This act of despotism roused the resolution of Philip V. On the 24th of December he submitted the affair to the Council of Castile. On the 21st of January, 1704, the council proposed that the Supreme Council should be re-established in the possession of the privileges it had enjoyed since the foundation of the Inquisition, and that the three members should be restored to their office. The king took this advice, and commanded Mendoza to give in his resignation and leave Madrid.
Mendoza complained to the Pope, who wrote to the king to remonstrate on the manner of treating one of his sub-delegates. The king, however, maintained his resolution with firmness, and Mendoza was obliged to obey.
The king gave another proof of his firmness in defending the privileges of the crown, in his conduct towards the Inquisitor-general Judice, in the affair of Don Melchior Macanaz[75]. Philip, however, endured an insult from the Inquisition, which it is surprising that he did not avenge. He had complained of a decree which Cardinal Judice had signed at Marli in 1714, prohibiting the works of Macanaz. The members of the Supreme Council had the boldness to reply that his majesty might suppress the holy office if he thought proper, but that, according to the apostolic bulls, he could not prevent it from exercising its office while it continued in existence.
The Council of Castile, on the 3rd of November, 1714, gave the king substantial reasons for the suppression of the holy office. The ordinance for that purpose was prepared, and the blow would have been struck, but for the intrigues of the Queen, Isabella Farnese; the Jesuit Daubenton, her confessor, and Cardinal Alberoni, who made the faithful and zealous conduct of Macanaz appear in a criminal light. They reminded the king of the advice of Louis XIV., and obtained another decree annulling the first. In this ordinance the king acknowledges that he had paid too much attention to the evil advice of perfidious ministers, and approves the prohibition of the works of Macanaz as favourable to the rights of the crown, re-establishes the counsellors who had been dismissed, and praises the conduct of Cardinal Judice.
The Inquisition prohibited the works of Barclay and Talon in the same edict with those of Macanaz, because they defended the rights of the crown against the pretensions of the Court of Rome, and Philip had the weakness to sanction an act so prejudicial to his own authority. It was during this reign that the works of Nicolas Belando and Don Joseph Quiros were prohibited[76].
Among the trials I examined at Saragossa, was one very similar to that of Corellas, but the criminals had not committed the crime of infanticide, or made a compact with the demon.
CHAPTER XLI.
OF THE INQUISITION DURING THE REIGN OF FERDINAND VI.
PHILIP V. left his crown to Ferdinand VI., his eldest son by his first wife, Gabriella of Savoy. This prince reigned from the 9th of July, 1746, to the 10th of August, 1759; he died without children. He was succeeded by his brother, Charles III. of Naples, the son of Philip V. and Isabella Farnese, his second wife. Don Francis Perez del Prado, Bishop of Teruel, held the office of inquisitor-general at the accession of Ferdinand. He was succeeded by Don Manuel Quintano Bonifaz, Archbishop of Pharsala, who was still in office at the death of that Prince.
The rise of good taste in literature in Spain, the restoration of which was prepared under Philip V., was dated from the reign of Ferdinand VI. On this circumstance is founded the opinion that the accession of the Bourbons caused a change in the system of the Inquisition; yet these princes never gave any new laws to the institution, or suppressed any of the ancient code, and, consequently, did not prevent any of the numerous autos-da-fé which were celebrated in their reigns. But Philip established at Madrid two Royal Academies for History and the Spanish language, on the model of that of Paris, and favoured a friendly intercourse between the literati of the two nations.
The agreement made in 1737 with the Court of Rome, concerning the contributions to be imposed on the clergy, and some other points of discipline, had rendered appeals to the Pope more rare; and many opinions were admitted to be reasonable, which had been long represented as unfavourable to religion and piety, by the ignorance and superstition of one side, and the malevolence of the other. The establishment of weekly papers made the people acquainted with works they had never before heard of, and informed them of resolutions of the Catholic princes, concerning the clergy, which a short time before they would have considered as an outrage against religion and its ministers. The Diario de los Literatos (Journal de Savans) also opened the eyes of many persons, who, till then, had not been able to judge of books.