Francisco de Aguirre was one of the prominent conquistadores. He had come well equipped to Peru in 1533, he had borne an active share in the conquest of Chile and then in that of the extensive interior province known as Tucuman, of which he became governor. Of this he was deprived, but about 1566 he was reappointed on the occasion of an Indian revolt, in which the Spaniards were murdered and only a handful of soldiers held out in the town of Santiago del Estero. With his customary energy Aguirre collected a force, defeated the Indians in a battle, in which he lost one of his sons, and re-established the Spanish dominion. Then he headed an expedition in search of a port on the Atlantic to afford easier access to the territory, but when near his destination his troops mutinied and carried him back as a prisoner to Santiago del Estero. To justify this the mutineers claimed to have acted under orders of the Inquisition of the Bishop of la Plata, with whom Aguirre had quarrelled on the subject of tithes. There were witnesses in plenty to hasty and irreverent speeches by the veteran soldier; for two or three years he was kept in prison, at a cost to him, as he declared, of thirty thousand pesos, and on October 15, 1568, by judges acting under commission of Bishop Navarrete “inquisidor ordinario y general” he was sentenced. His imprisonment was accepted as a punishment; he was fined in fifteen hundred pesos and costs and was required to appear as a penitent in the church of Santiago del Estero and make formal abjuration of his objectionable speeches. This he performed, but on the pretext of informality he was obliged to undergo the humiliation a second time, April 1, 1569, in la Plata. Of this a notarial act was sent to the Council of Indies to show that he was unfitted to be Governor of Tucuman, but it was too late, for in August of that year he received the royal confirmation of his appointment with orders to proceed at once to his seat of government. On the march a cleric with an order from the bishop sought to stop him, but he disobeyed and paralyzed the unfortunate messenger by sternly asking him “If I should kill a cleric, what would be the penalty?”
So far he had had to deal with the episcopal Inquisition in the hands of an opposing faction; even severer experiences were in store for him from the Holy Office, used as an instrument by the Viceroy Toledo who desired to get rid of him. One of the earliest acts of the Lima tribunal was to entertain a denunciation of him, in which his intemperate utterances were again brought forward, together with the further accusation that he had banished from Tucuman all who had been concerned in his prosecution and that he had said that he had been forced to confess to what he had not done. March 14, 1570, Cerezuela ordered his arrest with sequestration of property; Toledo undertook to execute the mandate and in reporting to the king stated that Aguirre’s government was such that most of the inhabitants were leaving the province. To arrest such a man was not an easy matter, but it was effected and he was brought three hundred leagues to Lima. Delays were unavoidable in obtaining and ratifying testimony at such a distance, through a hostile Indian country which, as the tribunal stated, was entered only once a year. Aguirre offered to waive the formality of ratifying the testimony in order to expedite the process, but the fiscal insisted on regularity and the trial dragged wearily on, as new evidence came in, mostly as to his arbitrary government and other matters with which the tribunal properly had no concern. Aguirre fell dangerously ill and was transferred, July 19, 1572, to the house of a familiar, where he was kept strictly incomunicado and from which he was brought back, April 24, 1574, to listen to the publication of evidence. It was not until late in 1575 or early in 1576 that sentence was rendered condemning him to hear mass as a penitent on a feast-day when no services were allowed in any other church; he abjured de vehementi, was cast in all costs, was recluded for four months in a convent and was banished perpetually from Tucuman. The trivial character of the charges is seen in the special stress laid on his having used charms to cure wounds and toothache, which he was forbidden to do in future—innocent charms, as he explained, employed only because no physician was at hand and surely pardonable in the wild warfare in which he had worn out his life. He retired to the city of Serena which he had founded, old, sick and penniless. He had spent thirty-six years and some three hundred thousand pesos in the king’s service; three of his sons, his brother and three nephews had died in the same service, and he was too poor and oppressed with debts to make his way to court and ask reward for his labors. To complete the destruction of his influence his two remaining sons were prosecuted on frivolous charges, but the cases seem to have been suspended after the desired result had been attained. His son-in-law, Francisco de Matienzo, who had endeavored to prevent his arrest, was prosecuted and fined in three hundred pesos. There were also seven other prosecutions against his followers, resulting in the imposition of fines.[584] Had all viceroys, like Francisco de Toledo, known how to control the Inquisition it might have been made a useful political instrument but, as we shall see, succeeding inquisitors preferred to follow their own ends and it became a perpetually disturbing influence.
