The decision of the Suprema had suspended Calderon until he should answer judicially the charges made against him, and he consequently lived in retirement, while the tribunal was carried on by Amusquíbar and Rodríguez Delgado, who had been sent out to replace Unda. As usual they quarrelled and, in 1754, Amusquíbar formally demanded that his colleague should be removed by promotion to the episcopate, for he was inquisitor only in name, being utterly inefficient and incapable. Rodríguez, on his side, described Amusquíbar as arbitrary and impenetrably obstinate; a case had been ready for final sentence for a year, yet he could not be brought to agree as to its settlement. The sudden death of Rodríguez, however, October 31, 1756, restored peace and José de Salazar y Cevallos, who was appointed in his place, died in November, 1757, before he could assume possession, so that Amusquíbar remained sole inquisitor. He paid so little attention to his duties that in five months he was only three times in the audience-chamber and, on the plea of illness, he absented himself from Lima and appointed as his representative the fiscal, Bartolomé Lopez Grillo, an act which excited much adverse comment.
Meanwhile nothing was heard as to the dealings of the Suprema with the papers of the visitation. They seem to have been gone over with even more than customary deliberation and we chance to learn that, in 1762, Calderon was charged with improper conduct of the cases of Bartolomé Cortez de Umansoro and Andrés de Muguruza. In 1763 the Suprema adopted the expedient of sending to the Viceroy Armat y Yuniant blank commissions by which to appoint two competent ecclesiastics who with Amusquíbar should form the court to try the charges. The instructions reached Lima in 1764, by which time both Calderon and Amusquíbar had passed away and thus, some twenty years after its inception, the visitation died a natural death, every one concerned in it having passed to a higher jurisdiction.[655]
A paralysis had fallen on the tribunal and from this time its functions almost ceased, although its organization was kept complete and its pay-roll suffered no diminution. One of its last autos was held in 1773, in which only eight penitents appeared. Possibly this torpidity only rendered its official positions more attractive, for they came to be a matter of almost open bargain and sale. In 1789, Cristóbal de Cos, chief clerk in the secretariat of the Suprema, commenced to traffic in them through his agent, Fernando Piélago, one of the secretaries of the Lima tribunal. To save the expense of transportation, the Suprema had for some time adopted the practice of appointing natives or residents of Peru, which may have given rise to the sale of offices or may, perhaps, only have rendered it notorious, for Cos could not have transacted the business without the connivance and participation of his superiors. Piélago himself had paid three thousand pesos for his position, and Manuel de Vado Calderon the same, for the office of secretary of sequestrations. Narciso de Aragon gave six hundred for a minor position and three cases are mentioned in which sums were paid for jubilation, or retirement on half-pay, with the privilege of appointing a successor. The culmination was reached in the career of Pedro Zalduegui, who commenced as sweeper and sacristan of the chapel of the tribunal. He was wholly illiterate, but he was a shrewd trader and he paid the capellan mayor of the tribunal a thousand pesos to surrender his place to him. Finally, through Piélago and Cos, he bought the position of inquisitor for the sum of fourteen thousand ducats; there was little concealment in the transaction and the scandal was great. The Suprema was obliged to order an investigation which it confided to the Inquisitors Abarca and Matienzo. In a letter of November 8, 1794, they confirmed the reports as to the sale of offices and the incompetence of those who bought them. Against this Zalduegui, in 1796, defended himself, by asserting that the trouble arose from his refusal to join with his colleagues in their mismanagement of the affairs of the tribunal for their private interests. At length he manifested his gross ignorance in a controversy with Bartolomé Guerrero on the intricate question of sanctifying grace; they obliged him to define his position and, on the strength of the doctrinal error involved, they prosecuted him and suspended him from office. That the Suprema restored him is fairly suggestive of another payment and he retained his office till the last.[656]
