Notwithstanding all vigilance, however, the dangerous stuff found entrance. The works of Voltaire and Rousseau were widely read among the educated class and the hands of the tribunal were practically tied. It would laboriously gather testimony and compile a sumaria against one who read prohibited books, only to be told, when submitting it to the Suprema, to suspend action for the present. In a letter of May 24, 1788, it complained bitterly of this and of the consequent diminution of respect for the Inquisition. Chief among the offenders were the Commandant-general and the Regent of the Audiencia, whose cases had been sent on April 26th. Their openly expressed contempt for the tribunal perverted the whole people, who laughed at censures and read prohibited books. An object of especial aversion was the distinguished historian of the Canaries, José de Viera y Clavijo, Archdeacon of Fuerteventura. His sermons had caused him to be reprimanded repeatedly and, when his history appeared with its explanation of the apparition of the Virgen de Candelaria and other miracles of the Conquest, and its account of the controversies between the chapter and the tribunal, the indignation of the latter was unbounded. A virulent report was made to the Suprema, September 18, 1784, which remained unanswered. Another was sent, February 7, 1792, complaining of the evil effect of allowing the circulation of such writings, but this failed to elicit action, for the work was never placed on the Index.[351]
Whatever may have been its deficiencies in other respects, the tribunal seems never to have lost sight of its functions in fomenting discord with the authorities, secular and ecclesiastical. In 1521 we hear of Inquisitor Ximenes excommunicating some of the canons, in consequence of which the chapter withdrew the revenue of his prebend and sent a special envoy to the court, but he appealed to Rome and a royal cédula of July 8, 1523, ordered the chapter to make the payments.[352] Even during the inertness of Padilla’s later inquisitorship, he had sufficient energy to carry on a desperate quarrel with the Audiencia. He ordered the deputy governor, Juan Arias de la Mota, to arrest Alonso de Lemos, who had been denounced to the tribunal and, on his obeying, the Audiencia arrested and prosecuted him, which led to an envenomed controversy in which excommunications and interdict were freely employed, until Philip II, February 16, 1562, ordered the liberation of Arias, adding an emphatic command in future to give to the inquisitor and his officials all the favor and aid that they might require in the discharge of their duties and to honor them as was done everywhere throughout his dominions. It was doubtless in the hope of putting an end to these unseemly disturbances that Philip, by a cédula of October 10, 1567, prescribed rules for settling competencias, or conflicts over jurisdiction. The inquisitor and the Regent of the Audiencia were required to confer, when, if they could not come to an agreement, the bishop was to be called in, when the majority should decide.[353]
No regulations were of avail to prevent the dissensions for which all parties were eager and which were rendered especially bitter by the domineering assumption of superiority by the Inquisition. It was not long after Fúnez had reorganized the tribunal that he became involved in an angry controversy with Bishop Cristóbal Vera. Alonso de Valdés, a canon, incurred the episcopal displeasure by removing his name from an order addressed to the chapter for the reason that he was not present. Vera thereupon imprisoned him incomunicado so strictly that his food was handed in to him through a window. It chanced that Valdés was also notary of the tribunal and Fúnez claimed jurisdiction, but the bishop refused to surrender him, in spite of the fact that the absence of its notary impeded the Inquisition. The tribunal complained to the Suprema which came to its aid in a fashion showing how complete was the ascendancy claimed over the episcopal order, and how little chance a bishop had in a contest with such an antagonist. Inquisitor-general Quiroga wrote to Vera that, if the fault of Valdés was such that he should punish it, this should have been done in such wise as not to impede the operation of the tribunal. He hoped that already the case would have been handed over to the tribunal to which it belonged and that in future Vera would not give occasion for such troubles. This was enclosed in a letter of instructions from the Suprema prescribing the utmost courtesy and the most vigorous action. Fúnez is to call, with a witness, on the bishop and demand the person of Valdés and the papers in the case, as being his rightful judge, at the same time promising his punishment to the bishop’s satisfaction. If Vera refuses, Quiróga’s letter is to be handed to him, and if he still refuses he is to be told that he obliges the tribunal to proceed according to law.