The bishops did not willingly acquiesce in the surrender of a jurisdiction which could be so profitably employed. That Archbishop Loaiza showed a recalcitrating temper is manifested by a letter of the Suprema directing that he should not style himself “inquisidor ordinario” in his pastorals and edicts. Another letter permits him to inspect the commissions of the inquisitors and their instructions if he desires, but it must be in the audience-chamber as they are not to be removed from there, except the printed instructions, of which a copy may be given to him on condition of his allowing no one to see it. There was evident friction despite the injunctions of the Suprema that a good understanding should be maintained.[585] This was increased when, in 1574, a royal cédula addressed to the bishops ordered them to exercise special vigilance and make secret inquiry about disguised Lutheran preachers who were said to be on their way to Peru. The prelates assumed this to be a grant of renewed inquisitorial power and undertook to exercise it, giving rise to no little trouble. Sebastian de Lartaun, Bishop of Cuzco, not only published edicts trespassing on inquisitorial jurisdiction but boasted that, if the inquisitors came into his diocese, he could punish them, and he arrested and imprisoned in chains their commissioner Pedro de Quiroga, a canon of his cathedral, publicly and under circumstances creating great scandal. The tribunal retaliated by summoning to Lima the bishop’s provisor Albornoz and throwing him in the secret prison; furthermore it imprisoned the priest Luis de Arma, who had assisted in chaining Quiroga, as well as the episcopal fiscal Alonso Duran and a cleric named Bejerano for the same offence, to which the bishop responded by seizing Quiroga’s temporalities and forbidding him to enter the church. The tribunal, in 1581, reported the situation to the Suprema, which replied that nothing was to be conceded to the Ordinaries save what was allowed by the laws and the royal cédulas; from the Bishop of Cuzco’s edict the matter pertaining to the Inquisition was to be struck out and he was to be duly warned. A second notice was to be given to the Bishop of Panamá of the cédulas forbidding his interference in matters of faith and, if he continued to disobey, the Suprema was to be advised. The same was to be done with other bishops similarly offending, and special attention was directed to the acts of the Bishops of Popayan and Tucuman. If we may believe the reports made by the tribunal to the Suprema the episcopate was filled with most unworthy wearers of the mitre and the Archbishop of New Granada was the only one who had fully obeyed the orders to hand over all inquisitorial cases. The officials of the Inquisition, it said, were hated equally by the bishops and by the royal judges, who lost no opportunity of oppressing and humiliating them.[586]
Thus early commenced the antagonism between the Inquisition and the episcopate which continued during its whole career to be a disturbing element in the Spanish possessions. In 1584 we find Inquisitor Ulloa complaining to the Suprema of the action of the recent provincial council of Lima in secretly writing to the king about the evil character of the commissioners selected. This, he asserts, arose from his refusal of the request of the Bishops of Cuzco, la Plata and Tucuman to make them commissioners in their respective dioceses. The bishops, he adds, were opposed to the introduction of the Inquisition, because it limited their jurisdiction, and they and the royal courts were constantly causing trouble in spite of the extreme modesty and deference shown by his officials.[587]
Such was the soil in which the Inquisition was to be planted when Philip II resolved to confer upon the New World the blessing of the institution. Its inception bore a marked resemblance to that of Mexico. January 28, 1569, Inquisitor-general Espinosa wrote to the Licentiate Servan de Cerezuela, in Oropesa, that the king proposed to establish a tribunal in Peru and that he was selected as an inquisitor, with a salary of three thousand pesos, each of four hundred maravedís, a part of which would be drawn from the fruits of a prebend in Lima. He was ordered to start without delay for Seville, whence he would sail with a colleague, a fiscal and a notary, in the fleet carrying the Viceroy Francisco de Toledo, who would deliver to him his commission and instructions. Similar orders were sent to the other inquisitor, Dr. Andrés de Bustamente, and five hundred ducats were given to each to defray their expenses. Commands were issued to the bishops to surrender all cases pertaining to the tribunal; to the courts not to interfere with the confiscations; to the viceroy to render it all favor and support and to provide a proper building for its occupancy and prisons; to all officials to take the oath of obedience and to lend whatever aid might be required.[588]
