1623 there was founded in Madrid, with the object of restoring the relaxed Benedictine discipline, a convent under the name of _La Encarnacion bendita de San Placido_, with funds furnished by Villanueva and by the family of Doña Teresa de Silva (also called Valle de la Cerda), who was elected abbess. She had for some years been under the direction of Fray Francisco Garcia Calderon, a Benedictine of high reputation, who was inclined to mysticism. Villanueva had an agreement with the superiors of the Order giving him the appointment of spiritual directors and he naturally placed Calderon in charge. Before the year was out, one of the nuns became demoniacally possessed; the contagiousness of the disorder is well known and soon twenty-two out of the thirty were similarly affected, including Teresa herself. Calderon was reckoned a skilful exorcist, but he was baffled, as was likewise the Abbot of Ripel, who was called in. At the suggestion of the latter, the wild utterances of the demoniacs were written down, and a mass accumulated of some six hundred pages, for it was a current belief that demons were often compelled by God to utter truths concealed from man. These largely took the shape of announcing that the convent would be the source of a reformation, not only of the Order but of the whole Church; eleven of the nuns were to be the apostles of a New Dispensation, one having the spirit of St. Peter, another that of St. Paul and so forth, while Calderon represented Christ. They would go forth to redeem the world; when Urban VIII should die he would be succeeded by Cardinal Borgia, who would bestow the cardinalate on Calderon; then Calderon would be pope for thirty-three years and Villanueva, who would be made a cardinal, would have a share in the great work.

For three years this went on, to the despair of the exorcists; people began to suspect some underlying evil and Fray Alonso de Leon, who had been associated with Calderon in the direction and had quarrelled with him, denounced the affair to the Inquisition in 1628. Calderon's prosecution was ordered: he endeavored to escape to France but was caught at Gerona and brought back to Toledo for trial. The nuns were all cast into the secret prison, where it was not difficult to extort from their fears such evidence as was wanted. Calderon endured without confession three rigorous tortures, but nevertheless he was condemned as an Alumbrado, guilty of teaching impeccability and the other heresies ascribed to Illuminism. April 27, 1630 he was sentenced to a living death in a cell of the convent designated to receive him. Doña Teresa was relegated to a convent for four years and the nuns were scattered in different houses.[358]

Apart from Illuminism, there were the consultation of demons and the prophecies of a renovation of the Church through a new apostolate. The latter was qualified as a heresy; the former was a debatable point. The six censors appointed by the Suprema held that belief in prophecies made by demons was superstitious divination, aggravated by the character of the prophecies and the practice of writing them out; it was no excuse to say that the demon acted as the minister of God, for this could be made to justify all heresies, and even to believe the demon to be the minister of God was superstitious divination.[359]

In all this Villanueva was compromised. His house adjoined the convent and he was much there, especially at night, after his official duties were over. The conventual discipline became inevitably relaxed and, in the subsequent proceedings, it was in evidence that he had been seen sitting in Teresa's lap while she cleaned his hair of insects. He took much interest in the demonic prophecies, especially those which foretold his importance in the Church, and he treasured a picture which was drawn of his guardian angel, in which he was represented as a pillar sustaining the Church. He took part in interrogating the demons and writing what they said and he kept these writings in his house. This appeared in the evidence taken in the trial of Teresa and the nuns and, according to inquisitorial practice, the portions relating to him were extracted and submitted to censors who reported, March 12, 1630, unfavorably; he was an accomplice or, if not, he was at least a fautor of the heresies. Then other censors were called in and a junta was held, March 20th, which reduced the finding to his being moderately suspect of having incurred the above censure.[360]

There was evidently no desire to attack so influential a personage who was supported by the favor of Olivares, and the Inquisition carried the matter no further, but doubtless Villanueva felt the danger of his position and possibly hints may have reached him of the evidence collected which might at any time be used for the furtherance of some court intrigue. He seems to have hesitated long but finally on January 7, 1632, he presented a self-denunciation to Fray Antonio de Sotomayor, confessor of the king, not as yet inquisitor-general, but a member of the Suprema. In this he naturally extenuated matters; he alleged his misplaced confidence in Calderon and Alonso de Leon and professed that, being unable to judge the import of it all, he made the statement in order that the proper remedy might be applied. Six months elapsed without action but, in July, five different groups of censors were consulted, whose opinions varied from holding him as an accomplice to declaring him guilty of no mortal sin. July 30th the Suprema considered the case and decided that there was no ground for prosecution--one member, however dissenting and voting for further consultation with competent theologians. The majority opinion governed and, on November 22nd, a certificate was duly given to Villanueva.[361]

[Sidenote: _VILLANUEVA'S CASE_]

He might well congratulate himself on his escape and turn his attention to rehabilitating the unfortunate nuns of San Placido. It was well-nigh unexampled that the Inquisition should confess fallibility by revoking a judgement and to accomplish it demanded time and perseverance. When all was ready, on February 5, 1638, Fray Gabriel de Bustamente, in the name of the Benedictine Order, petitioned the Suprema to revise the case and that the nuns be set free and restored to their honor. This was referred to nine censors, who reported, April 14th, that the nuns were innocent of anything rendering them amenable to the Inquisition; they had merely obeyed their spiritual director and what was guilty in him was innocent in them. To save appearances, however, they added that, if they had acted on the evidence laid before their predecessors, their conclusions would have been identical. The Suprema delayed action until October 2nd, when it decided that the imprisonment of the nuns and their sentences should not affect their good name and repute or that of their kindred, monastery, or Order. They were thus rehabilitated, the convent was reorganized and, to erase from human memory all that had occurred, in November an edict was published requiring, under severe penalties, the surrender of all relations and copies of the former sentence, many of which were fabulous.[362] As though to secure the future of San Placido, a new building was commenced for it by Villanueva, in 1641, the cornerstone of which was laid with much ceremony.

