In 1698 there was a court revolution. The kingdom was practically governed by the royal confessor, a Dominican named Pedro Matilla, who controlled the queen by enriching and advancing her favorites, prominent among whom was Don Juan Tomás, Admiral of Castile. He asked nothing for himself—as he told Count Oropesa, he preferred making bishops to being one. Carlos hated and feared him and at last secretly unbosomed himself to Cardinal Portocarrero, Archbishop of Toledo, one of the leaders of the French faction. No time was lost in utilizing the opportunity and Carlos welcomed the suggestion of replacing Matilla by another Dominican, Fray Froilan Díaz, a professor of theology in the University of Alcalá, a simple-minded and sincere man, whose life had been passed in convents and colleges and who knew nothing of intrigues and politics. Carlos asked to have him brought secretly to court and Matilla’s first intimation of his disgrace was seeing Díaz conducted to the king through the royal antechamber. He retired to his cell in the convent del Rosario where, in a week, he died—it was said of mortification.
In April 1698 Froilan Díaz took possession of the seat in the Suprema reserved for the royal confessor. Plots for his overthrow commenced at once and he unconsciously aided them by fomenting strife in his own Dominican Order so injudiciously that, at the next chapter, his most bitter enemy, Nicolás de Torres-Padmota, was elected provincial. His inconsiderate zeal soon led him into still more dangerous paths, which inflamed hostility and afforded opportunity for its gratification. The king’s health had been growing steadily worse, the convulsions and fainting-spells which afflicted him had constantly increased, and the opinion had spread that he was bewitched. Inquisitor-general Valladares had brought the matter before the Suprema, when it had been anxiously discussed without taking action. Valladares had died in 1795 and had been succeeded by the Dominican Juan Tomás de Rocaberti, Archbishop of Valencia, who, in January 1698, was secretly consulted by Carlos concerning the rumors attributing his sickness to sorcery, and was asked to investigate the matter and devise a remedy. It was again laid before the Suprema but, as before, the council deemed it too perilous a matter to be meddled with. When Díaz became a member, Rocaberti appealed to him and he eagerly promised to assist.
CASE OF FROILAN DÍAZ
There were no indications to guide an investigation until Díaz chanced to learn that, in the nunnery of Cangas (Oviedo), there were several nuns demoniacally possessed who were being exorcised by Fray Antonio Alvarez de Argüelles, a former fellow-student of his. It had for ages been the belief that possessing demons, under the torture of exorcisms and abuse lavished on them by the priest, could be compelled to reveal facts beyond human capacity to ascertain. Much of the current medieval conceptions concerning the spiritual universe were derived from this source and the practice of thus seeking knowledge for laudable purposes was recognized as lawful, provided it was done imperatively and not solicited as a favor. Even the gratification of idle curiosity with demons was merely a venial sin.[446] Froilan Díaz was therefore merely adopting a legitimate method when he suggested that the demons of Cangas should be made to reveal the causes of the king’s illness, which would be a step to its cure. Rocaberti eagerly assented and applied to the Dominican Bishop of Oviedo, but that wary prelate hesitated to embark in a matter so dangerous and discouraged the suggestion. Díaz then addressed Argüelles, who at first refused but finally consented, if he could have written commands from the inquisitor-general and confessor. Rocaberti accordingly wrote, June 18th, to inscribe the names of the king and queen on a piece of paper, place it in his breast and ask the demon if either of them were suffering from sorcery; Díaz enclosed this in a letter of his own and arranged a cipher for the correspondence. The obliging demon swore by God that the king had been bewitched at the age of fourteen to render him impotent and incapable of governing. With this Argüelles endeavored to withdraw, but Rocaberti and Díaz were insistent that he should ascertain further particulars and antidotes for the sorcery and, on September 9th, he wrote that the spell was administered April 3, 1675 in a cup of chocolate by the queen-mother, in order to retain power; the charm was made with the members of a dead man and the remedies were inunction with blessed oil, purging and separation from the queen.
Carlos was industriously stripped and anointed and purged and prayed over, but to no purpose save to terrify and exhaust him. For a year correspondence was vigorously kept up, obtaining from the demons answers curiously explicit and yet evasive and contradictory. At one time it was said that he had been bewitched on a second occasion, September 24, 1694; then the demons refused to say more except that their previous assertions had been false and that Carlos had not been bewitched. There were also contradictions as to the sorceresses employed, who were named and their addresses were given, but the efforts to find them were fruitless. The destinies of Spain were made to hang on the flippant utterances of hysterical girls, who unsaid one day what they had averred the day before. The affair reached such proportions that the Emperor Leopold officially communicated the revelations of a Viennese demoniac implicating a sorceress named Isabel, who was searched for in vain, and he also sent to Madrid a celebrated exorcist named Fray Mauro Tenda, who secretly exorcised the king for some months, which naturally aggravated his malady.
