As the parricide committed by the Fermosa Fembra entailed poverty and disgrace on her, through the confiscation of her father’s property and the disabilities inflicted on his descendants, the Church interested itself in her fate. Rainaldo Romero, Bishop of Tiberias, secured for her entrance into a convent, but it can readily be understood that life there was not rendered pleasant to her and she quitted it, without taking the vows, to follow a career of shame. Her beauty disappeared and she died in want, leaving directions that her skull should be placed as a warning over the door of the house which had been the scene of her disorderly life. Her wishes were obeyed and it is still to be seen in the Calle del Artaud, near its entrance, hard by the Alcázar.—Amador de los Rios, III, 249.
[460] Bernaldez, cap. xliv. Rodrigo tells us (Hist. verdadera de la Inquisicion, II, 74-6) that only five were burnt who refused all offers of reconciliation and were impenitent to the last, but the contemporary Bernaldez says that Diego de Susan died as a good Christian in the second auto.
[461] Bernaldez, cap. xliv.—Amador de los Rios, III, 250.—Field’s Old Spain and New Spain, p. 279.
The remark of the good Cura de los Palacios in describing the quemadero is “en que los quemaban y fasta que haya heregía los quemarán.” The cost of the four statues was defrayed by a gentleman named Mesa, whose zeal won for him the position of familiar of the Holy Office and receiver of confiscations. He was, however, discovered to be a Judaizer and was himself burnt on the quemadero which he had adorned.—Rodrigo, II, 79-80.
[462] Bernaldez, cap. xliv.
[463] Llorente, Añales de la Inquisicion, I, 44.
[464] Amador de los Rios, III, 252. Rodrigo (Hist. Verdad. II, 76) states that the first act of the inquisitors was the issue of the proclamation of the Term of Grace on January 2d, but this is scarce consistent with the narrative of Bernaldez.
[465] Bernaldez, cap. xliv.
[466] Páramo, p. 136.—Boletin, XV, 462.
[466a]It is very questionable whether a tribunal was established at Segovia thus early. Colmenares (Hist. de Segovia, cap. xxxiv, § 18) asserts it positively, but the only tribunals represented in the assembly of organization, held in November, 1484, were Seville, Córdova, Jaen and Ciudad-Real. There was at first some resistance at Segovia on the part of the bishop, Juan Arias Dávila, who was of Jewish descent.—Bergenroth, Calendar of Spanish State Papers, I, xlv.