It was never safe to reckon upon the Inquisition. If it could reverse a condemnation, it could reverse an acquittal, especially as St. Pius V had decreed that no acquittal for heresy should be held to be _res judicata_ and permanent, whether pronounced by inquisitors, bishops, popes or even the Council of Trent.[363] For awhile, matters were quiescent. Villanueva was receiving fresh proofs of the royal favor. October 27, 1639 Philip gave him a seat in the Council of War and, on January 16, 1640, granted him additional graces in reward of services performed in Aragon. Even the fall of his protector Olivares, in February, 1643, did not affect his position, for his membership in the Council of Indies was bestowed on April 23d of that year.[364] Yet the disgrace of the chief favorite opened the way to many intrigues and especially to those directed against his return to power, of which, at one time, there seemed much probability. It would be impossible now to assert with absolute certainty what was the direct object sought for in Villanueva's ruin, but we may feel confident that, in addition to the desire to divide his spoils, a powerful motive was the wish to get possession of his papers, in the hope of finding in them compromising material for use against Olivares.

The first attack was skilfully directed against San Placido and not against Villanueva. Sotomayor, the aged inquisitor-general, was forced, as we have seen, to resign on June 20, 1643, although he continued nominally in office until his successor, Arce y Reynoso, took possession, November 14th. Arce had already been designated for the post and, on July 13th, a royal letter informed him that Sotomayor had promised to subdelegate to him any cases that the king desired. Philip went on to say that the affair of San Placido had never ceased to give him concern; the truth had never been ascertained and, as it concerned so greatly the Catholic religion, it required a searching and impartial investigation, such as it would receive at Arce's hands, wherefore, as soon as he received power from Sotomayor, he must undertake it in such wise as would give public satisfaction. The commission from Sotomayor followed the same day and comprehended not only the nuns but all persons concerned, whether lay or clerical.[365]

The letter was evidently drawn up by Arce for the signature of Philip, who was but a tool in the hands of the intriguers. With the existence of the monarchy imperilled by three wars at once and the affairs of state disorganized by the sudden removal of the minister who had managed them for twenty years, it is absurd to suppose that he could spontaneously have given a thought to the concern of the little nunnery, the settlement of which had been acquiesced in for five years, or that he had the slightest inkling of what was to follow. That this action was but a pretext is shown by the fact that, although there were some proceedings taken against the nuns, which for several years gave them anxiety, they were allowed without protest to appeal to the pope who, in 1648, committed the case to the Bishop of Avila, after which it seems to have been dropped, for in 1651 we find them in full enjoyment of their honor.[366]

[Sidenote: _VILLANUEVA'S CASE_]

Arce had evidently been preparing in advance for the attack on Villanueva; on July 15, 1643, he acknowledged the royal commands which he was ready to obey; on July 24th the king sent him an order for all the papers in the case, expressing confidence that he would act as expected from his zeal, rectitude and prudence, and, only two days later, July 26th he wrote to the king that the case of one of the accomplices was ready for definite sentence but, as it involved confirming or setting aside a judgement of the Suprema, he hesitated to take the responsibility. He suggested various methods and invoked the angel of the kingdom to bring light from God to aid the king in solving so difficult a problem. To this Philip, in total ignorance of what was on foot, replied that he had placed the matter absolutely in Arce's hands, who then concluded to let it take the form of an ordinary trial. Matters were already so far advanced that although the papers amounted to the enormous bulk of 7,500 folios, by August 27th the fiscal already had his _clamosa_ or indictment prepared and presented. This displays the animus of the matter in being directed, not against the nuns but exclusively against Villanueva and the proceedings of 1632 which had acquitted him. Then, on September 18th the fiscal asked for the examination of new witnesses and, on January 13, 1644, he demanded that the affair should be submitted to new censors. He recapitulated the charges which we have seen, that Villanueva wrote down the utterances of the demons and kept them in his own house, his enquiring into future events dependent upon human free-will, his belief in the demons after experiencing their mendacity, his treasuring the picture of the angel, etc.[367] There was nothing new in all this, but at a time when the Inquisition was daily trying and penancing old women for fortune-telling and divination and superstitious practices, which were held to imply what was called a pact with the demon, there was technical ground for Villanueva's prosecution, although not for the manner in which it was carried on.

The new censors were selected--learned men, we are told, and eminent theologians, many of them professors in Toledo and Alcalá de Henares. A formidable array of twenty-one articles was submitted to them, including not only Villanueva's dealings with the demons of San Placido but his subsequent dabbling in astrology, through which he used to predict the result of campaigns. The censors could not well hesitate in pronouncing him vehemently suspect in the faith and some even held that those who had signed the exculpation of 1632 should be prosecuted.[368] All this was conducted with the inviolable secrecy of the Inquisition, both the king and the intended victim being kept in profound ignorance of what was on foot.

[Sidenote: _VILLANUEVA'S CASE_]

The opinions of the censors were furnished at various times up to May 15, 1644 and then the Suprema took three and a half months to consider them, until Philip was conveniently absent, conducting the campaign in Catalonia. After much prayerful thought, we are told, and supplication to God, a sentence of arrest was adopted, August 31st, and executed the same day. Two inquisitors, Juan Ortiz and Calaya, went to Villanueva's house about 2 P.M., woke him from his siesta, placed him in a coach and hurried him off to Toledo, where he was thrust into a narrow cell with a little cot, and kept as usual, strictly _incomunicado_. Six keys were found on him, which he said covered papers belonging to the king. He declined to give orders as to his own papers and we are informed that large quantities were found concerning San Placido, but there is discreet silence about other matters. That same day and the next there came for him important despatches from the king, which had to be opened by his principal secretary. Arce at once wrote to Philip announcing the arrest and assuring him that the case would be prosecuted with the utmost desire for the greater service of God. Philip's reply is the most abject expression of weakness; the mere assumption that the faith is concerned seems to paralyze his intellect and deprive him of all power of self-assertion. He was completely taken by surprise and expressed his astonishment at such action without consulting him or the queen. Villanueva was a minister in two tribunals and also secretary of state, having in his hands papers of the utmost consequence to the kingdom; there was no risk of his flight, nor would Philip have interfered had it been his own son, wherefore it was a matter for prior consultation. As it is done, however, he can only order the Suprema to act with the sole object of the service of God and exaltation of the holy Catholic faith, which are his chief desire and the only purpose of its existence. Arce answered this, September 21st, in a tone almost contemptuous. The inviolable secrecy of the Inquisition required that no one but the king should be informed of the commencement of the trial of one of the accomplices in the case of the nuns of San Placido, which was revived by his command. As to the queen, the arrest was made between one and two o'clock, which was an hour inconvenient for intrusion on her. This would appear sufficient as to giving notice to the king and queen, besides the disadvantage of delay and the risks of correspondence. Promptitude was essential and the king's holy zeal always desires that there should be no delay in the affairs of God and the holy faith. When the king returns he can give orders about the papers, which are under lock and key.[369] These were all the reasons that Arce deigned to give his sovereign for increasing the confusion of that terrible time by suddenly imprisoning a principal minister of state, for the furtherance of a court intrigue.

