Juan de Salas was condemned, notwithstanding his denial; and Llorente makes the following remarks on the whole case of shocking injustice and cruelty:—
“We may form an idea of the humanity of the Inquisition at Valladolid from the definitive sentence pronounced by the licentiate Moriz and his colleague, Dr. Alvarado, without any other formality, after they had taken (if we may believe them) the advice of persons noted for their learning and virtue, but without the adjournment which ought to have preceded it, and without the concurrence of the diocesan in ordinary. They declared that the fiscal had not entirely approved the accusation, and that the prisoner had succeeded in destroying some of the charges; but that, on account of the suspicion arising from the trial, Juan de Salas was condemned to the punishment of the public auto da fé, in his shirt, without a cloak, his head uncovered, and with a torch in his hand; that he should abjure heresy publicly; and that he should pay ten ducats of gold to the Inquisition, and fulfil his penance in the church assigned. It is seen, by a certificate afterwards given in, that Juan de Salas performed his auto da fé on the 24th of June, 1528, and that his father paid the fine. The trial offers no other peculiarity. This affair, and several others of a similar nature, caused the supreme council to publish a decree, in 1558, commanding that the torture should not be administered without an order from the council.”
2. Donna Johanna Bohorques.—Limborch, from Gonsalvius, gives the following account of this noble young lady, who was really murdered by the inquisitors in their tortures of her, about A.D. 1569.
“At the same time almost, they apprehended, in the Inquisition at Seville, a noble lady, Johanna Bohorques, the wife of Don Francis de Vargos, a very eminent man, and Lord of Heguera, and daughter of Peter Garsia Xeresius, a wealthy citizen of Seville. The occasion of her imprisonment was, her sister, Maria Bohorques, a young lady of eminent piety, who was afterwards burnt for her pious confession, had declared, in her torture, that she had several times conversed with her sister concerning her doctrine. When she was first imprisoned she was about six months gone with child, upon which account she was not so straitly confined, nor used with that cruelty which the other prisoners were treated with, out of regard to the infant she carried. Eight days after her delivery they took the child from her, and on the fifteenth shut her up close, and made her undergo the fate of the other prisoners, and began to manage her cause with their usual arts and rigour. In so dreadful a calamity she had only this comfort, that a certain pious young woman, who was afterwards burnt for her religion by the inquisitors, was allowed her for her companion. This young creature was, on a certain day, carried out to her torture; and being returned from it into her gaol, she was so shaken, and had her limbs so miserably disjointed, that when she was laid upon her bed of rushes, it rather increased her misery than gave her rest, so that she could not turn herself without the most excessive pain. In this condition, as Bohorques had it not in her power to show her any, or but very little outward kindness, she endeavoured to comfort her mind with great tenderness. The girl had scarcely begun to recover from her torture, when Bohorques was carried out to the same exercise, and was tortured with such diabolical cruelty upon the rack, that the rope pierced and cut into the very bones in several places; and in this manner she was brought back to prison, just ready to expire, the blood running out of her mouth in great plenty. Undoubtedly they had burst her bowels, insomuch that the eighth day after her torture she died. And when, after all, they could not procure sufficient evidence to condemn her, though sought after and procured by all their inquisitorial arts—yet as the accused person was born in that place, where they were obliged to give some account of the affair to the people, and, indeed, could not, by any means, dissemble it—in the first act of triumph appointed after her death, they commanded her sentence to be pronounced in these words:—‘Because this lady died in prison (without doubt suppressing the cause of it), and was found to be innocent upon inspecting and diligently examining her cause, therefore the holy tribunal pronounces her free from all charges brought against her by the fiscal, and absolving her from any further process, doth restore her, both as to her innocence and reputation, and commands all her effects, which had been confiscated, to be restored to those to whom they of right belonged.’ And thus, after they had murdered her, by torture, with savage cruelty, they pronounced her innocent!”
Llorente adds, “Under what an overwhelming responsibility will these monsters appear before the tribunal of the Almighty!”
This instance of refined barbarity in the inquisitors strikingly displays their hypocrisy as professors of the benevolent religion of Christ, and their malignity against those who dared to listen to the doctrines of the Scriptures, then condemned under the name of Lutheranism.
3. Donna Maria Bohorques.—This lady was sister of Johanna, who had been murdered in the Inquisition. She perished in the flames at Seville. The account of her states, “She had completed her twenty-first year when she was arrested on suspicion of being a Lutheran. Under the instruction of D. Juan Gil, bishop of Tortosa, she was perfectly acquainted with the Latin language, and had made considerable progress in Greek. She knew the Gospel by heart, and was deeply read in those commentaries which explain, in a Lutheran sense, the text referring to justification by faith, good works, the sacraments, and the characteristics of the true church.
