The commissioners of Mexico fully justified this characterization by the good bishop. In the great majority of cases the hopelessness of resistance to their arbitrary acts caused submission, but occasionally one emerges to light which illustrates the spirit animating the Inquisition and its officials. In 1699, Father Pistoya, S. J., the ecclesiastical judge of Sinaloa, prosecuted Martin de Verastegui for incestuous adultery with Maria García. Thereupon his intimate friend, Pérez de Ribera, the commissioner, to protect him, promptly appointed him notary, an act for which he had no authority. Pistoya sent the evidence in the case to the royal court of Guadalajara (Jalisco), which ordered the Governor of Sinaloa, Don Jacinto de Fuensaldaña, to arrest the guilty pair, embargo their property and send them to the royal prison of Guadalajara. Ribera claimed him as an official of the Inquisition and, on refusal, excommunicated the governor and the military officers who had executed his orders and posted them as such on the tablillas of the church. The tribunal sustained its commissioner; the governor was obliged to appear before it and beg for absolution; the commissioner was empowered to take testimony in the case and report it to the tribunal, which naturally found the parties innocent and Verastegui was rewarded with a genuine notary’s commission in lieu of the fictitious one which had protected him from justice. It is no wonder that, in replying to their report of another outrageous case in 1695, the Suprema had sharply rebuked the inquisitors, ordering them to act with justice and moderation and prevent the complaints of their proceedings, which came daily to the king from the Council of Indies, but the case of Verastegui shows how little respect they paid to the admonition.[487]
Yet, with all this, there were comparatively few of the bitter struggles, so frequent in Spain during this period, between the royal and inquisitorial jurisdictions. It was not that the inquisitors were less arbitrary and audacious than at home, for their distance from the court rendered them even more independent, but that the secular magistracy felt its weakness and offered less resolute resistance. Spain was far off and the viceroy, though representing the royal autocracy, was under strict orders to show every favor to the Inquisition. There was kept in the royal chancellery the formula of a letter to all viceroys, emphasizing the great services of the Inquisition to religion and to the king and ordering it to be favored and guarded in all its privileges, exemptions and liberties, including those of its officials and familiars. Adherence to this would be regarded as most acceptable service and the contrary would not be permitted.[488] This portentous document was sent to the Viceroys of Mexico and Peru in 1603 and was doubtless repeated to them whenever necessary, as it was to other royal representatives at subsequent periods. As a rule however the viceroys and the tribunal were at odds and their quarrels were not conducive to popular tranquillity or edification. More than once we find viceroys like Mancera, Cerralbo and Gelvez threatening the inquisitors with banishment.[489]
As a matter of course, under such auspices, colonial inquisitors could never be restrained within the limit of their rightful prerogatives, great as these were. A royal cédula of January 20, 1587, scolds those of Lima for illegal protection of their familiars and for vexing the local magistrates by summoning them from long distances before the tribunal. Another of March 8, 1589, rebukes them for creating too many familiars and other officials. Another of August 23, 1595, reprimands those of Mexico for supporting a familiar in refusing to render an account to the royal chancery of his functions as custom-house officer at Vera Cruz.[490] These complaints were of almost daily occurrence until at length Philip III sought to cut them off at the root by forming a junta of two members from each of the Councils of the Inquisition and of Indies to advise him. After mature deliberation they did so and the result is what is known as the Concordia of 1610. The prohibitions embodied in this are eloquent of the audacity of the inquisitors in exceeding their functions, abusing their authority in matters wholly outside of their jurisdiction and exercising an insufferably vexatious petty tyranny, the exasperating effect of which was intensified by the immunity enjoyed by the servants and slaves of the officials. These were justiciable only by the tribunal, which invariably protected them, so that the community was exposed without redress to the insolence of a class peculiarly apt to abuse its privileges.
