A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 3

by Henry Charles Lea

While this matter of the corsairs was comparatively trivial in itself, it bore a disproportionately large share in the discussions on the Morisco question, and undoubtedly had its influence on the final decision. The result, indeed, showed that there was a connection between the Moriscos and the corsairs, for one of the benefits derived from the expulsion was relief to the coasts.[1039] Vastly greater, however, in the eyes of statesmen, was the impending danger of rebellion, coincident with attack from Barbary or from the Turk or, in later years, from France.

CONSPIRACIES

Even as early as 1512, Peter Martyr, in describing the disturbed condition of Granada, declared that if some daring pirate leader should march into the interior, the population would rise and, as Ferdinand was occupied with the conquest of Navarre, all would go to ruin.[1040] In 1519, there was a scare in Valencia over a report that the Moors of Algiers were coming to seize the kingdom, in concert with the Moriscos.[1041] It is somewhat remarkable that, when a conspiracy was discovered in 1528, the eagerness of the Valencia tribunal to defend its jurisdiction actually led it to protect the conspirators. The authorities had arrested Pere de Alba and his mother-in-law Isabel, as the leaders of the plot. The tribunal claimed them as apostates and, when they were sent to it for examination, it threw them into its prison and refused to surrender them, although the viceroy demanded them as essential to unravelling the details of the conspiracy. Cardinal Manrique was obliged to despatch a special courier with a letter expressing his surprise, as the safety of the state was the first consideration, but even then the tribunal only gave them up with a warning that they must not be made to suffer in life or limb.[1042]

When Philip II returned to Spain, in 1559, he called for a report on the Moriscos, and the information submitted to him comprised an account of a plot with the Turks for an invasion.[1043] In 1565, a number of arrests were made on charges of treasonable correspondence with the Turk, and it was public rumor that thirty thousand Moriscos were enrolled, awaiting only the capture of Malta to rise in aid of an invasion. The French ambassador, who reported this, subsequently added that the story of the conspiracy was contradicted, but the Moriscos were so badly treated by the Inquisition that despair might readily lead them to rise in arms to aid the Turk.[1044] In 1567, the trial of Gerónimo Roldan, by the Valencia tribunal, revealed evidence of envoys from the ruler of Algiers with a letter urging the Moriscos to rise, together with plans to organize and arm them.[1045] It is true that the rebellion of Granada showed that there was no such eagerness to invade Spain as was apprehended, but, on the other hand if, with the aid of five or six hundred Moors and Turks, the insurgents had taxed to the utmost the power of the kingdom, what was the prospect if a powerful fleet, holding command of the sea, should land a heavy force of trained and well-armed fighting men? During the rebellion, the Venetian envoy, Sigismondo Cavalli, pointed out that assistance from Barbary would involve the kingdom in the greatest straits, for there were about six hundred thousand Moriscos to help an invader. So, in 1575, Lorenzo Priuli, estimating them at four hundred thousand, described them as the source of perpetual danger.[1046] The peril constantly increased with time. It was universally recognized that, through the drain to the colonies, the external wars, and the growth of the celibate clergy, the Old Christians were constantly diminishing in numbers, while the Moriscos were rapidly increasing; the material and especially the military resources of Spain were becoming gradually exhausted, and Spanish statesmen looked forward anxiously to the time when, as Fray Bleda tells us, the Moriscos hoped eventually, to reconquer the land with the aid of the Moors and Turks.[1047]