“Donna Maria was confined in the secret prisons of the Inquisition, where she avowed the doctrines imputed to her, defended them against the arguments of the priests who visited her, and boldly told the inquisitors, that instead of punishment for the creed which she held, they would do much better to imitate her example. With regard to the depositions of her accusers, though she allowed the principal points, she persisted in denying some things which related to the opinions of other individuals; and this denial gave the inquisitors an opportunity of putting her to the rack. By this torture they only procured a confession that her sister, Johanna Bohorques, knew her sentiments, and had not disapproved of them; and, as she persisted in her confession of faith, sentence was passed upon her as an obstinate heretic. In the interval between her condemnation and the auto da fé, at which she was to suffer, the inquisitors made every exertion to bring her back to the Romish faith. They sent to her, successively, two Jesuits and two Dominican priests, who laboured with great zeal for her conversion; but they returned without having effected their object, full of admiration of the talents she displayed, and regretting the obstinacy with which she persisted in what they supposed a damnable heresy. The evening before the auto da fé, two Dominicans joined in the attempt, and were followed by several theologians of other orders. Donna Maria received them with civility, but dissuaded them from attempting the hopeless task. To the professions which they made of being interested in the welfare of her soul, she answered, that she believed them to be sincere, but that they must not suppose that she, being the party chiefly concerned, felt a less interest in the matter than they did. She told them, that she came to prison fully satisfied of the orthodoxy of the creed which she held, and that she had been confirmed in her belief by the evident futility of the arguments brought against it.
“At the stake, Don Juan Ponce de Leon, who had abjured the Lutheran doctrines, exhorted Donna Maria to follow his example. The weakness of this apostate for a moment overcame her, and she silenced him by language rather of contempt than of pity. Recollecting herself, however, she told him that the time for controversy was past, and that their wisest plan would be, to occupy the few minutes which remained to them, in meditating on the death of their Redeemer, in order to confirm that faith by which alone they could be justified. All that poor Juan Ponce de Leon gained by his apostacy was, that he was not burnt alive, but first strangled, and then burnt. On this occasion, the attendant priest, moved by the youth and talents of Donna Maria, offered her this milder death, if she would merely repeat the Creed. With this offer she readily complied; but having finished it, she began immediately to explain its articles, according to the sense of the reformers. This confession of faith was immediately interrupted. Donna Maria was strangled by the executioner, and her body was afterwards reduced to ashes!”
4. Melchior Hernandez.—This victim was a merchant of Toledo, whence he removed to settle, A.D. 1564, in Murcia, where he was arrested by the officers of the Inquisition, charged with Judaism. Witnesses, known to be his enemies, appeared against him, but their evidence was contradictory; yet he was detained in prison. Being dangerously ill, he demanded an audience of the inquisitors, to whom he said that he had been present at a meeting, a year before, where the subject of conversation was the law of Moses. Some days after, at his re-examination, he declared that what was said at the meeting was in jest, and he did not recollect the particulars of the conversation. Having said to the visitor of the tribunal that the things which he had declared, he had been induced to utter before his judges by the fear of death, he was put to the torture, to compel him to confess what he knew respecting certain persons; but he bore the cruel infliction without uttering a word. On the 18th of October, 1565, he was declared, as a Jewish heretic, to be guilty of concealment in his confession, and condemned to be burnt. His execution was fixed for the 9th of December; and on the 7th he was exhorted to a full confession. He replied, that he had confessed all he knew; and the next day, being desired to prepare for death, he declared that he had seen the persons whom he had mentioned, and some others at the meeting; that they conversed respecting the law of Moses, but that he regarded their communications as mere pastime. Between this and the commencement of the auto da fé, next day, he made several communications, in hope of escaping death, giving the names of various parties as his accomplices. This disclosure being unavailing to induce the inquisitor to suspend his execution, Melchior stated that he had really believed, for a year, what had been preached in the synagogue, though he had not confessed the fact, because he thought there was no proof of heresy in the depositions of the witnesses. His execution was suspended, and he was subjected to new examinations, at which he made extraordinary and contradictory statements, perplexing to his judges; three of whom voted for his punishment and two for his reconciliation. The council decreed that Melchior should be burnt on the 8th of June, 1567; and on each of the three preceding days he was called up, and exhorted to declare his accomplices. The habit of a prisoner to be burnt was put upon him, when he declared that he could name other accomplices, and an inquisitor went to receive his confession. He gave another synagogue, and seven other places, with the names of fourteen persons who frequented them. This not being deemed satisfactory, he was led, with others, to the place of execution, where he mentioned two more houses, and twelve heretics; in a second audience, he gave seven more persons; and in a third audience, two more houses, and six persons. He was again remanded, as he hoped; but on the 23rd of June, despairing of success, he appealed to his judges, “What more could I do than accuse myself falsely? Know that I have never been summoned to any assembly; that I never attended any but for the purposes of commerce.” After many audiences, he was for the third time sentenced for execution, and he again succeeded in escaping the fire. In five subsequent audiences he denounced various persons; but he was declared “still guilty of concealment, in not mentioning several persons not less distinguished and well known than those already denounced, and that he could not be supposed to have forgotten them.”