CHAPTER IX
THE SUPREME COUNCIL
The Sovereigns appear to have submitted without protest to this papal interference and to the revocation of the faculty bestowed upon them of nominating the inquisitors in their kingdom. This submission was hardly to have been expected from their earlier attitude, but there are two reasons, either or both of which may possibly account for it.
It will be remembered that there was a considerable number of New-Christians about the Court and in immediate attendance upon the Queen, one of whom was her secretary Pulgar. What view Pulgar took of the Seville proceedings we know, and it is not too much to assume that his view was the view of all Christians of Jewish extraction. These New-Christians and others may very well have urged upon the notice of the Sovereigns the cruelties and injustices that were being practised, drawing their attention to the decree that made innocent children suffer for the offences of which their parents had been convicted—a decree which, hideous enough when the parents were actually guilty, became unspeakably hideous when that guilt was no more than presumed.
In view of such representations the Sovereigns may have found the papal rebuke unanswerable and the Pope’s action justified.
Then, again, they may have taken into consideration the projected war upon Granada, the last province of the peninsula remaining in Moorish hands. Funds were urgently required for this campaign, and the confiscations that were daily being effected by the Holy Office were rapidly supplying these—for the early victims of the Inquisition, as we know, were persons of great wealth and distinction.[77]
Now the papal brief, whilst it cancelled the royal prerogative of appointing inquisitors, did not attempt to divert the course of this stream of confiscated property, nor, indeed, made any mention of the matter. So that they may have hesitated to oppose themselves to measures which they recognized as just and which continued to supply them with the means for what they looked upon as a righteous crusade.
Bigotry and acquisitiveness were again joining forces, and, united, they must prove, as ever, irresistible.
But on February 11, 1482, the Roman Curia issued another brief addressed to the Sovereigns, wherein—entirely ignoring what already had been written—it was announced that the General of the Dominicans, Fr. Alonso de Cebrian, having represented to the Pope the need to multiply the number of inquisitors in Spain, his Holiness had resolved to appoint the said Fr. Alonso and seven other Dominicans to conduct the affairs of the Holy Office in that kingdom, commanding them to exercise their ministry in conjunction with the diocesan ordinary and in accordance with the terms set forth in the briefs that were being addressed to them.[78]
One of the eight Dominicans mentioned by the Pope was Fr. Tomás de Torquemada, who by now was become confessor to the King and to the Cardinal of Spain.
This brief, following so rapidly upon that which revoked the Sovereigns’ power, may have caused Ferdinand and Isabella to look upon it as the second move in an intrigue whose aim was to strengthen the ecclesiastical arm in Spain to the detriment of the royal authority.