At length he was taken by surprise when at his devotions. He was on his knees before the high altar saying his prayers at midnight, when two men crept up behind him unobserved and attacked him. One struck him with a dagger in the left arm, the other felled him with a violent blow on the back of the neck by which he was laid prostrate and carried off dying. With his last breath he thanked God for being selected to seal so good a cause with his blood. His death was deemed a martyrdom and caused a reaction in favour of the Inquisition as a general rising of the New Christians was feared. The storm was appeased by the archbishop of Saragossa who gave out publicly that the murderers should be rigorously pursued and should suffer condign punishment. The promise was abundantly fulfilled. A stern recompense was exacted from all who were identified with the conspiracy. The scent was followed up with unrelenting pertinacity, several persons were taken and put to death, and a larger number perished in the dungeons of the Inquisition. All the perpetrators of the murder were hanged after their right hands had been amputated. The sentence of one who had given evidence against the rest was commuted in that his hand was not cut off till after his death.
A native of Saragossa had taken refuge in Tudela where he found shelter and concealment in the house of the Infante, Don Jaime, the illegitimate son of the Queen of Navarre, and nephew of King Ferdinand himself. The generous young prince could not reject the claims of hospitality and helped the fugitive to escape into France. But the Infante was himself arrested by the inquisitors and imprisoned as an "impeder" of the Holy Office. His trial took place in Saragossa, although Navarre was outside its jurisdiction, and he was sentenced to do open penance in the cathedral in the presence of a great congregation at High Mass. The ceremony was carried out before the Archbishop of Saragossa, a boy of seventeen, the illegitimate son of King Ferdinand, and this callow stripling in his primate's robes ordered his father's nephew to be flogged round the church with rods.
The second story is much more horrible. One Gaspar de Santa Cruz of Saragossa had been concerned in the rebellion, but escaped to Toulouse where he died. He had been aided in his flight by a son who remained in Saragossa, and who was arrested as an "impeder" of the Holy Office. He was tried and condemned to appear at an auto da fé, where he was made to read an act which held up his father to public ignominy. Then the son was transferred to the custody of the inquisitor of Toulouse who took him to his father's grave, forced him to exhume the corpse and burn it with his own hands.
The bitter hatred of the Jews culminated in the determination of the king and queen, urged on by Torquemada, to expel them entirely from Spain. The germ of this idea may be found in the capitulation of Granada by the Moors, when it was agreed that every Jew found in the city was to be shipped off forthwith to Barbary. It was now argued that since all attempts to convert them had failed, Spain should be altogether rid of them. The Catholic King and Queen were induced to sign an edict dated March 30th, 1492, by which it was decreed that every Jew should be banished from Spain within three months, save and except those who chose to apostasise and who, on surrendering the faith of their fathers, might be suffered to remain in the land of their adoption, with leave to enjoy the goods they had inherited or earned. No doubt this edict originated with Torquemada.
Dismay and deep sorrow fell upon the Spanish Jews. The whole country was filled with tribulation. All alike cried for mercy and offered to submit to any laws and ordinances however oppressive, to accept any terms, to pay any penalties if only they might escape this cruel exile. Leading Jews appeared before King Ferdinand and pleaded abjectly for mercy for their co-religionists, offering an immediate ransom of six hundred thousand crowns in gold. The king was inclined to clemency, but the queen was firm. He saw the present advantage, the ready money, and doubted whether he would get as much from the fines and confiscations promised by the inquisitors. But at that moment, so the story goes, Torquemada rushed into the presence bearing a crucifix on high and cried in stentorian tones that the sovereigns were about to act the part of Judas Iscariot. "Here he is! Sell Him again, not for thirty pieces of silver, but for thirty thousand!" and flinging the crucifix on to the table, he ran out in a frenzy. This turned the tables, and the decree for expulsion was confirmed.
The terms of the edict were extremely harsh and peremptory. As a preamble the crimes of the Jews were recited and the small effect produced hitherto by the most severe penalties. It was asserted that they still conspired to overturn Christianity in Spain and recourse to the last remedy, the decree of expulsion, under which all Jews and Jewesses were commanded to leave Spain and never return, even for a passing visit, on pain of death, was therefore necessary. The last day of July, 1492, or four months later, was fixed for the last day of their sojourn in Spain. After that date they would remain at the peril of their lives, while any person of whatever rank or quality who should presume to receive, shelter, protect or defend a Jew or Jewess should forfeit all his property and be discharged from his office, dignity or calling. During the four months, the law allowed the Jews to sell their estates, or barter them for heavy goods, but they were forbidden to remove gold or silver or take out of the kingdom other portable property which was already prohibited by law from exportation.
During the preparation for, and execution of this modern exodus, the condition of the wretched Israelites was heart-rending. Torquemada had tried hard to proselytise, had sent out preachers offering baptism and reconciliation, but at first few listened to the terms proposed. All owners of property and valuables suffered the heaviest losses. Enforced sales were so numerous that purchasers were not to be easily found. Fine estates were sold for a song. A house was exchanged for an ass or beast of burden; a vineyard for a scrap of cloth or linen. Despite the prohibition much gold and silver were carried away concealed in the stuffing of saddles and among horse furniture. Some exiles at the moment of departure swallowed gold pieces, as many as twenty and thirty, and thus evaded to some extent the strict search instituted at the sea ports and frontier towns.
At last in the first week of July, all took to the roads travelling to the coast on foot, on horse or ass-back or were conveyed in country carts. According to an eye-witness, "they suffered incredible misfortunes by the way, some walking feebly, some struggling manfully, some fainting, many attacked with illness, some dying, others coming into the world, so that there was not a Christian who did not feel for them and entreat them to be baptised." Here and there under the pressure of accumulated miseries a few professed to be converted, but such cases were very rare. The rabbis encouraged the people as they went and exhorted the young ones to raise their voices and the women to sing and play on pipes and timbrels to enliven them and keep up their spirits.
Ships were provided by the Spanish authorities at Cadiz, Gibraltar, Carthagena, Valencia and Barcelona on which fifteen hundred of the wealthy families embarked and started for Africa, Italy and the Levant, taking with them their dialect of the Spanish language, such as is still talked at the places where they landed. Of those who joined in the general exodus some perished at sea, by wreck, disease, violence or fire, and some by famine, exhaustion or murder on inhospitable shores. Many were sold for slaves, many thrown overboard by savage ship captains, while parents parted with their children for money to buy food. On board one crowded ship a pestilence broke out, and the whole company was landed and marooned on a desert island. Other infected ships carried disease into the port of Naples, where it grew into a terrible epidemic, by which twenty thousand native Neapolitans perished. Those who reached the city found it in the throes of famine, but were met in landing by a procession of priests, led by one who carried a crucifix and a loaf of bread, and who intimated that only those who would adore the first would receive the other. In papal dominions alone was a hospitable reception accorded. The pope of the time, Alexander VI, was more tolerant than other rulers.
The total loss of population is now difficult to ascertain, but undoubtedly it has been greatly exaggerated. The most trustworthy estimate fixes the number of emigrants at one hundred and sixty-five thousand, and the number dying of hardships and grief before leaving at about twenty thousand. Probably fifty thousand more accepted baptism as a consequence of the edict. The loss entailed in actual value was incalculable and a vast amount of potential earnings was sacrificed by the disappearance of so large a part of the most industrious members of the population. The king and queen greatly impoverished Spain in purging it of Hebrew heresy. Their action however was greeted with applause by other rulers who did not go to the same lengths on account of economic considerations. They were praised because they were willing to sacrifice revenue for the sake of the faith.