CHAPTER III.

PROTESTANTISM.

The fate of the little band of Spanish Protestants has, not unnaturally, excited the earnest sympathy of modern students. Much has been written about them; their works have been gathered and reprinted with pious care, and the importance of the reformatory movement has been largely exaggerated. There never was the slightest real danger that Protestantism could make such permanent impression on the profound and unreasoning religious convictions of Spain in the sixteenth century, as to cause disturbance in the body politic; and the excitement created in Valladolid and Seville, in 1558 and 1559, was a mere passing episode leaving no trace in popular beliefs. Yet, coming when it did, it exercised an enduring influence on the fortunes of the Inquisition, and on the development of the nation. At the moment, the career of the Holy Office might almost seem to be drawing to a close, for it had nearly succeeded in extirpating Judaism from Spain, while the influx of Portuguese New Christians had not commenced, and its operations against the Moriscos of Valencia were suspended. The panic, skilfully excited at the appearance of Lutheranism, raised it to new life and importance and gave it a claim on the gratitude of the State, which enabled it to dominate the land during the seventeenth century, while its audacious action against Carranza showed that no one was so high-placed as to be beyond its reach. It gained moreover a firmer financial basis than it had previously enjoyed, while, at the same time, Inquisitor-general Valdés was saved from banishment and disgrace. Yet more important even than all this was the dread inspired of heresy, which served as a reason for isolating Spain from the rest of Europe, excluding all foreign ideas, arresting the development of culture and of science, and prolonging medievalism into modern times. This was the true significance of the little Protestant movement and its repression, and it is this which deserves the attention of the student rather than the ghastly dramas of the autos de fe.

Before the Lutheran revolt there was much liberty of thought and speech allowed throughout Catholic Europe. Neither Erasmus nor popular writers and preachers had scruple in ridiculing and holding up to detestation the superstitions of the people, the vices, the greed and the corruptions of the clergy, and the venality and oppression of the Holy See. The Franciscan, Thomas Murner, who subsequently became the most virulent reviler of Luther, castigated the clergy, both regular and secular, with more vigor if with less skill than Erasmus. Erasmus himself, in his _Enchiridion Militis Christiani_, or Manual of the Christian Soldier, did not hesitate to stigmatise, as a new Judaism, the reliance reposed on external observances, which had supplanted true piety, causing the teachings of Christ to be neglected--and the Enchiridion had been approved by Adrian VI, at that time the head of the University of Louvain.

[Sidenote: _REPRESSION COMMENCED_]

When, however, it became necessary, in order to cure these universally admitted evils, to strike at the dogmas of scholastic theology, of which these evils were the outcome; when Northern Europe was rising almost unanimously in Luther's support, and when the curia recognized that it had to deal, not with a mere scholastic debate between monks, but with a rapidly developing revolution, the necessity was soon felt of a rigid definition of orthodoxy, while the licence which had been good-naturedly tolerated, so long as it did not threaten the loss of power and wealth, became heresy, to be diligently inquired into and relentlessly punished. Men who esteemed themselves good Catholics, and had no thought of withdrawing from obedience to the Holy See, found themselves accused of heresy and liable to its penalties. Prior to the definitions of the Council of Trent, there was a certain amount of debatable ground, within which no authoritative decision had as yet rendered the speculations of the schoolmen articles of faith. Erasmus, for instance, had not been called to account for asserting that sacramental confession was not of divine law but, as the conflict grew more desperate, and the Church found defence of its outworks to be requisite, it became heretical to question the divine origin of confession, even before the Council had made it _de fide_. We shall then find the chief sufferers from inquisitorial action divided into two classes. Before the middle of the century they largely consist of unconscious heretics--of men who, prior to the condemnation of Luther, would have been reckoned as undoubtedly orthodox. After 1550, with some exceptions, like Carranza, they were those who had knowingly and consciously embraced more or less of the doctrines of the Reformation. Outside of these another, and by no means the least numerous class, can be defined of those who incurred more or less vehement suspicion of heresy through mere carelessness, in the constantly increasing rigor of external observance. It is doubtless to the first of these classes that we may refer the earliest victim of so-called Lutheranism whom I have found recorded--Gonsalvo the Painter of Monte Alegre in Murcia, a resident in Majorca, relaxed, in 1523, by that tribunal as a Lutheran. It is inconceivable that Lutheran errors could have penetrated at that time to Majorca, or that the inquisitor could have had any clear conception of what they were and, as Gonsalvo is described as a _negativo_, he doubtless considered himself a good Catholic and perished because he would not admit himself to be otherwise.[1114]

It was not until 1521 that the curia was aroused to the necessity of preventing the dissemination in Spain of the new doctrines in the writings of Luther. The Nuncio Aleander, writing from Worms, February 18th of that year, mentioned that in Flanders Spanish versions of Luther's books were in press, through the efforts of the Marrani, and that Charles V had given orders to suppress them.[1115] Acting promptly on this, Leo X, on March 21st, addressed briefs to the Constable and Admiral of Castile--the governors in Charles's absence--exhorting them to prevent the introduction of such works, and Cardinal Adrian lost no time in ordering, April 7th, the tribunals to seize all the obnoxious volumes that they could find, an order which he repeated May 7, 1523, together with instructions to the corregidors to enforce the surrender of the books to the inquisitors.[1116] Very earnest letters were also written, April 12 and 13, 1521, to Charles V, by an assembly of grandees, and by the President and Council of State, urging him to adopt strong measures to prevent the spread of Lutheranism, which had been introduced into Spain and threatened to develop.[1117]

[Sidenote: _ERASMISTS_]

These may be regarded as measures rather precautionary than called for by existing exigencies. So far as the records of the Inquisition have been searched there is no trace, for some years as yet, of prosecutions for Lutheranism, save the solitary case above referred to. With the return of Charles to Spain, in 1522, the influence of Erasmus seemed to promise a perpetuation of the freedom and even licence of speech, of which he was the protagonist. The emperor was his admirer and he became the fashion among courtiers and churchmen pretending to culture. The Inquisitor-general Manrique openly defended him, and so did the primate, Alfonso Fonseca, Archbishop of Toledo. His immense reputation, the immunity conferred on him by the patronage of successive popes against the vindictiveness of the religious Orders, provoked by his merciless ridicule, and the futility of condemnations by scholastic faculties, seemed a guarantee for those who merely echoed the opinions to which he had given currency so wide. So it continued until, in 1527, a translation of his Enchiridion was issued by Alonso Fernández de Madrid, Archdeacon of Alcor. It was dedicated to Archbishop Manrique, who had it duly examined and authorized its publication; its success was immediate, and it was universally read. From the standpoint of scholastic theology, however, it was too vulnerable not to invite attack from the religious Orders. The pulpits, which they virtually monopolized, resounded with their denunciations until Manrique felt obliged to interfere. Many prominent frailes were summoned before the Suprema and sharply reproved for exciting the people against Erasmus, in defiance of repeated edicts; if they found errors in the book, they should denounce them to the Inquisition. The challenge was promptly accepted and, with the assistance of the English Ambassador, Edward Lee, subsequently Archbishop of York, a list of twenty-one articles was drawn up, ranging from Arianism to irreverence towards the Virgin and the denial of various essentials of sacerdotalism. These were submitted to an assembly of twenty theologians and nine frailes, who disputed for a month over the first two articles; the debate promised to be interminable, and Manrique suspended it, at the same time issuing an absolute prohibition to write against Erasmus. As we have seen, however, he fell into disgrace in 1529 and was relegated to his see of Seville; Charles left Spain the same year, carrying with him some of the most powerful protectors of the Erasmists, and the inquisitors, who were largely frailes, were eager to detect the heresy latent in the latitude of speech which had become common among those who prided themselves on culture.[1118]

A typical case of this kind is that of Diego de Uceda, to which allusion has already been made on other accounts (_supra_, p. 68). He was an hidalgo of Córdova of unblemished Old Christian stock. Although a courtier, he was studious and deeply religious, even entertaining thoughts of entering the Geronimite Order. Greatly admiring Erasmus, the failure of the effort to condemn him by the Inquisition gave assurance that his works were approved, and Diego earned some reproof by constantly quoting his opinions and endeavoring to impress them on others. In February, 1528, he was journeying from Burgos to Córdova and, one evening at Corezo, he fell into discussion with a man named Rodrigo Duran who, with his servant, Juan de Avella, was on his way to Seville to embark for the West Indies. The talk fell upon confession and then upon images, in which Diego quoted the views of Erasmus; then upon miracles, when he expressed disbelief in a story of a Christian slave in Africa who prayed for deliverance to Our Lady of Guadalupe; his master overheard him, placed him in a chest, made his own bed on top and slept there, with the result that next morning the chest was in Guadalupe with the master inside and the Christian on top. Something also was said about Luther, whose name got mixed up with that of Erasmus. Duran, on reaching Toledo, denounced Diego to the tribunal, his serving-man furnishing the necessary _conteste_, and went on his way to the Indies. Diego was tracked to Córdova and was sent back as a prisoner to Toledo, where he vainly protested his orthodoxy and offered submission to the Church, although his frequent allusions to Erasmus probably did his case no good. He proved by witnesses that he habitually confessed four times a year, that he took all indulgences and that he was a man of blameless life and strong religious convictions, but it was all in vain. I have already shown how he was tortured, confessed and then revoked, and how he was condemned to a humiliating penance, July 22, 1529, ruining his career and leaving an indelible stain on a family that had boasted of its limpieza.[1119]

[Sidenote: _ERASMISTS_]

The danger impending over Erasmists is still more forcibly illustrated by the case of one who was regarded as perhaps the foremost among them in Spain. No man stood higher for learning and culture than Doctor Juan de Vergara. He had been secretary of Ximenes as Archbishop of Toledo, and subsequently to Fonseca, who succeeded to the primatial dignity in 1524. Ximenes had made him professor of Philosophy at Alcalá, where he translated the Wisdom of Solomon for the Complutensian Polyglot, and the treatises _de Anima_, _de Physica_ and _de Metaphysica_ for the projected edition of Aristotle. He was an elegant Latin poet, and Menéndez y Pelayo tells us that he was the father of historical criticism. He was regarded with favor by Manrique and was a warm defender of Erasmus in the contest over the Enchiridion.[1120] We shall have occasion hereafter to treat of the adventures of the _alumbrada_ Francisca Hernández and the men whom she entangled in her toils; among them was Bernardino de Tovar, also an Erasmist, half-brother of Vergara, who incurred her enmity by rescuing him from her clutches. To revenge herself, when on trial in 1530, she accused Vergara of holding all of Luther's doctrines, except as to confession, and of possessing some of Luther's works--the latter accusation being true, but when, in 1530, Manrique ordered the surrender of all such books, Vergara, after some delay, carried them to the tribunal. Another of Francisca's disciples, Fray Francisco Ortiz, when on trial, also accused Vergara of denying the efficacy of indulgences and abusing the University of Paris for condemning the writings of Erasmus, in which, he said, the Church had found no heretical errors. The tribunal collected some other evidence against Vergara and industriously searched for more, even as far as Flanders. In May, 1533, a willing witness was found in Diego Hernández, a buffoon of a priest, whom María Cazalla had employed as confessor until she dismissed him for seducing a nun and asserting that it was no sin. This worthy produced a list of seventy Lutheran heretics, qualified according to their degrees of guilt, among whom Vergara figured as _fino lutherano endiosado_ (mystically abstracted). Whatever hesitation there may have been in arresting such a man, however, disappeared when it was found, in April, 1533, that he had been communicating with Tovar in prison, by bribing the officials. The fiscal presented his clamosa, May 17th, accusing Vergara of being a fautor and defender of heretics, a defamer of the Inquisition and a corrupter of its officials, and his arrest and imprisonment followed on June 24th.

This occasioned general surprise. Archbishop Fonseca was deeply moved and endeavored to obtain his release under bail for fifty thousand ducats, or to have him confined in a house under guard, but the only result of his efforts was to lead the tribunal to shut up the windows of Vergara's cell, converting it into a dungeon and seriously affecting his health. The trial proceeded through the regular stages. He refused the services of an advocate and, on January 29, 1534, he presented his defence, denying nearly all the errors attributed to him and explaining the rest in a Catholic sense. After this a fresh accusation was presented based on his friendship for and correspondence with Erasmus, to whom he had induced Archbishop Fonseca to grant a pension. Fonseca had died, February 24th, so that his evidence was unattainable, but Vergara pronounced the story as to the pension to be false, though had it been true it would have been innocent. Everyone knew that Erasmus had neither income nor benefice, never having been willing to accept either, and that he was supported by the liberality of gentlemen who contributed to him from all parts. Fonseca had only offered him an income if he would come to reside at Alcalá, an offer which Ximenes had previously made. It was true that, when Erasmus dedicated to him his edition of St. Augustin, Fonseca sent him two hundred ducats, scarce enough, in the case of so large a work, to give the printers their customary _pour-boire_. Fonseca felt this, and, when he heard of the death of Archbishop Warham of Canterbury (+ 1532), who was accustomed to provide liberally for Erasmus, he said that he ought to pay for the printing of the book, whereupon Vergara wrote that he would send something, but it was not done. As for corresponding with Erasmus, popes and kings and the emperor himself were gratified to have letters from him and, in the printed collections of his epistles, were to be found his answers to Vergara, showing that the latter had urged him to write in confutation of Luther.

The day after this defence was presented, there came the most serious evidence as yet offered against him. This was from another distinguished Erasmist, then on trial, Alonso de Virués, who testified that, four years before, in a discussion whether the sacrament worked _ex opere operato_, Vergara ridiculed it as a fantastic opinion, and further, that he did not hold as he should, certain pious and Catholic doctrines. It is true that the Council of Trent had not yet pronounced, as it did in 1547 (Sess. VII, De Sacramentis, can. viii) the self-operation of the sacrament to be _de fide_, but the doctrine was coeval with the development of the sacramental theory in the twelfth century and was indispensable in vindication of its validity in polluted hands against the Donatist heresy. To deny it, even in disputation, could not fail to prejudice Vergara's case, which dragged on, in spite of the efforts of his friends, and even of the empress, to expedite it. At length, on December 21, 1535, he was sentenced to appear as a penitent in an auto de fe, to abjure _de vehementi_, to be recluded in a monastery for a year irremissibly, and to pay a fine of fifteen hundred ducats. In three months, however, Manrique charitably transferred him to the cathedral cloister and, on February 27, 1537, his confinement came to an end.[1121] He incurred no disabilities; his reputation seems not to have suffered, for he retained his Toledo canonry and, as we have seen, he incurred, in 1547, the displeasure of Archbishop Silicio by opposing the statute of limpieza.