The arrest of course created much excitement. The Council of State promptly presented a consulta, which Arce, in his letter to the king, characterized as very remarkable, and it was followed by similar appeals from the other councils of which Villanueva was a member--War, Indies, Aragon, and Cruzada. The kingdom of Aragon remonstrated with the king in a memorial setting forth the long and faithful services of Villanueva, his sudden imprisonment, without allowing time to settle official and personal affairs, and the infamy cast upon all his kindred; in view of the nature of the charges and his character it would have sufficed to assign as a prison his house or a convent, as was frequently done with those of much lower rank. The kingdom begged, for the sake of a family which had so long served it, that while his case was pending he might be restored to his home under sufficient guard and that he might have the benefit of the royal clemency and justice. Temperate as was this appeal, it aroused Arce's wrath and he expressed to Philip a doubt whether it could be genuine, it being so extraordinary and amounting to fautorship, for which the parties should be prosecuted, although the Inquisition had not yet done so. Appeals to Philip's humanity were in vain. Although he was speedily recalled to Madrid by the illness of the queen, who died October 9th, he made no remonstrance against the unnecessary cruelty shown to Villanueva, who was left in his cell, cut off from the world. In September he fell seriously ill and was allowed to have a servant, a youth of his chamber much attached to him, who was not allowed to leave the cell until the trial was concluded.[370]

The case followed the ordinary routine, the only new matter introduced being a little book found in his desk, setting forth fortunate and unfortunate days for him as deduced from the letters of his name. Over this the censors differed, two of them pronouncing it innocent, while five held it to be included in the prohibitions of the _Ars Notoria_ as a tacit pact with the demon. Villanueva in his defence pleaded his former acquittal and there was a learned discussion, between his advocate and the fiscal, as to the applicability to the case of the bull _Inter multiplices_ which defined that in heresy there could never be a final decision in favor of the accused. Philip urged despatch on the tribunal but it proceeded with the customary exasperating deliberation. After eighteen months had passed, when Philip was holding the Córtes of Saragossa, the deputies presented, January 18, 1646 an appeal in the name of the kingdom, expressing entire confidence in Villanueva's innocence and urging that a period be put to the cruel suspense by the early conclusion of the trial. This was as fruitless as all previous efforts had been; it was not until he had passed two dreary years in his cell that a vote was taken in the case, August 3, 1646. There was general agreement that his sentence, with full details of his offences, should be read in the audience-chamber and not in a public auto de fe, that he should be severely reprimanded and be forbidden to occupy the house which he had built alongside of the convent, but there was discordia as to the number of persons to be present, as to whether or not he should be required to abjure _de levi_--for light suspicion of heresy--and as to banishing him, and there were some who voted for fining and suspending him from office for two years. Evidently, at the worst, there was no serious culpability proven and there were probably few courtiers of Philip IV against whom superstitions as grave could not have been alleged.[371]

[Sidenote: _VILLANUEVA'S CASE_]

In the _estilo_ of the Inquisition, when there was discordia in the consulta de fe, the case was referred to the Suprema, which thus became the judge. September 1st, Villanueva recused one of the members, Antonio de Aragon, and the recusation was admitted after a hearing. Finally, on February 7, 1647, the Suprema pronounced sentence; there were to be present in the audience-chamber four ecclesiastics, four frailes, and four laymen; Villanueva was to be severely reprimanded and warned, he was to abjure _de levi_, be prohibited from communicating with the nuns or living in the adjoining house and be banished for three years from Toledo and Madrid and from twenty leagues around them.[372]

This sentence may not appear severe but, to understand the rest of the story it must be borne in mind that to be penanced by the Inquisition and be required to abjure for even light suspicion of heresy inflicted an ineffaceable stigma, not only on the culprit but on his kindred and posterity. The whole race was involved in infamy and no temporal punishment, however severe, could be so disastrous in its effect upon the honor of a noble family as the blot on its _limpieza_, or purity of blood, resulting from such a sentence. The extreme length to which this was carried will be considered hereafter; at present it suffices to point out that, while Villanueva's worldly career was ruined already and his wanton incarceration in the secret prisons had been a severe infliction on him and his kindred, there had still been hope that this might yet be at least partially effaced by an acquittal. Penance and abjuration destroyed this hope and, to the Spanish noble, no effort was too great to avert so crushing a misfortune.

The nature of the sentence must have leaked out, for before its publication by the tribunal of Toledo, to which it was sent, the brother and sister of Villanueva, Agustin the Justicia and Ana, now abbess of San Placido, with Luis de Torres as proctor of Gerónimo, presented an appeal from it to the pope and a recusation of Arce y Reynoso and of others of the judges. The appeal was not admitted and they were told that the Inquisition did not listen to kindred in matters of faith. Then, on March 18th, Torres, in the name of Gerónimo, presented to the tribunal of Toledo a recusation of all the inquisitors and fiscals of Spain as being dependents of the inquisitor-general. It was all in vain. On March 23d Villanueva was brought into the audience-chamber to hear the sentence, but he acted in a manner so disorderly and made such outcries that the publication was suspended--a thing, we are told, unexampled in the history of the Inquisition--and the presiding inquisitor ordered the alcaide to take that man back to his cell. He recused every one who had acted as judge and appealed to the pope, to the king, and to any other competent judge.[373]

The tribunal consulted the Suprema and was ordered to execute the sentence. Another attempt was made on March 29th, but Villanueva refused to abjure and this was repeated on several subsequent occasions, in spite of warnings of the excommunication that would follow persistent obstinacy. At length, on June 7th, he offered to abjure under a protest, which he presented in writing, to the effect that he did so through fear of the censures and without prejudice to his appeal or other recourse that he might take and, on this protest being publicly read, he made the abjuration.[374] He was not set at liberty, but was transferred from the secret prison to the Franciscan convent, the tribunal giving as a reason his outcries and the disturbance that he made. This leniency the Suprema disapproved and, in a few days, he was remanded to the secret prison, where he was treated with much rigor. On June 18th he was notified that the fiscal accused him of contumacy for not complying simply with his sentence and, on July 18th, he made the abjuration and was released. There is an intimation that he withdrew the recusation and appeal, but the statement is not clear, though it is quite possible that means were found to effect it. John Huss was burnt for refusing to abjure; a bull of Martin V, quoted by the Inquisition, authorized the prosecution and relaxation of suspects who refuse to abjure and there is probably truth in a contemporary statement that the fiscal of the Suprema went to Toledo and threatened Villanueva that he would be publicly stripped of his habit as a knight of Calatrava and be relaxed to the secular arm for burning.[375] He was helpless in the hands of those who would shrink from nothing to accomplish their ends; they had gone too far to hesitate now and his power of endurance was exhausted.