This so-called law is that the fiscal shall commence prosecution against the bishop and his officials for impeding the Inquisition. Then the inquisitor is to issue his formal mandate against the provisor, officials, gaolers, etc., ordering them, under pain of major excommunication and 200 ducats without further-notice, to surrender Valdés within three days to the tribunal for punishment, so that he can resume his office of notary. If this does not suffice, a similar mandate is to be issued against the bishop, under pain of privation of entering his church. If the provisor and officials persist in disobedience through three rebeldias (contumacies of ten days each), the inquisitor shall proclaim them excommunicated. If the bishop is stubborn he is to be prohibited from entering his church and to be admonished that if he does not comply he will be suspended from his orders and fined. If he perseveres through three rebeldias, letters shall be issued declaring him to have incurred these penalties and admonishing him to obey within three days under pain of major excommunication. If still contumacious, letters shall be issued declaring him publicly excommunicated and subject to the fine, which shall be collected by levy and execution. In all this he is not to be inhibited from cognizance of the case, but only that he must not impede the Inquisition by detaining its notary, and, as it is very possible that he may seek the aid of the Audiencia, if it intervenes it is to be notified of the royal cédula (of 1553) prohibiting all interference in cases concerning the Inquisition.[354]
This portentous document was received in the tribunal, April 11, 1577. It was impossible to contend with adversaries armed with such weapons and Bishop Vera was obliged to submit. Not content with its triumph the tribunal undertook to humiliate him still further. Doña Ana de Sobranis was a mystic who believed herself illuminated and gifted with miraculous powers. In 1572 she had denounced herself because a Franciscan, Fray Antonio del Jesús, had given her, as he said by command of God, nine consecrated hosts, which she carried always with her and worshipped. The tribunal took the hosts and dismissed the case but, as the bishop was her warm admirer and extolled her virtues, to mortify him, in 1580, the fiscal presented a furious accusation against her, as a receiver and fautor of heretics and heresies. She was arrested and imprisoned, but the tribunal had overreached itself. She had friends who appealed to the Suprema and, in May, 1581, there came from it a decision ordering a public demonstration that she was innocent and that there had been no cause for her arrest.[355]
Undeterred by the fate of Bishop Vera, his successor Fernando de Figueroa, about 1590, had a lively struggle with the tribunal. He excommunicated Doctor Alonso Pacheco, regidor of the Grand Canary and deputy governor of Tenerife, because he would not abandon illicit relations with a married woman. The tribunal intervened and evoked the case, giving rise to a prolonged competencia, which remained undecided in consequence of the death of the culprit.[356] Causes of such strife were never lacking and the first half of the seventeenth century was largely occupied by them and by an endless struggle to compel the chapter to allow to the inquisitors cushioned chairs in the cathedral.[357] On one occasion, in 1619, the chapter offended the tribunal by obeying a royal cédula and disregarding a threat which enjoined disobedience. The canons were thereupon excommunicated and appealed to the king, who found himself obliged to withdraw the cédula.[358] The overbearing conduct of the tribunal produced a chronic feeling of exasperation and the veriest trifle was sufficient to cause an outbreak. One custom provocative of much bad blood was that of selecting in Lent a fishing-boat and ordering it to bring its catch to the Inquisition, when, after supplying the officials and prisoners, if there was anything left it might be sold to the people. In 1629 the municipality fruitlessly complained of this to the visitor Juan de Escobar, and in 1631 there was an explosion. The Audiencia rudely intervened by throwing in prison Bartolomé Alonso, the luckless master of a boat selected, and threatening to scourge him through the streets. He managed to convey word to the tribunal, which at once sent its secretary Aguilera to the Audiencia, with a message asking the release of Alonso, but the Audiencia refused to receive anything but a written communication and Aguilera came back with a mandate requiring obedience under pain of two hundred ducats, but he was received with insults and Alonso was publicly sentenced to a hundred lashes. Then the tribunal declared the judges excommunicate, displayed their names as such in the churches and had the bells rung. The Audiencia disregarded the censures and arrested Aguilera, while the Alcaide Salazar, who had accompanied him, hid himself, but the Audiencia ordered a female slave of his to be seized and his house to be torn down, in response to which the tribunal published heavier censures and fines, demanding the release of the prisoners. Then Bishop Murga intervened and asked the tribunal to accept an honorable compromise, but it refused; he returned to the charge, urging the affliction of the people, who dreaded an interdict at a time when there was so much need of rain and when Holy Week was approaching; if reference were made to the Suprema there would be a delay of six months and meanwhile the prisoners under trial by the Audiencia would languish in gaol, for the judges would be incapacitated by the excommunication. The inquisitors, in their report to the Suprema, explained that, seeing that the people were ready for a disastrous outbreak, and as the bishop promised that the prisoners should be released at once (as they were, after a confinement of five hours) they ordered the excommunicates to be absolved and abstained from proceeding against the guilty. Then, when peace seemed restored, the quarrel broke out fiercely again, for the inquisitors demanded the surrender of the warrant of arrest, which Bartolomé Ponce, the official charged with it, refused to give up. He was arrested and as, after two days, he appealed to the Audiencia, they manacled him and ordered the arrest of the advocate and procurator who had drawn up the appeal. This secured the surrender of the document and the inquisitors felicitated themselves to the Suprema on the vigor with which they had impressed on every one the power of the Inquisition. Whether the innocent cause of the disturbance, the fisherman Bartolomé Alonso, received his lashes, seems to have been an incident too unimportant to be recorded.[359]