[Sidenote: _ERASMISTS_]

Virués was a similar victim to the revulsion against Erasmus. He was Benedictine Abbot of San Zoilo, a learned orientalist and the favorite preacher of Charles V, who had carried him to Germany. Envy of his favor at court caused his denunciation; isolated passages in his sermons were cited against him, and he was thrown in prison in 1533. His incarceration lasted for four years, in spite of Charles's efforts for his liberation; it was in vain that he pleaded that, some fourteen years before, Erasmus had been regarded as orthodox, and that he adduced the arguments which he had used against Melanchthon in the Diet of Ratisbon. In 1537, he was declared to be suspect of Lutheranism, he was required to abjure and was recluded in a convent for two years, with suspension from preaching for two more. Charles was so much interested in him that, notwithstanding his strenuous objection to papal interference, he procured from Paul III a brief of May 29, 1538, by which the sentence was set aside and Virués was declared capable of any preferment, even episcopal. When Juan de Sarvia, Bishop of Canaries, died in 1542, Virués was appointed his successor and died in 1545.[1122]

Contemporary with these cases was that of Pedro de Lerma, a member of one of the leading families of Burgos. He was a canon of the Cathedral and Abbot of Alcalá, renowned as a preacher and a man of the highest consideration. He had spent fifty years in the University of Paris, where the Sorbonne made him dean of its faculty. Happening to read some of the works of Erasmus, he was so impressed that they influenced his sermons. He was denounced to the Inquisition, which imprisoned him and, after a long trial he was required, in 1537, to recant eleven propositions publicly in all the towns where he had preached, confessing that he had taught them at the instigation of the devil to propagate error in the Church. He was so humiliated that he abandoned Spain for Paris, where he was warmly received as dean of the faculty, and where he died in 1541. The people of Burgos, we are told, who had regarded him with the greatest reverence, were so impressed by this that those who had sent their sons abroad to study at once recalled them.[1123]

This atmosphere of all-pervading suspicion, and this exaggerated sensitiveness to possible error, exposed everyone to prosecution for the most innocently unguarded remark. Miguel Mezquita, a gentleman of Formiche (Teruel) appeared January 19, 1536, before the Valencia tribunal in obedience to a citation and, under the usual formula of being told to search his conscience, he intuitively recurred to Erasmus and related a talk which he had, some five or six years previous, with a Dominican, in which he had defended the Enchiridion on the ground that it had been subjected to examination without being condemned. This however proved not to be the cause of his summons, for Pedro Forrer, a priest of Teruel, had denounced him as having said that Luther preached the gospel and was therefore called an evangelist, while the followers of the pope were called papists, and that Luther was right in maintaining that Scripture did not say that Christ gave power to St. Peter, but to all the apostles. Mezquita explained that he had been several times to Italy and had been sent to Flanders; the priest had asked him what was said about Luther, and he had merely gratified his curiosity by repeating what he had heard abroad in common talk. He earnestly implored to be released, for he had eight children, four of them studying in Salamanca and, when suddenly carried off from home, he had left but six sueldos in his house. Fortunately for him, the inquisitors were not unreasonable and, on January 29th, he was allowed to return to his family, but the case remained on the records to be brought up against him should any malevolent neighbor see fit to distort some careless utterance.[1124]

Mysticism and illuminism, which, about this time, commenced their development in Spain, furnished another source of accusations of Lutheranism, due to their common tendency to cast aside the observances of sacerdotalism and to bring the sinner into direct relations with God, but this field of inquisitorial activity demands separate consideration. Meanwhile the above cases will probably suffice to indicate the way in which Catholics, who had no thought of wandering from the faith, fell under suspicion of partaking in the new heresies and were consequently subjected to persecution more or less distressing. It would scarce be worth while to follow in detail the long succession of those who had similar experience. The case of Carranza has already been discussed. Fray Juan de Regla, confessor of Charles V at San Yuste, and one of the witnesses against Carranza, was imprisoned by the Saragossa tribunal and was required to abjure eighteen propositions. Fray Francisco de Villalba, who preached the funeral sermon of Charles V, was denounced for Lutheranism and was saved only by the protection of Philip II. Miguel de Medina, one of the theologians of the Council of Trent, was so orthodox that, in his _Disputatio de Indulgentiis_, he ascribes to indulgences a virtue so great that without them Christianity would be a failure, yet this did not prevent his prosecution for defending certain propositions thought to savor of Lutheranism and, after four years' detention, he died in prison with his trial unfinished.[1125]

[Sidenote: _LUTHERANISM_]

All these were cases of good Catholics, whose prosecution is attributable to a hyperæsthesia of orthodoxy. As regards the real Protestantism, there was necessarily a double duty, one with respect to its literature and the other to its professors. The former will be discussed in the next chapter and it suffices here to point out that although there was as yet no organized censorship of the press, the possession or reading of any of Luther's books was forbidden, under pain of excommunication, in 1520, by Leo X, in the bull _Exsurge Domine_, and this was extended to the works of all his followers in the recension of the bull _in C[oe]na Domini_ by Adrian VI.[1126] We have seen the flurry produced, in 1521, by the dread of the introduction of this literature into Spain, and it would appear that there was a demand for it, or that the German heretics were endeavoring to create one for, in 1524, we hear that a ship from Holland for Valencia, captured by the French and recaptured, was brought into San Sebastian, when two casks of Lutheran books were found in her cargo, which were publicly burnt. Some eight months later, three Venetian galeasses brought large quantities of similar books to a port in Granada, where the corregidor seized and burnt them and imprisoned the captains and crews.[1127] As yet, however, there seems to have been no definite penalty, save the papal censures, for possessing this forbidden literature. We have seen Juan de Vergara simply surrendering what he had; in 1527 we chance to find a commission, issued by the Suprema, to absolve a fraile from the excommunication thus incurred and, in 1528, a similar one for the benefit of the Licenciado Fray Diego de Astudillo.[1128]

As regards heretics in person, the relations of Spain with the Netherlands and Germany, at this period, were too intimate for it to escape their intrusion. The earliest case I have met occurred in 1524, when a German named Blay Esteve was condemned by the tribunal of Valencia.[1129] Again the same tribunal, in 1528, tried Cornelis, a painter of Ghent, for saying that Luther was not a heretic and for denying the existence of purgatory, the utility of masses, confession etc. He had not the spirit of martyrdom but pleaded intoxication and that he had abandoned in Spain the errors which he had entertained in Flanders; he was sentenced to reconciliation and perpetual prison and, in the papers of the trial, there is an allusion to the prosecution of Jacob Torres, apparently another Lutheran. Valencia, in 1529, had another case in the person of Melchor de Württemberg, who came there by way of Naples. He preached in the streets, saying that he had searched the world in vain for a true follower of Christ, and he predicted that in three years the world would be drowned in blood. He was probably an Anabaptist and, when on trial, he admitted that he had visited Martin Luther to learn whether the Lutheran sect possessed the truth. The tribunal referred the case to the Suprema, which replied that, if he held any Lutheran errors, justice should be done; if not, the case was trifling and a hundred lashes would suffice. The papers are imperfect and we can only gather that he denied Lutheranism and escaped with the scourging.[1130]

[Sidenote: _PERSECUTION ORGANIZED_]

Cases of this kind were doubtless occurring in the various tribunals, but it was some time as yet before systematic action was taken by the Inquisition. Clement VII addressed a brief, May 8, 1526, to the Observantine Franciscans, empowering them to receive all Lutherans desiring to return to the Church, who were to be reincorporated on accepting salutary penance, and to be absolved and relieved from all the penalties decreed by Leo X and by others.[1131] This was evidently designed for temporary effect in Germany and, although sent to Spain, it was too subversive of the exclusive jurisdiction of the Inquisition to be observed there. The earliest action of the Suprema to protect Spain from the dissemination of the new heresies would seem to be a letter, in 1527, to the provisor of Lugo and to the Dominican provincial and Franciscan guardian there, about the heretics arriving at the Galician ports, and ordering them to enquire after Lutheran books, which they were required to seize.[1132] Coruña was one of the chief ports of commerce with the northern seas, thus calling for special watchfulness, and, though a tribunal had recently been provided for Galicia, apparently on this account, it seems not to have been in working order. Still the heretics continued to come, and the Suprema issued, April 27, 1531, a _carta acordada_ instructing the tribunals to publish special Edicts of Faith requiring the denunciation of persons suspected of holding Lutheran opinions.[1133] Apparently the time had arrived when some definite position with regard to the growing danger had to be taken; there seems to have been doubt felt as to the authority of the Inquisition to deal with it, and as to the policy to be observed towards these heretics, for a brief was procured, July 15th of the same year, from Clement VII empowering Manrique and his deputies to proceed against the followers of Martin Luther, their fautors and defenders, and a clause to this effect continued subsequently to be included in the commissions of the inquisitor-general. The brief moreover extended Manrique's personal jurisdiction, for this heresy, over archbishops and bishops, although these were not to be arrested and imprisoned; impenitents were to be relaxed, in accordance with the canons, while those who sought reconciliation were to be admitted, with due punishment, and could even be dispensed for irregularity and be relieved of all disabilities and note of infamy.[1134] There was evidently as yet a disposition to treat these new heretics with special tenderness.

For some time as yet the labors of the Inquisition, in the suppression of Lutheranism, were confined to foreigners, the most conspicuous of whom was Hugo de Celso, a learned Burgundian doctor of both laws and author of a serviceable _Reportorio de las Leyes_, which saw the light at Valladolid in 1538 and again at Alcalá in 1540. In 1532 he seems to have been prosecuted without conviction at Toledo, but fell again under suspicion and was finally burnt in 1551.[1135] It is true that Queen Mary of Hungary, sister of Charles V, did not escape suspicion,[1136] but the earliest undoubted heretic recorded of Spanish blood would seem to be Francisco de San Roman of Burgos. Engaged, while still a young man, in business in the Netherlands, his affairs took him to Bremen, where he was converted and became so ardent a proselyte that, after various adventures, he undertook to convert Charles V at Ratisbon. Persisting in the attempt, he was sent in chains to Spain and, as he refused to recant, there was nothing to do with him save to give him the fiery death that he courted--the first of the few Spanish martyrs to Protestantism. Carranza attended him at the stake and urged him to submit to the Church, but the ferocious crowd pierced him with their swords--a not infrequent occurrence at the autos de fe. We have no dates, but an allusion to Charles's expedition to Tunis would seem to place his career about 1540.[1137]

Nearly at the same time there appeared another, who was classed as a Lutheran, although he seems to have worked out his heresies independently. All that we know of Rodrigo de Valero rests on the unreliable testimony of González de Montes, who describes him as a wealthy youth of Lebrija, near Seville, suddenly converted from the vanities of the world to an assiduous study of Scripture and the conviction that he was a new apostle of Christ. His special heresies are not recorded, but they led to his trial by the Seville tribunal, which confiscated his property and discharged him as insane. He continued his apostolate and, on a second trial, he was condemned to perpetual prison and sanbenito. Here, in the obligatory Sunday attendance at mass, he contradicted the priest until, to silence him, he was recluded in a convent at San Lucar de Barrameda, where he lay until his death.[1138]

[Sidenote: _MODERATION_]

Valero was not without importance, for he was the perverter of Juan Gil, or Doctor Egidio, the founder of the little Protestant community of Seville which came, as we shall see, to an untimely end. Egidio was magistral canon of the cathedral and a man of the highest consideration for learning and eloquence; indeed, he was nominated by Charles V to the see of Tortosa, which was vacant from 1548 to 1553. On his post-mortem trial, in 1559, evidence showed that, as early as 1542, he had preached to the nuns of Santa Clara on the uselessness of external works, denying the suffrages of the saints, and stigmatizing image-worship as idolatry.[1139] A letter of Charles to Valdés, from Brussels, January 25, 1550, shows that Egidio was then on trial in Seville; Charles ordered Valdés to investigate the case personally in Seville and consult him before concluding it, all of which must be done speedily for that church (Tortosa) must be provided with a prelate.[1140]

Charles's solicitude shows that the matter was regarded as important. Egidio, in fact, was the centre of a little band of Lutherans whom the Inquisition was eagerly tracking. The Suprema wrote, July 30, 1550, to Valdés at Seville, urging him to expedite the case, and adding that it had written to Charles about the arrest of those in Paris and Flanders implicated with Dr. Egidio, and about Dr. Zapata who had delivered Lutheran books to Antonio de Guzman.[1141] Yet when Egidio's trial ended, August 21, 1552, he was treated with singular moderation. He was obliged publicly to abjure as heretical ten propositions which he admitted to have uttered, subjecting himself to the penalty of relapse for reincidence. Eight more propositions he recanted as false and erroneous, and seven he explained in a Catholic sense--all of these being more or less Lutheran. He was sentenced to a year's confinement in the castle of Triana and never to leave Spain; for a year after release he was not to celebrate mass and for ten years he was suspended from preaching, confessing and partaking in disputations.[1142] Death in 1556 saved him from a harsher fate, although, as we shall see, his bones were exhumed and burnt in 1560.

The mildness of the Inquisition shows that thus far there was no alarm to stimulate severity, nor was there any cause for it. We hear a good deal of the missionary efforts of the German or other heretics; but up to this time there is slender trace of such work. The only indication--and that a very dubious one--that I have met of such attempts, is the case of Gabriel de Narbonne, before the Valencia tribunal in 1537. He was a Frenchman, who had learned heresy during four years spent in Germany and Switzerland. As a wandering mendicant in Spain, he spoke freely of his beliefs to all whom he met. When arrested, he confessed fully to all the leading tenets of Lutheranism and begged mercy; after a year's confinement, under threat of torture, he stated that he had been sent by the Swiss heretics to Spain as a missionary; there were three others, one named Beltran, who was likewise in Spain, one was destined to Venice and the other to Savoy. He had wandered, he said, on foot for two years through the whole Peninsula, from Catalonia and Navarre to Lisbon, disseminating his heresies wherever he could find a listener, especially among the clergy. Had the tribunal believed his story, he would have been sharply tortured to discover his converts; as it was, he was merely reconciled with irremissible prison, while his nephew, another Gabriel de Narbonne, who spontaneously denounced himself as having been perverted by his uncle, was reconciled with spiritual penance and forbidden to leave the kingdom.[1143]

[Sidenote: _THE SEVILLE GROUP_]

It would seem as though the Holy See were desirous to arouse the Spanish Inquisition to a sense of its inertness in combating these dangerous innovations for, in 1551, Julius III sent to Inquisitor-general Valdés a brief empowering him to punish Lutheranism irrespective of the station of the offender--a wholly superfluous grant, for he already possessed by his commission all requisite faculties, except as regards bishops, and the case of Carranza shows that they were not included in the brief.[1144] If the object was to stimulate, it failed, for the cases of Lutheranism continued for some time to be few and mostly of foreigners. The year 1558 may be taken as a turning-point in the history of Spanish Protestantism and up to that time the industrious researches of Dr. Ernst Schäfer, into the records of all the tribunals, have only resulted in finding an aggregate of a hundred and five cases, of which thirty-nine are of natives and sixty-six of foreigners.[1145] Of course, in the chaos of archives, no such statistics can be regarded as complete, but, on the other hand, the tribunals were in the habit of classing as "Lutheranism" any deviation, even in a minor degree, from dogma or observance, or any careless speech, such as those of which we have had examples above. As a whole, the figures are significant of the slender impression thus far made on Spanish thought by the intense religious excitement beyond the Pyrenees. A few individuals--mostly those who had been abroad--are all that can be regarded as really infected with the new doctrines. Thus far there had been nothing of organization, of little associations or conventicles, in which those of common faith assembled for worship, for mutual encouragement or for planning measures to disseminate their belief, but something of the kind was beginning to develop in Seville, where the teachings of Rodrigo de Valero and Dr. Egidio gradually spread through a widening circle. After Egidio's death, in 1556, the leading figure was Doctor Constantino Ponce de la Fuente, who was elected by the chapter to the vacant magistral canonry, and who was a man of the highest consideration, having served Charles V in Flanders as confessor and chaplain. Another important personage was Maestro García Arias, known as Doctor Blanco, prior of the Geronimite house of San Isidro, all the brethren of which became converts, as well as some of the inmates of the Geronimite nunnery of Santa Paula. An influential beneficiary of the church of San Vicente named Francisco de Zafra also joined the group which, although largely composed of clerics, secular and regular, contained many laymen. We hear of two rag-pickers, Francisco and Antonio de Cardenas, while there was also a noble of the highest rank, Don Juan Ponce de Leon, of the great house of the Dukes of Arcos. Every class of society was represented in the little band, which numbered altogether over a hundred and twenty, besides Doctor Juan Pérez de Pineda and Julian Hernández, who had sought safety in flight, probably about the time of the arrest of Dr. Egidio.[1146]

[Sidenote: _THE VALLADOLID GROUP_]

In 1557, from some cause, suspicion was aroused and the tribunal commenced a secret investigation, which seems to have reached the ears of some of the inculpated, and eleven of the Geronimites of San Isidro sought safety in flight, among whom were two who became noteworthy--Cipriano de Valera and Cassiodoro de Reina.[1147] This increased the suspicion and certain writings of Doctor Constantino were subjected to examination; they had passed current without animadversion for ten years, but, in 1557, a carta acordada addressed to all the tribunals called attention to them, followed, January 2, 1558, by a list of books to be burnt,[1148] to which were added three of his to be seized but not burnt. Finally the tribunal was able to obtain positive evidence against individuals. Juan Pérez, in the refuge of Geneva, had been busy in preparing propagandist works.[1149] To convey them into Spain was a perilous task, but it was undertaken by Julian Hernández, who had spent some years in Paris, had then wandered to Scotland and Germany, and had become a deacon in the Walloon church of Frankfort. The story that he reached Seville with two large casks of Pérez's Testament, Psalms and Catechism is probably an exaggeration, but he brought a supply of them, reaching Seville in July, 1557. The books were deposited outside the walls and were smuggled in at night, or were brought in by Don Juan Ponce de Leon in his saddlebags. Julian made a fatal blunder with a letter and a copy of the _Imajen del Antichristo_, addressed to a priest, which he delivered to one of the same name who was a good Catholic. When the latter saw as the frontispiece the pope kneeling to Satan, and read that good works were useless, he hastened with the dangerous matter to the Inquisition which made good use of the clue thus furnished. Don Juan promptly fled to Ecija and Julian to the Sierra Morena, but they were tracked and brought back on October 7th. Other arrests speedily followed and the prisons began to fill.[1150] With its customary unwearied patience, the tribunal traced out all the ramifications of the heretical conventicle, arresting one after another as denunciations of accomplices were obtained from prisoners. Dr. Constantino and his friend Dr. Blanco were not seized until August, 1558, and the first auto de fe was not celebrated until September 24, 1559.