[Sidenote: _VILLANUEVA'S CASE_]

Meanwhile his brother Agustin had not been idle. In several interviews with the king he had presented memorials which Philip forwarded to Arce, March 27th, exhorting him to observe justice but to take care that the severity and authority of the Inquisition do not suffer. He added that the memorials showed that the secrecy of the Inquisition had been violated; this must be investigated and exemplary punishment be administered.[376] There was no hope of justice in this quarter and Agustin turned to Rome as a last resort. Don Joseph Navarro, who is spoken of as secretary, a devoted follower of Villanueva, was despatched thither to procure a brief and was doubtless well provided with funds. His errand soon was known and, on June 7th, Philip wrote to his ambassador, the Count of Oñate, to use every means to prevent the granting of the brief and, if issued, to procure its revocation; a personal note to the pope, at the same time, pointed out the irreparable injury which the admission of the appeal would cause to the holy Catholic faith and the free exercise of the Inquisition. Communications were slow for, on July 26th, Oñate reported the arrival of Navarro and asked for instructions.[377]

Navarro found little difficulty in obtaining the desired brief, in spite of Oñate's efforts. Villanueva seems to have awaited it, while recuperating in retirement from his three years' incarceration and final struggles. When it arrived he went to Saragossa, which he reached August 31st. His coming aroused many fears, for people thought it might be the prelude to a bloody drama, like that of Antonio Pérez. On September 2nd he presented himself at the prison of Manifestacion, where bail was entered for him by the sons of his brother Agustin and of the Count of Fuentes, after which he applied for a firma, to protect him from molestation during the course of his appeal, which was duly granted. He was given the city--or as some said the kingdom--as a prison and, on September 4th the Bishop of Málaga, who was captain-general, reported to the Count of Haro, Philip's new minister, that the city was quiet and there was nothing to fear. The bishop enclosed a letter of September 1st from Villanueva to the king, announcing that, during his imprisonment, his representatives, without his knowledge, had appealed to the pope, who had granted a brief empowering either the Bishop of Cuenca, Segovia or Calahorra, to hear the case in appeal and to render a final decision. While anxious for this means of obtaining justice, he would desist from it if such were the royal pleasure; the brief had not been presented to either of the prelates, nor would it be without the royal licence.[378]

Arce had already been informed of the brief and had lost no time in taking steps to neutralize it. On September 3rd orders were sent to the Bishop of Calahorra--and doubtless to the others--ordering him not to receive it. He promptly replied that it had not been presented, but that if it should come he would refuse to accept or to execute it, trusting to the royal protection against all penalties that it might contain; he had been connected with the Inquisition and knew its justice with regard to Villanueva and, if these appeals to Rome were allowed, the consequences to the Catholic religion would be lamentable.[379] Apparently the Spanish episcopate had small reverence for the Vicegerent of God.

[Sidenote: _VILLANUEVA'S CASE_]

The leading statesmen of Spain took a different view. A junta had been assembled to consider the situation, of which five members out of six (including the President of Castile and the Commissioner-general of the Cruzada) united in a consulta of September 15th. This set forth that when the Toledo tribunal sentenced Villanueva he had a right of appeal to the Suprema; he presented reasons for recusing the inquisitor-general and some of the members and was denied a hearing; he was seized again for the protest and appeal and held until he accepted the sentence and renounced all defence. He was thus forced to have recourse to the pope, whose jurisdiction is supreme in matters of faith and is the source of that of all inquisitors. In ordinary cases three decisions in conformity [through appeals] are required to render a sentence conclusive, while here, in a case involving the honor of a whole family, the single sentence of an inferior tribunal is all that has been allowed. Villanueva did not violate his sentence in going to Saragossa, for it required him not to come within twenty leagues of the court, and he had gone away fifty leagues. He was justified in applying for the firma, for the right of appeal includes the means necessary to enjoy the appeal. The inquisitor-general should be instructed not to order his arrest for, besides that no man should be deprived of his defence, it might cause some disturbance in Saragossa, under pretext of a violation of the fueros, for it is notorious that he was discharged by the Inquisition. There are two courses open--one to solicit the pope to withdraw the brief; the other that the fiscal of the Suprema apply for it and then retain it; but these raise the scruple that a man struggling for his honor and that of his family is denied all defence, after he has been forced to seek it beyond the kingdom and moreover, in the disturbed condition of Naples [then in revolt under Masaniello], it is well not to offend the pope, who might cause the loss of the Italian possessions of Spain. The sixth member of the junta, the Licenciado Francisco Antonio de Alarcon, denounced Villanueva as guilty for going to another kingdom [Aragon]; he was impeding the Inquisition and inviting the papal interference which would destroy its usefulness; the fiscal should demand the papal brief and the Council should retain it.[380]

The opinion of the junta doubtless prevented the re-arrest and renewed prosecution of Villanueva, which was evidently contemplated, but otherwise all reasons of justice and reasons of state were wasted on Philip, who was completely under the domination of Arce y Reynoso and ready to rush blindly into a contest with Rome. Equally fruitless was an appeal, made September 23rd, by Agustin Villanueva, who furnished a list of cases in which appeals to the pope had been admitted.[381] A warning came from Oñate, who wrote, December 17th and again February 12, 1648, that Navarro was busily utilizing the impediments thrown in the way of the brief to procure another, that the curia attributed all the trouble to Arce, that the delay was producing a bad impression and that there was serious talk in the Congregation of the Inquisition of disciplining him for it. This brought from Philip, March 17th, a rambling and inconsequential letter, scolding Oñate for his lack of success and urging him to fresh efforts; the brief was invalid as being obreptitious and surreptitious; Navarro was ordered home and Oñate must see that he left Rome forthwith. Letters, moreover, to the pope and the cardinals in the Spanish interest, drawn up by the Suprema and signed by Philip, manifest how every influence that Spain possessed was employed to deprive Villanueva of his last resource.[382]

