A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 4

by Henry Charles Lea

Much has been made of the saying attributed to Philip II, that he kept his dominions in peace with four old ecclesiastics, and the Suprema was fond of referring to this, when putting forth claims for its services, but it meant nothing except that the Inquisition maintained religious unity, which, in that age and in view of the troubles in France, the Netherlands and Germany, was not unnaturally regarded as the sole guarantee of internal quiet—in fact, the Suprema, when quoting the remark, in 1704, says expressly that Philip uttered it in reference to the turbulence of the Huguenots.[543] That Philip himself did not regard the Inquisition as a political instrument sufficiently appears in his private and confidential instructions of May 7, 1595, to Gerónimo Manrique de Lara, when appointing him inquisitor-general; his anxiety is solely for the faith and there is not the slightest intimation that political service would be expected.[544]

IRREGULAR FUNCTIONS

Yet the average statesman has few scruples in employing any agency at hand to effect his purposes, and to this the Spanish monarchs were no exception. When it suited them to use the Inquisition they did so but, in view of their control over it, their employment of it was singularly infrequent, prior to the advent of the Bourbon dynasty. In the Old Inquisition, with which writers like Hefele endeavor to establish a contrast in this matter, Philip the Fair used it to destroy the Templars, the Regent Bedford to burn Joan of Arc, and Alexander VI to rid himself of Savonarola—three cases to which no parallels exist in the annals of the Spanish Holy Office. The nearest approach to them is to be found in the trials of Carranza, Antonio Pérez and Villanueva. In the first and last of these, as we have seen, inquisitors-general instituted action for their own purposes and the monarchs were brought in to their support. The case of Antonio Pérez will be discussed presently and need not be further referred to here.

Still, a tribunal, whose undefined powers and secrecy of action fitted it so perfectly for use as a political agent, could scarce exist for centuries without occasionally being called upon, and the only legitimate source of surprise is that it was so rarely employed and that the objects for its intervention were usually so trivial. Ferdinand occasionally found it a convenience in settling questions outside of its regular functions, as when Marco Pellegrin appealed to him in a dispute with the authorities of his city and Ferdinand wrote, August 31, 1501, to the inquisitor of the place, charging him to examine the question and do justice, for which he gave him full royal power. So when, in 1500, complaints reached him from Valencia of injustice in the assessments for a servicio, he ordered the papers to be submitted to the inquisitor who was to report to him, and, in 1501, he called for a report from the inquisitor of Lérida as to the necessity of certain repairs to the castle.[545] When, in 1498, he was endeavoring to carry out in Aragon the reform of the Conventual Franciscans, which Ximenes had undertaken in Castile, and they had obtained papal briefs restraining him, he applied to the pope to revoke the letters and meanwhile obtained others from the nuncio, which he transmitted to the tribunal of Saragossa with instructions to act promptly. The inquisitors carried on the reform much to his satisfaction and, when the frailes got the public authorities to protect them, he instructed the inquisitors to represent that they were acting under apostolic authority, that there was no violation of the liberties of the kingdom, that they were salaried by the king, not only for the Inquisition but for whatever duties he might assign to them; they were therefore public officers and, if the Saragossa authorities should endeavor to create scandal, they would be duly punished. This distinction between inquisitorial and non-inquisitorial functions, however did not prevent him, when occasion required, from enforcing outside operations with inquisitorial authority. In 1502, when prosecuting, in the same way, the Franciscan reform in Sardinia and the Bishop of Ocaña, in virtue of a surreptitious papal letter, released from the castle of Fasar the Franciscan vicar, Ferdinand wrote with much indignation to him and to the governor of Cabo de Lugador; it was great audacity to intervene, in a matter concerning the Inquisition, without consulting him or the inquisitor-general; the prisoner must be recaptured forthwith and be held until the inquisitor and reformador apostolico comes.[546]

This indicates the dangerous tendency to extend inquisitorial activity beyond its original limits, and it is remarkable that a monarch entertaining these conceptions and engaged in the struggle with feudalism should not have frequently sought the assistance of the Holy Office. The only definite case that I have met with of its political use occurred in 1507, when Cæsar Borgia escaped from the castle of Medina del Campo to Navarre, and was made commander of his army by Jean d’Albret, whose sister Charlotte he had married. Ferdinand vainly endeavored to obtain his surrender and then caused a prosecution to be brought against him in the Inquisition for heretical blasphemy and suspicion of atheism and materialism. As Cæsar came to his death, March 12, 1507, while besieging the castle of Viana, which held out for Luis de Beaumont, and the prosecution was abandoned, we can only conjecture what the outcome might have been.[547] Navarre was also the scene of a trivial political use of the Inquisition in 1516, when, as we have seen (Vol. I, p. 227) it was instructed to ascertain the names of those friendly to Jean d’Albret.

ANTONIO PEREZ

There was evidently a purpose to use the Inquisition against the revolt of the Germanía of Valencia, when a brief of October 11, 1520, was obtained from Leo X, granting to Cardinal Adrian faculties to proceed against all persons conspiring against public peace. No use seems to have been made of this, but the Valencia tribunal had an opportunity of making itself felt towards the end of the disturbances. After Vicente Peris, the leader of the Agermanados was killed in a tumult, March 3, 1522, a mysterious individual, known as el Encubierto, and variously described as a hermit from Castile and as a Jew from Gibraltar, presented himself as the avenger of Peris and became the spiritual chief of those who kept up the revolt in Játiva and Alcira. He assumed to be a prophet and the envoy of God, which brought him under the ordinary jurisdiction of the Holy Office, and it made record of the heresies uttered by him in a sermon preached at Játiva, March 23d. He organized a conspiracy in Valencia, but one of the accomplices, named Juan Martin, was betrayed and was seized, by the Inquisition. El Encubierto was assassinated, May 18th, at Burjasot, and his head was cut off; the corpse was brought to Valencia, where the inquisitors had it dragged through the streets on the way to the tribunal. He was condemned as a heretic, the headless body was relaxed and burnt and the head was set over one of the gateways.[548] The action of the Inquisition had no influence on the course of affairs, but it manifests the readiness of the tribunal to assert itself as a political force.

The fable that the Inquisition was invoked to accomplish the death of Don Carlos, in 1568, has been sufficiently disproved to call for no attention here. There is probably, however, more truth in the statement that, about the same time, Philip II, in promotion of his designs on the remnants of Navarre, caused Inquisitor-general Espinosa to collect testimony as to the notorious heresy of Jeanne d’Albret and her children, and formed with the Guises a plot to abduct and deliver her to the tribunal of Saragossa, but the secret was not kept and the attempt was abandoned.[549] Perhaps, also, we may class with political service the utilization by Philip of the Inquisition to supply him with galley-slaves.

The most prominent instance of the employment of the Inquisition in a matter of State was in the case of Antonio Pérez. Its dramatic character attracted the attention of all Europe; the mystery underlying it has never been completely dispelled, and its resultant effect upon the institutions of Aragon invests it with an importance justifying examination in some detail.