Meanwhile, almost simultaneously, a similar association of Protestants had been discovered at Valladolid, then the residence of the court. An Italian gentleman, Don Carlos de Seso, said to be the son of the Bishop of Piacenza, had been converted about 1550, apparently by the writings of Juan de Valdés. He came to Spain, bringing with him heretical books and ardently desiring to spread the reformed faith. He settled first in Logroño, where he made some converts, and then, through the influence of his wife, Isabel de Castilla, of royal blood and highly esteemed, he was appointed corregidor of Toro, about 1554. There he converted the Bachiller Antonio de Herrezuelo and his wife, Leonor de Cisneros, Doña Ana Enríquez, daughter of Elvira, Marchioness of Alcañizes, Juan de Ulloa Pereira, Comendador of San Juan, and others of more or less distinction, while, in Pedrosa, a town lying between Toro and Valladolid, Pedro de Cazalla, the parish priest, also fell under his influence and became a missionary in his turn. Among his converts was his sacristan, Juan Sánchez, whose imprudent zeal greatly alarmed Cazalla; in 1557, Sánchez left Pedroso for Valladolid, where he entered the service of Doña Catalina de Hortega, whom he soon converted, and with her Doña Beatriz de Vivero, a sister of Cazalla. Through them, seven nuns of the Cistercian house of Nuestra Señora de Belen were brought to the new faith, but the greatest conquest, about May, 1557, was made when Beatriz de Vivero and Pedro Cazalla won their brother, Doctor Agustin de Cazalla. No ecclesiastic was of higher repute or greater influence with all classes; he was the favorite preacher of Charles V, who had carried him to Germany in 1543, where possibly his debates with heretics may have unconsciously undermined his faith. Next to him among the converts might be ranked the Dominican Fray Domingo de Rojas, whose reputation for learning and eloquence was of the highest. He had been a fellow student of Pedro de Cazalla; he had accompanied Carranza to Trent, in 1552, where he had encountered heretics, and since then some of his utterances had led his brother Dominicans to entertain suspicions, but, when Beatriz de Vivero first sought to convert him, he was firm and even thought of denouncing her. In the autumn of 1557, however, Agustin Cazalla and Carlos de Seso won him over to heresy and he, in his turn, brought in his brother, Don Pedro Sarmiento and his nephew Don Luis de Rojas, heir to the marquisate of Pozo. As in Seville, the reformers thus included men of the highest consideration, socially and ecclesiastically, as well as those of the lower classes. Still, their numbers were few; the wild estimates of five hundred or six thousand are baseless, for they did not exceed fifty-five or sixty, wholly without organization, being scattered from Logroño to Zamora, though the house of Doña Leonor de Vivero, the widowed mother of the Cazallas, served occasionally as a meeting-place. Of her ten children, four sons, Agustin and Pedro Cazalla, Francisco and Juan de Vivero, and two daughters, Beatriz and Costanza, were involved; the rest seem to have escaped. She herself, after the prosecutions commenced, was only confined to her house; she speedily died and received Christian burial, but her bones were subsequently exhumed and burnt. Notwithstanding this, one of the sons, Gonzalo Pérez de Cazalla, obtained, May 12, 1560, a dispensation from the _cosas arbitrarias_.[1151]

[Sidenote: _THE VALLADOLID GROUP_]

It was inevitable that such a propaganda should be discovered, and the only source of surprise is that it should have been carried on for two or three years without betrayal, but this came at last almost simultaneously from several sources. In Zamora, Christóbal de Padilla, steward of the Marchioness of Alcañizes, was unguarded in his talk; towards Easter of 1558 the publication of the Edict of Faith led to two denunciations, on which he was arrested by the bishop and thrown into the public prison. As he was not _incomunicado_ he was able to send word to his accomplices and Herrezuelo promptly advised Pedro de Cazalla, with warning that no reliance could be placed on Padilla's reticence. Even more threatening than this was the inconsiderate zeal of Francisco de Vivero and his sister Beatriz, in seeking to convert two friends, Doña Antonia de Branches and Doña Juana de Fonseca. Their confessors refused absolution and Easter communion unless they would obtain full information; this they did and the tribunal was speedily in possession of the names of nearly all the converts, and made arrangements to seize them all. Despite its profound secrecy, Dr. Cazalla chanced to hear it said that there were heretics in Valladolid who had been denounced by Juana de Fonseca. The purport of this was unmistakable and wild confusion reigned among the little band. Desperate plans of escape were projected, but the time was too short. Some sought mercy by surrendering themselves and denouncing their accomplices; others silently awaited arrest. Only three attempted flight. Fray Domingo de Rojas, disguised in secular apparel, hastened to Logroño to Carlos de Seso and the two tried to escape through Navarre; at Pampeluna they secured a pass from the viceroy, but the agents of the Inquisition were in hot pursuit; they were recognized and conducted back under guard of twelve familiars and some mounted officials, which was rather for their protection than to prevent escape for, wherever they passed, crowds assembled with demonstrations of burning them. Fray Domingo was in mortal fear lest his kinsmen should slay him on the road, and it was deemed necessary to enter Valladolid at night to avoid lapidation by the mob. Of all concerned, the only one who succeeded in leaving Spain was Juan Sánchez, who found at Castro de Urdiales a vessel bound for Flanders and he, as we have seen, was caught a year later and shared the fate of his associates.[1152]

Inquisitor-general Valdés, whose disgrace was imminent, promptly took advantage of the situation to save himself. It is easy for us now to recognize the absurdity of the fear that a couple of hundred more or less zealous Protestants, in Seville and Valladolid, could constitute any real danger to the faith so firmly intrenched and so powerfully organized in Spain, but, at the moment, no man could know how far the infection had spread. There was reasonable cause for alarm at the simultaneous discovery, in places so far apart, of heresy numbering among its disciples those of high rank in the world and of distinguished position in the Church. This alarm it was the business of Valdés to intensify, in order to render himself indispensable, and the most exaggerated rumors were industriously spread. Abbot Illescas, who was an eye-witness, treats it as a most terrible conspiracy which, if the discovery had been postponed for two or three months, would have set all Spain aflame, resulting in the gravest misfortune that had ever befallen the land. That hideous stories were circulated is shown by his assertion that matters too horrible to mention were proved; in the Cazalla house nocturnal conventicles were held, abominable and Satanic gatherings, in which Lutheran doctrines were preached.[1153] The legend was industriously maintained. The Venetian envoy, Leonardo Donato, referring to the matter, in 1573, says that if it had not been remedied with speedy punishment, every one believes that the evil weed would have grown apace and would have infected all Spain, and this, perhaps, was not one of the least causes that induced Philip II to make peace with France and return home.[1154] So Inquisitor Páramo, towards the close of the century, tells us that no one doubts but that a great conflagration would have resulted had it not been for the vigilance of the Holy Office and that, in the nocturnal conventicles held in the Cazalla house, the heretics polluted themselves with horrid wickedness.[1155]

[Sidenote: _EXPLOITATION BY VALDES_]

That the government should feel keen anxiety at the unknown proportions of the portentous discovery was natural. Charles V was nearing his end in the retirement of Yuste, and Philip was in Flanders, engrossed in the war with France. His sister, the Infanta Juana, the temporary ruler, was a woman of very moderate capacity and she and her advisers, in view of the religious disquiet in France and Germany, might reasonably view with dread the prospect of civil dissension which in that age was the usual result of dissidence in faith. The outbreak in Seville had not excited much attention, but now this one at the court, involving such personages, portended unknown evils and came just in time to save Valdés from disgrace, as we have seen above (Vol. II, p. 47). On March 23, 1558 the Princess Juana had written to her father that when he had ordered the body of his mother Juana to be transferred to Granada, she had commanded Valdés to accompany it and then to visit his diocese of Seville; he had endeavored to excuse himself at the moment but promised to arrange so as to obey shortly. Then, when urged to do so some days later he raised further difficulties; it made no difference whether the body was buried then or in September; everybody was endeavoring to drive him away; troubles with his chapter required his presence at the court or in Rome; besides, he was occupied with some heresies which had arisen in Seville and in Murcia, and was busy in endeavoring to get a subsidy from the Moriscos of Granada. Evidently he was belittling the Seville heresies, lest they should serve as an excuse for sending him thither and, when Juana referred his letter to the Council of State, it insisted that he could be properly obliged to reside in his diocese.[1156]

It can therefore be easily conceived how eagerly he grasped the opportune explosion in Valladolid and how it was magnified so as to produce on the court a vastly greater impression than the more dangerous one in Seville. In a letter of May 12th to Philip, the Suprema briefly announced the discovery; the heretics were so numerous and the time had been so short that it could give no details, but it suggestively insisted on the necessity of the presence of Valdés to urge the matter forward and it hoped that, with the royal favor, action would be taken for the salvation of the delinquents and the example and restraint of others.[1157] As we have seen this produced immediate effect, for Philip, who had written June 5th that he must be relegated to his see, on the 14th countermanded the order. Charles had already been induced to take the same position. As early as April 27th, Juan Vázquez reported to him the arrest of Dr. Cazalla and the alarming outlook, adding that the remedy should be speedy and that the inquisitor-general and Suprema were actively at work.[1158] Charles was thoroughly aroused. He had spent his strength and his life in combating heresy; it had baffled his policies and frustrated his ambitions; it had been a thorn in the flesh, rankling and crippling him at every turn. It had fairly worn him out and driven him to abdication, and now its spectre broke in upon the repose for which his wearied soul and exhausted body had longed. He was appalled by the prospect of a renewal of the struggle, in the only land as yet preserved from its influence, and his religious zeal was enkindled with the conviction that only by the enforcement of unity of faith could public order and even the monarchy itself be maintained.

[Sidenote: _ALARM OF CHARLES V_]

Accordingly, on May 3d, he wrote to Juana asking her most earnestly to order that Valdés should not leave the court, where his presence was so necessary. She must give him and the Suprema all the support requisite to enable them to suppress so great an evil by the rigorous punishment of the guilty. Had he the bodily strength, he would himself come and share the labor. Juana sent for Valdés and showed him the letter, which assured him that he had regained his position, and the work went on of arresting the heretics, reports of which were duly sent to Charles. The more he pondered over the situation, the more excited he grew. On May 25th, in a long letter to Juana, he magnified the danger and the urgency of stern measures. "I do not know," he said, "that in these cases it will suffice to follow the common law that the guilty of a first offence can secure pardon by begging mercy and professing conversion for, when at liberty, they will be free to repeat the offence.... The admission to mercy was not provided for cases like these for, in addition to their enormity, from what you write to me, it appears that in another year, if unchecked, they would have dared to preach in public, thus inferring their dangerous designs, for it is clear that they could not do so without organization and armed leaders. It must therefore be seen whether they can be prosecuted for sedition and disturbance of the republic, thus incurring the penalty of rebellion without mercy." He goes on to instance his own cruel edicts in the Netherlands, under which the pertinacious were burnt alive and the repentant were beheaded, a policy which he urged Philip to continue and which the latter practised in England, as though he were its natural king, leading to so many and such pitiless executions, even of bishops. "There must" he concluded "be no competencias of jurisdiction over this, for believe me, my daughter, if this evil be not suppressed at the beginning, I cannot promise that there will be a king hereafter to do it. So I entreat you, as earnestly as I can, to do everything possible, for the nature of the case demands it and, that the necessary action be taken in my name, I order Luis Quijada to go to you and to talk to such persons as you may direct."[1159]

Not satisfied with this, Charles, on the same day, sent to Philip a copy of this letter and begged him to give orders for the unsparing punishment of the guilty, for the service of God and the preservation of the kingdom were at stake. Philip's marginal note on this was to thank him for what he had done, to ask him to press the matter, and to assure him that the same would be done from Flanders.[1160] We shall see that Charles's cruel desire was fulfilled, though it was done ecclesiastically and not by distorting the secular law.

There followed a brisk correspondence between Valladolid and San Yuste, Charles burning with impatience and urging speedy action, and Valdés assuring him that all possible effort was making by the Inquisition in its crippled condition for want of funds. Philip was kept advised and wrote to Juana, from his camp near Dourlens, September 6th, expressing his satisfaction with what had been done; they were not to delay by communicating with him, who was busy with the war, but were to take orders from the emperor to whom he had written, asking him to take charge of the affair.[1161]

Valdés was now master of the situation, both in this and the affair of Carranza, which hinged upon it to a large extent. To exploit it to the utmost he addressed, September 9th, to Paul IV a letter in which he gave a brief account of the development of Lutheranism in Valladolid and Seville; he dwelt upon the dangers impending, the labors of the Inquisition and the poverty which crippled its efforts. Adopting the argument of Charles V, he pointed out that this Lutheranism was a kind of sedition or tumult, occurring as it did among persons of importance by birth, religion and wealth, so that there was peril of greater evils if they were treated with the same benignity as the converts from Islam and Judaism, who were mostly of low estate and not to be feared. Lutheranism promised relief from Church burdens, which bore hardly on the people who would welcome liberation, while tribunals might scruple to relax persons of quality who would not patiently endure penance and imprisonment and, from their rank and the influence of their kindred, great evils might arise, both to religion and the peace of the kingdom. A papal brief would be highly desirable, therefore, under which the tribunals, without scruple or fear of irregularity, could and should relax the guilty from whom danger to the republic might be feared, no matter what their dignity in Church or State, giving to the inquisitors full power to employ the rigor required by the situation, even if it went beyond the limits of the law.[1162] We have seen (Vol. II p. 426) how successful was this appeal in establishing on a firm basis the finances of the Inquisition, nor was it less so in obtaining the cruel power for which Charles V aspired, and also a faculty which enabled Valdés to destroy Carranza. Allusion has already been made (Vol. II, p. 61; Vol. III, p. 201) to the briefs of January 4 and 7, 1559 by which Paul IV granted a limited jurisdiction over the episcopal order and authorized the relaxation of penitents who begged for mercy, when it was believed that their conversion was not sincere. In both these directions, as was customary with the Inquisition, the limitation was disregarded and the grant of power was freely exercised.[1163]

[Sidenote: _VALLADOLID AUTO DE FE_]

Having obtained authority to set aside the law, the Inquisition was prepared to impress the people with a sense of the danger of wandering from the faith. Nothing was spared to enhance the effect of the auto de fe of Trinity Sunday, May 21, 1559, in which the first portion of the Valladolid prisoners were to suffer. It was solemnly proclaimed fifteen days in advance, during which the buildings of the Inquisition were incessantly patrolled, day and night, by a hundred armed men, and guards were stationed at the stagings in the Plaza Mayor, for there were rumors that the prison was to be blown up and that the stagings were to be fired. Along the line of the procession, palings were set in the middle of the street, forming an unobstructed path for three to march abreast, intrusion on which was forbidden under heavy penalties, but this and the numerous guards were powerless to keep it clear. Every house-front along the line and around the plaza had its stagings; people flocked in from thirty and forty leagues around and encamped in the fields; except the familiars, no one was allowed to ride on horseback or to bear arms, under pain of death and confiscation.