Innocent X, in fact, had grown indignant at the opposition to his brief and had transmitted through his nuncio another to Arce, forbidding all further resistance under pain of deprivation of the inquisitor-generalship, suspension of all functions and interdiction from entering a church, while other officials would be removed from office and excommunicated. To this Arce replied, March 12th, assuring the pope that the case had been suspended awaiting the papal decision, and representing, what he knew to be also false, that for a hundred and fifty years the popes had refused to entertain appeals or had revoked the briefs and remanded the cases to the inquisitor-general. The authority of the Inquisition, he argued, was now more necessary than ever, in consequence of the spread of Judaism and heresy. Villanueva had been treated with extreme kindness and benignity, as would be learned from a person about to be sent to inform the pope, wherefore he begged that the case be remitted to him and the Suprema.[383]

This was a typical specimen of inquisitorial methods of mis-representation and of evasion--of practical but not open disobedience. Innocent, however, was not to be thus juggled with. He had substituted the Bishop of Sigüenza for him of Cuenca. Then the Bishop of Segovia died and Calahorra was transferred to Pampeluna, whereupon further letters commissioned Sigüenza, Pampeluna and the Bishop-elect of Segovia, but Pampeluna died and was replaced by the Bishop of Avila, so finally a brief of April, 1648 ordered Avila, Sigüenza and Segovia to act, on their obedience and under penalty of suspension from all functions and of ingress to their churches. They all refused the dangerous office, under various excuses, but the nuncio brought great pressure to bear on Avila and he finally accepted. It is noteworthy, however, that Villanueva never presented himself before the bishop, either in person or by procurator, to have the case reopened.[384]

[Sidenote: _VILLANUEVA'S CASE_]

The matter was evidently growing serious and juntas were held, July 14th and August 27th, to consider the situation. As the latter was presided over by Arce, whom Philip had made President of Castile, so as to increase his powers of evil, it decided that the king should not submit to the abuses of the curia in a matter in which the Catholic religion was at stake.[385] Philip scarce needed urging, but it was not until November 5th that he took the offensive by sending Don Pedro de Minerbe, of the Royal Council, to seize the brief, in whomsoever's hands it might be, and any others that Villanueva might have procured, together with all papers relating to it. These were to be considered by a junta to be assembled for the purpose so that, if they did not contravene the privileges of the Inquisition, they might be executed and, if otherwise, that his Holiness should be advised of it and be supplicated to revoke them. Any notaries who had served the briefs were to be arrested and imprisoned with a view to their prosecution.[386]

Minerbe fulfilled his mission, but the time had passed when Ferdinand and Charles V had treated papal letters thus irreverently. Philip IV was a prince of very different caliber and his tottering monarchy inspired but little respect. Arce felt the danger of his position, for Innocent had threatened him with deposition if the execution of the brief was impeded and an explosion of papal wrath was inevitable. He sought shelter in playing a double game and, on January 19, 1649, he presented to Philip a report as to cases which had been evoked by the pope. In this, after citing a number, he added that there were many more recent ones in which the cases and papers had been demanded and the demands had been obeyed, notably in 1626 and 1627; these proved the subordination of the Spanish Inquisition to Rome and even without them the papal supremacy was incontestable; Villanueva's appeal was directly to the pope, whom all the faithful were bound to obey.[387] Having thus placed himself on the record, doubtless with the royal connivance, he felt free to repeat his assertions that papal interference was unprecedented and to urge his master to stand fast.

The Suprema had sent its fiscal Cabrera to Rome on this business and his efforts, added to those of Oñate, were inclining Innocent to yield, when the news came of the seizure of the briefs. The papal displeasure was extreme and there was no hesitation in taking up the gage of battle. It had become a struggle for independence on the one side and for supremacy on the other, which had to be fought out, for there was no ground for compromise. All the advantage was on the side of the curia in the contest thus rashly provoked; it knew this and its next move showed that it felt assured of victory. A brief of March 1st recited the preliminaries of the case and then evoked it from the Inquisition and the bishops to the Apostolic See. Perpetual silence was imposed on the Inquisition, the inquisitor-general and other officials, any action by whom would bring upon them, _ipso facto_ and without further sentence, perpetual and irrevocable suspension from divine service, the exercise of pontifical functions and ingress into churches, together with deprivation of their offices and ecclesiastical revenues. Moreover, within three months after notice of this, they were to transmit to Rome all papers and documents, public and private, concerning Villanueva, under the same penalties, and finally all bulls, from those of Alexander VI onward, concerning appeals were derogated.[388]

The Suprema might well characterize to Philip this document as containing extraordinary and unusual clauses and it could only suggest to him the favorite Spanish formula, _obedecer y no cumplir_--to obey and not to execute. The first thing done was the customary supplication to the pope to withdraw it, based on the laws of the kingdom and the high deserts of the Holy Office. This was done in such haste that there was no time to make a clean copy and it was despatched by a courier, April 24th. This gave breathing time, and more was gained by representing that it was impossible to trust the originals of the documents to the risks of transportation and that the copying of them would consume much more than the three months allowed, as the secretaries were busy and the records so voluminous that they occupied more than eight thousand pages--a gross exaggeration for when copied they amounted only to forty-six hundred. This served for the present, however, and successive postponements were obtained.[389]

[Sidenote: _VILLANUEVA'S CASE_]

The supplication against the brief was of course useless and the papal anger increased on learning that Villanueva's salaries had all been stopped--a petty persecution most unwise under the circumstances. At this time a curious incident was a memorial from Villanueva, May 23rd, asking that his case be heard by the Council of Castile--although that body could not assume jurisdiction in such a matter. It was probably a despairing effort to find some exit from the complication, for Philip transmitted it to the Council, with some subsidiary papers, to be considered in the junta which he had ordered and a consults to be presented to him.[390] It of course had no result, but it indicates the perplexities with which the situation had become surrounded.

