Chapter III: Protestantism (2)

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.

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[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.

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