The procession was headed by the effigy of Leonor de Vivero, who had died during trial, clad in widow's weeds and bearing a mitre with flames and appropriate inscription, and followed by a coffin containing her remains to be duly burnt. Those who were to be relaxed in person numbered fourteen, of whom one, Gonzalo Baez, was a Portuguese convicted of Judaism. Those admitted to reconciliation, with penance more or less severe, were sixteen in number, including an Englishman variously styled Anthony Graso or Bagor--probably Baker--punished for Protestantism, like all the rest, excepting Baez. When the procession reached the plaza, Agustin Cazalla was placed in the highest seat, as the conspicuous chief of the heresy, and next to him his brother, Francisco de Vivero. Melchor Cano at once commenced the sermon, which occupied an hour, and then Valdés and the bishops approached the Princess Juana and Prince Carlos, who were present, and administered to them the oath to protect and aid the Inquisition, to which the multitude responded in a mighty roar, "To the death!" Cazalla, his brother and Alonso Pérez, who were in orders, were duly degraded from the priesthood, the sentences were read, those admitted to reconciliation made the necessary abjurations and those condemned to relaxation were handed over to the secular arm. Mounted on asses, they were carried to the Plaza de la Puerta del Campo, where the requisite stakes had been erected, and there they met their end.[1164] With one exception they were not martyrs in any true sense of the word, for all but one had recanted, had professed repentance, had begged for mercy, and had given full information as to their friends and associates. Under the law, with perhaps two or three exceptions, who might be regarded as dogmatizers, they would have been entitled to reconciliation, but the brief of January 4th had placed them at the mercy of the Inquisition and an example was desired.

[Sidenote: _AGUSTIN CAZALLA_]

Of these there were only two or three who merit special consideration. Cazalla, on his trial, had at first equivocated and denied that he had dogmatized, asserting that he had only spoken of these matters to those already converted. As a rule, all the prisoners eagerly denounced their associates; he may have been more reticent at first, for he was sentenced to torture _in caput alienum_, but when stripped he promised to inform against them fully, which he did, including Carranza among those who had misled him as to purgatory.[1165] He recanted, professed conversion and eagerly sought reconciliation. The tribunal insisted on regarding him as chief of the conventicle and, on the afternoon preceding the auto, it sent to his cell the prior of the Geronimite convent of Nuestra Señora de Prado, with one of his monks, Fray Antonio de la Carrera, to endeavor to extract further information. As officially reported by Fray Antonio, they found him in a dark cell, loaded with chains and with a _pié de amigo_ encircling his head. He greeted them warmly but, when informed of their object, protested that he had nothing to add to his confessions without bearing false witness against himself or others. For two hours they labored with him in vain and then told him that he was condemned to die. In the seclusion of his prison he knew nothing of the papal brief; he had fully expected to be admitted to reconciliation, and the announcement came like a thunder-stroke--one version of the interview states that he fainted and lay insensible for an hour; another, that he was incredulous, asking whether it could be possible and whether there was no escape. He was told that he might be saved if he would make a more complete confession, but he repeated that he had already told the whole truth. Then he confessed sacramentally and received absolution, after which he spent the time until morning in begging mercy of God and thanking God for sending him this affliction for his salvation; he blessed and praised the Holy Office and all its ministers, saying that it had been founded, not by the hand of man but by that of God; he willingly accepted the sentence, which was just and merited; he did not wish for life and would not accept it for, as he had misused it in the past, so would it be in the future. All this was repeated when the usual confessors were admitted to his cell and, when morning came and the sanbenito was brought, he kissed it, saying that he put it on with more pleasure than any garment he had ever worn. He declared that, when opportunity offered in the auto, he would curse and detest Lutheranism and persuade everyone to do the same, with which purpose he took his place in the procession.[1166]

So great was his emotional exaltation that he fulfilled this promise with such exuberance during the auto that he had to be checked. After the sentences were read and those who were to be relaxed were brought down, when he reached the lowest step he met his sister, who was condemned to perpetual prison; they embraced, weeping bitterly and, when he was dragged away, she fell senseless. On the way to the brasero he continued to exhort the people and directed his efforts especially to the heroic Herrezuelo, who had stedfastly refused to abandon his faith and was to be burnt alive. We might possibly feel some suspicion of the accuracy of all this, especially as the Inquisition took the unusual step of having an official report of his behavior drawn up and a briefer one attested, June 5th, by Simon de Cabezon and Francisco de Rueda, the notaries who recorded the delivery of the relaxed to the magistrates.[1167] We have, however, the independent testimony of an eye-witness, the Abbot Illescas, who tells us that, after the degradation, Cazalla, with mitre on head and halter around his neck, shed tears so copiously and loudly expressed his repentance with such unexampled fervor that all present were satisfied that, through divine mercy, he was saved. He said and did so many things that everyone was moved to commiseration. Most of his comrades in death showed resignation and all retracted publicly, though it was understood that with some this was rather to escape burning alive than with any good purpose.[1168]

[Sidenote: _SECOND AUTO DE FE_]

It was otherwise with Herrezuelo, the only martyr in the group. He avowed his faith and resolutely adhered to it, in spite of all effort to convert him and of the dreadful fate in store for him. On their way to the brasero, Cazalla wasted on him all his eloquence. He was gagged and could not reply, but his stoical endurance showed his unyielding pertinacity. When chained to the stake, a stone thrown at him struck him in the forehead, covering his face with blood but, as we are told, it did him no good. Then he was thrust through the belly by a pious halberdier, but this moved him not and, when the fire was set, he bore his agony without flinching and, to the general surprise, he thus ended diabolically.[1169] Illescas, who stood so near that he could watch every expression, reports that he seemed as impassive as flint but, though he uttered no complaint and manifested no regret, yet he died with the strangest sadness in his face, so that it was dreadful to look upon him as on one who in a brief moment would be in hell with his comrade and master, Luther.[1170]

Perhaps the most pitiful case of all was that of his young wife, Leonor de Cisneros. But twenty-three years old, with life opening before her, she had yielded so promptly to the methods of the Inquisition that she escaped with perpetual prison. In the weary years of the _casa de la penitencia_, the burden on her soul grew more and more unendurable and the example of her martyred husband stood before her in stronger light. At last she could bear the secret torture no longer; with clear knowledge of her fate, she confessed her heresy and, in 1567, she was put on trial again. As a relapsed there could be no mercy for her, but recantation might at least preserve her from death by fire, and earnest efforts were made to save her soul. They were unavailing; she declared that the Holy Spirit had enlightened her and that she would die as her husband had died, for Christ. Nothing could overcome her resolution and, on September 28, 1568, she atoned for her weakness of ten years before and was burnt alive as an obstinate impenitent.[1171]

The remainder of the Valladolid reformers were reserved for another celebration, October 8th, honored with the presence of Philip II, who obediently took the customary oath, with bared head and ungloved hand. It was, if possible, an occasion of greater solemnity than the previous one. A Flemish official, who was present, estimates the number of spectators at two hundred thousand and, though he must have been hardened to such scenes at home, he cannot repress an expression of sympathy with the sufferers.[1172] Besides a Morisco who was relaxed, a Judaizer reconciled and two penitents for other offences, there were twenty-six Protestants. The lesson was the same as in the previous auto, that few had the ardor of martyrdom. Thirteen had made their peace in time to secure reconciliation or penance. Even Juana Sánchez, who had managed to bring with her a pair of scissors and had cut her throat, recanted before death, but her confession was considered imperfect and she was burnt in effigy. Of the twelve relaxed in person, five manifested persistence, but only in two cases did this withstand the test of fire. Carlos de Seso was unyielding to the end and, when we are told that he had to be supported by two familiars to enable him to stand when hearing his sentence, we can guess the severity of torture endured by him. Juan Sánchez was likewise pertinacious; when the fire was set it burnt the cord fastening him to the stake; he leaped down and ran in flames; it was thought that he wanted to confess but, when a confessor was brought, he refused to listen to him; one account says that the guards thrust him back into the flames, another, that he looked up and saw Carlos de Seso calmly burning and himself leaped back into the blazing pile. Fray Domingo de Rojas presented a brave front and, after his degradation, addressed the king, asserting his heresies until dragged away and gagged, but when brought to the stake his heart failed him; he declared that he wished to die in the faith of Rome and was garroted. It was the same with Pedro de Cazalla and Pedro de Sotelo, who were gagged as unrepentant, but were converted at the brasero. Those who had merited mercy by prompt confession and denunciation of accomplices were, as a rule, not severely penanced and, in many cases, their punishment was abbreviated.[1173] There would appear to have been some especially severe disabilities inflicted on the descendants of Carlos de Seso, extending to the female line, removable only by the Holy See for, in 1630, Urban VIII, at the special request of Philip IV, granted to Caterina de Castilla, grand-daughter of Isabel de Castilla, wife of Carlos de Seso, a dispensation to hold honors and dignities, secular and spiritual.[1174]

[Sidenote: _SEVILLE AUTO DE FE_]

Thus was exterminated the nascent Protestantism of Valladolid. Meanwhile the Seville tribunal had been struggling with the mass of work thrown upon it by the capture of Julian Hernández and Don Juan Ponce de Leon. So numerous were the arrests that the rule had to be broken which forbade the confinement of accomplices together and, as the circle widened, arrests had to be postponed in expectation of an auto de fe that should empty the cells until, on June 6, 1559, the tribunal asked for power to requisition houses to serve as prisons. To hasten the work, early in 1559, Bishop Munebrega of Tarazona, an old inquisitor, was sent to Seville to aid the tribunal, but he was excessively severe, desiring to burn everyone; he soon became involved in bickering and recrimination with the inquisitors Carpio and Gasca, of whom he complained bitterly; votes in discordia were frequent, appeals to the Suprema were constant and the work was delayed.[1175] It was not until September 24, 1559, that an auto could be celebrated. If all Old Castile had poured into Valladolid, so all Andalusia manifested its religious zeal by crowding into Seville. Three days in advance the people began to assemble, until the city could hold no more and they were obliged to sleep in the fields. The stagings and scaffoldings were on the most extensive scale and a place was specially provided for the Duchess of Bejar and her friends, who apparently desired the pleasure of seeing her kinsman, Juan Ponce de Leon relaxed.[1176] As was so often the case, the solemnities were somewhat marred by an unseemly contest for precedence, between the civil and ecclesiastical authorities, which was renewed at the auto of 1560 and was not settled for several years.[1177]

The services of thirty-eight frailes and Jesuits were required to prepare for their doom those who were to be relaxed. The most prominent of the victims was Don Juan Ponce de Leon, who had remained hardened, during his two years of confinement, in the belief that a man of his rank would not be burnt. He was an ardent Protestant; he had founded in his lands a sort of church, where worship was conducted in secret; he had gone to the brasero where, raising his hands to heaven, he had wished to God that he could be burnt there to ashes, with his wife and children, in defence of his faith, and he had said that if he had an income of twenty thousand ducats he would spend it all in evangelizing Spain but, when he learned his fate that night, he professed conversion; on the staging, he busied himself in urging his fellow-convicts to abandon their errors, and he made an exemplary end with tears and repentance. The next most conspicuous sufferer was the Licenciado Juan González, a famous preacher. He was of Moorish descent and, when only twelve years old, had been penanced at Córdova for Moorish errors. Throughout his trial he had steadily refused to incriminate others and, during the night, he answered the padres' exhortations with the psalms of David. On the staging he talked heresy with his two sisters until he was gagged and all three were burnt. The most interesting victim was María de Bohorques, aged 26, natural daughter of Pero García de Xeres, a prominent citizen of Seville. She was a disciple of Cassiodoro de Reina, highly educated and thoroughly conversant with scripture, in both its literal and spiritual senses. When the confessors entered her cell that night, she received them pleasantly and expressed no surprise at their fateful message. It was in vain that relays of frailes sought her conversion--Dominicans following Jesuits and Franciscans succeeding to Carmelites. She met all their arguments with biblical texts, and was the only one of the condemned who defended her faith. Thus she passed the night until summoned to the procession. On the staging Ponce de Leon sought to convert her but she silenced him, saying that it was a time for meditation on the Savior. She treated the frailes who surrounded her as troublesome intermeddlers but, at three o'clock, she yielded to their entreaties, relapsing soon afterwards, however, to her errors, and she was burnt. Another prominent culprit was Hernando de San Juan, master of the _Doctrina Christiana_ for children in Seville. He was an obstinate heretic, who resisted all efforts at conversion. After his sentence was read, the inquisitors asked whether he persisted in his errors, when he emphatically answered in the affirmative. Thereupon he was gagged, which he endured as though thanking God that it was given him to suffer for His sake. At length, however, he was persuaded by the frailes to escape burning alive by conversion, but his salvation, we are told, was uncertain as he had been impenitent until then.[1178]

[Sidenote: _SEVILLE AUTOS DE FE_]

Altogether, at this auto, there were relaxed in person eighteen Lutherans, besides the effigy of the fugitive Francisco de Zafra. Two of these were foreigners--Carlos de Brujas, a Fleming and Antonio Baldie a Frenchman, master of the ship Unicornio. Evidently full use was made of the power to execute repentant converts, but whether any persisted to the end and were burnt alive cannot be gathered with certainty from any of the relations. The only guide we have is the general assertion of Illescas that, in this and subsequent autos in Seville, there were forty or fifty Lutherans executed, of whom four or five suffered themselves to be burnt alive.[1179] Besides those executed there were eight Lutherans reconciled, three abjured for vehement suspicion and ten for light suspicion, making forty in all. Two houses were ordered to be torn down and sowed with salt--those of Luis de Abrego and Isabel de Baena--which had been used for meetings. There were also thirty-four culprits for other offences--fourteen Moriscos of whom three were relaxed, one Judaizer reconciled, four bigamists, two blasphemers, twelve for holding fornication not to be a sin, and one false-witness, making a total of seventy-four and giving the crowd ample entertainment.[1180]

The work went on with unrelaxing vigor, but it was not until December 22, 1560, that another gaol-delivery could be arranged. Of this auto we have the dry official report, which shows that there were fourteen relaxations in person and three in effigy, the latter being the deceased Doctor Egidio and Doctor Constantino, and the fugitive Juan Pérez de Pineda. There were fifteen reconciled and imprisoned, five abjurations _de vehementi_ and three de levi, and there was one acquittal, making forty-one in all, but soon afterwards there were sixteen Spaniards and twenty-six foreigners discharged as innocent, showing how reckless and indiscriminating had been the arrests. Whether any of the relaxed persisted to the end and were burnt alive is not recorded, for the only remark accompanying the report is that there were no offensive speeches, because those likely to utter them were duly gagged in advance.[1181]

Of these there were two or three deserving special notice. At the head of the list of sufferers stood Julian Hernández, who had left his safe retreat in Frankfort on the desperate errand of evangelizing Spain. He had lain three years in prison and, if González de Montes is to be believed, he bore unshrinkingly repeated torture without betraying his associates and, when carried back to his cell, would inspirit his fellow-prisoners by chanting along the corridors

Vencidos van los frayles, Vencidos van. Corridos van los lobos, Corridos van.

