What secret influences were at work to effect a complete reversal of papal policy it would be vain to guess, but Mendoza had scarce time to reach Rome when he procured a brief of October 12th, addressed to Cardinal Adrian. In this Sadoleto’s choicest Latinity was employed to cover up the humiliation of conscious wrong-doing, in its effort to shift the responsibility to the shoulders of others. Charles’s letters and Mendoza’s message had enlightened him as to the intentions of the king with regard to the preservation of the faith and the reform of the Inquisition. He promised that he would change nothing and would publish nothing without the assent of the king and the information of the inquisitor-general, but he dwelt on the complaints that reached him from all quarters of the avarice and iniquity of the inquisitors; he warned Adrian that the infamy of the wickedness of his sub-delegates redounded to the dishonor of the nation and affected both him and the king; he was responsible and must seek to preserve his own honor and that of the king by seeing that they desist from the insolence with which they disregarded the papal mandates and rebelled against the Holy See.
STRUGGLE IN SARAGOSSA
While thus the three briefs were not revoked they were practically annulled. The indignation of the Aragonese at finding themselves thus juggled was warm and found expression, January 30, 1520, in discontinuing the collection of the servicio. Charles was now at Coruña, preparing for his voyage to Flanders and thither, on February 3d, the Diputados sent Azor Zapata and Iñigo de Mendoza to procure the liberation of Prat and to urge Charles to obtain the confirmation of the Concordia. To liberate Prat without a trial was tacitly to admit the correctness of his record, yet, on April 21st, Cardinal Adrian issued an order for the fiscal to discontinue the prosecution and for the inquisitors to “relax” Prat. This order was presented May 1st to the inquisitors, but the word “relaxation” was that used in the delivery of convicts to the secular arm for burning; Prat stoutly refused to accept it and remained in prison.
Charles embarked May 21st and the rest of the year 1520 was spent in endeavors by each side to obtain the confirmation of their respective formulas of the Concordia and in fruitless attempts by Charles to have the three briefs revoked. Though unpublished and virtually annulled they were the source of great anxiety to the Inquisition. The correspondence between Charles and his Roman agents shows perpetual insistance on his part and perpetual promises and evasions by the pope, sometimes on the flimsiest pretexts for postponement, the secret of which is probably to be found in a report by Juan Manuel, the Spanish ambassador, on October 12th, that the pope was promised 46,000 or 47,000 ducats if he could induce the king to let the briefs stand. Thus it went on throughout the year and, when Leo died, December 1, 1521, the briefs were still unrevoked.
A year earlier, however, December 1, 1520, he had confirmed the Concordia, in a bull so carefully drawn as not to commit the Holy See to either of the contesting versions. It was limited to the promises embraced in Charles’s oath and, as regards the articles, it merely said that the canons and ordinances and papal decrees should be inviolably observed, under pain of ipso facto excommunication, dismissal from office and disability for re-appointment. Either side was consequently at liberty to put what construction it pleased on the papal utterance.
Charles meanwhile had been growing more and more impatient for the servicio so long withheld; he had written to Adrian and also to the inquisitors, ordering that the Concordia of Monzon (1512) and that of Saragossa, according to his version, should be strictly obeyed, so that the abuses thus sought to be corrected should cease and the people should pay the impost. The inquisitors dallied and seem to have asked him what articles he referred to for he replied, September 17th, explaining that they were those of Monzon and Saragossa, the latter as expressed in the paper signed by Adrian and Gattinara. When, therefore, he received the papal confirmation of December 1st he lost no time in writing, December 18th, to Adrian and the inquisitors announcing it and ordering the articles to be rigidly observed without gloss or interpretation, so that the abuses and disorders prohibited in them may cease, but he was careful to describe the articles as those agreed upon at Monzon and lately confirmed at Saragossa in the form adopted by Adrian and Gattinara.
The Aragonese, on the other hand, adhered to their version. The bull of confirmation seems to have reached Saragossa through Flanders, accompanied by a letter from Charles and it was not until January 15, 1521, that the Diputados wrote to Adrian enclosing the royal letter and a copy of the bull. In obeying it, he conceded the Aragonese version of the Concordia, though with a bad grace. From Tordesillas, January 28th, he wrote to the Diputados and the inquisitors that the bull must be obeyed although it might properly be considered surreptitious, as it asserted that Charles had sworn to the fictitious articles inserted by Juan Prat, for which the latter deserved the severest punishment. In spite of this burst of petulance, however, he practically admitted Prat’s innocence by ordering his liberation and, on February 13, 1521, the order was carried in triumph by the governor, the Diputados and a concourse of nobles and citizens to the Aljafería and solemnly presented to the inquisitors, who asked for copies and, with these in their hands, said that they would do their duty without swerving from justice and reason. So well satisfied were the Aragonese that to show their gratitude they had already, on January 18th, ordered the cities and towns to pay all current imposts as well as the suspended subsidio within thirty-five days. It may be added that finally Cardinal Adrian recognized the innocence of Prat in the most formal manner, in a letter of April 20th to the inquisitors, imposing silence on the fiscal and ordering the discharge of Prat and his securities.[717]
STRUGGLE IN BARCELONA
Triumph and gratitude were alike misplaced. Cardinal Adrian had followed his letter of January 28th with another of the 30th to the inquisitors, instructing them that the papal confirmation must be construed in accordance with the sacred canons and the decrees of the Holy See, so that they could continue to administer justice duly and he encouraged them with an ayuda de costa or gratuity.[718] They went on imperturbably with their work; not only was the Concordia of Saragossa never observed but that of Monzon was treated as non-existent and we shall see hereafter that, towards the close of the century, the Inquisition coolly asserted that the latter had been invalidated when Leo X released Ferdinand from his oath to observe it and that the former had never been confirmed and that there was no trace of either having ever been observed. The Inquisition, in fact, was invulnerable and impenetrable. It made its own laws and there was no power in the land, save that of the crown, that could force it to keep its engagements.