Meanwhile a storm was brewing. The queen’s temper had been aroused by her political defeat; she was angered by the enforced separation from her husband and she was inflamed to fury when she secretly heard of the second bewitching of September, 1694, which was attributed to her. A month after her learning this Rocaberti died, with suspicious opportuneness, June 19, 1699. This failed to relieve her, for soon afterwards three endemoniadas in Madrid were found confirming the story and implicating both her and the former queen-regent. Her wrath was boundless and she vowed Fray Froilan’s destruction, for which the Inquisition offered the readiest means. To this end she sought to induce Carlos to appoint in Rocaberti’s place Fray Antonio Folch de Cardona, a friend of Don Juan Tomás, Admiral of Castile, who had fallen from power when Matilla was dismissed. The king, however, who was resolved on pushing the investigation, appointed Cardinal Alonso de Aguilar and sent for the papal commission. In announcing his choice to Aguilar he said it was for the purpose of probing the matter to the bottom. To this Aguilar pledged himself and promptly sent for the senior member of the Suprema, Lorenzo Folch de Cardona (a half-brother of Antonio), telling him that all indications pointed to the guilt of the Admiral who must at once be arrested and his papers seized. Cardona replied that this was impossible; semi-proof was requisite prior to arrest and here there was no evidence. The queen grew more anxious than ever; Aguilar was taken with a slight indisposition, he was bled secundum artem and in three days he was dead—on the very day that his commission arrived from Rome. Suspicion was rife but there was no proof.
CASE OF FROILAN DÍAZ
Carlos by this time was so enfeebled that the queen obtained from him the appointment of Baltasar de Mendoza, Bishop of Segovia, with whom she had a satisfactory understanding, he pledging himself to gratify her vindictiveness and she promising him a cardinal’s hat as the reward of success. The first move was against the Austrian exorciser Fray Tenda, who was arrested in January, 1700, on a different charge, but under examination he described the revelations of the Madrid demoniacs, made in Froilan’s presence and he escaped with abjuration de levi and banishment. Froilan was then examined, but he refused to speak without the consent of the king, under whose orders he had acted and with strict injunctions of secrecy. Meanwhile the Dominican Provincial Torres-Padmota used his authority to obtain from Argüelles at Cangas the letters of Froilan, on the strength of which he promptly accused him to the Suprema in the name of the Order, to which Froilan answered that he had acted under Rocaberti’s order at the pressing instance of the king, in what was sanctioned by Aquinas and other doctors.[447] Mendoza informed the king that Froilan was accused of a grave offence but could not be prosecuted without the royal permission; Charles resisted feebly and then yielded to the pressure of the queen and Mendoza by dismissing him and replacing him with Torres-Padmota. Stunned, dazed and helpless, Froilan obeyed Mendoza’s order to betake himself to the Dominican convent at Valladolid, but on the road he turned his steps and sought refuge in Rome. A royal letter to the Duke of Uceda, then ambassador, was speedily obtained ordering the arrest of Froilan on his arrival, as he was under trial by the Inquisition which permitted no appeal to Rome, while the tribunals of Barcelona and Murcia were instructed to throw him on arrival into the secret prison. He was shipped back to Cartagena and duly immured by the Murcia tribunal.
Then followed a struggle for mastery in the Suprema. Mendoza procured the assent of the members to the appointment of special calificadores or censors to consider the charges and evidence. Five theologians were selected who reported unanimously, June 23, 1700 that there was no matter of faith involved, whereupon the Suprema, with the exception of Mendoza, voted to suspend the case, which was equivalent to acquittal. Then, on July 8th, Mendoza signed an order of arrest and sent it around for the signatures of the members, who unanimously refused, whereupon he summoned them to his room and with alternate wrath and entreaty vainly sought their co-operation. In a gust of passion he declared that he would have his way and in an hour he had ordered three of them to keep their houses as prisons and the Madrid tribunal to prosecute the secretary for refusing to counter-sign the warrant. Folch de Cardona was the only member left and this was because his half-brother Antonio, now Archbishop of Valencia, was a favorite of the queen. This violence caused no little excitement, which was increased when Miguélez, one of the members, who talked freely, was arrested one night in August and hurried off to the Jesuit college in Compostella, followed by the jubilating, or retiring on half-pay, of all three in terms of reprobation, as unfaithful to their duties, while the secretary was banished.
The Council of Castile intervened with a consulta pointing out to the king that the members had been punished without trial for upholding the laws, the canons and the practice of the Holy Office. The queen became alarmed and urged Mendoza to be cautious but he assured her that in no other way could her wishes be gratified. Meanwhile he had sent the papers to the tribunal of Murcia with orders to prosecute Froilan and send the sentence to him. It obeyed and twice submitted the case to its calificadores and other learned men, who reported in favor of the accused, whereupon it voted for his discharge. Then Mendoza evoked the case to himself and committed it to the Madrid tribunal; he brought Froilan there and confined him in a cell of the Dominican house of Nuestra Señora de Atocha where, in the power of Torres-Padmota, he lay for four years, cut off from all communication with the outside world, his very existence being in doubt, while the tribunal selected another group of calificadores who had no difficulty in finding him suspect of heresy.