Montes adds that he persisted to the end, when, after the faggots were lighted, a fraile had his gag removed in hopes of his yielding and, disgusted with his obduracy, cried "Kill him! kill him!" when the guards thrust their weapons into him. It may be hoped that he was spared the final agonies, but there are not wanting indications that, towards the close of his imprisonment, his resolution gave way and that he furnished evidence against his comrades.[1182]

The one acquittal was that of Doña Juana de Bohorques, wife of Don Francisco de Vargas and sister of the María de Bohorques who had perished in the previous auto. She died in prison and it was her fame and memory that were absolved. González de Montes says that her death was caused by atrocious torture and the case has, thanks to Llorente, served as a base for one of the severest accusations against the Inquisition. In the absence of the documents the truth of the story cannot be ascertained but, if true, it manifests more readiness to render a righteous judgment at the cost of self-condemnation than we are accustomed to attribute to the Inquisition.[1183]

[Sidenote: _SEVILLE AUTOS DE FE_]

Seville, as the chief commercial centre of Spain, naturally attracted many merchants and mariners, and this auto furnishes an illustration of inquisitorial methods in discouraging commerce. Among the relaxed there were three foreigners--a Frenchman named Bartolomé Fabreo and two Englishmen, William Bruq (Brooks) and Nicolas Bertoun (Burton or Britton). Of the two former we know only their fate, but of the latter we chance to have some details. Burton was a shipmaster or supercargo, who made no secret of the reformed faith in which he had been trained, wherefore he was arrested and all the merchandize in his charge was sequestrated. One of the owners, seeking to recover his property, sent a young man named John Frampton to reclaim it. After months of delay he was told that his papers were insufficient, when he went back to London and returned to Seville with what was needed. More delays ensued and then he was cast into the secret prison on the charge that a suspicious book had been found in his baggage--the book being an English translation of Cato. His trial was protracted, though he made no secret of his belief; he was tortured until he fainted and, when his endurance was exhausted, he consented to adopt Catholicism. Burton was more persistent and was burnt. Frampton, after fourteen months of confinement, escaped with reconciliation, confiscation and a year of sanbenito and prison, with orders never to leave Spain. All the goods under Burton's charge were confiscated; Frampton figured his own loss at £760 and the whole confiscations at the auto at the enormous sum of £50,000--doubtless an exaggeration, but the whole affair indicates that the profitable side of persecution was not lost to sight.[1184]

The next auto was celebrated April 26, 1562, and comprised forty-nine cases of Lutheranism. There were nine relaxed in person and, as none of them are described as obstinate, it may be assumed that all were garrotted. There was one effigy of the dead and fifteen of fugitives. Of the latter, nine were monks of San Isidro, among whom were Cipriano de Valera and Cassiodoro de Reina. That the native stock of heretics was becoming exhausted is seen in the fact that, of the thirty-three persons figuring in the auto, twenty-one were foreigners, mostly Frenchmen. This was followed by another auto, October 28th of the same year, in which there were thirty-nine cases of Lutheranism, of which nine were relaxations in person and three of fugitives in effigy, none of the culprits being described as impenitent. There were nine reconciliations, seventeen abjurations _de vehementi_ and one _de levi_. The number of ecclesiastics is a noteworthy feature of this auto for, besides the Prior of San Isidro, Maestro Garcí Arias Blanco, there were four priests burnt in person and one in effigy, and seven who abjured _de vehementi_. They contributed largely to the fines levied, amounting to 5050 ducats and 50,000 maravedís, besides four confiscations of half the property. It may be remarked, moreover, that the officers and crew of the ship Angel seem to have fallen victims in a body, for three were burnt, six were reconciled and four abjured _de vehementi_.[1185] Trading with Spain was becoming more and more perilous.

The little band of Seville Protestants was thus almost rooted out, and the succeeding autos show a constantly preponderating number of foreigners. That of April 19, 1564, only presented six relaxations in person and one in effigy, of which all the former were of Flemings, and two abjurations _de vehementi_, both of foreigners.[1186] The next was celebrated May 13, 1565, in which there were six relaxations in effigy for Protestantism, the offenders having fled. Of these only two were Spaniards, one being the last inculpated monk of San Isidro. Of seven reconciliations, all were of foreigners, six being Flemish or Breton sailors. Of five abjurations _de vehementi_, three were of Flemings. There was also a cruel warning against harboring and protecting these foreign heretics, for two Flemings of Puerto Real, for this offence, were visited, one with four hundred lashes and the other with two hundred, besides fines and banishment.[1187]

We have thus virtually reached the end of native Spanish Protestantism, but the impression produced by the Valladolid and Seville heretics was still profound. Philip II addressed, November 23, 1563, to the Spanish bishops, a letter enlarging upon the efforts of the Lutherans to spread their doctrines throughout Spain. In these perilous times, he says, the Inquisition must be aided by having everywhere those who will report to it all suspect of Lutheran or other errors. The bishop is to see to this and also that preachers shall confine themselves to setting forth Catholic belief, making no allusions to heresies, even to confute them. Confessors are to be instructed to charge their penitents to denounce to the Inquisition all whom they know to entertain these errors. No one is to be allowed to teach school without a preliminary examination, by both the ecclesiastical and secular authorities, who must be satisfied with his character and habits.[1188] It is evident that extraordinary precautions and universal vigilance were deemed necessary to exclude the obnoxious doctrines.

[Sidenote: _MISSIONARY EFFORTS_]

Yet these efforts were rewarded with no new discoveries, for Spanish Protestantism was a mere episode, of no practical moment save as its repression fortified the Inquisition and led to the segregation of Spain from the intellectual and industrial movement of the succeeding centuries. A few sporadic cases may be noted from time to time, but the persecution of Jew and Morisco had trained the nation too thoroughly in enthusiastic fanaticism, and the organization of monarchy and Church was too absolute for there to be any real danger that Protestantism could obtain a foothold. Yet the danger was deemed so pressing that extreme measures were justified to protect the land from the intrusion of foreign ideas. Philip II had lost no time, after his return from Flanders, in issuing the pragmática of November 22, 1559, by which all Spanish youth studying abroad were ordered home within four months, and all Spanish subjects for the future were forbidden to seek foreign lands for study under penalty, for laymen, of confiscation and perpetual exile, and for clerics, of forfeiture of temporalities and loss of citizenship. The only exceptions allowed were the college of Albornoz in Bologna and those of Rome and Naples, for Spaniards residing in Italy and that of Coimbra for the professors there.[1189] It would be difficult to exaggerate the unfortunate influence of this in retarding Spanish development, yet it was but the first of a series of measures which, by isolating Spain, crippled its energies in every direction.

The spectre of active proselytism on the part of Protestants abroad was vigorously conjured up to stimulate vigilance and justify repression. Undoubtedly the refugees in the Rhinelands and Switzerland were earnestly desirous of evangelizing their native land, and they labored industriously to this end, but the difficulties in the way were too great and the reports as to their efforts were systematically exaggerated. Carranza, in his defence, dwelt on his exertions in Flanders to check this traffic, but though he was told of barrels full of a forged letter of Philip II and of a papal bull, at the Frankfort fair for shipment to Spain, and of shops in Medina del Campo and Málaga to which heretic books were sent, the net results of his energy show how little substratum of fact there was in all this.[1190] The career of Julian Hernández proves that men who took their lives in their hands might occasionally bring in a few books, but his fate was not encouraging. If some times a missionary undertook such work his mission was apt to be brief. Hughes Bernat of Grenoble landed at Lequeitio (Biscay) August 10, 1559, on such an errand. On the road to Guadalupe he fell in with a Minim named Fray Pedro, who pretended inclination to Lutheranism and led Bernat to unbosom himself as to his plans and hopes, resulting in his speedy arrest by the tribunal of Toledo, when he boldly confessed as to himself and was tortured to discover his accomplices. He was sentenced to relaxation in the auto of September 25, 1560, and as he is not described as pertinacious, he probably professed conversion when, for some reason, his sentence was not executed.[1191] In the trial of Gilles Tibobil (or Bonneville), at Toledo, in 1564, we hear of Francisco Borgoñon, a French haberdasher who, in his trips from France, brought with him heretic books, but they were for the benefit of a little Huguenot colony in Toledo; the number of such Frenchmen and Flemings in Spain was large and this, rather than projects of evangelization, probably explains the greater part of the smuggling, attempted or performed.[1192]

[Sidenote: _MISSIONARY EFFORTS_]

There were constant rumors, however, of propagandism on a larger scale which served to magnify the importance of the Inquisition and to justify interference with commerce. In 1566, Don Francisco de Alava, a Spanish envoy to France, was busy in Montpellier endeavoring to trace the agency by which heretic books were conveyed to Catalonia, where the number of Frenchmen was large,[1193] and, in the same year, Margaret of Parma, from the Netherlands, sent to Philip the absurd statement that thirty thousand of Calvin's books had been transmitted through Seville, whereupon the Suprema issued vigorous orders for their seizure.[1194] In January, 1572, it announced to all the tribunals that the Princess of Béarn (Jeanne d'Albret) had recently held an assembly of Lutherans, in which it was resolved to send some of their ministers in disguise to Spain as missionaries. The utmost vigilance was enjoined to counteract this effort; all the commissioners were to be warned and prelates be asked to order all priests and preachers to be on the watch.[1195] In June, 1578, it sent letters to a number of tribunals, stating that advices from Valladolid showed that the heretics had printed a New Testament in Spanish, with a Venetian imprint, and were flooding the land with copies, and also that the heretic ministers had correspondents in Spain. Great watchfulness was therefore commanded at all sea-ports and frontier towns, and all persons found in possession of the prohibited volume were to be sent to Madrid for trial. A month later, this scare was renewed on the strength of information from Flanders, but the records of the Toledo tribunal at this period do not indicate that these efforts were rewarded with any captures.[1196]

Whatever proselyting zeal Protestantism may have had passed away with the early years of the seventeenth century. The latest work of the kind of which we hear is that, in 1603, the Prince of Anhalt introduced into Seville a number of copies of the Bible of Cipriano de Valera and, when Catherine, Duchess of Bar, sister of Henry IV, heard of this, she ordered six hundred copies printed and sent a Huguenot gentleman, named Hierosme de Taride, to the Duke of la Force at Pau, to learn how to transmit them to Saragossa, when la Force gave him the names of parties there who could be trusted to handle them, but the death of the duchess in 1604 put an end to the project.[1197] The Thirty Years' War gave the German Protestants ample occupation at home and, after the Peace of Westphalia, proselytism was out of fashion.

Yet it was a curious episode of the War of Succession that when, in 1706, the Archduke Charles and his English allies seemed for a brief space to be at the point of success, when all the kingdoms of the Crown of Aragon had acknowledged him and he even for a time occupied Madrid, the opportunity was seized to circulate a catechism of Anglican doctrine in Spanish and other books prejudicial to the faith. The energetic measures adopted by the Inquisition to meet this assault show the strength of its apprehension. It ordered the most careful watch to be kept at all ports and frontier towns. Edicts were to be published forbidding these and all other works of evil doctrine introduced by heretics, and inquisitors were told to be energetic in punishing the guilty, enforcing their sentences by censures, interdicts and cessatio a divinis when, if these proved futile they were to abandon, in solemn procession, the disobedient cities, even at the risk of their lives.[1198] The rising of the Spanish people, in this same year, soon limited the territory occupied by the Allies; we hear nothing more of this attempt at conversion under the shadow of the sword and, taken as a whole, the efforts to evangelize Spain have attracted vastly more attention than their intrinsic importance deserves.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _OCCASIONAL VICTIMS_]

Unsuccessful as were the endeavors to introduce the new doctrines in Spain, there continued to be occasional cases of Spaniards embracing them partially or wholly, of which a few examples may be cited. There was arrested and brought to the Toledo tribunal, December 24, 1562, Hernando Díaz, a cowherd of San Roman, near Talavera. He was a simple-minded creature, who had been at times _melancolico_. In the Sierra Morena there had been much talk among the shepherds of the Lutheran doctrines made known in the Seville autos. While working there he had heard of them, they fixed themselves in his wandering mind and, when the fit was on him, he could not help talking of his _imaginaciones_ as he called them, although his wife and daughter and his neighbors, cautioned him against it. At his first audience he freely admitted having denied the power of pope and priest and asserted that salvation came by faith and love of God and charity and love of one's neighbor, and not by the laws of the Church or by indulgences and images and pilgrimages. The inquisitors treated him kindly, exhorting him to cast aside these fancies, which he professed willingness to do but could not control them. Physicians were called in who bled and purged him; he begged for mercy, but could not conquer his beliefs. This went on for a couple of months when he announced his conversion through the teaching of his cell-companion, a priest named Juan Ramírez, who confirmed it, stating that Díaz had talked like a Lutheran until the feast of the conversion of St. Paul, when he had read to him from his breviary the services of the day and had urged his conversion; Díaz had wept and professed his belief in the Church and Ramírez held him to be sincere. Thus far the conduct of the case had been eminently humane and considerate, but when the consulta de fe met, May 17th, two of the consultors voted for relaxation, while the two inquisitors, the Ordinary and two others voted for reconciliation, confiscation and irremissible perpetual prison and sanbenito. At an auto held, September 19th, this sentence was duly pronounced and, when the city of Toledo was assigned to him for a prison, he was thrust into the streets to take his chance of starvation.[1199] The case is not without interest as showing that the sentences read at the autos might be as effective as the dreaded missionaries.

