Already in 1488 the Bishop had been defamed by a suspicion of judaizing, and the Grand Inquisitor now pressed that he should be called to answer to that charge, forwarding the indictment under seal to Rome.
Pending the solution of the matter by the Apostolic Court, Alexander not only treated Aranda well, but heaped honours and favours upon him and his son. The Bishop was sent to Venice as papal legate, he was appointed Master of the Sacred Palace, whilst upon his offspring was conferred the position of apostolic prothonotary.[256]
But despite the papal favour which he enjoyed, and notwithstanding the fact that he called upwards of a hundred witnesses to testify in his defence, he was found guilty. It is said that his own witnesses helped to bring about his conviction. The Pontifical Court was obliged to sentence him to loss of all ecclesiastical dignities and benefices, to degrade him and reduce him to the lay estate, whereafter he was imprisoned in Sant’ Angelo, and there he died a few years later.[257]
Notwithstanding the sentence of the Apostolic Court, Llorente finds it impossible to believe that Aranda was really guilty of Judaizing. “It seems incredible that it should have been so, considering that he had preserved the reputation of good Catholic for so long and with such applause that the Queen Donna Isabella should have named him President of the Council of Castile. His celebrating the Synodal Council in his bishopric argues zeal for the purity of religion and its dogmas. That the witnesses called should have deponed to any words or actions of his that were contrary to this does not signify as much as may at first appear, for we know, from a multitude of instances, that to fast on Sunday, to abstain from work on Saturday, to refuse to eat pork, to dislike the blood of animals, and other similar matters, sufficed as grounds upon which to declare a man a Judaizing heretic, and this notwithstanding that, as any one knows to-day, these are circumstances not at all at issue with a firm adherence to the Catholic dogmas.”[258]
His sentence, however, was not pronounced until 1498. Until then he enjoyed, as we have seen, great favour at the Papal Court. Taking advantage of this, he and the Bishop of Segovia not only acted as mediators to lay their countrymen’s grievances against Torquemada before the Pope, but, in their very natural resentment at the injustice of the prosecutions instituted against themselves, they went so far as to urge the Pope to depose the Grand Inquisitor from his office. And Llorente—who states this upon the authority of Lumbreras—adds that these petitions would, of themselves, have prevailed but for the royal protection which Torquemada continued to enjoy.[259]
But the complaints of the Grand Inquisitor’s abuse of his power continued to pour into Rome. They multiplied to such an extent, they were of such a nature, and they were presented by Spaniards of such eminence at the court of the Spanish Pontiff, that thrice was Torquemada forced to send an advocate to defend him before the Holy See.[260] And in the end Alexander considered it necessary to take measures to circumvent the royal protection which continued to oppose the deposition of the Prior of Holy Cross.
Since to depose him were too aggressive a course to adopt towards the Sovereigns, with whom the Pontiff desired to preserve the friendliest relations, at least Torquemada’s power must be curtailed. And so, by a brief of June 23, 1494, indited with all the craft and diplomacy of which Roderigo Borgia was a master, a brief in which he assures the Grand Inquisitor that “he cherishes him in the very bowels of affection for his great labours in the exaltation of the Faith,” and charged with tender solicitude for Torquemada’s failing health, the Pontiff puts forward these infirmities as a reason for assuming him no longer equal to discharge single-handed the heavy duties of his office. Therefore His Holiness considers it desirable to appoint him assistants who will lighten the labour of his declining years.
The assistants appointed by Alexander were Martin Ponce de Leon, a Castilian nobleman who was Archbishop of Messina, Don Inigo Manrique, Bishop of Cordova (nephew of the prelate of the same name who was Archbishop of Seville), Don Francisco Sanchez de la Fuente, Bishop of Avila, sometime Dean of Toledo and Councillor of the Suprema, and Don Alonso Suarez de Fuentelsaz, Bishop of Mondonedo, who had also held the position of inquisitor.
These assistants were equipped by the Pontiff with the amplest powers—powers as ample as Torquemada’s own—so that they were in no sense subservient to the Prior of Holy Cross. The term “assistant” was a papal euphuism, serving thinly to veil the fact that Torquemada’s autocratic rule was virtually at an end.