In fifty-four of these ceremonies seventy-four persons were burnt, with sixty-three effigies, and eight-hundred and eighty-one condemned to penances. From this statement we may calculate, that during the forty-six years of the reign of Philip V. fourteen thousand and sixty-six individuals were condemned by the Inquisition to different punishments.
It has been a common opinion, that the Inquisition began to be less severe towards heretics, when the princes of the house of Bourbon ascended the throne of Spain; but other causes seem to have decreased the number of its victims, which will be considered in the following chapters.
Among the pretended sorcerers condemned by the Inquisition was Juan Perez de Espejo, who was punished at Madrid in 1743, as a blasphemous hypocrite and a sorcerer. This person, after taking the name of Juan de St. Esprit, is said to have been the founder of the Congregation of Hospitaliers or of the Divine Shepherd, which still exists. He was condemned to receive two hundred stripes, and to be imprisoned ten years in a fortress.
A number of the disciples of Molinos were also condemned. Don Joseph Fernandez de Toro, Bishop of Oviedo, was condemned for this doctrine in 1721. The Inquisition of Logroño burnt Don Juan de Causados, a prebend of Tudela, the most intimate friend and disciple of Molinos; he had promulgated his mystic doctrines with great zeal and enthusiasm. His nephew, Juan de Longas, maintained this doctrine after his death; he is still known in Navarre, Rioxa, Burgos, and Soria, by the name of Brother John. The inquisitors of Logroño condemned him, in 1729, to receive two hundred stripes, and sent him for ten years to the galleys: he was afterwards imprisoned for life. Unfortunately some monks of his order had adopted his sentiments, and had communicated them to several nuns of the Convents of Lerma and Corrella, which gave occasion to several autos-da-fé.
Donna Agueda de Luna was the principal of these: she was born of noble parents at Corella, in Navarre. In 1712 she entered the Carmelite Convent at Lerma, with so great a reputation for virtue, that she was looked upon as a saint. In 1713 she had already adopted the heresy of Molinos; she passed twenty years in the convent, and her fame was continually increased by the accounts of her ecstasies and miracles, which were promulgated by Juan de Longas, the Prior de Lerma, the provincial, and other monks of the first rank, who were all accomplices in the imposture of Agueda, and interested in her reputation for sanctity.
A convent was founded at the place of her birth, and she was made prioress; in this character she continued her iniquitous course of life without losing any of her reputation, which, on the contrary, became so great, that the inhabitants of all the neighbouring countries repaired to her to implore her intercession with God.
After having passed a life full of iniquity, concealed by an appearance of sanctity, Agueda was denounced to the Inquisition of Logroño; she was taken to the secret prison, where she died from the consequences of the torture, before her trial was terminated. She confessed during the question that her sanctity was an imposture; she appeared to repent in her last moments, and received absolution. It was said in the informations taken during the trial, that Agueda had made a compact with the demon, and had sold her soul to him. She was also accused of infanticide, and some bones were found in the spot where it was said that her children were murdered and buried.
Fray Juan de la Vega, provincial of the barefooted Carmelites, was also prosecuted as an accomplice of Agueda; he was her spiritual director, and, according to the evidence in his trial, had participated in her crimes, and seduced several other nuns. Several persons declared that Fray Juan had likewise made a compact with the demon; but he denied the fact, and resisted the severity of the torture, although he was advanced in years. He only confessed that he had received the money for eleven thousand eight hundred masses which had not been said. He was declared to be suspected in the highest degree, and sent to the desert Convent of Duruelo, where he died a short time after.
The provincial, and the secretary, and the two monks who had held those offices in the three preceding years, were implicated in the charges, arrested, tortured, and denied the facts; they were confined in the convents of their order in Majorca, Bilboa, Valladolid, and Osma. The annalist of the order confessed his crime, and appeared in the auto-da-fé with the San-benito. The other nuns who were found guilty were dispersed in different convents.
The trial of Don Balthazar Mendoza-Sandoval, Bishop of Segovia and inquisitor-general, was equally famous, though from a different cause. The conduct of this bad prelate towards Froilan Diaz has been related in the preceding chapter. When the Supreme Council refused to sanction the enormous abuse of his powers which he meditated, Mendoza ordered the arrest of three of the councillors who had been the most remarkable in their opposition; he requested of the king, in a false representation, the dismissal of Don Antonio Zambrana, Don Juan Arzemendi, and Don Juan Miguelez, whom he sent loaded with chains to Santiago de Grenada, and formed the bold design of depriving the council of the right of intervention in the trials submitted to them, and the members of the power of voting a definitive sentence.