Inquisitors of the character thus indicated, owning no superior save the distant inquisitor-general and Suprema, armed with the terrible power of excommunication which none but themselves could remove, judging all and judged by none, could not fail to be a disturbing element in the colonial administration. They were at the head of a body of officials and familiars, scattered over the land, who enjoyed exemption from all other jurisdiction, secular and ecclesiastical, and who were sure, whatever crimes they might commit, to find protection and mercy in the tribunal. Even their servants and slaves had the benefit of this fuero and formed a peculiarly obnoxious class in the community. The maintenance and extension of these privileges involved the tribunal in constant strife with the authorities, lay and spiritual, quarrels which were carried on with a violence frequently destructive to the public peace. The governmental officials, however high-placed, who sought to curb inquisitorial arrogance, could have slender hope of support from their royal master. As we have seen in the chapter on Mexico, there was preserved in the Madrid archives the formula of a letter addressed to viceroys, insisting on their subservience to the Inquisition. This in 1603 was duly sent to the Marquis of Monterey, Viceroy of Peru.[657] How often this was repeated it would be impossible to say, but in 1655, at least, it was sent to the Count of Alba by Philip IV, as a warning in consequence of some squabbles in which he came to be involved with the tribunal.[658] When the colonial Inquisitions were founded, Philip II, by a cédula of August 16, 1570, took the inquisitors and all the officials under the royal protection and decreed that any one, no matter of what rank, who disturbed or injured them should incur the penalty of violating the safeguard, and this was repeated by Philip III in 1610.[659]
Francisco de Toledo, the first viceroy who had to deal with the Inquisition, was a man of decided character who, by holding the purse-strings, managed to keep within bounds Cerezuela, who was of a yielding disposition. There was dissension however, for which Alonso de Arceo, canon of la Plata, decried him as a heretic and a forger, whom the tribunal dared not accuse, but when Toledo asked it to prosecute him, it evaded the request.[660] The next viceroy, the Count del Villar, was weaker, while Ulloa, as we have seen, enforced the prerogatives of the Holy Office with a masterful hand. The quarrels which arose were long and intricate and were conducted in a way to abase thoroughly the vice-regal authority. We have seen that Villar banished Catalina Morejon to put an end to the scandal of her relations with Inquisitor Ulloa; this may have been either the cause or a result of the ill-feeling between them, but motives for dissension could not be lacking, when the domineering spirit of the tribunal refused obedience to all constituted authority, and could always frame some excuse for asserting its superior jurisdiction.
May 30, 1587, the English made a descent on Payta, where they burnt some churches and convents and desecrated some images. They had been piloted into the port by Gerónimo de Rivas, an inhabitant of Payta, whom they had captured at sea and who remained after their departure. The deputy corregidor naturally arrested him and Villar ordered him to be sent by land to Lima for examination. In some way the inquisitorial commissioner, the Mercenarian Fray Pedro Martínez, was interested in him and to save him claimed and obtained him from the corregidor as a fautor of heretics, justiciable by the Inquisition. He was forwarded by sea to Lima and was withheld from the viceroy. In August Fray Martínez came to Lima to attend a chapter of his Order, which made him comendador of his ruined convent so that he could rebuild it. Villar, who felt much aggrieved, forbade the Provincial, Fray Thomas de Valdez, to issue the commission, but the tribunal interposed and by threats of excommunication compelled its delivery. Soon after this, at the auto of November 30, 1587, there arose a quarrel, probably about the distribution of seats, which resulted in the excommunication of the viceroy, who was compelled to seek absolution.
Villar sustained an even more humiliating defeat in another encounter which exhibits the elasticity of inquisitorial jurisdiction. A young man named Antonio de Arpide y Ulloa (possibly of kin to Inquisitor Ulloa) came to Lima, with orders to admit him to a “lance” in the lancers of the guard, which was accordingly done. Ulloa appointed him fiscal of the tribunal, although, according to the Visitador Prado, he was naturally ill-conditioned, a youth in all things, careless in his office, and it was a scandal to see a fiscal wearing the garments of a layman. Villar thereupon discharged him from the guard, replacing him with Don Luis de Nevares, for the sufficient reason that the two positions were incompatible and that no one could enjoy two salaries. Arpide petitioned the tribunal for relief; as its official he was entitled to its fuero and the viceroy had no authority over him. The tribunal confirmed this view; the viceroy had no right to dismiss him, and it ordered, under a penalty of a thousand pesos, the officers of the guard to strike from the rolls the name of Nevares and replace that of Arpide, to whom the salary must be paid. The officers represented that they were under the viceroy’s orders, when they were told that they had thus incurred excommunication and the penalty. The affair was put into the shape of a suit between Arpide and Nevares, in which the tribunal of course gave a decision in favor of the former and, when the latter appealed the Suprema, it refused to allow the appeal.
