After the silencing of the two great heresiarchs, the Council commissioned the Bishop of Litomysl with inquisitorial powers for the extirpation of heresy in Bohemia; but as the Czechs were ravaging the Bishop’s territories at the time he dared not show face. The next expedient of the Council was the arrangement that Husite heretics should appear before special inquisitors in the Roman Curia. As it was in the highest degree unlikely that any Husites, particularly after the fate of Hus and Jerome, would quit their own country to answer charges of heresy, this was a futile proceeding, as was the next—a formal citation to 450 nobles, who had signed a protest against the burning of Hus, to appear before the Council on the charge of heresy. It was evident that no Inquisition could exist in Bohemia as long as the country remained rebellious, predominantly schismatic. The success of the Inquisition invariably required the support of popular opinion, magisterial acquiescence, or armed force. Neither of the first two being forthcoming, the last expedient had to be tried. A crusade was preached against the heretic people, to which only one upshot was anticipated. But the anti-Husite crusade ignominiously failed, and the Czech people kept the Inquisition from entering their borders.
In Scandinavian lands the Inquisition never penetrated, and it only once, for a very brief period, made its appearance in the British Isles. This was in connection with the suppression of the Templars. At first when the horrible accusations which led to the undoing of the great military order were bruited about, Edward II refused to credit them, the record of the order in England giving no colour to the charges. When, however, Clement V issued his bull, Pastoralis praeeminentiae, in which he stated that the heads of the order had made confession of the crimes imputed to the iniquitous knights, and called upon the potentates of Europe to take action for their suppression, the English king ordered the apprehension of the Templars in England and the sequestration of their property. No further action was taken. But in September 1309 two papal commissioners, who had been appointed more than a year previously, made their appearance. Instructions were issued that all Templars not yet seized should be brought to London, York, or Lincoln, where the commissioners with the co-operation of the bishops of the respective dioceses were to hold inquiries. Similar orders were also dispatched to Scotland and Ireland, where the inquisitors appointed delegates. The proceedings in London began on October 20, 1309. The Templars, on examination, one and all protested the innocence of the order; outside witnesses, as a whole, gave the same testimony. The object of the inquisitors being conviction, this was most unsatisfactory. Progress was much better on the Continent, where torture was employed; torture they must use also in England, therefore. They obtained from the King an order to the custodians of the prisons to allow the inquisitors to do with the bodies of the Templars what they pleased, in accordance with ecclesiastical law.
Still only meagre results were obtained and Clement became indignant. He wrote to Edward saying that he had heard that he had refused the use of torture as being contrary to the laws of his kingdom. No law could be permitted to over-ride the canon law, and in interfering with the work of the Inquisition the King had been guilty of a very serious offence. He was offered remission of sins if he would withdraw his prohibition of torture. Thus urged, Edward again sanctioned the use of ‘ecclesiastical law,’ but this time mentioned torture expressly, explaining that he gave his sanction in deference to the wishes of the Pope. Even thus the inquisitors could not make headway. They were on alien soil in England; the country took ill to the special tribunal and its methods. All that they achieved was that the knights eventually confessed themselves so ‘defamed’ for heresy as to make it impossible for them to make the ‘canonical purgation’ and therefore undertook to perform any penances enjoined upon them. Such were the total results attained by the Inquisition in England.
Persecution of heretics there had been before, under the Assize of Clarendon; persecution in plenty there was after, under De Haeretico Comburendo and in the days of the Tudors; but the persecuting authority was always the State—no such international, papally-controlled tribunal as the Holy Office. Mary Tudor might have achieved a large measure of success in her Romanist policy had she been able to make more use of those international agencies, of which Jesuit propaganda and the Holy Office were the two chief, which provided the sinews of the Counter-Reformation movement. As it was, the British Isles remained free from inquisitorial influence; their judicial customs and principles of justice being uncontaminated by those methods of procedure by inquisitio, by the use of torture, which the example of the Holy Office introduced into so many civil courts on the Continent.
CHAPTER IV - THE COMPOSITION AND PROCEDURE OF THE TRIBUNAL
I
The popular fame that the Inquisition has gained is due to the terror which it aroused in the days of its greatness; its terror was the result of the thoroughness and efficiency of its methods. It was efficient, in the first place, because it was the product of experience. Its characteristics were those that had been proved to be necessary. The ordinary ecclesiastical courts had been found unsatisfactory for dealing with heresy because their business was too multifarious; the Inquisition was devoted to the trial of one offence and one only. The bishops had failed in part because they were not specially qualified for their task; the inquisitors were trained specialists.