The Story of Don John of Austria

by Luis Coloma

Behind the standard followed the prisoners, about a dozen steps one from the other, and guarded each by two familiars of the Holy Office and four soldiers. The first was D. Augustin Cazalla, cleric, preacher and chaplain to His Majesty; a man of about fifty, now weak and shrunken, and stooping forward as if overcome by the weight of his sorrow and shame. He was wearing the ignominious "sanbenito," a sort of chasuble made of yellow baize, with a vivid green cross on the chest; on his head the ignoble "coroza" painted with flames and devils, and a lighted taper of green wax in his hand.

Behind him came in the following order, his brother Francisco de Vibero, also a cleric, who did not repent until the last moment, and who was gagged to silence his dreadful blasphemies; their sister Doña Beatriz de Vibero, a devout woman of rare beauty; the master Alonso Pérez, cleric of Palencia, the silversmith Juan García, Cristóbal de Campo, the Bachelor of Arts Antonio Herrezuelo, also gagged, and impenitent to the last, and for this the only one to perish in the flames; Cristóbal de Padilla, a native of Zamora, Doña Catalina de Ortega, widow of the captain Loaysa, the licentiate Calahorra, Alcalde Mayor in the employment of the Bishop, Catalina Román, Isabel Estrada, Juan Velásquez, and Gonzalo Baez, a Portuguese, and not a Lutheran heretic, but a Jew.

These were all condemned to be garrotted and their corpses burnt, and for this reason they had flames painted on their sanbenitos and corozas. Behind them two familiars of the Holy Office carried on a stretcher the shapeless figure of a woman, also dressed with a coroza and sanbenito, the bones of Doña Leonor de Vibero, mother of the Cazallas, exhumed from the monastery of San Benito, to be burnt with her effigy. Behind this first group came, guarded in the same manner, another sixteen prisoners, men and women, condemned to various punishments, but not to death, for which reason they did not wear the corozas or flames on their sanbenitos; the men went bareheaded, and the women with a piece of linen on their head to hide their shame. The most noteworthy among them were D. Pedro Sarmiento, Commander of the Order of Alcantara, and a relation of the Admiral, and his wife Doña Mencia de Figueroa, who had been a lady of the Court; he was condemned to forfeit the robes of his Order and Commandery, to perpetual prison and the sanbenito, with the necessity of hearing mass and a sermon on Sunday, and to communicate on the three great feasts, and forbidden to use silk, gold, silver, horses, and jewels; she was only condemned to perpetual prison and the wearing of the sanbenito.

When Doña Mencia mounted the platform the ladies of the Court burst into tears, and the Princess herself hurriedly left and went inside, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief. The Marqués de Poza, D. Luis de Rojas, also inspired deep pity, a gay boy, exiled for ever from the Court, and deprived of all the honours of a gentleman; and even more Doña Ana Enriquez, daughter of the Marqués de Alcañices, a girl of great beauty, who was sentenced to leave the platform with sanbenito and taper, to fast for three days, to return with her dress to the prison, and then go free. Such was the repentance and confusion of this lady that, mounting the tribune to hear her sentence, her strength left her, and she would have fallen from the platform, had not a son of the Duque de Gandia, who was there as a devout penitent, supported her.

The prisoners were placed on the steps in the order arranged, those condemned to death separated from the others, and the Auto was begun by a young Dominican brother, of ruddy complexion, and rapid and violent in his marvellous eloquence, mounting the centre pulpit. It was the celebrated Maestro Fr. Melchor Cano, one of the most learned men of his time, and he preached for more than an hour on the text of St. Matthew, "Flee from false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves."

The sermon ended, the Archbishop of Seville, Valdéz, the Inquisitor of Valladolid, Vaca, and his secretary mounted the throne to submit the oath to the Prince and Princess. The Archbishop carried a beautiful cross of gold and jewels, the Inquisitor a missal, and the secretary the form of the oath written on parchment. Standing up, the Prince and Princess, D. Carlos cap in hand, swore by the cross and missal in these words, which the secretary read: "That as Catholic Princes they would defend with all might and life the Catholic faith as held and believed by the Holy Mother Church Apostolic of Rome, and its conservation and increase; that they would give all the necessary favour and help to the Holy Office of the Inquisition and its ministers, that heretics, disturbers of the Christian religion which they professed, should be punished according to the Apostolic decrees and sacred canons, without omission on their part or making any exception." "El Relator" Juan de Ortega then read this same formula to the people from one of the tribunes of the lower platform, crying first three times, "Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!"

And the people, with the vehemence of conviction and the haste of those who have received a warning, answered with one voice, with one cry of fear and conviction, "Yes, we swear."

Then the same "Relator," Juan de Ortega, and the clerk of Toledo, Juan de Vergara, ascended the two tribunes on the platform, and began to read alternately, the trials and convictions of the prisoners beginning with Dr. Cazalla. From a high pulpit each heard his own sentence read, and remained all the time with a lighted taper of green wax in his hand, exposed to public shame. Then it was that Doña Ana de Enriquez nearly fell out of the pulpit overwhelmed with confusion.

At four o'clock in the afternoon the reading was ended. Then the Archbishop of Seville put on his pontifical vestments, and solemnly absolved and restored to the bosom of the Church the sixteen reconciled prisoners, who were then taken back to their respective cells. The other fourteen, who were condemned to death, left at the same time, some walking, others riding on donkeys, to be garrotted, and afterwards burnt on the Parade Ground.

Such was then an Auto da Fe, certainly a sad and sorrowful sight, but still, perhaps not so emotional as the sight of certain trials to which in our day the public flock, not to sanction by their presence the judgment and justice nor as a warning lesson, but greedy to see the seamy side of sorrow and crime. As to the horrible scenes of the "Quemadero" (the burning), no one attended them but those obliged by their office, and a public low and ignorant, no doubt, and for this reason much more blameless than those who nowadays attend our executions, full of unhealthy curiosity or cold indifference. There is no doubt, says the profound thinker Balmes, that, if the doctrine of those who wish to abolish the death penalty should ever become effective, when posterity reads of the executions of our days, they will be as horrified as we are over those of the past. The gallows, garrotte and the guillotine will be placed on a par with the ancient "Quemaderos."