Chapter III: Protestantism (3)

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.