Voyager's Tales

by Richard Hakluyt

THE FIFTH CHAPTER.

WHEREIN IS SHOWED IN WHAT GOOD SORT AND HOW WEALTHILY WE LIVED WITH OUR MASTERS UNTIL THE COMING OF THE INQUISITION, WHEN AS AGAIN, OUR SORROWS BEGAN AFRESH; OF OUR IMPRISONMENT IN THE HOLY HOUSE, AND OF THE SEVERE JUDGMENT AND SENTENCES GIVEN AGAINST US, AND WITH WHAT RIGOUR AND CRUELTY THE SAME WERE EXECUTED.

The gentlemen that thus took us for their servants or slaves, did new apparel us throughout, with whom we abode doing such service as they appointed us unto, which was for the most part to attend upon them at the table, and to be as their chamberlains, and to wait upon them when they went abroad, which they greatly accounted of, for in that country no Spaniard will serve one another, but they are all of them attended and served by Indians weekly, and by negroes which be their slaves during their life. In this sort we remained and served in the said city of Mexico and thereabouts for the space of a year and somewhat longer. Afterwards many of us were by our masters appointed to go to sundry of their mines where they had to do, and to be as overseers of the negroes and Indians that laboured there. In which mines many of us did profit and gain greatly; for first we were allowed three hundred pezoes a man for a year, which is three score pounds sterling, and besides that the Indians and negroes which wrought under our charge, upon our well using and entreating of them, would at times as upon Saturdays when they had left work labour for us, and blow as much silver as should be worth unto us three marks or thereabouts, every mark being worth six pezoes and a half of their money, which nineteen pezoes and a half, is worth four livres, ten shillings of our money. Sundry weeks we did gain so much by this means besides our wages, that many of us became very rich, and were worth three thousand or four thousand pezoes, for we lived and gained thus in those mines some three or four years. As concerning those gentlemen which were delivered as hostages, and that were kept in prison in the Viceroy his house, after that we were gone from out the garden to serve sundry gentlemen as aforesaid, they remained prisoners in the said house, for the space of four months after their coming thither, at the end whereof the fleet, being ready to depart from St. John de Ullua to go for Spain, the said gentlemen were sent away into Spain with the fleet, where I have heard it credibly reported, many of them died with the cruel handling of the Spaniards in the Inquisition house, as those which have been delivered home after they had suffered the persecution of that house can more perfectly declare. Robert Barret also, master of the Jesus, was sent away with the fleet into Spain the next year following, whereafter he suffered persecution in the Inquisition, and at the last was condemned to be burnt, and with him three or four more of our men, of whom one was named Gregory and another John Browne, whom I knew, for they were of our general his musicians, but the names of the rest that suffered with them I know not.

Now after that six years there fully expired since our first coming into the Indies in which time we had been imprisoned and served in the said countries, as is before truly declared in the year of our Lord one thousand five hundred and seventy four, the Inquisition began to be established in the Indies very much against the minds of many of the Spaniards themselves, for never until this time since their first conquering and planting in the Indies, were they subject to that bloody and cruel Inquisition. The chief Inquisitor was named Don Pedro Moya de Contreres, and John de Bouilla his companion, and John Sanchis the Fischall, and Pedro de la Rios, the Secretary, they being come and settled, and placed in a very fair house, near unto the White Friars, considering with themselves that they must make an entrance and beginning of that their most detestable Inquisition here in Mexico to the terror of the whole country, thought it best to call us that were Englishmen first in question, and so much the rather for that they had perfect knowledge and intelligence, that many of us were become very rich as hath been already declared, and therefore we were a very great booty and prey to the Inquisitors, so that now again began our sorrows afresh, for we were sent for, and sought out in all places of the country, and proclamation made upon pain of losing of goods, and excommunication that no man should hide or keep secret any Englishman or any part of their goods. By means whereof we were all soon apprehended in all places, and all our goods seized and taken for the Inquisitors' use, and so from all parts of the country we were conveyed and sent as prisoners to the city of Mexico, and there committed to prison in sundry dark dungeons where we could not see but by candlelight, and were never more than two together in one place so that we saw not one another, neither could one of us tell what was become of another. Thus we remained close imprisoned for the space of a year and a half, and others for some less time, for they came to prison ever as they were apprehended. During which time of our imprisonment at the first beginning we were often called before the Inquisitors alone, and there severely examined of our faith, and commanded to say the pater noster, the Ave Maria, and the creed in Latin, which God knoweth a great number of us could not say otherwise than in the English tongue. And having the said Robert Sweeting who was our friend at Tescuco always present with them for an interpreter he made report for us in our own country speech we could say them perfectly, although not word for word as they were in Latin. Then did they proceed to demand of us upon our oaths what we did believe of the sacrament, and whether there did remain any bread or wine after the words of consecration, yea or no, and whether we did not believe that the Host of bread which the priest did hold up over his head, and the wine that was in the chalice, was the very true and perfect body and blood of our Saviour Christ, yea or no, to which if we answered not yea, then was there no way but death. Then would they demand of us what we did remember of ourselves, what opinions we had held or had been taught to hold, contrary to the same whiles we were in England; to which we for the safety of our lives were constrained to say that we never did believe, nor had been taught otherwise than as before we had said. Then would they charge us that we did not tell them the truth, that we knew to the contrary, and therefore we should call ourselves to remembrance and make them a better answer at the next time or else we should be racked and made to confess the truth whether we would or no. And so coming again before them the next time, we were still demanded of our belief whiles we were in England, and how we had been taught, and also what we thought or did know of such of our company as they did name unto us, so that we could never be free from such demands, and at other times they would promise us that if we would tell them the truth, then should we have favour and be set at liberty, although we very well knew their fair speeches were but means to entrap us to the hazard and loss of our lives; howbeit God so mercifully wrought for us by a secret means that we had that we kept us still to our first answer, and would still say that we had told the truth unto them, and knew no more by ourselves nor any other of our fellows than as we had declared, and that for our sins and offences in England against God and our Lady, or any of His blessed saints, we were heartily sorry for the same, and did cry God mercy, and besought the Inquisitors, for God's sake, considering that we came into those countries by force of weather, and against our wills, and that never in all our lives we had either spoken or done anything contrary to their laws, that therefore they would have mercy on us, yet all this would not serve, for still from time to time we were called upon to confess, and about the space of three months, before they proceeded to their severe Judgment, we were all racked, and some enforced to utter that against themselves which afterwards cost them their lives.