A heretic of different calibre was Don Caspar Centellas of Valencia, a gentleman of birth and culture. During his trial, he evaded the accusation with skill but, when his counsel drew up for him a defence in which he was made to recognize the Roman Church and pope as the Church of God, in which he wished to live and die, he refused to sign it. He renounced all defence and was obdurate to the arguments of the theologians, who were repeatedly summoned to convert him; there was nothing to do but to burn him, which was executed accordingly, September 17, 1564.[1200] His brother, Don Miguel Centellas, Comendador of Montesa, was likewise exposed to a prolonged trial, but was acquitted in 1567.[1201] Connected with Don Gaspar was Doctor Sigismondo Arquer who, though not a Spaniard, was a Spanish subject, being from Cagliari. His trial at Toledo occupied nine years; he was unrepentant to the last and when, in the auto of June 4, 1571, he was delivered to the secular arm, a curious debate arose. The official entrusted with the execution of the sentences declared that, under the law in other offences, there was no burning alive and he ordered Arquer to be garroted. The pious zeal of the populace could not endure this ill-timed mercy; a riot occurred in which Arquer was pierced with halberds and other weapons; fire was finally set and so, half dead already, he was burnt.[1202]

By this time it was rare to find a native Spaniard tried for Protestantism, and women virtually disappear as culprits. Moreover, the cases which are classed in the records as cosas de Luteranos are nearly all those in which some trifling aberration or careless speech was qualified by the calificadores as savoring of Lutheranism, so that the statistics unconsciously exaggerate greatly the prevalence of Protestantism. Such cases were mostly treated with leniency, as that of Mosen Monserrat, a beneficed priest of the church of San Salvador, accused in 1567 of Calvinism, to the Valencia tribunal, for saying that extreme unction was not as efficacious as formerly, that it was mortal sin to administer the sacraments in mortal sin, and that the religious Orders were not as strong as they had been. He escaped with having to revoke his utterances in presence of the chapter of San Salvador and with celebrating nine masses.[1203] So, in 1581, Juan de Aragon, a peasant, was tried at Toledo, on a charge of saying that masses for the dead were absurd, for the priest was a sinner who could do nothing with God, and that it sufficed to recommend oneself to God and the saints. He denied the accusation, the consulta de fe voted in discordia and the Suprema merely sentenced him to abjure _de levi_, to hear mass as a penitent and to pay a fine of twelve ducats.[1204]

While such trivial matters form the bulk of the cases of so-called Lutheranism there were occasionally more serious ones, such as that of Juan López de Baltuena of Calatayud in 1564, at Saragossa. In his written defence there were sundry heresies, qualified as Lutheran, for which he was condemned to abjure _de vehementi_, to serve in the galleys for life and never to read, write or talk about theology.[1205] Nor were there altogether lacking cases, like those of Centellas and Arquer, in which conscientious conviction carried the delinquent to the stake, as that of Pedro Mantilla, a student of Vezerril in Old Castile, who, in 1585, was relaxed at Saragossa as a pertinacious heretic, who was Arian in denying the Trinity and Lutheran in rejecting papal authority.[1206]

[Sidenote: _OCCASIONAL VICTIMS_]

The last relic of the movement of 1558 was the Catalan, Pedro Galés, reckoned as one of the most learned Spaniards of the age, and highly valued as a correspondent by such scholars as Isaac Casaubon, Cujas and Arias Montano. As early as 1558 he had commenced to reject some of the Catholic dogmas, but he escaped suspicion and enjoyed intimate relations with Archbishop Antonio Agustin, who made him one of the interlocutors in his celebrated _Dialogi de Emendatione Gratiani_--the first assault on the authority of the False Decretals. About 1563 he left Spain for Italy, where he made progress in heresy, leading to his prosecution by the Roman Inquisition and the loss of an eye under torture. Abjuration saved him and, in 1580, he returned to Spain, where Don Juan de Idiaquez sought to secure him as tutor to his son Alonso. In 1582 he passed through Italy to Geneva, where he married and occupied the chair of philosophy until 1586. He rejected some of the Calvinist doctrines and, leaving Geneva, he taught in Nîmes, Orange and Castres, holding frequent disputes with Huguenot preachers. Accompanied by his wife and two little daughters, he was on his way to Bordeaux, in August, 1593, when the Leaguers at Marmande arrested him as a Huguenot, with his precious accumulation of MSS. and books in ten bales. He was delivered to the Capitan Pedro Saravía, who had been placed by Philip II at the service of the Marquis of Villars, Governor of Guyenne. He made no secret of his belief and Sarravía was impressed with the extreme importance of the information which the Inquisition could extract from him as to his co-religionists, but the Governor of Marmande refused to convey him across the border and, when Villars was applied to, he obligingly offered to hang or drown the heretic, but shrunk from the responsibility of extraditing him. The distracted wife was imploring the officials to liberate her husband and Sarravía was consumed with anxiety lest she should succeed while he was seeking the intervention of Philip. In this he succeeded; Galés was surrendered to the tribunal of Saragossa, where he freely admitted his faith and stubbornly refused conversion, but his endurance was mercifully spared by sickness and death after his third audience and, as an impenitent, his bones and effigy were burnt in the auto of April 17, 1597.[1207]

In all, the cases of so-called Lutheranism, collected by Dr. Schäfer, up to 1600, amount to 1995, of which 1640 are of foreigners and 355 of Spaniards, and he estimates that he has succeeded in finding about two-fifths of the autos de fe of the thirteen tribunals of the mainland.[1208] This probably conveys a reasonably accurate impression as to the comparative numbers of the two classes, but it would be a gross error to regard all the Spaniards as real Protestants, for the great majority may be assumed to have been Protestant only in the imagination of the calificadores.

In the seventeenth century scattering cases continue to occur from time to time among Spaniards, but their treatment indicates that there was no longer felt the necessity of making examples. Fray Juan González de Carvajal, a Benedictine who had been expelled from his Order for repeated escapes, embraced Calvinism, which he confessed in France and obtained absolution; again he confessed it judicially in the Roman Inquisition, and yet again in the Toledo tribunal and was reconciled. Then, in 1622, he was tried in Valladolid, where he told all this freely, but with such signs of repentance that the consulta de fe voted only to reconcile him in a public auto, with ten years of galley-service and perpetual prison. While waiting an auto he sought an audience and confessed that he had again relapsed; there was no choice now but to sentence him to degradation and relaxation, but the Suprema mercifully modified this to reading his sentence in the audience-chamber, where his sanbenito was to be removed, perpetual deprivation of his functions as deacon and life-long imprisonment.[1209] There was less disposition to mercy, in 1630, in the case of María González, widow of Pedro Merino of Canaca, one of the exceedingly rare instances of a Spanish female Protestant. To the Valladolid tribunal she freely confessed her belief and persisted in it, despite earnest and prolonged efforts to undeceive her. There was no escape from condemning her to relaxation and the Suprema confirmed the sentence, but whether it would have been executed cannot be told for persistent labors were crowned with success; she was finally converted and the sentence was changed to reconciliation.[1210] There may have been subsequent cases of Spaniards relaxed for Protestantism, but I have not met with them. In 1678, Thomas Castillanos was kindly sent to an insane hospital by the tribunal of Toledo. In 1718, Pedro Ortiz of Valencia was reconciled with perpetual prison in the Córdova auto of April 24th, and, in that of November 30, 1722, at Seville, Joseph Sánchez of Cádiz appeared as a "Calvinist and Lutheran" and was reconciled with irremissible prison.[1211]

[Sidenote: _FOREIGNERS_]

The Augustinian Fray Manuel Santos de San Juan, better known as Berrocosa, would, in the sixteenth century, have been burnt as an undoubted Lutheran, although when arrested, in 1756, it was merely as a _regalista_ or upholder of the supremacy of the State. His _Ensayo de el Theatro de Roma_, circulated in MS., was an essay to prove this, in a manner highly offensive to the hierarchy, and for this he was relegated for ten years to the strict convent of Risco. During his confinement he wrote tracts to prove that Rome was Babylon, that the existing Church in no way resembled that of the Apostles, that there should be no Order higher than the priesthood, that capital punishment for heresy was in itself a heresy, and other doctrines which no calificador could help qualifying as the rankest Lutheranism, but Berrocosa was not relaxed, although he found associates to copy these heretical documents and circulate them. When his ten years' confinement ended, in 1767, he was again strictly secluded in a cell, from which, in 1768, he managed to escape, eluding pursuit until, in January, 1770, he was recaptured and delivered to the Toledo tribunal. Here he underwent a second trial, resulting in a sentence of confinement for life in the convent of Sarria (Galicia), where he was to be kept _incomunicado_.[1212]

This case illustrates why, during the decadence of the Inquisition, we hear little or nothing of Protestantism among Spaniards, although the spirit of persecution was unabated. Revolt against Ultramontanism was no longer styled Lutheranism but Regalism or Jansenism. With those whose dissidence went beyond discipline to dogma, it took the shape of the fashionable philosophy of the period and became Naturalism or Philosophism, Deism or Atheism, as the case might be. The Inquisition still did its work with more or less rigor, but the arena had shifted.

* * * * *

While thus there had been little tendency to Protestantism among natives, since the inconsiderable outbreaks of 1558, foreigners furnished an ample field of labor. Spain had a reputation for wealth which rendered it attractive to the stranger; its people held in contempt the arts and crafts in which Frenchmen and Flemings and Italians were adepts, and its internal peace seemed to offer a refuge to those whose industries were precarious in the incessant clash of arms through which the old order of things gave way to the new. Consequently every city in Spain had a considerable population of foreigners, intent on earning a livelihood without much thought of spiritual matters. Some trials in the Toledo tribunal, about 1570, allude to French and Flemish printers then under arrest in Toledo, Barcelona, Alcalá, Salamanca, Valladolid and Granada.[1213] In 1600, the Count of Benavente, Viceroy of Valencia, estimated the number of Frenchmen there at fourteen or fifteen thousand and added that there were vast numbers in Aragon.[1214] While many of these were undoubtedly Calvinists, sedulously concealing their faith, the majority were Catholics, more or less sincere, but even their orthodoxy was not of a quality to suit the Spanish standard. They had been accustomed to live in contact with heretics; they had no such fanatical horror of heresy as was universal in Spain, and they were apt to be careless in the observances which the Spaniard regarded as indispensable. All foreigners were thus objects of suspicion, and the Catholic was as liable to arrest as the Calvinist. Jacques Zacharie, a dealer in rosaries and images in Burgos, in 1637, chanced to be relating his adventures with the heretics in France who, in examining his baggage, had said "Let him take these wares to Spain and bring us back good money," when one of his hearers expressed surprise that the Most Christian king would let heretics dwell in his land. This led Jacques patriotically to defend them as good baptized Christians, who lived righteously according to their law. He was asked how they could be Christians when they did not go to mass and confess to priests, when, in the heat of discussion, he replied that there was not scriptural command of sacramental confession. For this he was denounced to the Valladolid tribunal; he was arrested and tried and all his property was sequestrated.[1215]

[Sidenote: _FOREIGNERS_]

It is no wonder therefore that the tribunals were kept busy with these cases and that the records are full of them, especially under the crown of Aragon, owing to the propinquity of south-western France, where Huguenotism was in the ascendant. In Saragossa the relaxations for Lutheranism, from 1546 to 1574, though amounting to only seven, were all of Frenchmen.[1216] Barcelona was more active. In an auto of May 16, 1561, there appeared for Lutheranism, eleven Frenchmen, one Piedmontese and one Maltese. In that of July 11, 1563, there were thirty-four Frenchmen, two Italians and two Catalans, of whom eight Frenchmen were relaxed in person and three in effigy. In that of March 5, 1564, there were twenty-eight Frenchmen, two Catalans and one Swiss, of whom eight Frenchmen were relaxed in person and two in effigy.[1217] From a report by Dr. Zurita of his visitation in the summer of 1564, we obtain a glimpse of how these autos were fed. At Perpignan, for Lutheranism, five persons were arrested with sequestration, of whom four, and possibly all five, were French. At Castellon de Ampurias, Maestre Macian, a Frenchman, was sent to Barcelona for trial. Jean de Adin, a Frenchman of Aldas, escaped arrest by flight, and the arrest was ordered of Pere Bayrach, a Frenchman of Flasa.[1218] When, simultaneously with this, the ambassador Saint-Sulpice complained to Philip II of the cruelty exercised on his fellow-countrymen, who were peaceably plying their industries, without creating scandal, the king coolly replied that the Inquisition acted without regard to persons, but nevertheless he would speak with the inquisitor-general.[1219]

The complaint of cruelty was justified. In the rebuke which the Suprema administered to the tribunal of Barcelona, in 1568, as the result of de Soto Salazar's visitation, allusion is made to a case, in 1565, of a Frenchman named Antoine Aymeric, arrested without evidence; his first audience was held at his own request February 23d, the second on July 27th, when, without more ado, he was tortured and sentenced to reconciliation and confiscation. In another case of a Frenchman, Armand Jacobat, he was tortured without confession, but subsequently admitted some Lutheran errors, begged for mercy and desired to be converted, in spite of which he was relaxed and burnt, for which the Suprema held the tribunal to be gravely in fault.[1220] What became of those not burnt is seen in a report of December, 1566, to Charles IX, by his ambassador M. de Fourquevaux, that seventy poor Frenchmen, prisoners of the Barcelona tribunal, had been condemned to the galleys and had been delivered, in November, to Don Alvar de Bazan, who had taken the fleet to winter near Cádiz. In February, 1567, he writes that, on complaint to the Duke of Alva, the latter had assured him on his honor that they were all dogmatizing Huguenots; that Frenchmen were never arrested for Protestantism if they had not said or done something scandalous. This was as mendacious as the repeated promises to release the galley-slaves, which were always evaded until Fourquevaux recommended the seizure as a hostage, at Narbonne, of Andrea Doria, the naval commander-in-chief. At last, on December 20th, he reported the sending of royal letters to Doria to release them, but it is fairly questionable whether the order was obeyed. Again, in a list of complaints made by Charles IX to Philip, there was one concerning five of his subjects arrested in Havana and sent to Seville for trial, to which Philip replied that he was not accustomed and did not desire to interfere in such affairs, but nevertheless he would have the inquisitor-general requested to order the tribunal to despatch these cases with all speed.[1221]

A more pleasing international episode is connected with the case of Robert Fitzwilliam, an Englishman, condemned by the Seville tribunal to ten years of galleys and perpetual prison. He was received on board, February 25, 1578 and, in November 1582, his wife Ellen presented herself in the court of Madrid, with a letter from Queen Elizabeth to Philip II, representing that the poor woman had beseeched her interposition, and that the liberation of the husband would be a favor which she would be glad to reciprocate. Under any other jurisdiction, the granting of such a royal request would have been a matter of course, but the assent of the Holy Office had to be secured. The existing papers fail to inform us of the result, but that it was favorable can scarce be doubted, for the devotion of the faithful wife made a strong impression even on the hardened officials, whose correspondence alludes to her in terms of respect and admiration.[1222] More summary was the process when, in 1572, the Barcelona tribunal sent a commissioner into French territory on some duty, and he was seized and held as a hostage for a Frenchman arrested by the tribunal, leading to an exchange of prisoners.[1223]

The Val d'Andorra furnished another source of international questions, for the Barcelona tribunal claimed jurisdiction over it, while Jeanne d'Albret, as Queen of Navarre, held that it was her fief. In 1572, she put a French veguer there to administer justice, whereupon the inquisitors commenced to gather information about him, as a presumable Huguenot, and the Suprema ordered them to arrest him if sufficient evidence could be found, but, as the attempt was likely to prove dangerous, it need not be made unless the viceroy would furnish a sufficient guard, which apparently he declined to do.[1224]

[Sidenote: _DIMINISHING NUMBERS_]

All foreigners thus were objects of suspicion, and the jurisdiction of the Inquisition was stretched to the utmost to prevent their infecting the faithful. In 1572, the Suprema ordered the tribunals of Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia to see that no Frenchmen were employed as teachers of reading and writing anywhere within their districts, experience having shown the dangers thence arising.[1225] Intercourse with foreigners was dangerous and was discouraged. In 1568, Inquisitor Moral, in reporting a visit to San Sebastian, expressed a desire to punish those who received and entertained and had particular friendship and dealings with French and English strangers, sometimes even giving them information enabling them to escape arrest, on all of which the Suprema commented by characterizing these as grave cases, which should have been sent to Logroño for trial.[1226] The Spaniard, too, who went abroad was an object of suspicion, and was held to strict accountability for his acts during absence. In the Barcelona auto of June 21, 1627, there appeared a merchant of Manresa who, while in France, had listened to Huguenot preaching and had eaten flesh on Friday, for which he was penanced in a thousand ducats and was recluded in a convent for three years.[1227]

That, under these influences, coupled with the growing poverty of Spain and the curse of its debased currency, the number of resident foreigners diminished greatly after the opening of the seventeenth century, may be assumed from the reduction in the cases of Protestantism in the records. Those of Toledo, from 1575 to 1610, show a total of forty-seven, of which the last one occurred in 1601, while those from 1648 to 1794 contain only eleven.[1228] In Valladolid, the reports of twenty-nine years, between 1622 and 1662, show only eighteen cases.[1229] In the Madrid tribunal, from 1703 to 1751, there is only a single case of a "Huguenot."[1230] In the sixty-four autos celebrated by all the tribunals between 1721 and 1727, there are only three cases.[1231] In Valencia, between 1705 and 1726, there was but a single case--a Calvinist who spontaneously denounced himself.[1232] Scattering and imperfect as are these statistics, they suffice to indicate how rapidly the number of foreign delinquents fell off, after the year 1600, and that this was not the result of progress in enlightenment and toleration we shall see hereafter. It was simply that the Inquisition had succeeded in its efforts to limit intercourse between Spain and its neighbors, and to isolate it from European civilization.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _FOREIGN HERETICS_]