The fleet sailed March 19, 1569; Dominica was reached April 28th, Cartagena May 8th and Nombre de Dios, June 1st. There their funds ran out and no one would lend them a real without interest until Judge Barros of Panamá furnished them two thousand pesos out of moneys deposited in his court. While thus delayed they heard several cases and rendered sentences. Bustamente with the notary Arrieta left Nombre de Dios on June 23d, but he was so affected by the escape of two of his slaves, as we are told, that he fell sick and died on June 30th. Cerezuela and the fiscal Alcedo remained to attend to a case which developed itself on the day fixed for their departure. Six witnesses testified that a Portuguese named Salvador Méndez Hernández had been burnt in effigy in Seville; they arrested him and wrote to Seville for the process, but as they had no arrangements for detaining him, he was released under oath, which he naturally forfeited. Cerezuela reached Panamá on July 18th, when he summoned the viceroy and the judges of the Audiencia to take the oath of obedience to the Inquisition. On the 22d there was a solemn ceremony, with a procession to the church of San Francisco, where his commission was read, he issued a mandate and the viceroy and officials and the people all took the oath. Sail was made from Panamá, August 15th, and Lima was reached November 28th. A house was selected and the viceroy was called upon to give it to them; another adjoining was rented for the officials and, on January 29, 1570, there was a solemn function in the cathedral, such as we have seen in Mexico, when the tribunal was officially acknowledged, its authority asserted and the Edict of Faith was published, calling upon every one to denounce all offenders of whom he was cognizant, directly or indirectly.[589]
Although Cerezuela was accused to the Suprema, by his notary Arrieta, as wholly ignorant of inquisitorial practice, of allowing himself to be easily influenced, and of neglecting to appoint familiars, he speedily manifested an energy inspiring all classes with fear of a tribunal which was superior to all distinctions of station, and whose jurisdiction was limited only by its own definitions. Scarce had the edict been published when arrests began of bigamists, blasphemers and persons whose utterances were not cautiously restrained—Alcedo, the fiscal, reports three in one day. Two canons of the cathedral and their advocate were prosecuted for some false swearing before the ecclesiastical court, which the theologians managed to find heretical, and, in spite of the intervention of the archbishop, Cerezuela tried them and amerced them in eight hundred pesos for the benefit of the tribunal. Then he prosecuted two royal officials, for raising difficulties in supplying his demands for the maintenance of poor prisoners, and fined them in eighty ducats.[590] Presumably he desired to produce a profound impression upon the public and for this the solemnity of a public auto de fe was essential. This rendered inadvisable the customary prolonged delays of inquisitorial action and already, on November 15, 1573, it was held in the principal plaza, with the usual oaths administered to all present and the preaching of a sermon. The different bodies of dignitaries of course quarreled as to the places assigned to them, but Cerezuela settled their conflicting pretensions and the awful ceremony was performed effectively. The penitents were not numerous. The Corsican, Joan Bautista, had been penanced for Protestantism by the archbishop and again had been sentenced to perpetual prison by the Bishop of los Charcas; now as an impenitent, he was condemned to two hundred lashes through the streets and to lifelong galley-service. The Frenchman, Jean de Lion, for the same heresy abjured de vehementi, was confined for ten years to the city of Lima, and contributed a thousand pesos towards the cost of erecting the staging at the auto. Ynes de los Angeles received a hundred lashes for bigamy, and Andrés de Campos the same for violating the secrecy of the Inquisition. The crowning attraction of the spectacle, however, was another Frenchman, Mathieu Salado, who was generally reputed to be insane. He had been denounced for “Lutheranism” in May, 1570, but after arrest and examination had been discharged as irresponsible. New evidence was received however and, in November, 1571, he was again put on trial. He held that Erasmus and Luther were saints enlightened by God; he denounced the popes, the clergy and the whole establishment; he denied purgatory and indulgences, images and the mass. He was decided to be of sound mind and, as he was pertinacious, he was sentenced to relaxation after a preliminary torture in caput alienum, all of which was duly executed, but whether he was burnt alive or after strangulation we are not informed.[591]
