A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 1

by Henry Charles Lea

ASSASSINATION OF ARBUES

The conspirators were evidently irresolute, for the plot was long in hatching, but the secret was wonderfully well kept, considering that the correspondence respecting it was extensive. Rumors however were not lacking and, as early as January 29, 1485, Ferdinand wrote to the Governor of Aragon that a conspiracy was on foot and that a large sum was being raised to embarrass the Inquisition in every way, yet at the same time he thanked the jurats for their zeal in aiding the inquisitors.[653] If suspicion was then aroused, it slumbered again and for six months meetings were held without being discovered. It was determined to raise fund for hiring assassins and three treasurers were appointed. Juan de Esperandeu, a currier, known as a desperate man, whose father had been arrested, undertook to find the bravos and hired Juan de la Badía for the purpose. In April or May, 1485, an attempt was made on the house where Arbués lodged, but the men were frightened off and the matter was postponed for several months. At length, on the night of September 15th, Esperandeu went to the house of la Badía and wakened him; together they returned to Esperandeu’s, where they found the latter’s servant Vidau Durango, a Frenchman, with Mateo Ram, one of the leaders of the plot, his squire Tristanico Leonis and three others who were masked and who remained unknown. They all went to the cathedral and entered by the chapter door, which was open on account of the service of matins. Arbués was kneeling in prayer between the high altar and the choir, where the canons were chanting; he knew that his life was threatened, for he wore a coat of mail and a steel cap, while a lance which he carried was leaning against a pillar. La Badía whispered to Durango “There he is, give it to him!” Durango stole up behind and, with a back-stroke, clove his neck between his armor. He rose and staggered towards the choir, followed by la Badía, who pierced him through the arm, while Mateo Ram was also said to have thrust him through the body. He fell; the assassins hurried away and the canons, alarmed at the noise, rushed from the choir and carried him to his house near by, where surgeons were summoned who pronounced the wounds to be mortal. He lay for twenty-four hours, repeating, we are told, pious ejaculations, and died on September 17th, between 1 and 2 A.M. Miracles at once attested his sanctity. On the night of the murder the holy bell of Villela tolled without human hands, breaking the bull’s pizzle with which the clapper was secured. His blood, which stained the flagstones of the cathedral, after drying for two weeks, suddenly liquefied, so that crowds came to dip in it cloths and scapulars and had to be forcibly driven off when he was buried on the spot where he fell: when the conspirators were interrogated by the inquisitors, their mouths became black and their tongues were parched so that they were unable to speak until water was given to them. It was popularly believed that when, in their flight, they reached the boundaries of the kingdom, they became divinely benumbed until seized by their captors. More credible is the miracle, reported by Juan de Anchias, that their trials led to the discovery of innumerable heretics who were duly penanced or burnt.[654] Pecuniarily the affair had not been costly; the whole outlay had been only six hundred florins, of which one hundred was paid to the assassin.[655]

REVULSION OF FEELING

Like the murder of Pierre de Castelnau in Languedoc, this crime turned the scale. Its immediate effect was to cause a revulsion of popular feeling, which hitherto had been markedly hostile to the Inquisition. The news of the assassination spread through the city with marvellous rapidity and before dawn the streets were filled with excited crowds shouting “Burn the Conversos who have slain the inquisitor!” There was danger, in the exaltation of feeling, not only that the Conversos would be massacred but that the Judería and Morería would be sacked. By daylight the archbishop, Alfonso de Aragon, mounted his horse and traversed the streets, calming the mob with promises of speedy justice. A meeting was at once called of all the principal persons in the city, which resolved itself into a national assembly and empowered all ecclesiastical and secular officials to proceed against every one concerned with the utmost vigor and without observing the customs and fueros of the kingdom.[656] For some days the Conversos continued to flatter themselves that with money they would disarm Ferdinand’s wrath; they had, they said, the whole court with them and the sympathies of all the magnates of the land,[657] but they miscalculated his shrewd resolve to profit to the utmost by their blunder and the consequent weakness of their friends. The royal anger, indeed, was much dreaded and the Diputados, a few days later, wrote to the king reporting what had been done; the criminals had already scattered in flight; the city had offered a reward of five hundred ducats; the judges had written to foreign lands to invoke aid in intercepting the fugitives and both city and kingdom would willingly undergo all labor and expense necessary to avenge the crime. A proclamation was also issued excommunicating all having knowledge of the conspiracy who should not within a given time come forward and reveal what they knew.[658]