Rodrigo Gutiérrez de la Rosa, who was bishop from 1652 to 1658, was a man of violent temper, not as easily subdued as Bishop Vera, and his episcopate was a prolonged quarrel with his chapter and with the tribunal. In 1654, Doctor Guirola, the commissioner at Santa Cruz de Tenerife, was denounced, for his oppression, to the bishop, who ordered an investigation and his arrest if cause were found. This proved to be the case and the arrest was made, against which the tribunal protested in terms so irritating that Gutiérrez excommunicated all its officials, ringing the bells and placing their names on the tablillas, besides imposing a fine of 2000 ducats on each of the inquisitors. They met this by calling on the civil and military authorities for forcible aid and summoned all the bishop’s dependents to assist them. Miguel de Collado, the secretary, went to the cathedral to serve these notices, on hearing which Gutiérrez hastened thither with his followers and, not finding Collado, proceeded to the house of Inquisitor José Badaran, which he searched from bottom to top for pledges to secure the payment of the fine. Word was carried to the tribunal, when the inquisitors, with a guard of soldiers, went to Badaran’s house, which they found barred against them, broke open the door and a stormy interview ensued. The bishop in the cathedral, published Badaran and the fiscal as excommunicates; the inquisitors ordered the notices of excommunication removed and fined the bishop in 4000 ducats. To collect this, they embargoed his revenues in Tenerife and he in turn embargoed the fruits of their prebends. They obtained guards of soldiers posted in their houses and in that of the fiscal, fearing attack from the satellites of the bishop, such as he had made in 1552 in the cathedral and in 1554 at the house of the dean. In reporting all this to the Suprema, they promise to send the fiscal with all the documents by the next vessel, for the authority and power of the Inquisition depend upon the result.[360]
While this was pending a quarrel arose between the tribunal and the chapter, because the latter refused to pay to the fiscal the fruits of his prebend. Inquisitor-general Arce y Reynoso ordered the chapter to make the payment, which led the canon Matheo de Cassares and the racionero Cristóbal Vandama to commit certain acts of disrespect. To punish this the inquisitors, on November 16, 1655, arrested them, in conformity with the rules prescribed by the Suprema, in its letter of September 6, 1644, respecting the arrest of prebendaries, but, at the prayer of the chapter, they were released on the third day. They were friends of Bishop Gutiérrez, who nursed his wrath until December 26th, when there was a solemn celebration in the cathedral, at which Inquisitor Frias celebrated mass. When Inquisitor Badaran entered and took his seat in the choir, Gutiérrez in a loud voice commanded him to leave the church, as he was under excommunication for arresting clerics without jurisdiction. To avoid creating a tumult he did so; Frias celebrated mass and then joined him in the tribunal, where they drew up the necessary papers. The affair of course created an immense scandal and led to prolonged correspondence with the Suprema, which ordered it suspended April 12, 1657.[361] They were not much more successful in the outcome of the previous quarrel, although they succeeded, at the end of 1656, in procuring a royal order summoning Gutiérrez to the court. In communicating this to the bishop, December 13, 1656, the Licenciate Blas Canales advises him, if he has any money to spare, to invest it in a jewel for presentation to the king, through the hands of the minister Louis de Haro. He probably followed the judicious counsel, for the matter ended with a decree relieving him from the fine imposed on him by the inquisitors.[362]
The next encounter was with the Audiencia, in 1661. For eight years there had been no physician in the island, when the tribunal, needing one for the torture-chamber, induced, in 1659, Dr. Domingo Rodríguez Ramos to come. He became a frequent visitor at the house of Doña Beatriz de Herrera, the amiga of the judge Alvaro Gil de la Sierpe, to whom she had borne several children. Sierpe became jealous and, on some pretext, Dr. Ramos was arrested, January 28, 1661, and imprisoned in chains. The tribunal asserted its jurisdiction by inhibiting the Audiencia from prosecuting the case and, on this being disregarded, the judges were excommunicated with all the solemnities. They impassively continued their functions; the tribunal then excommunicated the officials of the court, who were more easily frightened; for several months there was much popular excitement but, in October, the competencia was decided in favor of the Audiencia—doubtless because the physician was not an official of the tribunal—and a royal letter sharply rebuked the inquisitors.[363]
The tribunal was evidently losing its prestige and matters did not improve with the advent of the Bourbon dynasty. The enmity between it and the chapter continued undiminished and when, on the death of the Marquis of Celada, in 1707, his son, the Inquisitor Bartolomé Benítez de Lugo, asked that his exequies should be performed in the cathedral, the request was refused. This led to a violent rupture, in the course of which the tribunal voted the arrest of the canons, with sequestration. The chapter appealed to Philip V, who condemned the tribunal in a cédula of November 7, 1707. This did not arrive until the following year, when the chapter kept it secret until Easter; in the crowded solemnity of the feast-day, when Inquisitor Benítez was present, a secretary mounted the pulpit and read the royal decree, to his great mortification.[364] Even worse befell the tribunal in 1714, when its inexcusable violence, in another quarrel with the chapter, led Philip V to demand the recall of the inquisitors and to enforce his commands in spite of the repeated tergiversations of the Suprema.[365]