The tribunal which had thus asserted its power was necessarily organized on the Castilian pattern, with normally two inquisitors, a fiscal (or, as he was termed in later times, an inquisitor-fiscal), a notary or secretary, a receiver of confiscations or treasurer, an ornamental alguazil mayor and another for work, an alcaide or gaoler with assistants, a nuncio, a portero or apparitor, an advocate of prisoners, a barber, a physician and a surgeon. These were the salaried officials and in addition there were commissioners at distant points, familiars, consultores and calificadores. There seems to have been an effort from the first to restrict the lists of unsalaried officials, whose overgrown numbers in Spain were the source of constant trouble, owing to their exemption from the secular courts and being justiciable only by the tribunal. Thus the consultores were limited to six and the familiars to twelve in the city of Lima, four in each cathedral city and one in each town inhabited by Spaniards, and their fuero was defined, as in Mexico, to be that of the Castilian concordia of 1553, which limited, to a considerable extent, their exemption in criminal cases.[592]
Distance and delay in communication necessarily rendered the tribunal more independent in action than was permitted in Spain at this time, but the Suprema endeavored to maintain supervision and subordination as far as it could. It was unavoidable that the tribunal should be allowed to appoint to the minor and unsalaried positions, but its appointments were reported to the Suprema, which thereupon issued the commissions and sometimes, at least, made appointments itself. In the original instructions of 1570 power was granted to create commissioners and familiars; in 1576 this was extended to notaries and other officials, while in 1589 it appears to be restricted to cases of necessity in the city of Lima.[593] Yet when the Suprema chose to exercise the appointing power it had no hesitation, as when, in 1615, it ordered Don Gil de Amoraga to be received as commissioner of Panamá and Don Fernando Francisco de Ribadeneira as commissioner of Tucuman, if the place was vacant, and if not, as soon as it should become so. As time went on, cases of this kind became more frequent. As regards commissions, a letter of May 26, 1620, orders that the physician, the barber and the surgeon are to furnish their proofs of limpieza, or purity of blood, when their names can be forwarded and the inquisitor-general will issue their commissions. When, in 1584, the tribunal granted to a familiar of Panamá the title of alguazil, with a vara alta de justicia, or the privilege of carrying a tall wand as the symbol of his office, the audiencia of Panamá complained to the king and the Suprema called upon the tribunal for an explanation, pending which the vara was not to be carried.[594]
The provisions for cases which in Spain were referred to or appealed to the Suprema and inquisitor-general have already been detailed in the chapter on Mexico and need not be repeated here. It will be recalled that they conferred on the colonial tribunals almost complete independence, so that they escaped the encroachments which at home eventually rendered the provincial Inquisitions scarce more than bureaus for the collection of evidence and for the execution of the decrees of the Council. The Suprema, it is true, occasionally made its power felt by sending out a visitador or inspector, with faculties more or less extensive and by removing or transferring an inquisitor against whom complaints were too vigorous to be disregarded, but the only regular supervision that could be exercised lay in the requirement of full semi-annual reports of the business of the tribunal and the condition of pending cases. It may be questioned, however, whether this could have been performed with regularity during the earlier periods for, as late as 1680, the tribunal was notified that an arrangement had been made with the king by the consulado of Seville whereby despatches could be sent twice a year.[595]