Fidel Fita quotes an interesting letter of Torquemada’s, dated August 17, 1490, in which he thanks the gentry of Torquemada for having sent him a sumpter-mule, but rather seems to rebuke the gift.
“To me,” he writes, “it was not, nor is necessary to send such things; and it is certain that I should have sent back the gift but that it might have offended you; for I, praised be our Lord, possess nine sumpter-mules, which suffice me.”[153]
In sending the gift they had asked him for assistance towards the work being carried out in the church of Santa Ollala, the contribution he had already made not having proved sufficient. He replies regretting that he can do nothing at the moment, as he is not with the Court, but promises that upon his return thither he will do the necessary with the Sovereigns so as to be able to send them the further funds they require.[154]
As early as 1482 he began to build at Avila the church and monastery of St. Thomas. This pleasant little country town, packed within its narrow red walls and flanked with towers so that it presents the appearance of a formidable castle, stands upon rising ground in the fertile plain that is watered by the River Adaja. Torquemada built his magnificent monastery beyond the walls, upon the site of a humbler edifice that had been erected by the pious D. Maria de Avila. It was completed by the year 1493, and what moneys came to him thereafter appear to have gone to the endowment of this vast convent—a place of handsome, spacious, cloistered courts and splendid galleries—which became at once his chief residence, tribunal, and prison.[155]
Again his fanatical hatred of the Israelites displays itself in the condition he laid down—and whose endorsement he obtained from Pope Alexander VI—that no descendant of Jew or Moor should ever be admitted to these walls, upon which he engraved the legend:
PESTEM FUGAT HÆRETICAM.[156]
In this monastery the amplest provisions were made, not only for the tribunal of the Inquisition, but also for the incarceration of its prisoners.
Garcia Rodrigo, anxious to refute the widespread belief that the prisons of the Inquisition were unhealthy subterranean dungeons, draws attention to the airy, sunny chambers here set apart for prisoners.[157] It is true enough in this instance, as transpires from certain records that are presently to be considered.[158] But it is not true in general, and it almost seems a little disingenuous of Garcia Rodrigo to put forward a striking exception as an instance of the rule that obtained.
Whatever the simplicity of Torquemada’s life, and whatever his personal humility, it would be idle to pretend that he was not imbued with the pride and arrogance of his office, swollen by the increase of power accorded him, until in matters of the Faith he did not hesitate to dictate to the Sovereigns themselves, and to reproach them almost to the point of menace when they were slow to act as he dictated, whilst it was dangerous for any under Sovereign rank to come into conflict with the Grand Inquisitor.
As an instance of this, the case of the Captain-General of Valencia may be cited. The Inquisition of Valencia had arrested, upon a charge of hindering the Holy Office, one Domingo de Santa Cruz, whose particular offence, in the Captain-General’s view, came rather within the jurisdiction of the military courts. Acting upon this opinion, he ordered his troops to take the accused from the prison of the Holy Office, employing force to that end if necessary.