Under pain of forfeiture of office the inquisitors were forbidden, directly or indirectly, by themselves or their kindred, to farm the public revenues or to prevent their being farmed to the highest bidder. Neither they nor the salaried officials were to engage in any kind of trade, under the same penalty. They were not to claim the right of seizing articles at an appraised price, except under urgent necessity for the support of the prisoners or buildings of the Inquisition. Their negroes were not to carry arms except when accompanying their masters. They were not to defend commissioners or familiars in frauds on the revenue nor in refusing to render an account of deposits made with them by order of court. They were not to detain the couriers and messengers who served as a rudimentary post-office and were to remove the prohibition against vessels leaving port or passengers departing without their licence. They were not to arrest the royal alguazils except for grave and notorious excess against the Inquisition. They were to be allowed one alguazil in Vera Cruz and were to dismiss all those appointed elsewhere.[491] They were not to protect familiars, who held public office, when prosecuted for official malfeasance, nor commissioners who held benefices for offences committed in their character of incumbents. They were not to order universities to grant degrees in contravention of their statutes, nor were they to interfere in matters of government apart from their functions. They were not to excommunicate a viceroy in cases of competencia, nor was the viceroy to evoke to himself a case that might lead to a competencia. A provision was also made for the settlement of competencias without the tedious resort to the councils in Spain. If the senior judge and senior inquisitor could not agree in their conference, the inquisitors were to name three ecclesiastical dignitaries to the viceroy, who was to select one; he was to be adjoined to the judge and inquisitor and the majority was to decide or, if there were three discordant opinions, the viceroy was to choose between them.[492]
This project for the settlement of competencias was ineffective. A cédula of February 7, 1569, had extended to the colonies the system in force at home, and under it there had been in Mexico, during the remainder of the century, seven cases; there was one in 1601 and another in 1602, after which they ceased.[493] Solorzano tells us that they were not revived by the new regulations, which omitted to specify the place where the conferences were to be held, and the judges and inquisitors each summoned the others to come to them. The judges had old custom and royal cédulas on their side, but the inquisitors refused compliance because the orders had not been transmitted to them through the Suprema which they claimed was requisite to their validity, and thus important cases, both civil and criminal, remained undecided, to the great injury of individuals and the public. Moved by the complaints thus occasioned, Philip III, in a cédula of November 19, 1618, ordered that the conferences be held in the vice-regal palace, where the senior judge was to have precedence over the inquisitor, and this was repeated in a cédula to the court of Lima, May 28, 1621, but again the inquisitors of both Mexico and Peru refused obedience on the same pretext as before. Thus cases continued undecided until the urgency of the Council of Indies led Philip IV to consult both councils and, in 1636, he ordered that the judge and inquisitor should meet before the viceroy, the one who was senior in office taking the right hand.[494] This compromise did not suit the pretensions of the Holy Office for precedence and it gained the victory in a cédula of May 30, 1640, which recites that, after many conferences, it was determined that the senior judge must go to the Inquisition, where the senior inquisitor was to have precedence, when the competencia was to be settled under the provisions of the Concordia of 1610.[495] Apparently this assumption of their inferiority was insufferable to the judges, for no formal competencia occurred between 1602 and 1711. Matters in dispute were occasionally referred to the councils in Spain, but this was of little benefit for it was usually the last heard of the case.[496] To appreciate fully the cruelty of all this, we must reflect that perhaps some accused person or unlucky alguazil, arrested for executing the orders of his superiors, might be languishing in gaol for a life-time, awaiting the settlement of a conflict of jurisdiction which could never be settled.
Whether or not the other prescriptions of the Concordia of 1610 were better observed than those concerning competencias it would be difficult to determine, but the presumption is adverse. At all events, inquisitorial ingenuity was constantly devising new methods of aggression and further complaints led Philip IV to assemble a junta of two members of each council, whose conferences resulted in the enactment of another Concordia, published April 11, 1633. Many of its clauses relate to the ever-present question of precedence, which need not detain us here, except the suggestive one that, at bull-fights in the plaza, the first courses are to be performed before the secular authorities, unless the latter, of their own accord, desire that honor to be paid to the inquisitors. Equally suggestive in another way are the prescriptions that commissioners shall treat the public courteously and that inquisitors shall treat the judges with respect and shall cease molesting the officers of the royal courts with censures and summoning and detaining them. They are again forbidden to engage in trade and are told not to interfere with the elections of secular officials nor, in times of scarcity, are they to persecute with excommunications the guards in charge of boats bringing grain, but are to apply to the viceroy, who will promptly supply their wants. The prohibition of detaining ships is repeated, but they are allowed to grant licences for sailing and for individuals to depart, which practically amounted to the same thing. The inquisitors seem to have gained their point as to the right of seizing goods and materials at a “just price,” for this is allowed, subject to some limitations. The inviolability of the domicile of inquisitors is admitted in the provision that it is not to be abused by secreting goods to the prejudice of third parties; and, in the case of salaried officials, it is limited by a clause that when it is necessary for officers of justice to enter the house of such official, or of the widow of one during her widowhood, notice shall first be given to the tribunal, which shall appoint one of its ministers to be present, with an appointee of the viceroy or court and, if such an appointment is not made within two or three hours, the entry can be made without longer waiting. One of the petty privileges which gave rise to constant exacerbation is indicated in the provision that, of the cattle slaughtered in the public shambles, there shall be given weekly the chine and chitterlings of ten oxen—two to each of the inquisitors, one to the alguazil and secretaries, one to the receiver and notary of sequestrations, and the rest to the poor prisoners; this is said to be all that the tribunal is entitled to and anything more must be paid for, nor shall its servants take the chitterlings and sell them.[497]
