But Guevára immediately objects, urging that in the copies of the depositions to be given defendant, no names shall appear of any of the witnesses who had deponed, and no circumstances shall be included which might enable Yucé to conjecture the names. It seems a purely formal objection; for after the confrontations there have been it appears to serve very little purpose. But some purpose it does serve, because those confrontations after all were limited to Ocaña and Benito, and from the moment that it was not considered necessary to proceed to confrontation with any of the other prisoners it would seem that they had needed no such spur to drive them into depositions hostile to Yucé.
However, the reverend inquisitor replies loftily enough that he will do what justice demands, and he orders the notary to deliver to Yucé copies of all the depositions against him. But from Yucé’s advocate’s plea on October 29—upon the expiry of the three days appointed—it is plain that the particulars claimed have been withheld.
From the fact that the advocate Sanç has drawn up so strong an objection on behalf of his client, it is perfectly clear that even at this date Yucé’s guilt of heresy cannot be considered as established. If that were the case, Sanç, in obedience to the oath imposed upon him when entrusted with the defence, would have been compelled to lay down his brief and withdraw.
Yucé denies all the allegations against him which charge him with having taken any active part in the crucifixion of the boy, and he protests that he is unable properly to defend himself because the copies of the depositions supplied him do not mention time or place of the alleged offences nor yet the names of the witnesses by whom these allegations are made. Upon the assumption, however, that these deponents are Benito Garcia, Juan Franco, and Juan de Ocaña, he proceeds to answer the charges as best he can.
This answer consists of a repudiation of those depositions as inadmissible upon the grounds that they do not agree one with another, and that each refers to a separate circumstance, no two confirming any one particular accusation, and all being contrary to what the same witnesses had stated in confrontation with the defendant, when each had acknowledged that Yucé’s relation of the events was the true one. Hence it is established that on one or the other of these occasions they must have lied, from which it follows that they are perjured and unworthy of faith.
Further, he claims that they may not be admitted as witnesses because they were, themselves, participators in the crime committed. Finally, he declares that their implication of himself is an act of spite and vengeance upon him. It is his full and faithful confession which has placed the inquisitors in possession of the facts of the case and the names of the offenders, and the latter are determined that since they themselves must die, Yucé shall die with them—out of which malice and enmity they have accused him.
Upon these grounds, and insisting that he has told them the utter and complete truth, and that he himself was no more than a witness of the events, and in no way a participator, Yucé bases his defence, and begs that the depositions should cease to weigh against him.[205]
Guevára’s answer, if it inclines to the grotesque, is quite typical, and is certainly more to the taste of the court.
He denies that the witnesses are inspired by any such animosity as Yucé suggests, and he asserts that they have deponed “with devout zeal of faith, and to deliver their souls from peril.” And amongst these, be it remembered, was Benito Garcia, who conceived that the worst thing he had ever done in his life had been to get himself baptized a Christian, and who continued firm in his resolve to die a Jew at all costs. Only at the very stake itself—as we shall see—did he recant again, that he might earn the mercy of strangulation. Yet Guevára does not hesitate to say—what he must know to be untrue—that these men have confessed “with devout zeal of faith.”
On these grounds Guevára urges that the depositions must be admitted as made in good faith and as proof; and since the said Yucé Franco would not spontaneously confess all that he had done, their Reverend Paternities should put him to the question of torture, as by law prescribed in such circumstances as the present.[206]