The Doctor Juan Perez de Pineda, whose effigy was the third in the auto-da-fé, was born at Montilla in Andalusia; he was placed at the head of the College de la Doctrina, in which the young people of Seville were educated.
He made his escape when he was informed that the inquisitors were about to arrest him as suspected of Lutheranism. Proceedings were instituted against him as contumacious, and he was condemned as a formal Lutheran heretic. He had composed several works: the Index prohibited the following: The Holy Bible, translated into the Castilian tongue; a Catechism, printed at Venice in 1556 by Pedro Daniel; The Psalms of David in Spanish; and a Summary of the Christian Doctrine. Juan Perez had attained a great age when he was condemned. Of the fourteen persons who were reconciled in the second auto-da-fé the most remarkable were:—
Julian Hernandez, surnamed the Little, a native of Villaverdè. The wish to promulgate Lutheran books in Seville induced him to go to Germany. He gave the books to Don Juan Ponce de Leon, who undertook to distribute them. He passed more than three years in the prisons of the Holy Office, and was tortured several times, to force him to discover his accomplices. He bore the torture with a fortitude far above his physical strength, and remained faithful to his creed. When he arrived at the stake he arranged the wood around him so as to burn quickly; the Doctor Ferdinand Rodriguez, who attended him, demanded that the gag should be taken from his month, that he might make his confession, but Júlian opposed it, and he was burnt.
Nicholas Burton, born in England, was condemned at an impenitent Lutheran heretic. It is impossible to justify the conduct of the inquisitors to this Englishman, and several other foreigners who had not settled in Spain, and were merely returning to their respective countries after having transacted their commercial affairs. This man came to Spain in a vessel laden with merchandise, which, he said, was all his own property, but of which some part belonged to John Fronton, who was reconciled in this auto-da-fé. Burton refused to abjure, and was burnt alive; the inquisitors seized his vessel and its freight, thus proving that avarice was the principal motive of the Inquisition. The inquisitors were guilty of a great cruelty in this instance, and the commerce of Spain would perhaps have been destroyed, if the violence committed against Burton, and some others, had not been protested against by the different powers, which induced Philip IV. to prohibit the inquisitors from molesting foreign merchants and travellers, if they did not attempt to promulgate heretical opinions; but the inquisitors eluded this order, by pretending that they brought prohibited books into the kingdom, or spoke in favour of heresy.
Gonzalez de Montes speaks of the arrival in Spain of a very rich stranger, named Rehukin, whose vessel was finer and better built than any that had ever appeared at San-Lucar de Barrameda. The Inquisition arrested him as an heretic, and confiscated his property; the merchant proved that the vessel did not belong to him, and that it could not be included in the confiscation; but his efforts to recover it were useless.
Two other foreigners shared the fate of Burton. One was an Englishman named William Brook, born at Sarum, and a sailor; the other was a Frenchman of Bayonne, named Fabianne, whose trade required his presence in Spain.
The Beata protected by Francis Zafra, who had recovered her senses, but persisted in her heresy, was burnt in this auto-da-fé, with five women of her family. Thirty-four persons were condemned to penances. The most remarkable instances were:—
John Fronton, an Englishman of the city of Bristol, who came to Seville, where he was informed of the arrest of Nicholas Burton. He was the proprietor of a considerable part of the merchandise taken from Burton, and after proving this fact by documents which he brought from England he claimed restitution. He was subjected to great delays and expenses, but as it was impossible to deny his rights, the inquisitors promised to restore the merchandise: in the mean time they contrived that witnesses should appear and depose that John Fronton had advanced heretical propositions, and he was taken to the secret prisons. The fear of death induced Fronton to say everything that the inquisitors required, and he demanded reconciliation. He was declared to be violently suspected of the Lutheran heresy. This was sufficient to authorize the inquisitors to seize his property, and he was reconciled, condemned to forfeit his merchandise, and to wear the san-benito for the space of one year. This is a remarkable proof of the mischief produced by the secrecy of the inquisitorial proceedings. If the affair of John Fronton had been made public, any lawyer would have shown the nullity and falsehood of the instruction. Yet there are Englishmen who defend the tribunal of the holy office as a useful institution, and I have heard an English Catholic priest speak in its defence. I represented that he did not understand the nature of the tribunal; that I was not less attached to the Catholic religion than he, or any inquisitor might be; but that if the spirit of peace and charity, humility and disinterestedness, inculcated by the Holy Scriptures, is compared with the system of severity, craft, and malice, dictated by the laws of the holy office, and the power possessed by the inquisitors (from the secrecy of their proceedings) of abusing their authority in defiance of natural and divine laws, the orders of the Popes and the royal decrees, it will be impossible not to detest the tribunal as only tending to produce hypocrisy.
Gaspard de Benavides was an alcalde of the prison of the Inquisition, and appeared in the auto-da-fé with a flambeau; he was banished for life from Seville, and lost his place, for having failed in zeal and attention in his employment. Let this qualification and the sentence be compared with the crime of which he was accused. He purloined part of the small rations of the prisoners, the food which he gave them was of a bad quality, and he made them pay for it, as if it was superior; he did not take care to prepare it properly, it was badly cooked and seasoned; he deceived them in the price of wood, and made false bills of expenditure. If any of the prisoners complained, he removed them to a dark and humid dungeon, where he left them for a fortnight or even longer, to punish them for murmuring; he did not fail to tell them that he did this by the order of the inquisitors, and that they were released at his intercession. When any prisoner demanded an audience, Gaspard (fearing that they would denounce him) did not inform the inquisitors of the request, and told the prisoner the next day that the inquisitors were so much occupied that they could not grant audiences. In short, there was no sort of injustice which he did not commit, until the moment when his conduct was discovered by chance.
Maria Gonzalez, a servant of this man, was condemned to receive two hundred stripes, and to be banished for ten years. Her crime was, having received money from some prisoners, and having permitted them to see and converse with each other.