Concordias were only attempts to restrain existing abuses and they could not provide for the perpetual new aggressions suggested by the facile weapon of excommunication through which the Inquisition could overcome the resistance of the secular authorities. The distribution of quicksilver, for instance, to the miners was a matter jealously reserved to the viceroy and the junta of the treasury but, when the Inquisition wanted it for some mines belonging to it in Zacatecas, it forced, by threats of excommunication, the royal officials to supply its demands. Viceroy Mancera, in a letter of December 8, 1666, complains of this and of a case in which the royal treasurer of Guadalajara owed a personal debt to the tribunal of 980 pesos and the commissioner there, by order of the acting inquisitor and visitador, Medina Rico, forced the auditor of the treasury to pay it out of the royal funds, by threats of excommunication and of a fine of 500 pesos. Mancera endeavored by courteous remonstrance to obtain restitution but, after the inquisitors had insulted him, he only succeeded in getting 600 pesos returned. In reporting these matters to the king, the Council of Indies pointed out forcibly how incompatible with subordination and good government were these arbitrary extensions of inquisitorial jurisdiction over matters wholly foreign to the objects of its institution.[498]
Indeed, the existence of so uncontrollable and disturbing an element goes far to explain the ill-success of Spanish colonial administration. In 1615, Fray Isidro Ordoñez, commissioner in San Francisco del Nuevo Mexico, under pretext of a fictitious order from the tribunal, gathered a band of soldiers and citizens, to whom inquisitorial orders were supreme, and seized Don Pedro de Peralta, Governor of New Mexico, and held him in irons for nine months. Peralta managed to complain to the tribunal, which summoned Ordoñez to the capital and assigned to him his convent for a prison, but Peralta obtained no satisfaction beyond a declaration that there had been no cause for his arrest, while Ordoñez, in place of the severe punishment which he merited, was permitted to attend the general chapter of his Order in Rome, as procurator of the province of Mexico.[499] Another Governor of New Mexico, Diego de Peñalosa, fared even worse when, for indiscreet words about priests and inquisitors and expressions verging on blasphemy, he was exposed to the humiliation of appearing as a penitent in the auto de fe of February 3, 1668—thus virtually incapacitating him for further service.[500] It was not without grounds that the Council of Indies, in 1696, addressed a formal remonstrance to Carlos II, recapitulating a long array of abuses and violences, showing the impossibility of enforcing observance of the Concordias or obedience to the royal commands. Prelates and governors were alike sufferers from the irrepressible audacity which admitted no responsibility to any one, so long as it was upheld and justified by the Suprema at home, and the council supplicated the king, if not for the total extinction of the tribunal, at least for the dismissal of the officials. Without some thorough change the retention of the colonies could scarce be hoped for, as all the population was inspired with a common hatred arising from its violence.[501]
As the council says, prelates were as liable as royal officials to be subjected to the lawless action of the tribunal. There never were lacking pretexts for quarrel. In 1617 Archbishop Pedro de Villareal fared badly in a rupture caused by his inserting in an edict some matters which the tribunal claimed to belong to its jurisdiction. In 1623 Bishop Bohorques of Oaxaca had the same experience because he styled himself Inquisidor Ordinario. The episcopate of Archbishop Matheo Sagade Bugueiro, from 1655 to 1662, was a succession of bitter dissensions, during which Bernardino de Amezaga, chief notary of the court of testaments, was arrested by the tribunal, deprived of his office and banished, while Francisco de Bermeo, contador of the Santa Cruzada, was kept long in prison, fined 200 pesos and a negro slave of his was sold to defray it. In 1658 the archbishop made a demand that all edicts read in his cathedral must first be shown to him in order to satisfy him that they contained nothing that invaded his jurisdiction, and his action in enforcing this claim led the tribunal to publish a manifesto declaring that, under the bull Si de protegendis, he had incurred degradation and relaxation to the secular arm.[502]
There was one case, however, in which the tribunal and the Archbishop of Mexico combined for the persecution of a bishop, for Juan de Mañozca, the archbishop from 1643 to 1653, was cousin of the inquisitor of the same name. The saintly Bishop Juan de Palafox of Puebla, in his capacity of visitador and protector of the Indians, incurred the enmity of the archbishop and of the Viceroy Salvatierra, and an occasion of gratifying it occurred when he undertook to guard his episcopal jurisdiction against the encroachments of the Jesuits. They appointed jueces conservadores to protect their interests and the tribunal rushed eagerly into the fray, with which it had absolutely no right to intervene.[503] It ordered the suppression of the writings and edicts of Palafox and forbade any interference with those of the conservators; it sent a commissioner to Puebla who terrorized the community by arresting prominent priests and citizens of the bishop’s party, parading them through the streets in chains and sending them to Mexico, where they were thrown into the secret prison, thus inflicting indelible disgrace on them and their posterity. In spite of the exemption of Indians from inquisitorial jurisdiction, he flogged nearly to death, with four hundred lashes, an unfortunate Indian who, at the command of a citizen, had taken down one of the conservators’ edicts. Palafox was advised that he too would be arrested and fled to the mountains, where he lay concealed for several months.[504] When, in 1647, he appealed to the Suprema, powers were sent to the Bishop of Oaxaca to investigate and report, but Archbishop Mañozca threw every impediment in his way and, in his capacity of visitador of the Inquisition, assumed to annul his commission. He appealed to the Bishop of Yucatan, then Governor of New Spain, and to the Audiencia for support, but the archbishop threatened to excommunicate them all and they prudently declined the conflict. Palafox represents to the Suprema that his life was in danger and he begs to be allowed to return to Spain.[505] The combination of the archbishopric and Inquisition, under the two Mañozcas, evidently held the whole land in its grasp, and no one was hardy enough to oppose it. Palafox was obliged to abandon Mexico, but he eventually secured a decision in his favor on an appeal to Rome.