A Queen of Nine Days

by Unknown

''Tis just,' said he, 'as if those monks and cardinals of old had busied themselves with setting up a lot of stone walls between folks and their Maker, so that they might keep their distance; and it was the same sort of thing the disciples of our Lord wanted to do when they tried to keep the children off Him that the mothers brought. "Go away," said they, "you are troubling the Master." But what did He do? He called the little ones to Him and laid His hands upon them and blessed them. That is His fashion, and I reckon He is the same now as He was then.'

And then, after that introductory speech, Sir Hubert Blair stepped forward; and looking down upon the crowd with shining eyes, and it seemed to me a light upon his face, he began to speak, at first slowly and with laboured distinctness, but presently more rapidly, with glowing words, and, ever and anon, gestures of great significance.

'I have been,' said he, 'to a land where the blessings of the Reformation do not exist, and I will tell you what sort of thing is going on there. Bigotry, intolerant bigotry, holds the kingdom of Spain in adamantine fetters. There, where the healing breath of the Reformation, with its God-sent tolerance has not come, cruelty, death and desolation are stalking through the land, leaving behind them a track of blood and tears, broken hearts and mourners weeping for their dear ones, whose innocent lives have been plucked from them by the cruel and relentless hands of torture——' He broke down for a moment or two, covering his face with his hands, and shuddering violently as if at some awful recollection, and a whisper went round among the more intelligent of the audience to the effect that he was speaking about the Inquisition, which was rampant in Spain, and of which traders and diplomatists had brought home many rumours.

'Yes, it is the Inquisition of which I am speaking,' Sir Hubert continued, 'and God grant that it may never come to this country of ours! I will tell you what it is. In brief, it is a court, or tribunal, established in a Roman Catholic country for the examination and punishment of heretics—heretics meaning persons holding or teaching opinions repugnant or opposite to the Roman Catholic faith. The way in which it is actually worked is like this: Many thousands of people, called familiars, are employed as spies and informers, to find out and inform the Holy Inquisition, as it is named, if they know any one, living or dead, present or absent, who has wandered from the faith, or who observes, or has once observed, the Jewish laws or even spoken favourably of them, or any one who follows, or has followed, the teaching of Martin Luther, or any one who has formed an alliance with the devil, or who possesses a heretical book, aye, even the Bible in the Spanish language, or, finally, any one who has harboured, received, or favoured heretics. It is a wide field, you see, my friends, as wide as the views of the Inquisitors are narrow, and the thousands—some of high rank—who are acting as spies do so on account of the privileges connected with the office.'

He paused a moment or two, and then went on to draw a graphic picture of an honest man pursuing his daily avocation, and then, on his way home to his wife and family, being seized by the officers of the Inquisition and carried away, there and then, and from that moment being entirely cut off from the world.

The prison into which the unhappy man would be thrust he described vividly, as one who had seen it. 'In the upper cells of these prisons of the Inquisition,' he said, 'a dim ray of light falls through a grate, the lower cells are smaller and darker. Each dungeon has two doors, the inner one, bound with iron, having a grate through which food is introduced for the wretched prisoner. A prisoner of the Inquisition is allowed no visits from relatives nor friends, and is not permitted to have books, but is compelled to sit motionless and silent. Unless for the purpose of obtaining evidence, only one prisoner is placed in each cell.

'At his trial there is no hope for the prisoner of the Inquisition. If he says he is innocent, he is threatened with torture, indeed he is often subjected to torture in order to extort a confession. Those who escape death by repentance and confession are obliged to swear they will submit to all the pains and penalties the court orders.'

Then Sir Hubert described some of these fearful punishments, and they, he said, were not the worst, but they were sufficiently dreadful to make the audience groan and cry 'Shame! Shame!' whilst, as for me, I felt as if I should faint.

Sir Hubert next went on to describe what the Spanish call the Holy Auto-da-fé, which takes place on a Sunday, between Trinity Sunday and Advent.

'When sentence of death is pronounced on a man,' said he, 'the Auto-da-fé is ordered, and at daybreak the big bell of the cathedral is tolled, and people come in crowds to see the fearful procession.