If this was the case in regard to nations presumably Catholic, we can readily conceive how much greater vigilance was exercised towards those which had lapsed into heresy. Commercial intercourse with them was unavoidable, but it was a necessary evil, to be restricted within the narrowest limits by deterrent regulations. For awhile, indeed, the heretic trader took his life and fortune in his hands when he ventured to make a Spanish harbor, as we have seen in the case of the good ship Angel. Even castaways were the legitimate prey of the Inquisition, as was experienced by seventeen English sailors of a fishing-boat, who were captured by a French vessel and were thrown on shore on Fuerte Ventura, one of the Canaries. They were tried and escaped burning by conversion, after which four of them, Richard Newman, Edward Stephens, John Ware, and Edward Stride managed to escape. As this showed them to be impenitent, they were prosecuted in absentia for relapse, and their effigies were solemnly burnt in an auto of July 22, 1587.[1233] The number of merchant vessels touching at the Canaries, in fact, furnished to the tribunal at one time the major portion of its work. A record of prisoners entered in its secret prison, during six months of 1593, shows thirteen belonging to the German ship San Pedro, seventeen to the Flemish ship La Rosa, and fifteen to the Flemish ship El Leon Colorado, besides a dozen English sailors whose vessel is not specified. These comprise all hands, officers and crews, merchants and passengers, and presumably, if the cargoes were not confiscated, they were effectually looted in the absence of their guardians.[1234] That such was the motive, rather than the protection of Spain from the infection of heresy, is inferable from a sentence of the Granada tribunal, in 1574, condemning to reconciliation and life-long galley-service Jean Moreno, a Frenchman, resident in Málaga, because he had warned some Protestant sailors not to enter the port of Almería.[1235] When there was prospect of a fat confiscation, indeed, the Inquisition paid little respect to the justice of the case or to the parties who might suffer. There was a long dispute between Rome and Madrid over two cargoes of alum, which the papal camera was sending to England, when the ships were seized and the cargoes sequestrated by the tribunal of Seville, on the ground that the English crews were heretics.[1236]

This barbarous policy necessarily made itself felt in the cost of foreign commodities, especially after the troubles in the Netherlands had cut off or reduced that portion of the carrying trade. Under this pressure, in 1597, an exception was made in favor of the Hansa. Instructions were issued by the Suprema that, when its ships arrived with merchandise, the persons in them were not to be interrogated about their religion, nor on that account were the ships or cargoes to be sequestrated or confiscated, unless while in port they had offended against the Catholic faith and, in such case, only the property of delinquents was to be seized; search, however, for prohibited books was to be made, as was customary with Catholic vessels.[1237] There was also an approach to admitting the Dutch, in a royal order of February 27, 1603, providing that Holland vessels and crews, bearing passports from the Archdukes of the Netherlands, were to be allowed entrance to Spanish ports, and their persons and property were to be secure, but this was revoked, December 11, 1604, subject to the twelve months' notice provided in the order.[1238]

A treaty of peace with England, covering this matter, was ratified by James I, August 29/19, 1604 and by Philip III, June 16, 1605. During this interval, in November, 1604, an English ship, with a crew of twenty men, coming for a load of corn, touched at Messina and then at Palermo. In the latter port it was visited by the officials of the Inquisition, when the men admitted that they were Protestants and wished to live in that faith. They were all arrested and appealed to the viceroy, the Duke of Feria. He was powerless save to write a private letter in which he declared that the arrest was a disservice to the king and tended to destroy the treaty agreed upon, wherefore the Inquisition ought to dissemble and treat the heretics well, for the public good. The inquisitors thereupon assembled ten consultors, reaching the conclusion that the Englishmen could be liberated only on condition of giving ample security that they would go to Spain and present themselves before the inquisitor-general. For strangers this was a virtual impossibility, and it doubtless proved to be so for, in 1605, we hear of certain Englishmen, who had been admitted to penance with the sanbenito and required to live for two years in certain monasteries for instruction in the faith; they had contrived to escape, but were tracked and found on board a French ship, without their sanbenitos. As the tribunal did not care to support them, they were ordered to be distributed separately to monasteries in the mountains, far from the sea, where they were, for ten years, to perform labor without pay.[1239]

When such irrational cruelty was habitual, international comity and commercial interests alike demanded that a curb should be placed on the irresponsibility of the Inquisition. Accordingly, in the English treaty of 1604, Article 21 provided that the vassals of King James, coming to or residing in the Netherlands or Spain, should not be molested or disturbed on account of matters of conscience, so long as they gave no occasion for scandal, and that corresponding instructions should be issued by the king. This Philip did, under the same date of June 15, 1605, ordering that English subjects should not be held accountable for acts prior to their coming to Spain. While in Spain they were not to be compelled to enter churches but, if entering voluntarily, due respect must be paid to the Venerable Sacrament and, if it was met on the street, they must kneel, or take another street or enter a house. If any one were prosecuted for contravention of these rules, only his own property was to be seized, and not a vessel or cargo, or the goods of others in his charge, and to the observance of all this the king pledged his royal faith and word. The Suprema had previously, December 11, 1604, issued instructions similar to those of 1597 for the Hansa; on July 14, 1605, it transmitted to the tribunals the articles of the treaty, but it seems to have objected to the royal declaration, for it delayed until October 8th embodying its provisions in a carta acordada.[1240]

[Sidenote: _FOREIGN HERETICS_]

This was too reasonable to be acceptable to Spanish fanaticism. Archbishop Ribera, in 1608, varied his efforts for Morisco expulsion with an earnest appeal to the king, expressing the grief which he had never ceased to feel since he heard of the peace with England, fearing, as he did, the offence given to God which would bring many evils on Spain. His affliction had increased in view of the excesses committed by the English in Valencia, living publicly in their religion and causing great scandal and evil example to the faithful and, at much length and with many instances, he proved that peace with infidels was forbidden by Holy Writ. This memorial was duly considered in the Council of State, when the Comendador Mayor of Leon reported that the king had ordered the inquisitor-general to be notified, so that he might instruct the tribunals to exercise great vigilance and to punish all who gave occasion for scandal.[1241]

When, in 1609, the twelve years' truce was concluded with the United Provinces, the Dutch naturally claimed the same privileges as the English, and these were embodied in Article 7 of the treaty.[1242] The Inquisition did not submit quietly to this restriction on its powers and, in 1612, it issued a carta acordada, repeated in 1616, asserting that these privileges applied only to transient strangers, and that those who were resident and kept houses were subject to the tribunals in all matters of faith like any Spanish subjects; it invoked, moreover, an old regulation of 1581, ordering special watch to be kept on them, so that what they did in private as well as in public might be known, full reports being sent to the Suprema. In 1620 it revived another instruction of 1581 forbidding foreigners in the seaports to keep inns or lodging houses.[1243] Whether any trouble arose from these arbitrary constructions of international compacts does not appear, but at least they manifested a desire to render the position of foreign heretics as precarious and uncomfortable as possible.

When the truce with Holland expired, in 1621, of course the privileges of the Dutch were withdrawn and, when war with England came in 1624, the Inquisition eagerly assumed the office of purifying Spain from heretical infection. Inquisitor-general Pacheco informed the king that papal permission had been necessary to enable Philip III to enter into the treaty of 1605; now that the peace had been broken and the causes of the papal permission had ceased, he was, as inquisitor-general, obliged in conscience to obviate the evils of Catholic intercourse with such pertinacious and pernicious heretics as the English and Scotch, by not permitting them to remain in his Majesty's dominions, for otherwise he would be lacking in his duty to the king and to his office. He had therefore ordered an edict to be published that all Englishmen and Scotchmen, who were not Catholics, should leave the king's dominions within twenty days, notifying them that after that date they would be punished by the Holy Office. As it was a weighty matter, of which the king should be notified, Pacheco added that he had not wished to execute it without informing him and he could issue such orders as he saw fit.[1244] It may be assumed that Philip did not approve of this insolent invasion of the royal power, for it was not till April 22, 1626, that he issued a proclamation forbidding all commercial intercourse with England and ordering the confiscation of all English goods imported in contravention of its commands, when the Inquisition followed by a carta acordada of May 29th, prescribing the prosecution, in the regular way, of all English heretics who had sinned against the faith.[1245]

[Sidenote: _FOREIGN HERETICS_]

When peace was restored, in 1630, article 19 of the treaty revived the article of 1604 and Philip, as before, promised to provide that English subjects should not be molested so long as they caused no scandal.[1246] As before, the Suprema followed this, January 28, 1631, with detailed instructions that those who kept house should be treated as Spanish subjects and be subjected to special surveillance.[1247] This unjustifiable distinction between transient and resident foreigners gave ample opportunity for molestation and blackmail. It was construed as applying the Index of prohibited books to residents for, in 1645, we find the Canary tribunal ordering its commissioner at Orotava to search the houses of the English merchants and report whether they found any forbidden books or books that had not passed the censure. The duty was performed and lists were forwarded, not only of books but of pictures and prints and, as nothing objectionable was reported, we may not uncharitably surmise that the commissioner's labor was not unprofitable.[1248] As the rule had no legal basis, it probably called forth protests for, in 1652, the Suprema submitted the question of its legality to a number of calificadores, who unanimously agreed that it was not in accordance with the treaties, when presumably it was withdrawn.[1249] The espionage to which foreign merchants were exposed is portrayed, in 1648, by Pedro de Villareal, commissioner at Bilbao, who reports that there were sixteen houses in which the English and Dutch traders were lodged; he was confident that nothing heretical could escape his knowledge, for the keepers of the houses were faithful spies and very zealous in matters of religion.[1250]

A treaty of commerce with Denmark, in 1641, placed the Danes on the same footing as the English and, in the treaty of Munster, January 30, 1648, the Dutch obtained the same terms, while a special article placed the Hanse towns on the same footing as Holland.[1251]

Meanwhile, in 1645, the English merchants in Andalusia, by a payment of twenty-five hundred ducats in silver, had secured certain commercial privileges, one of which indicates how grudgingly their treaty rights had been interpreted. A foreign heretic appearing in court, either as party or witness, was asked whether he was a Catholic; if he replied in the negative, his oath was not received. This humiliating and injurious distinction was abrogated, and the Englishman's oath was declared to be legal and binding, like the Spaniard's, but it was difficult to make the courts accept the innovation, and the royal order, issued March 19th had to be repeated June 26th and again November 9th. By the Munster treaties this privilege was extended to Holland and the Hanse towns, and it was confirmed by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713.[1252]

[Sidenote: _FOREIGN HERETICS_]

We have seen how difficult it was to make the Inquisition respect municipal law, and it was not likely to regard international obligations. Excuses could readily be found to bring the hated foreign heretic under its jurisdiction and, in the chronic penury of the time, the opportunity of rich confiscations was not likely to be lost sight of. In 1621 we hear of a number of Englishmen arrested in Málaga, with sequestration of property, and the same occurred in Seville, in 1622.[1253] Of one case we chance to have details--that of George Penn, brother of Admiral--then Captain--Penn, and uncle of William Penn, the Founder of Pennsylvania. He was in no sense a bigoted Protestant, or he would scarce have married a Catholic wife in Flanders. He took her to Seville, where he conducted a prosperous business until 1643, when he was arrested. His account of his sufferings is manifestly exaggerated though we may believe him when he says that he was tortured until he confessed all that was required of him--that he was a heretic who had married a Catholic in Antwerp, intending to take her to England and pervert her and their children from the faith. He was required to abjure in a public auto and ordered to leave Spain within three months, while his wife was taken from him and he says was married to a Spaniard. The property confiscated amounted, according to disinterested appraisers, to £6000 of his own and £6000 belonging to other parties. On his return to England, beggared and broken in health, he sought to obtain redress and, about 1664, Charles II appointed him envoy to Spain, to enable him to urge his claims to advantage, but being then 63 years old he did not venture to go. During the negotiations at Utrecht, William Penn endeavored to obtain consideration of this case, but apparently without success.[1254]

The superb imperturbability of the Inquisition as to international obligations is evinced in a case occurring soon after the treaty of Munster. Paul Jerome Estagema, a citizen of Hoorn, was arrested at Alicante and tried by the Valencia tribunal. Influential people in Holland urged his release, and the Dutch ambassador, Anthony Brun, made forcible representations to the king, who wrote, September 15, 1651, to the Suprema, urging a prompt decision of the case and pointing out that, under the treaty, Estagema, as a citizen of the United Provinces, was not subject to the Inquisition. The royal request was treated with absolute indifference; Ambassador Brun kept urging the matter and, on December 16th, Philip repeated his application to the Suprema, and asserted the necessity of satisfying the Hollanders. Then the Suprema condescended to forward the royal letters to the tribunal, telling it to despatch the case without delay, which could readily be done as the trial had been finished on September 7th, and ordering it to report the sentence when pronounced.[1255]

At this period, political exigencies rendered both France and Spain desirous of an alliance with England. Don Alonso de Cardenas, the Spanish ambassador, endeavored to negotiate a treaty with Cromwell in 1653 and again in 1655, but the Protector insisted on larger toleration. In the draft of the projected treaty, Articles 22 and 35 not only repeated the previous provisions but added that Englishmen conducting business in Spain should be permitted, in their houses and ships, to perform divine service in their own manner, and to use their Bibles and other books, and that they should not be arrested for so doing or their property be sequestrated. When the treaty was submitted to Philip, he sent these articles to the Suprema for its advice, protesting that he was unalterably resolved to risk all his dominions and spill the last drop of his blood, rather than to yield anything that would be to the disservice of God, or prejudice in the least degree the purity of religion. In response to this the Suprema declared that the royal words ought to be recorded in imperishable bronze; it easily proved that by divine, canon and municipal law, a sovereign had no right to permit such toleration; it quoted Gregory XV as ordering, in 1622, all rulers, under heavy penalties, to expel all heretics from their dominions, and it pointed out that heretics employed Catholic servants who would be corrupted, and that all cognizant of heresy incurred mortal sin and excommunication if they did not denounce it. These arguments were as applicable to the treaties of 1605, 1630, and 1648 as to the proposed one, but they sufficed; it was rejected, and Cromwell turned to France.[1256] Doubtless Admiral Penn felt a special personal satisfaction, when he avenged his brother by wresting Jamaica from Spain in 1655.