These perplexities were increased by a demand from Innocent for satisfaction for the treatment of his brief to the Bishop of Avila. A junta was assembled which could do nothing but refer it to the Suprema and the latter could only reply with a consulta of July 15th, exculpating itself for paying no regard to Villanueva's appeal. Nor did it succeed much better in a paper, drawn up July 17th, for the benefit of the Duke del Infantado, the new ambassador to Rome, for it could only recite the old briefs granting exclusive jurisdiction and endeavor to explain away as exceptional the cases in which the pope had insisted on his rights. All this, however, was felt to be useless and there was preparation for war in instructions sent to the sea-ports to keep close watch on all vessels arriving from Italy, when, if there appeared to be papal agents or notaries among the passengers, their baggage was to be minutely examined and any papal briefs addressed to bishops or judges were to be sent to the secretary of state and the bearers were to be held until further orders--this being done with the utmost secrecy and as if in the ordinary routine of business. The precaution proved superfluous, but in December the Duke del Infantado reported that his efforts and Cabrera's had been in vain; the pope insisted that the process should be brought to Rome.[391]

On the plea of the time required for copying, successive postponements had been obtained, the latest of which expired in April, 1650. The pope was becoming more and more impatient, especially as no satisfaction had been given for the seizure of the brief to the Bishop of Avila, nor had it been returned as he demanded. February 5th orders were sent to the nuncio that, if the papers were not forthcoming in April, the full penalties of the brief of evocation must be inflicted, and due notice of this was given to Arce. These penalties withdrew all functions from the inquisitor-general and Suprema--abrogated their offices, in fact--and the friends of Villanueva were busy collecting evidence of their being at work so as to prove to Innocent the disregard of his withdrawal of faculties. The gravity of the situation is reflected in a consulta presented to Philip at this time, weighing the courses that might be followed and hinting at a possible schism as the result of the king's standing firm in defence of the Inquisition. To avert this it is hoped that a further delay may be obtained and the pope be placated by returning the Avila brief. The plan finally adopted of offering to send the papers and letting the king detain them was deprecated because the pope would see through it, and the blame of the perilous situation was thrown on the Spanish cardinals whose indifference was ascribed to their belief that the king favored Villanueva.[392] Arce's court intrigue had brought matters to such a pass that the sundering of Spain from Catholic unity was looming on the horizon.

On April 8th, the Archbishop of Tarsus, the papal nuncio, made a formal demand on the king for the papers; the latest term of delay had expired and the penalties for contumacy would operate of themselves. The policy of delay was still followed and, on May 2nd, Arce notified the nuncio that the copying was completed--two secretaries and five other officials had been working on them for twelve or fourteen hours a day--but in view of certain risks it was thought better to wait till the pope should indicate how they should be sent. The nuncio asked for a formal certificate that the papers were ready, on the strength of which he would ask the pope for instructions, and thus a month or two were gained.[393]

[Sidenote: _VILLANUEVA'S CASE_]

This was all mere playing for time. There was no intention of letting the papers go to Rome for, on April 24th, the king sent secret instructions to Infantado to avert it, but he replied June 27th and again July 26th, that Innocent refused all suggestions and there was little hope of an adjustment. Then another scene of the comedy was acted, September 14th, by issuing a formal order to forward the papers and, on the 16th they were delivered to Damian de Fonolleda, notary of the tribunal of Barcelona, in five volumes aggregating 4600 pages. There was no intention of sending them, however, and Fonolleda was detained in Madrid until November 5th. Meanwhile a junta, assembled for the purpose, presented a consulta, September 24th, setting forth that in no case should the papers be allowed to leave the kingdom and suggesting as a compromise that the matter be decided by three bishops sitting in the Suprema, without Arce and the members. Innocent of course rejected this and Fonolleda was allowed to depart on November 5th. In due time he reported his arrival at Valencia and was instructed to take passage by the first vessel and deliver the papers to the pope, but before he could obey this order it was countermanded and he was told to wait. Meanwhile the Suprema, to keep itself right on the record and avert the papal wrath, addressed to Philip on September 16th, October 3rd and 19th and January 23rd and February 4, 1651, repeated requests to allow the messenger to sail.[394]

This transparent by-play did not deceive Innocent. Cabrera had an audience, January 8, 1651, and told him that Fonolleda was only waiting for a vessel, to which the pope replied that he had been in Spain and knew how things were managed there--there was collusion between the king and inquisitor-general. He added that he bore ill-will to Villanueva, of whom he had had to complain, and would probably punish him more severely than the Inquisition had done, to which Cabrera replied that this was a matter of indifference, for all that the Inquisition wanted was to close the door on these appeals. The tension was becoming dangerous for, on February 18th, the nuncio notified Arce that he and the Suprema had incurred the penalties of the brief of evocation, that they could not be absolved until the papers reached Rome and that still stronger measures would be adopted. When Arce attempted to explain, the nuncio told him that the pope would abolish the Inquisition, to which Arce rejoined that God would not permit him to do so. In reporting this to Philip, Arce recapitulated the heavy penalties incurred _ipso facto_, adding that if the pope should publish such a sentence there would be scandal and discredit to the Inquisition, wherefore, in the name of the Suprema, he begged, as had frequently been asked before, that there should be no further delay in Fonolleda's departure. Of this a certificate was asked for transmission to the pope, as was likewise a supplication of much urgency from the Suprema on March 1st.[395]

This was all purely for papal consumption. Philip himself was beginning to hesitate and, on March 2nd, he ordered the Council of State to consider the tenacity with which the pope was insisting upon his encroachment on the regalías and the privileges of the Inquisition. Arce at once took the alarm and, in a memorial to the king, he sought earnestly to dissuade him from yielding. He repeated the falsehood that, for a hundred and fifty years, there had not been an instance of the pope disregarding the royal wishes, and reminded him that he had declared that he would rather lose his crown than allow the case to go to Rome. Now he learns that the king, in consultation with the Council, has resolved to let the papers go to Infantado with instructions not to deliver them or to ask the pope to return the package without opening it; it is folly to believe that he would do so and such precedent will be ruin to the Inquisition.[396]