There was another source of trouble in the case of Dr. Salinas, a man of evil reputation, who was appointed advocate of prisoners. Previous to this appointment he had uttered disparaging remarks about the viceroy, and had a quarrel with his secretary Juan Bello. Villar procured the assent of Ruiz de Prado and arrested Salinas, prosecuted him and subjected him to severe torture in the course of the trial. Then the tribunal interfered and Villar surrendered him and all the papers. This did not satisfy Ulloa and Prado, who forgot their mutual strife and united to give the viceroy a final blow, as his five years’ term of service was drawing to an end. Formal proceedings were commenced against him. September 26, 1589, Arpide as fiscal presented his clamosa or indictment, representing that Villar had always been disaffected to the Inquisition, had talked against it, had impeded it and had diminished its authority as far as he could. In the case of his secretary, Juan Bello, he had sent a threatening message; at the auto of November 30, 1587, he had invented means to deprive it of the services of its officials; as soon as Dr. Salinas received an appointment, he had prosecuted him for trifling words uttered long before; in the case of Gabriel Martínez de Esquivel, familiar in Huanuco, he had ordered him to report forthwith in Spain to the Council of Indies and, when asked by the tribunal for his reasons, he had made an offensive reply; he had even made investigations against the persons and reputations of the inquisitors themselves. From all this, which was notorious, it followed that he had incurred the pains and censures provided by the bull Si de protegendis of Pius V (April 1, 1569), against all who offend or despise the officials of the Inquisition, wherefore the tribunal was asked to declare him to have incurred these censures, notwithstanding any absolution ad cautelam which he might have obtained, so that he might serve as an example to all Christian people of their obligation to respect and reverence everything connected with the Holy Office.
Without going through the prescribed formalities of submitting the matter to calificadores and assembling consultores and, without hearing the accused, the tribunal that same morning decreed that Villar had incurred the censures of the bull of Pius V, while for the other penalties prescribed in it he was remitted to the Suprema. To this the viceroy replied, October 3d, that he had only sought to perform the duties of his office, but seeing that they had declared him to be under the excommunication of the bull, as an obedient son of the Church he begged for absolution and asked that it be speedy, as he was under orders to sail for Spain. For an answer to this he waited until the 16th, when he sent a judge and alcalde de corte, both consultors of the Inquisition, to the tribunal to enquire about his petition. There was read to them a reply, dated on the 14th, to the effect that the inquisitors had repeatedly intimated to him that he had incurred these censures and, in fact, it was so self-evident that every one could have known it, for every one knows that all incur them who impede the Inquisition directly or indirectly, or who ill-treat, in word or deed, the inquisitors or officials to the injury of their reputation and authority, and that good intentions are powerless to avert it. The viceroy’s acts had been so notorious that it was needless to recite them and, before absolution could be granted, condign satisfaction must be rendered for them, especially to Dr. Diego de Salinas, while, as regarded the injuries to the Holy Office, he was referred to the Suprema. As it had long been evident that he was under these censures, without seeking their removal, and as he was about to undertake a long and perilous voyage, the inquisitors had been moved by loving charity to bring him to a recognition of the condition of his soul. They were ready to absolve him as soon as he should do what was requisite and, in consideration of his station, he should be spared the solemnities required by law.
After some parleying this portentous document was delivered to Villar on the 19th and on the 27th he replied at much length. He had never been told that he was under excommunication, or he would at once have applied for absolution. He had always favored and enriched the Inquisition; he had not proceeded against Dr. Salinas till assured by Prado that he could do so, and he had surrendered him and the papers, January 11, 1589, as soon as he was summoned. Then Prado, after consulting Ulloa, had given to Fray Pedro de Molina a commission to absolve him ad cautelam, in case he had incurred excommunication for that or anything else, and he had received the absolution with great satisfaction, but the certificate had been withdrawn more than a month ago, and since then he had abstained from hearing mass or taking the sacraments, except on the feast of San Francisco (October 4th) when he had special licence from the inquisitors. He did not know how he was to give satisfaction to Dr. Salinas, as the matter had been remitted to the Suprema which, with the king, would do as they might see fit. Meanwhile, as a gentleman and an humble and obedient son of the Church, he again prayed for absolution.