And thus having gotten from our own mouths matter sufficient for them to proceed in judgment against us, they caused a large scaffold to be made in the midst of the market-place in Mexico, right over against the head church, and fourteen or fifteen days before the day of their judgment, with the sound of a trumpet, and the noise of their attabalies, which are a kind of drums, they did assemble the people in all parts of the city, before whom it was then solemnly proclaimed that whosoever would upon such a day, repair to the marketplace, they should hear the sentence of the Holy Inquisition against the English heretic Lutherans, and also see the same put in execution. Which being done, and the time approaching of this cruel judgment, the night before they came to the prison where we were, with certain officers of that holy hellish house, bringing with them certain fools' coats which they had prepared for us, being called in their language St. Benitos, which coats were made of yellow cotton and red crosses upon them, both before and behind; they were so busied in putting on their coats about us and in bringing us out into a large yard, and placing and pointing us in what order we should go to the scaffold or place of judgment upon the morrow, that they did not once suffer us to sleep all that night long.

The next morning being come, there was given to every one of us for our breakfast, a cup of wine, and a slice of bread fried in honey, and so about eight of the clock in the morning, we set forth of the prison, every man alone in his yellow coat and a rope about his neck, and a great green wax candle in his hand unlighted, having a Spaniard appointed to go upon either side of every one of us; and so marching in this order and manner towards the scaffold in the market-place, which was a bow-shot distant or thereabouts, we found a great assembly of people all the way, and such throng, that certain of the Inquisitors' officers on horseback were constrained to make way, and so coming to the scaffold we went up by a pair of stairs, and found seats ready made and prepared for us to sit down on, every man in order as he should be called to receive his judgment. We being thus set down as we were appointed, presently the Inquisitors came up another pair of stairs, and the Viceroy and all the chief justices with them. When they were set down and placed under the cloth of estate agreeing to their degrees and calling, then came up also a great number of friars, white, black, and grey, about the number of 300 persons, they being set in the places for them appointed. Then was there a solemn Oyes made, and silence commanded, and then presently began their severe and cruel judgment.

The first man that was called was one Roger, the chief armourer of the Jesus, and he had judgment to have 300 stripes on horseback, and after condemned to the galleys as a slave for ten years.

After him was called John Gray, John Browne, John Rider, John Moone, James Collier, and one Thomas Browne. These were adjudged to have 200 stripes on horseback, and after to be committed to the galleys for the space of eight years.

Then was called John Keies, and was adjudged to have 100 stripes on horseback, and condemned to serve in the galleys for the space of six years.

Then were severally called the number of fifty-three, one after another, and every man had his several judgment, some to have 200 stripes on horseback and some 100, and some condemned for slaves to the galleys, some for six years, some for eight, and some for ten.

And then was I, Miles Phillips, called, and was adjudged to serve in a monastery for five years, without any stripes, and to wear a fool's coat or San Benito, during all that time.

Then were called John Storie, Richard Williams, David Alexander, Robert Cooke, and Horsewell, and Thomas Hull. These six were condemned to serve in monasteries without stripes, some for three years, and some for four, and to wear the San Benito during all the said time. Which being done, and it now drawing towards night, George Rivelie, Peter Momfrie, and Cornelius the Irishman were called, and had their judgment to be burnt to ashes, and so were presently sent away to the place of execution in the market-place, but a little from the scaffold, where they were quickly burnt and consumed. And as for us that had received our judgment, being sixty-eight in number, we were carried back that night to prison again, and the next day in the morning, being Good Friday, the year of our Lord, 1575, we were all brought into a court of the Inquisitors' Palace, where we found a horse in readiness for every one of our men which were condemned to have stripes, and to be committed to the galleys, which were in number sixty, and so they, being enforced to mount up on horseback, naked, from the middle upward, were carried to be showed as a spectacle for all the people to behold throughout the chief and principal streets of the city, and had the number of stripes to every one of them appointed, most cruelly laid upon their naked bodies with long whips, by sundry men appointed to be the executioners thereof, and before our men there went a couple of criers, which cried as they went, "Behold these English dogs, Lutherans, enemies to God," and all the way as they went, there were some of the Inquisitors themselves, and of the familiars of that rake-hell order, that cried to the executioners, "Strike, lay on those English heretics, Lutherans, God's enemies;" and so this horrible spectacle being showed round about the city, and they returned to the Inquisitors' House, with their backs all gore blood and swollen with great bumps. They were then taken from their horses and carried again to prison, where they remained until they were sent into Spain to the galleys, there to receive the rest of their martyrdom; and I, and the six other with me, which had judgment and were condemned among the rest to serve an apprenticeship in the monasteries, were taken presently and sent to certain religious houses appointed for the purpose.