In this memorial, Arce alludes to a papal command, received some time before, to retire to his see of Plasencia, from which he had been absent for eight years--a favorite method, as we have seen, of getting rid of a troublesome inquisitor-general. The command had been disregarded and now it was emphatically repeated. Philip complained to his ambassador that this was even more offensive than the evocation of Villanueva's case; it would result in irretrievable damage to religion and to the state; he had asked the nuncio to suspend the order and now he requests the pope to accept Arce's resignation of his bishopric and pass the bulls of presentation for his successor. Innocent was too shrewd to forfeit his hold on his antagonist; he played fast and loose with the resignation until he had carried his point and it was not until December 2, 1652, that it was accepted and Arce's successor, the Bishop of Zamora, was preconized. Arce lost his see, but he gratefully acknowledged that Philip's liberality was such that he could forego the revenues. It must have cost the king dear, for Plasencia was one of the wealthy sees, estimated, in 1612, as worth forty thousand ducats a year.[397]

[Sidenote: _VILLANUEVA'S CASE_]

In spite of Arce's remonstrance, Philip yielded to the advice of his counsellors. In a letter of April 11, 1651, he announced to Infantado that orders have been given to Fonolleda to sail and deliver to him the papers. Then, with an earnestness that betrays the cost of the sacrifice, the duke is told to refresh his memory with all the arguments advanced in previous despatches and, when thus fully prepared, he is to seek an audience and express the king's mortification at being forced to submit to an innovation so unexampled and so subversive of the rights of the Inquisition. If this fails to move the pope, he is to ask that the process be returned unopened, when the Inquisition will revise the case. If this is unsuccessful he is to request that the case be referred back to the three bishops. In the event of the rejection of these proposals, the process is to be laid at the pope's feet with an exhortation to consider, before opening it, the disfavor shown to the royal person and to the kingdom of Spain, in the sight of all Christendom.[398] Philip was fairly beaten. If his humiliation was extreme it was because he had attributed such absurd adventitious importance to the question and had staked everything on a struggle in which the papacy had unquestionable right on its side. There was nothing left for him but retreat and, with curious infelicity born of weakness and obstinacy, he contrived to render his defeat as undignified as possible.

Permission to sail was issued to Fonolleda, April 14th, but it was not until September 17th that Infantado reported that he had delivered the process to the pope with the hope that it would be speedily returned without being read by the ministers, or at least by more than one. It suited the Spaniards subsequently to assert that a promise had been given that the package should not be opened, but such a promise would have been grotesque and this letter shows that at most there was some assurance that a knowledge of the contents would be confined to a few. At the same time there can be no wonder that the Inquisition felt acutely the disgrace of having such a record exposed to unfriendly eyes, and the effort to get the papers back commenced at once. As early as October 31st, Infantado reports his efforts to accomplish this, but as yet without success.[399]

Infantado was replaced by the Count of Oropesa, whose letter of instructions, April 23, 1652, orders him to pay special attention to the matter. Innocent had committed it to Cardinals Lugo and Albizi, but in June he stated to Cardinal Trivulzio, then the representative of Spain, that he had given much labor to it and had recognized in it contradictions and variations, leading him to the conviction that it was a matter of vindictiveness. He refused to return the papers, but did not care to intervene personally in the case and thought he might delegate it to some bishops.[400] Now that he had vindicated his jurisdiction he evidently felt little interest in what he regarded as merely an intrigue.

Nothing further was done until, October 12th, Innocent addressed two briefs, one to the king and the other to Arce. It is evident that the acquittal in 1632 and the condemnation in 1647 had excited no little comment in Rome, for in these briefs great surprise is expressed at the mutability in the opinions of calificadores, consultors and judges, such as might be expected of the populace but not of learned and thoughtful men. To soften this reproof some expressions followed highly commending the Inquisition as the ornament and protection of Spain and, to the king, Innocent added that, owing to the importance and prolixity of the case, he had not been able to reach a conclusion. The nuncio, however, in handing his brief to Arce, told him that the pope had concluded to place the case at the disposition of the king and that the papers had been returned to Trivulzio in Rome. Arce was radiant with triumph; Cabrera had reported the same and petitioned to be allowed to return and nothing remained but to get the papers back. They did not come, however, nor any brief recommitting the case; Arce grew anxious and begged the king, January 4, 1653, to urge Trivulzio to obtain them.[401]

Innocent either was taking malicious pleasure in exciting hopes and then disappointing them or else he was using the position to obtain diplomatic advantage in the growing tension between the courts over the Barberino marriage of the grand-daughter of his brother--a transaction in which he complained that the Spanish ministers had almost threatened him and that no present had been sent on the occasion. Cabrera's letters of December, 1652 and the first half of 1653 report a series of tergiversations and of promises made and broken by Innocent which show that to him Villanueva was merely a pawn in the game between Rome and Madrid.[402]

[Sidenote: _VILLANUEVA'S CASE_]

Villanueva died in Saragossa, July 21, 1653. In his will, executed the day before, he made ample provision for the salvation of his soul, and San Placido was in his mind to the last, for he appointed as its patron his nephew Gerónimo and his descendants, or in their default his niece Margarita and her descendants, they being the principal heirs of his large estate. The only change which this brought into the affair was that the Inquisition proposed to take advantage of the opportunity to commence a new prosecution against his fame and memory--apparently with the double purpose of vindicating its jurisdiction and, by sequestrating his property, of restraining the family, who continued their efforts in Rome for a vindication. Fortunately for them, Alexander VII, who saw in such action an invasion of his jurisdiction, prohibited, in 1656, this cowardly profanation of the ashes of the dead and when, with quenchless malignity, Arce, in 1659, sought to get this prohibition removed, the attempt was unsuccessful.[403]