It was probably in consequence of the murder that Ferdinand and Isabella succeeded in obtaining, from Innocent VIII, papal letters of April 3, 1487, ordering all princes and rulers and magistrates to seize and deliver to the Inquisition of Spain all fugitives who should be designated to them, thus extending its arms everywhere throughout Christendom and practically outlawing all refugees; no proof was to be required, simple requisition sufficed, the surrender was to be made within thirty days and safe-conduct assured to the frontier, under pain of excommunication and the penalties for fautorship of heresy. Fortunately for humanity this atrocious attempt to establish a new international law by papal absolutism was practically ignored.[659]

THE INQUISITION AT WORK

There was one case however in which its punitive clauses seem to have been invoked. Several of the accomplices in the assassination found refuge in Tudela, a frontier city of Navarre and on January 27, 1486, Ferdinand wrote to the magistrates there affectionately requesting that, if the inquisitors should send for the accused, all aid should be rendered, seeing that he had given orders to obey such requisitions throughout his own kingdoms. This application was unsuccessful and in May he repeated it imperiously, threatening war upon them as defenders of heretics.[660] The condition of the perishing kingdom of Navarre, under the youthful Catherine and Jean d’Albret, was not such as to protect it from the insults of a sovereign like Ferdinand and the inquisitors presumed so far as to instruct Don Juan de Ribera, then in command of the frontier, to carry the royal threats into execution. That prudent officer refused to make war upon a friendly state without the protection of an express order bearing the signatures of Ferdinand and Isabella, whereupon, on June 30th, the inquisitors complained of him to the king. He was in Galicia, suppressing a rising of the Count of Lemos and reducing the lawless nobles to order and from Viso, July 22d, he replied that he would at once have sent the order but that he had brought with him all the frontier troops; as soon as his task was accomplished he would send back forces with orders to Don Juan to make war on Tudela in such fashion as to compel it to do what was requisite for the service of God.[661] A letter of the same date to Torquemada states that the inquisitors have asked for letters of marque and reprisal against Tudela on account of Luis de Santangel, but this must be preceded by a carta requisitoria, which he instructs Torquemada to prepare and send to him when he will execute it.[662] It was not until the end of November that the sovereigns returned to Salamanca and it is presumable that the campaign against Tudela was postponed until the Spring. Of course the fugitives had long before sought some safer asylum, but the papal brief of April 3, 1487, could be enforced against the magistrates and they endured the humiliation of submitting to the tribunal of Saragossa. At an auto de fe held March 2, 1488, the alcalde and eight of the citizens appeared and performed penance.[663]

Ferdinand recognized the opportunity afforded by the assassination of Arbués and was resolved to make the most of it. Prominent among the means for this was the stimulation of the popular veneration of the martyr. On September 29, 1486, his solemn exequies were celebrated with as much solemnity as those of the holiest saint; a splendid tomb was built to which his remains were translated, December 8, 1487; a statue was erected with an inscription by the sovereigns and over it a bas-relief representing the scene of the murder. During a pestilence, in 1490, the city ordered a silver lamp, fifty ounces in weight, to be placed before the tomb and another silver lamp to burn day and night.[664] His cult as a saint was not allowed to await the tardy recognition of the Holy See.

The conspirators miscalculated when they imagined that his murder would deter others from taking his place. There was no danger for inquisitors now in Aragon and the tribunal of Saragossa was promptly remanned and enlarged for the abundant harvest that was expected.[665] It was not long in getting to work and on December 28, 1485, an auto was celebrated in which a man and a woman were burnt.[666] The tribunal was removed to the royal palace-fortress outside of the walls, known as the Aljafería, as an evidence that it was under the royal safeguard and Ferdinand proclaimed that he and his successors took it under their special protection.[667] Strict orders were sent to the Estates of the kingdom and to the local officials to suppress summarily all resistance to the confiscations, which were becoming so extensive that the receiver at Saragossa had his hands full and was empowered to appoint deputies throughout the land to attend to the work in their respective districts.[668]