A secret treaty, in 1656, between the wandering Charles II and Philip, pledged the former to bring about freedom of conscience in England, but was discreetly silent about toleration in Spain. With the Restoration, in 1660, peace ensued and the treaty of 1630 was revived. In 1663, when a new treaty was discussed, England again put forward the stipulations of Cromwell, and Philip again consulted the Suprema with the same result. On Philip's death, in 1665, the treaty of December 17th continued in force the provisions of 1630 and extended to all Englishmen the privileges granted, in 1645, to those of Andalusia. Then, in 1667, the treaty of May 23d defined more clearly that the pretext of conscience should not be used to inflict injury on Englishmen or raise any dispute so long as no manifest public scandal was caused nor offence committed. In this shape the relations between the kingdoms continued; the treaty of Utrecht in 1713 and those of 1763 and 1783 merely confirmed that of 1667.[1257]

[Sidenote: _FOREIGN HERETICS_]

With France, of course, relations were wholly different. When the Huguenot was grudgingly tolerated at home, he could expect no protection for his religion abroad, especially when, as in Spain, he could reside only by pretending Catholicism. The peace of the Pyrenees, November 7, 1659, merely provides, in article 5, that the vassals of each power shall have free ingress, residence and egress in the territories of the other, observing the laws and customs of the country.[1258] This did not, however, preclude reclamation in cases of special malfeasance, as when, in 1672, the French ambassador Villars complained of an outrage in Majorca. A French ship, arriving there from Barbary, September 6th, with a cargo of wheat, chanced to have as a passenger a Huguenot of position, M. de la Fent, governor of the Bastion de France, with a large sum of money. On learning this, the inquisitor arranged to seize him and embargo his property; he assembled a force and armed two vessels with which to take possession of the French ship, and he would have done so had not M. de la Fent prevailed upon the master to make sail. The queen-regent forwarded this to the Suprema, October 28th, for explanation, but it was not until November 19th that it replied, merely saying that the inquisitor of Majorca had reported, on September 21st, the arrival of a heretic and that, on October 3d, it had ordered him to take such action as comported with the service of the queen, the public peace, and the consideration due to the subjects of the French king, who were to be treated like the English and the Dutch.[1259]

As the attempt had failed, the Suprema made the best excuse it could, but with manifest equivocation, for the French heretic had not such treaty protection as the English. This was manifested, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685, when it was thought that fugitive Huguenots might have settled in Spain. In 1687, the papal nuncio and the French ambassador called the attention of the inquisitor-general to the matter, suggesting that the Holy Office should not permit their residence. Carlos II seconded their representations, and issued a cédula, February 28th, ordering his officials to lend all necessary assistance to the Inquisition. The Suprema sent this to the tribunals and followed it, June 14th, with detailed instructions, ordering a general perquisition to be conducted through the parish priests throughout Spain. Each tribunal was to collect the results, investigate them and vote, reporting the vote to the Suprema. Extreme vigilance was enjoined and the Suprema was to be kept informed.[1260] Judging from such statistics of the period as are accessible, this proved to be a false alarm, leading to no results, but none the less it indicates the dread inspired by the prospect of the intrusion of foreign heretics. There seems to have been a similar scare, in 1698, when the Suprema instructed the tribunals to order all their commissioners to report whether, in their districts, there were any heretics, transient or resident, giving in detail the nationality, sect, occupation etc. of each one, and this without loss of time.[1261]

This policy continued. In 1784 similar lists were called for. The answer from Valencia showed how successful had been the exclusion of Protestants, and how precarious was the position of those who ventured to reside in Spain. The tribunal reported, August 29, 1785, that it had instructed its commissioners everywhere and, where there were no commissioners, satisfactory persons, to make this secret investigation, with the result that there were no Protestants in the kingdom of Valencia, except in the city, where there were two--Mons. Champane, a Frenchman and Dueclaux, whose nationality could not be ascertained. Both were Protestants, although it was difficult to verify the fact, on account of their extreme care in attending church and in accompanying the sacrament when it was carried to the sick.[1262]

[Sidenote: _FOREIGN HERETICS_]

With the outbreak of the French Revolution, the desire to exclude heretics extended itself to foreigners generally, with the view of completely isolating Spain. In 1791 a decree of Carlos IV required all foreigners to be registered; those who desired to be naturalized must be Catholics and take the necessary oath of allegiance; transient residents were compelled to take out licences in which, among other details, their religion was specified; they were not allowed to exercise any profession or art or craft, or to follow any retail trade, or even to be servants, and all engaged in such pursuits were given two months in which to leave the country.[1263] When, however, the peace of 1795 put an end to the disastrous war with the French Republic and aroused apprehension of an approaching rupture with England, there was a feverish desire to placate France, showing itself in a royal cédula of May 1, 1796, prohibiting all tribunals, including the Inquisition, from molesting Frenchmen on account of religion, but those only were to be recognized as Frenchmen who wore the tricolor cockade. When war broke out with England, a further advance was made; Carlos ordered his representatives abroad to assure all foreign powers that in Spain strangers enjoyed full liberty of conscience, and in August, 1797, he forbade the Inquisition to trouble foreigners about their faith.[1264] We may be permitted, however, to doubt the sincerity of this. When, in the same year, the attention of the Valencia tribunal was drawn to a German merchant named Johann Foch, who called himself a Protestant, it applied at once to the captain-general to know whether he held the licence authorizing his residence in Spain, not being a Catholic. It proceeded with the case but suspended it because of his marriage with Bernarda María Pellicer, a parishioner of Santo Tomás.[1265]

This liberality, whether genuine or not, was only a passing episode. A document of 1801 shows that the decree of 1791 was still in force, and that the Inquisition was relied upon to carry it into effect. It is a series of questions addressed by the Suprema to the tribunals, with the answers from Valencia, and explains itself.

Q. Whether, prior to the royal order of 1791, foreigners not Catholics were allowed to reside, in the cases provided by the treaties and, if they were not permitted, what measures were taken to ascertain whether they professed Calvinism?

A. In case of their not having the benefit of those treaties, as soon as the tribunal had knowledge of them, it made the requisite investigation and, on ascertaining it to be true, it notified them to quit the kingdom, if they had not special permission from the king.

Q. If investigation led to the belief that a stranger was Catholic and it was subsequently found that he was not, but that he did not speak ill of our religion, or cause scandal, or insult sacred objects, to what punishment was he condemned?

A. No recent case of this kind has occurred but, from some former ones, it is deduced that the Suprema was consulted.

Q. Have those who established themselves in Spain, in virtue of the royal order of 1791, complied with the formalities which it prescribes?

A. As no advice has been sent to this tribunal by the Junta del Comercio y Moneda, nor by the Intendente of the kingdom, it is inferred that no non-Catholic artists have established themselves, or else that the prescription to advise the tribunal has not been obeyed.

Q. Whether they (non-Catholic foreigners) contract marriage with Catholics and, in that case, what is the religion of the children?

A. But one case of such marriage is known--that of Juan Foch, a German of Lindau, who called himself a travelling merchant, with Bernarda María Pellicer of this city. This was in virtue of a papal brief, passed by the Council of Castile and with the royal exequatur, providing that he should allow his wife to remain a Catholic and his children to be brought up in the same faith, and she promising to persuade him to conversion. They were married privately, outside of the church and without banns or other public ceremonies. We learn from the Vicar of Los Santos Juanes, where they live, that they cause no scandal, comply with the obligations and that a boy has been baptized.

Q. Since the royal order, about how many non-Catholic strangers have established themselves, naming some of the principal ones and their nation or sect?

A. This could be answered only by examining the registers required to be kept by the captain-general and royal justicias. This tribunal can only have notice by denunciations, which has occurred only with Foch.

Q. How many _autillos públicos_ have been held with strangers since 1759 when Carlos III ascended the throne? State the name, country, religion and principal offences.

A. Since 1759 there has been no autillo público for strangers.[1266]

This document has interest not only as showing the continued vigilance as to foreign heretics, but as indicating how thoroughly successful had been the policy of exclusion. The district of the tribunal embraced a long stretch of sea-coast, including such commercial cities as Valencia and Alicante, yet the non-Catholic stranger was still almost unknown, as he had been when the report of 1785 was made. Spain was a land to be shunned by all who were liable to be dealt with by the Inquisition, and it was left to its isolation. For those who ventured it, concealment of heresy was worse than its avowal. David Bonoran, a French Protestant, domiciled in Bilbao, succeeded in passing as a good Catholic. Becoming converted, he applied to the tribunal of Logroño to abjure his errors and be incorporated in the Church, when, in 1791, he was promptly prosecuted for having feigned Catholicism.[1267]

This sensitiveness survived the Peninsular War and was vigorous to the last. In 1816 there is considerable correspondence respecting the wife of Don Rufino de Acha, settled in Bilbao as a merchant, who had married in England a Protestant named Doña Juana de Ancell--presumably Jane Hansell. From this it appears that, after a discussion lasting nearly a year, she was given the alternative of leaving Spain or of conversion and that she accepted the latter.[1268]

[Sidenote: _HERETIC TROOPS_]

This persistent dread of heretics is vividly reflected in one of the last acts of the Suprema prior to its suppression. In 1819 it issued an elaborate series of instructions for the guidance of commissioners at the sea-ports in the _visitas de navios_, or examination of all ships on their arrival. This was principally intended to prevent the introduction of prohibited books, which will be considered hereafter, but the sections devoted to heretics show that the regulations adopted at the treaty of 1605 were still in force. Foreign heretics were not to be prosecuted for acts committed abroad but, for anything done in Spain and causing scandal, they were to be arrested and transmitted to the tribunal for trial. They were not to be compelled to enter churches but, if they did so, they were to pay due respect to the Sacrament and, on meeting it in the street, they were to kneel or remove themselves out of the way. Strangers were forbidden to keep public houses for the entertainment of Protestant shipmasters and sailors or travellers. The commissioner was to be vigilant in ascertaining and reporting to the tribunal everything they said against the Catholic faith, how they behaved in public and in private and whether any scandal was caused to the faithful.[1269] Spain was the same as it had been two centuries before.

* * * * *

There was one exception, however, to the prohibition of the hated presence of heretics on Spanish soil. Constantly recurring war necessitated the employment of whatever troops could be had, irrespective of their spiritual condition. It was the German bands of Lutherans under Georg Fronsberg who sacked Rome for Charles V in 1527. Foreign mercenaries were continually in Spanish service, and they grew more indispensable in the seventeenth century with the decline both in population and military ardor. The revolts of Portugal and Catalonia, in 1640, rendered Spain the battle-field, and recruits from any source were welcome, who of course could not be subjected to inquisitorial interference, no matter what their faith. The Inquisition in vain pointed out the dangers thence arising. In a consulta of November 13, 1647, the Suprema related with grief that four hundred German soldiers, landed at San Sebastian, on their way to Catalonia, were disseminating their errors, distributing heretic books and outraging images.[1270] There was no help for it and, after war had ceased on Spanish territory, the employment of foreign regiments continued to excite its susceptibilities. In 1668, the Suprema arguing in a consulta for the maintenance of its prerogatives, urged that they were especially necessary, in view of the presence of such bodies of soldiers, many of whom were heretics.[1271]

Still, there was an effort made to preserve the Spanish organizations from wolves in sheep's clothing. Fernando VI issued a decree, December 31, 1756, imposing the death-penalty on any heretic who pretended to be a Catholic in order to enlist and, in 1765, Carlos III modified this to expulsion from the kingdom under pain of ten years' labor in the _bagne_, adding that, if the heretic when enlisting had sworn that he was a Catholic, he should run the gauntlet twice before expulsion.[1272]

[Sidenote: _ADMISSION OF CONVERTS_]

There was some slight compensation, for the presence of these heretics, in the field which they furnished for missionary work. There were frequent conversions, especially when the chaplains were zealous for the salvation of souls. One of these was Francisco Columbano Burke, chaplain of the first Swiss battalion, who held a faculty for this purpose as commissioner of the Inquisition. He writes, May 23, 1764 from Tarragona to the Barcelona tribunal, forwarding the abjurations of six converts in the Swiss regiment of St. Gall and giving the names of twenty-four others, who were ready for conversion. They were duly gathered in when there proved to be ten Calvinists and fifteen Lutherans.[1273] The exclusive jurisdiction of the Inquisition over heresy rendered its interposition necessary in this, for it alone could admit the heretic to incorporation in the Church, it alone could judge of the degree of his sin, determine whether he was rightfully a son of the Church through baptism, and whether he was worthy of admission through repentance. In theory he was a heretic spontaneously denouncing himself and, when these conversions became frequent, early in the seventeenth century, they took the form of a regular trial, in which the fiscal acted on one side and the convert had counsel assigned to him on the other while, in the form of abjuration administered, he pledged submission to the penalties of relapse in case of backsliding.[1274] Indeed the Suprema felt it necessary, April 22, 1605, to warn the tribunals that foreigners coming forward voluntarily and confessing their errors were not to be imprisoned but were to be welcomed; their reconciliation was to be in the audience chamber, without sanbenito or confiscation, and with spiritual penances only; then they were to confess their errors sacramentally and receive absolution for their sins.[1275] Heresy, even congenital, was a mortal sin, to be duly atoned for.

Subsequently the rigor of these formalities was abandoned and the process was facilitated, although it was still formidable. Printed instructions for commissioners, apparently drafted in the eighteenth century, prescribe a minute examination into the life and history of the convert and his motives, so as to be satisfied that his object is really salvation. All details as to his baptism are to be specially inquired into, so as to be assured whether or not he is really baptized, and, if there is any doubt, proceedings are to be suspended until the tribunal can be consulted. He is also made to specify all the errors of his former religion, and to utter a profession of faith in which he promises to reduce, as far as he can, all heretics to Catholicism and to denounce them to the Inquisition. He is also to be asked whether he knows of any heretics save those permitted for the sake of trade, and whether any of the latter have transgressed the conditions of their residence. Also, whether he has ever professed Catholicism, and whether he has been instructed in it sufficiently to incur the obligation of its profession, in which case he is required to abjure and to be formally reconciled and is absolved from the excommunication which he has incurred, while, if he has never known Catholicism, he is absolved _ad cautelam_. If he is less than 25 years of age, a curador is to be appointed, with all the formalities, who is to be present and to consent to all the proceedings. There is suggestiveness in the contrast of this cautious detail with the multitudinous sprinkling by which Jews and Moors were incorporated in the Church.

[Sidenote: _PROTESTANTISM_]

Among converts the most curious case in the records is that of Joh. Heinrich Horstmann--with many aliases--of Borgenstreich, who supported himself during a long life by trading on the rivalry between Protestantism and Catholicism. Born about 1663, he was educated as a Catholic by the Jesuits of Prague. When about 25, he changed his religion at Dresden, studied at Wittenberg, and for many years wandered through Germany, living on charitable contributions given to him as a convert. He even went to England, where the Archbishops of Canterbury and York assisted him. Then, in the Protestant cantons of Switzerland, he supported himself as a Catholic ready for conversion, and in the Catholic ones as a Lutheran seeking salvation in the Church. Finally in the latter capacity he hit upon the lucrative device of saying that he had been baptized in the Lutheran fashion of one person administering the material and another the form; theologians would pronounce this invalid, and that rebaptism was necessary; some prominent person would be induced to act as godfather and would encourage him with a donation of twenty or thirty ducats, and possibly there was an additional collection from the faithful. On this he traded for the rest of his life, varied with an episode of having himself circumcised in Amsterdam and living for some years on the Jews there. This subsequently gave him trouble, for in Rome he was recognized as a Jew, he was tried by the Inquisition and sent to the galleys for ten years, after which he resumed the profession of a candidate for baptism. From Lisbon to Paris and Naples, he imposed on the credulity of the faithful, and it was reckoned that in all he had been baptized twenty-one times. A second visit to Spain, however, brought his career to an end in his eighty-ninth year. Repeated baptisms in Cádiz, Madrid and Valencia aroused suspicion. All the tribunals were ordered to be on the watch for him and, after a year of searching, he was arrested at Valencia in 1751. He told his story freely and fully; at first he said that his repeated baptisms were merely to gain a living, but subsequently he asserted that he was possessed by a demon, whom he hoped to eject by the repetition of the rite. The _consulta de fe_ voted that, as an apostate and relapsed heretic and _diminuto_ he had forfeited his life, but that efforts should be made to save his soul, after which another vote should be taken. At this conjuncture he fell mortally sick; he refused to speak to those who sought his salvation and, when one of them told him, if he desired to die in Calvinism, to squeeze his hand, he seized it with such a grip that assistance was necessary to unloosen it. Thus he passed away in his heresy on February 28, 1752; the body was buried in unconsecrated ground in a box of quick-lime and, in an auto held August 26, 1753, the bones and effigy were reduced to ashes and scattered.[1276]

* * * * *

Thus, when divested of legendary amplification, Spanish Protestantism is seen to have been of importance only as serving to tighten the bonds which restricted the development of the nation. One of the most efficient means to this end remains to be considered in the censorship of the press.