This is the last that we hear of Ximenes, whose place, in 1527, was filled by Luis de Padilla, treasurer of the cathedral. For awhile he imitated his predecessor’s activity and, on June 4, 1530, another oblation was offered to God, in an auto celebrated with the same ostentation as the previous one. This time there were no relaxations in person, but there were six effigies burnt of as many Moorish slaves, who had escaped and were drowned in their infidelity while on their way to Africa and liberty. There were also the effigy and bones of Juan de Tarifa, the husband of the Ynes de Tarifa who had denounced herself in 1524; he was of Converso descent and had committed suicide in prison, which was equivalent to self-condemnation. There were three reconciliations, of which two were for Judaism and one for Islam and five penitents for minor offences.[272] The next auto was held on May 23, 1534, in which there were two relaxations of effigies for Judaism and twenty-five reconciliations—twenty-four of Moriscos and one of a Judaizer. One of the relaxations carries with it a warning, for it was of Costanza Garza, who had died in 1533 during her trial. When too late her innocence was discovered and the Suprema humanely rehabilitated her memory and her children, and ordered the restoration of her confiscated estate.[273]
Whether this aggressive vindication of the faith put an end to heresy or whether Padilla had exhausted his energies, it would be impossible now to say, but after this auto the tribunal sank into lethargy so complete that on February 8, 1538, the chapter notified Padilla and the secretary, Canon Alonso de San Juan, that the revenues of their prebends were stopped, for they did not assist in the choir and it was notorious that the Holy Office had nothing to do.[274] Possibly this may have stimulated action, but we have seen that in 1548 the tribunal was merely collecting evidence and obeying the instructions of the Seville Inquisition. Under this there was an accumulation of culprits for an auto held in 1557, where there were seventeen effigies burnt of fugitives—all Moriscos, except a Fleming, Julian Cornelis Vandyk. There were also four Moriscos reconciled, one of them, curiously enough, for so-called Calvinism.[275] This seems to have exhausted whatever remains of energy Padilla possessed for we hear of no further action by him, except a quarrel with the royal Audiencia in 1562, but nevertheless the tribunal shared in the suppression of prebends, and a papal brief assigning one to it was presented to the chapter, August 27, 1563, thus adding another efficient cause of dissension between them.[276] Soon after this the tribunal virtually ceased to exist. In 1565 there was a curious case, of which more hereafter, of John Sanders, an English sailor. It was carried on wholly by the episcopal provisor, during the absence of the bishop Diego Deza. There were arrest, sequestration and the collection of voluminous testimony, which was carefully sealed and despatched to Bishop Deza, to be handed to the Seville tribunal. Throughout it all, there is no trace of participation by the local Inquisition, which, in the consuming jealousy of episcopal encroachments, could not possibly have been the case had there been a tribunal in the Canaries.[277]
The policy followed thus far had evidently proved a failure, and Inquisitor-general Espinosa resolved to reorganize the tribunal and render it independent of Seville. The fiscal of Toledo, Diego Ortiz de Fúnez, was selected and was sent out as a full inquisitor, with the unusual powers of selecting and removing his subordinates, while subjected only to the requirement of reporting his acts to the Suprema. The royal letters commanding obedience to him are dated October 10, 1567, and he left Madrid in the Spring of 1568, landing at Las Isletas on April 17th. Four days later he started for Las Palmas, accompanied in procession by all the dignitaries, secular and ecclesiastical, of the island. On May 1st all the population was summoned, under pain of fine and excommunication, to assemble the next day in the cathedral, at the reading of the Edict of Faith and to take the oath to obey and favor the Holy Office, all of which was performed with due solemnity.[278]
Fúnez carried instructions to appoint twenty familiars and no more in Las Palmas, and such as were found necessary in the other cities and islands. This was his first care, and he soon had a formidable body, recruited from the old nobility, to support his authority. Thus far the Inquisition had had no special habitation, not even a prison, and those under trial on the most serious charges were confined in their own houses or in the public gaol, where there was no provision for their segregation. Fúnez demanded a competent building, with the necessary conveniences, a demand not easily complied with in so small a place, and he finally was installed in the episcopal palace, then vacant through the absence of the bishop.[279] This of course could be but temporary and some other provision must have been made, for we are told that, when the Dutch under Pieter Vandervoez, in 1599, took possession of Las Palmas, they burnt both the episcopal palace and the building of the Inquisition. The former was not rebuilt until thirty years later by Bishop Murga and the latter, as we shall see, was reconstructed in due time on a large scale by the tribunal.[280]
A matter not easily understood is the bestowal, May 25, 1568, on Fúnez, by the dean and chapter, sede vacante, of cognizance of superstitions and sorcery, because these crimes should not remain unpunished and his powers as inquisitor were deficient in this respect.[281] These offences in Spain were recognized as subject to inquisitorial jurisdiction when savoring, as they always were assumed to do, of heresy and pact with the demon; they formed by far the larger part of the cases coming before the Canary tribunal and the previous inquisitors had not hesitated to deal with them. They formed however a kind of debatable ground, claimed by both the secular and spiritual as well as the inquisitorial jurisdiction and Fúnez may have taken advantage of the impression produced by his reception to obtain from the chapter, in the absence of a bishop, a transfer of its powers.