It is scarce worth while to follow in detail the further weary progress of this affair, in which Spanish tenacity was pitted against the wily diplomacy of Rome. Pertinacious efforts continued for years to get the case remitted back, or at least to have the papers returned, in order to create the belief that it had been remitted. Stimulated by energetic instructions of August 24, 1658 from Philip, his ambassador Gaspar de Sobremonte had a stormy interview with Alexander VII, in which the pope finally told him that the case had never been considered by the Congregation of the Inquisition and that the king must content himself with the brief of October 12, 1652. To this Sobremonte retorted that that brief settled nothing, when the pope said vaguely that he would see whether any satisfaction could be given to the Inquisition. So it continued until Alexander, grown weary of the urgency which promised to be interminable, cut it short, March 29, 1660, by a brief to the king in which he said that the case had been finally concluded by Innocent X, as appeared from his letters to Philip and Arce of March 12 (October 12, 1652). There was nothing more to be said about it, as would be fully explained by the Archbishop of Corinth, the nuncio, to whom full credit was to be given.[404]

This ended the case which, from its inception in 1628, had lasted for thirty-two years. Cabrera had spent nearly twelve years in Rome and had richly earned the bishopric of Salamanca which rewarded his labors, but his efforts while there had cost the Suprema nearly a hundred thousand ducats, at a time when it was representing itself as wholly impoverished. Arce had succeeded in removing Villanueva from the court and in blackening his memory, but the victory remained with the papacy, which had vindicated its appellate jurisdiction, for, although it never decided the case it retained possession of it and the papers which were the symbol of its rights.

With its customary unscrupulousness, the Suprema endeavored to evade the precedent when, in 1668, it was alleged in the quarrel with the Bishop of Majorca (Vol. I, p. 501). In a consulta of that year it gives a summary of the case up to the delivery of the papers to the pope, who then, it proceeds to state, sent a brief full of favors to Arce, approving of Villanueva's sentence and the method of procedure; there was, it is true, an irregularity in allowing the papers to remain in Rome, but the pope excused himself because the originals were in Spain; the evil example led several powerful men to seek appeals to the Holy See, but the pope refused to entertain them, recognizing that it was injurious to the faith. When, in the same quarrel, it boasted of the bulls which it held prohibiting appeals, the Council of Aragon pointed out that the popes always preserved their reserved rights by a clause excepting cases in which they should insert in their letters the text of the bulls thus derogated.[405]

[Sidenote: _BOURBON RESISTANCE_]

In the subsequent quarrel with the canons and clergy of Majorca, in 1671 (Vol. I, p. 503) the latter appealed to the Holy See, under the brief obtained in 1642, and procured letters declaring void the excommunications fulminated by the tribunal and valid those uttered by the executors of the brief. The nuncio exhibited these letters to the inquisitor-general with a paper arguing that these appeals should be allowed and asking, in case there was a privilege or regalía to the contrary, that it should be shown to him. This was a test which the Suprema could not meet and, after a long delay, it sent, June 11, 1676, to the king all the documents bearing on the subject and asked him to assemble a junta to consider them and advise him what to do. It must have been impossible to solve the question favorably for, in a consulta of July 28, 1693, on the occasion of a fresh disturbance, it expressed its profound regret that the junta had failed to reach any conclusion.[406]

* * * * *

Two centuries of bickering thus left the Holy See in possession of its imprescriptible jurisdiction, but the Bourbons were less reverential than the Hapsburgs. In 1705, the hostility of the papacy led Philip V to forbid the publication of papal briefs without the royal exequatur and to prohibit all appeals to Rome. He held his ground in spite of the furious manifestos of Monroy, Archbishop of Santiago, proving that obedience was due to the pope rather than to the king, and the more temperate argumentation of Cardinal Belluga, then Bishop of Cartagena.[407] We hear little after this of appeals of individuals and, indeed, the experience of Villanueva, while apparently a defeat for the Inquisition, was in reality a victory, for it showed how hopeless was the contest of a prisoner against the whole power of the Inquisition and of the crown. Even when the Holy See had the advantage of being in possession of the person in dispute it could only fight a drawn battle, as in the case of Manuel Aguirre who, in 1737, escaped from the prison of the Inquisition, made his way to Rome, and presented his appeal in person. When the curia demanded the papers necessary for his trial, the Inquisitor-general Orbe y Larrategui did not in terms deny the papal rights but argued that the Inquisition was privileged to conclude a case before forwarding the papers for review and offered that, if the Holy See would return the prisoner, his flight should not be held to aggravate his offence and in due time all the desired information would be furnished to Rome. The acceptance of such a proposition was impossible, but the papacy was in no position to contest the matter. After the death of Orbe, in 1740, the curia took the case up again for discussion, but the only course open seemed to be to instruct the nuncio to persuade the Inquisition to obedience and we may safely conclude that Aguirre escaped without a trial.[408]

The ecclesiastical organizations, as in the Majorca cases, were in better position to engage in such conflicts, but Philip V was as little disposed as his predecessors to permit them. The multitudinous quarrels over suppressed prebends and the benefices held by officials of the Inquisition had always been a fruitful source of such appeals and the curia was never loath to entertain them. A typical case was that of Francisco Vélez Frias, private secretary of Inquisitor-general Camargo, who obtained the dignity of precentor in the cathedral of Valladolid, much to the disgust of the chapter. It applied to the inquisitor-general for the papers in the case, alleging that it would reply, but returned them without comment and appealed to Rome, where it obtained a rescript from Benedict XIII, committing the case to an auditor of the Camera and inhibiting the inquisitor-general from its cognizance. When Philip was informed of this he intervened in the spirit of Ferdinand. By his order the Marquis de la Compuesta wrote to the dean and chapter, June 19, 1728, expressing in vigorous terms the royal displeasure at an act so offensive to the inquisitor-general, whose jurisdiction in such matters was exclusive, and so contrary to the will of the king and to his regalías. They were ordered, without making a reply, to abandon the appeal and to apply to the inquisitor-general and the Suprema who would render justice in the case. It is safe to assume that they did not venture to disobey.[409]

The papacy of the eighteenth century was in no position to contest the growing independence of the temporal powers, while the revival of Spain under the Bourbons rendered hopeless any struggle against the resolve of the monarchs to regulate the internal affairs of the kingdom. Yet in this the Holy See was deprived of its inviolable rights, for the latest authoritative utterance of the Church, in the year 1899, tells us that it is an article of faith that the Roman pontiff is the supreme judge of the faithful and that in all ecclesiastical cases recourse may be had to him. It is therefore forbidden, under pain of excommunication, to appeal from him to a future council or to impede in any way the exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, whether in the internal or external forum. Moreover it is against right reason to exalt human power over spiritual power, which is supreme over all powers.[410]