CONSPIRACIES

Nor was this all for, with the pacification of France under the able control of Henry IV, there loomed before them a new and more dangerous enemy. Henry had a long debt of vengeance to pay, and was but awaiting his opportunity. He was in alliance with the Turk and had no conscientious scruple as to Moslem aid. Even as early as 1583, while as yet he was only King of Navarre, there was a scare over an asserted combination between him and the Turk, for an invasion in combination with the Moriscos, which led the Suprema, in January, 1584, to order from the Saragossa tribunal a report on all the evidence in the records as to plots for rebellion.[1048] This was furnished in detail and shows the incessant vigilance and constant anxieties, since 1565, to which the disaffection of the Moriscos had given rise, and their correspondence not only with the Barbary States and the Turk, but with the French Huguenots. A portion of the evidence was undoubtedly manufactured by the spies in the pay of the Inquisition, but there was enough of genuine to show that plots and intrigues were constantly on foot among the Moriscos. Henry IV was quite ready to utilize their disaffection in furtherance of his plans for the overthrow of the Spanish monarchy and, in 1602, he entered into negotiations with them, through the Marshal Duke de la Force, his governor in Béarn and Navarre. They promised to raise eighty thousand men and to deliver three cities, one of them a seaport and, as an earnest of their resolve, they paid to la Force, at Pau, in 1604 or 1605, a hundred and twenty thousand ducats, but Henry decided that the moment was not favorable and the plan was postponed.[1049]

Then, in 1608, there came a fresh alarm through negotiations of the Valencian Moriscos with Muley Cidan, a pretender to the throne of Morocco, to whom they promised two hundred thousand men, if he would bring twenty thousand and seize a seaport, while certain Hollanders agreed to furnish transportation. Philip III was so impressed with this that, in sending the report to the Royal Council, he ordered it to consider the matter to the exclusion of everything else. He admitted the defenceless condition of Spain; Muley Cidan was its declared enemy; Sultan Ahmed I had his hands free from the war with Persia and had suppressed his own rebels; Spain’s Italian possessions were exhausted and ripe for revolt, while at home the Moriscos were impatient for liberation. The Council was therefore ordered to consider the means of preserving peace, short of butchering them all.[1050]

This scare passed away; Muley Cidan rejected the Morisco overtures, and Ahmed sent his fleet against the coasts of Italy. The impression remained, however; the final impulsion had been given, and thenceforth the expulsion of the Moriscos was only a question of means and opportunity. Its execution can scarce be said to have been premature for, although those of Valencia were deported in the autumn of 1609 and those of Aragon in the spring of 1610, Henry IV still relied on those who were left to aid him in his plans for the destruction of Spain. A part of his design was an invasion by la Force with ten thousand men, trusting to the coöperation of the Moriscos, with whom negotiations had been resumed. La Force was in consultation with him, and was in his carriage on May 14, 1610, when, in the Rue de la Ferronerie, the knife of Ravaillac gave Spain a respite.[1051] It was evidently supposed that the expulsion had been imperfect and that Spain was still an easy prey. The Baron de Salignac, French Ambassador at Constantinople, wrote to Henry, May 2, 1610, that no matter how many Moriscos had been banished, enough remained to give the Spaniards trouble; war that elsewhere could cost a crown would not there cost a maravedí, and when it should begin Spain would find it more difficult to raise a maravedí than it would be to raise a doubloon elsewhere.[1052] As events turned out, these were vain speculations, but they have interest as showing how, in the estimation of her enemies, Spain had fatally crippled herself by the mismanagement of her Morisco subjects. To the Spanish statesmen of the time the situation had become one from which extrication was imperative at whatever cost.

It can readily be believed that the matter had long before awakened the earnest solicitude of Philip II and his counsellors. As early as 1581, when in Lisbon consolidating his rule over Portugal, he formed a junta of his chief advisers to formulate a definite conclusion. That which they reached was the merciful one of sending to sea all the Moriscos who would not be catechised or did not desire to remain, embarking them on worthless ships which were to be scuttled, for it was deemed unwise to add to the population of Africa; it was resolved that, when the fleet returned from the Azores, the plan should be executed by Antonio de Leyva but, when the fleet arrived, it was wanted in Flanders, and the project was abandoned. When, in 1602, Philip III was informed of this, he expressed his pleasure because it justified what was then in contemplation.[1053]

DELIBERATIONS