Fúnez was zealous and energetic in restoring the tribunal to usefulness and, in about eighteen months, he had accumulated material for an auto de fe, celebrated November 5, 1569. For this he sent out his proclamation through all the islands so that, as he boasted to the Suprema, although the Grand Canary had only fifteen hundred inhabitants, there were fully three thousand spectators assembled. The new bishop, Juan de Azólares, took so warm an interest in the affairs of the Inquisition that he voted personally in all the cases, he walked in the procession and he preached the sermon. There were twenty-seven penitents for minor offences, involving fines, scourging, galleys and other penalties, and there were three effigies of Moriscos relaxed. One of these represented Juan Felipe, a rich merchant of Lanzarote who, on learning that a warrant had been issued for his arrest, chartered a vessel under pretext of going to Tenerife, on which he embarked with his wife and children and some thirty of his compatriots, finding a safe refuge in Morocco and furnishing material for heightening the interest of several more autos.[282]
The activity of Fúnez was not confined to the Gran Canaria for he made repeated visitations to the several islands, gathering in denunciations from all quarters, so that, between May 2, 1568, and January 4, 1571, the list of accused amounts to 544 besides a number of collective entries, such as “bruxas,” “the Frenchmen who took the caravel of the Espinosas,” “renegades,” “Moriscos of Lanzarote,” “fugitive negroes” etc. The names of Englishmen and of an occasional Fleming also begin to appear. Yet the denunciations consist largely of the veriest trifles of careless speech, indicating how acute was the watchfulness excited to observe and report whatever might seem to savor of heresy. There was no safety in lapse of time, for matters were treasured up to be brought out long afterwards, when there was no possibility of disproving them. In Gomera, October 23, 1570, María Machin denounced Catalina Rodríguez for telling her of a love-charm some thirty years before; in Garachico, December 21, 1570, Marina Ferrera informs on Vicente Martin, a cleric who had gone to the Indies, who told her more than twenty-seven years before of an unnamed woman who had tried on him a conjuration to stop nose-bleeding. More serious was the accusation brought in Laguna, January 14, 1571, by Barbolagusta, wife of the Regidor Francisco de Coronado, against the physician Reynaldos, because, twelve or thirteen years before, when the husband of a patient told her to seek the intercession of the saints, he said that God alone was to be prayed to and there was no need of saints.[283]
Complaints of Fúnez must have reached the Suprema for, after a short interval, probably in 1570, Doctor Bravo de Zayas was sent out as visitador or inspector. He seems to have associated himself companionably with Fúnez as a colleague and, in August, 1571, he made a visitation of the islands, bringing back an abundant store of denunciations. The two held together an auto on December 12, 1574, in which there was but one relaxation—the effigy of a fugitive Morisco. Four slaves were reconciled, including a case which is suggestive—that of a negro of whom it is recorded that he was tortured for an hour, when the infliction was stopped because he was so ignorant and stupid. Pious zeal for the salvation of these poor savages led to their baptism after capture; they could not be intelligent converts or throw off their native superstitions, and no one seemed able to realize the grim absurdity of adding the terrors of the Inquisition to the horrors of their enslaved existence. When a negro slave-girl was bemoaning her condition, she was kindly consoled with the assurance that baptism preserved her and her children from hell, to which she innocently replied that doing evil and not lack of baptism led to hell. This was heresy, for which she was duly prosecuted.[284]
Under the inquisitorial code the attempt to escape from slavery thus was apostasy, punishable as such if unsuccessful, and expiated if successful by concremation in effigy. This is illustrated in an auto, held by Zayas and Fúnez, June 24, 1576, in which among sixteen effigies of absentees were those of eight slaves, seven negroes and one Moor. They had undergone baptism, had been bought by Doña Catalina de la Cuevas and were worked on her sugar plantation. They seized a boat at Orotava and escaped to Morocco, for which they were duly prosecuted as apostates and their effigies were delivered to the flames—a ghastly mockery which does not seem to have produced the desired impression in preventing other misguided beings from flying from their salvation.[285]
While Zayas thus coöperated with Fúnez, he did not neglect the special mission entrusted to him. Charges piled up against Fúnez, which he condensed into a series of thirty articles, embracing all manner of misdeeds—favoritism, injustice, improper financial transactions, illicit trading with the Moors of Barbary, ill-treatment of prisoners, lack of discipline in the tribunal, etc. Zayas and Fúnez seem to have returned to Spain towards the close of 1576, for the latter’s defence against the charges is dated at Madrid, February 12, 1577. In this he answered all the points in full detail, with citation of documents; the people of the islands, he asserts, are given to perjury and, when offended, bring false accusations to revenge themselves—a habit which, it may be hoped, he bore in mind when sitting as a judge. Doubtless he had given them provocation enough to induce them to exercise their talents in this line against him and the numerous charges indicate a wide-spread feeling of hostility towards the tribunal. His defence was skilfully drawn and, on its face, seems to be sufficient.[286]