CHAPTER V
THE INQUISITION IN PORTUGAL AND INDIA
The Inquisition in Spain abolished by Napoleon's invasion—Its revival—Persecution of the Freemasons—The "Tribunal of Faith" established—Inquisition in Portugal—The case of an Englishman who is arrested, tortured and burnt alive—Difference between the Inquisitions of Spain and Portugal—The supreme power of the Holy Office in Portugal in the eighteenth century—The terrible earthquake at Lisbon—Establishment of the Holy Office in India at Goa—Description of the Inquisition prison at Goa by M. Dellon—Case of Father Ephrem—His arrest and rescue by the English from the hands of the inquisitors.
Napoleon's invasion of Spain and the removal of the young king, Ferdinand VII, to France, put an end to the Inquisition. When the Emperor took possession of Madrid, he called upon all public bodies to submit to his authority, but the Holy Office refused. Whereupon he issued an order to arrest the inquisitors, abolish the Inquisition, and sequestrate its revenues. All Spain did not readily yield to the French conqueror, and when the Cortes met in Cadiz they empowered one of the inquisitors, who had escaped, to reconstitute the tribunal, but it was never really restored. At the same time, the governing powers appointed a special commission to enquire into the legal status of the ancient body, and to decide whether the Inquisition had any legal right to exist. A report was published in 1812, reviewing its whole history and condemning it as incompatible with the liberties of the country. The indictment against it was couched in very vigorous language. It was held to have been guilty of the most harsh and oppressive measures; to have inflicted the most cruel and illegal punishments; "in the darkness of the night it had dragged the husband from the side of his wife, the father from the children, the children from their parents, and none may see the other again until they are absolved or condemned without having had the means of contributing to their defence or knowing whether they had been fairly tried." The result was a law passed by the Cortes to suppress the Inquisition in Spain.
The restoration of Ferdinand VII, at the termination of the war in 1814, gave the Inquisition fresh life. He resented the action taken by the Cortes, arrested its members, and cast them into prison, declaring them to be infidels and rebels, and forthwith issued a decree reviving the tribunal of the Holy Office. Its supreme council met in Seville and persecution was renewed under the new inquisitor-general, Xavier Mier y Campillo, who put out a fresh list of prohibited books, tried to raise revenues and issued a new Edict of Faith. There might have been another auto da fé even in the nineteenth century, but informers would not come forward and latter-day victims could not be found. Dread, nevertheless, prevailed, and numbers fled for refuge into foreign lands. Fierce energy was directed against the Freemasons, for during the French occupation, the palace of the Inquisition at Seville had been used, partly as a common gaol and partly as a Freemasons' lodge. The members of the craft who were found in Spain were dealt with as heretics, and all Freemasons were excommunicated.
For a time the Inquisition languished, although favoured by the arbitrary régime introduced by Ferdinand VII, who sought to reinstate it on its former lines. It was destroyed or at least suspended by the Revolution of 1820, and on his restoration, the king did not reëstablish it, though the officials still hoped for a better day and continued to draw their salaries. Some of the bishops established juntas de fé, which took up much the same work, and July 26th, 1826, a poor schoolmaster Cayetano Ripoll, was hanged for heresy—the last execution for this crime in Spain. Finally, January 4th, 1834, the Inquisition was definitely abolished, and the juntas de fé were abolished the next year.
The Inquisition extended its influence into the neighbouring country of Portugal, which was an independent kingdom until conquered by Philip II in 1580. Here persecution prevailed from the fifteenth century, chiefly of the Jews and new Christians, who flocked into the country from Spain, and were treated with great severity. The Holy Office was set up in Lisbon under an inquisitor-general, Diego de Silva, and Portugal was divided into inquisitional districts. Autos da fé were frequent, and on a scale hardly known in Spain, though the records are fragmentary.
From among the cases reported, we may quote that of an Englishman, a native of Bristol, engaged in commerce in Lisbon, who boldly assaulted the cardinal archbishop in the act of performing mass. Gardiner, as fiercely intolerant as those of the dominant religion who were worshipping according to their own rites, attacked the priest when he elevated the host, "snatched away the cake with one hand, trod it under his feet, and with the other overthrew the chalice." The congregation, at first utterly astounded, raised one great cry and fell bodily upon the sacrilegious wretch, who was promptly stabbed in the shoulder and haled before the king, who was present in the cathedral, and forthwith interrogated. It was thought that he had been instigated by the English Protestants to this outrageous insult, but he declared that he had been solely moved by his abhorrence of the idolatry he had witnessed. He was imprisoned and with him all the English in Lisbon. So soon as his wound was healed, he was examined by the Holy Office, tortured and condemned. Then he was carried to the market place on an ass and his left hand was cut off; thence he was taken to the river side and by a rope and pulley hoisted over a pile of wood which was set on fire. "In spite of the great torment he continued in a constant spirit and the more terribly he burned the more vehemently he prayed." He was in the act of reciting a psalm, when by the use of exceeding violence, the burning rope broke and he was precipitated into the devouring flames.
A fellow lodger of Gardiner was detained in the Inquisition for two years, and was frequently tortured to elicit evidence against other Englishmen, but without avail. A Scotch professor of Greek in the university of Coimbra was charged with Lutheranism, and imprisoned for a year and a half, after which he was committed to a monastery so that he might be instructed by the monks in the true religion. They did not change his views and he was presently set free. Another, an English shipmaster, was less fortunate and was burned alive as a heretic at Lisbon.
It has been observed that, on comparison of the Inquisitions of Spain and Portugal, a certain marked difference was disclosed between them. The same precise rigour of the Spanish inquisitors was not exhibited by the Portuguese. In Portugal the discipline was more savage yet more feeble. Yet in the latter country there was a brutal and more wanton excess in inflicting pain at the autos da fé. When convicts were about to suffer they were taken before the Lord Chief Justice to answer the enquiry as to what religion they intended to die in. If the answer was "in the Roman Catholic Apostolic," the order was given that they should be strangled before burning. If in the Protestant, or in any other religion, death in the flames was decreed. At Lisbon the place of execution, as has been said, was at the waterside. A thick stake was erected for each person condemned, with a wide crosspiece at the top against which a crosspiece was nailed to receive the tops of two ladders. In the centre the victim was secured by a chain, with a Jesuit priest on either side, seated on a ladder, who proceeded to exhort him to repentance. If they failed they declared they left him to the devil and the mob roared, "Let the dog's beard be trimmed," in other words, "his face scorched." This was effected by applying an ignited furze bush at the end of a long pole till his face was burned and blackened. The record of the Portuguese Inquisition to 1794 shows a total of one thousand, one hundred and seventy-five relaxed in person, i. e. executed, six hundred and thirty-three relaxed in effigy, and twenty-nine thousand, five hundred and ninety penanced.