Now, sir, that I may move in the matter with more security, it will be necessary, since there is no other remedy, to compel Diego de Rueda to declare to me, and attest as a notary, the contents of the protest; and in order to cause him to do so, even though he resist, I shall have to make use of the means, however harsh, that I shall find available. May God direct the matter, and may He guide me in all things so that I may be successful in serving your Lordship. Given at the palace, this day, Sunday.
Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera”
In order to bring about that settlement, the governor went, November 20, to see the archbishop, whom he consoled; and he offered to do all in his power in favor of his Lordship. The next day the same governor called a meeting of the gentlemen of the royal Audiencia, his Majesty’s fiscal, and all the learned jurists in Manila. They agreed that this matter could not be settled so long as the protest did not make its appearance. In accordance with that decision, the governor wrote the following letter to the archbishop:
“From the time when I went last evening to pay my respects to your Lordship, I have thought of nothing else excepting how I might manage to serve you. With that purpose, I had the four advocates of the royal Audiencia summoned, and others—ecclesiastics, jurists, and theologians. On meeting them, I set before them my great desire for peace and for the quiet and comfort of your Lordship. I had them read the letters that your Lordship wrote me, the efforts that had been commenced, and the papers given me yesterday by the father readers of St. Augustine. After discussing them, little credit was given to the statement of father Fray Pedro de Herrera and to the mandate of father Fray Antonio Gonsalez; for both of them are accomplices. Moreover, it was not well for them that the people should see them meddling in a matter that is so unrighteous and one so unbecoming to their profession. [I told those who were assembled] that, accordingly, they should protect these papers, so that neither the mandate of father Fray Antonio should bind father Fray Diego Collado or any other of his religious, or the statement of the said father Fray Pedro de Herrera have any effect. For it was considered also that the latter had been issued nine days after the incident [of Rueda’s arrest] had occurred; and more especially was noted the obstinacy of father Fray Diego Collado in refusing to return to your Lordship the paper or protest that had been made. For these reasons all unanimously, without one dissenting voice, were of the opinion that your Lordship should make new and more strenuous efforts to secure and surrender the said protest on account of the difficulties that so evidently result from secreting it. And since, sir, it contains nothing that can tarnish the reputation of the Order of the Society, or that can be of importance to any other, I would judge it impossible that there can be any agreement, or that the cause can be concluded to the pleasure and satisfaction of your Lordship, except by handing over the said paper—with the promise that I hereby give, as a gentleman, that if it be handed over to me, I shall only allow the notary to see the signature, so that he may attest that it is the document that he authenticated; and then immediately, in the presence of him who hands it to me, or in the pretence of your Lordship (for which purpose I shall go to your residence), I shall burn it so that nothing of it can remain. It has also seemed best for me to ask the judge-conservator to grant your Lordship four or six days more than the time-limit that he has assigned; and I shall do that immediately, so that your Lordship may have more time to see that that religious may not ruin the whole affair, and that he may hand over the paper. And in case that he always prove obstinate, I shall immediately refrain from meddling in this matter, either for or against your Lordship. I beg you to pardon me for having made this resolution, in accordance with the opinion of so many erudite and well-intentioned men. And, even had they not given it, I would have made it of my own accord, after hearing what the sargento-mayor has just told me of the religious of St. Dominic, who have broken into the guardhouse at one of the gates of the wall, defying the soldiers stationed there, and forcibly bringing inside Don Pedro Monrroy—contrary to the order that I had given that he was not to be allowed to enter, since he is not provisor, and has nothing to do inside the walls. And if these disorderly acts are committed while I am seeking means and methods of doing your Lordship a service, by which I may aid you in paying the condemnations that have been ordered, I am freed from the obligation of having anything to do with these matters, either pro or con. On the contrary I shall inform the king our sovereign of the efforts made on my part; and all the community will have understood them and will know that your Lordship, taking counsel of the three orders, neither desires nor tries to secure peace. I beg your Lordship’s pardon for speaking so boldly, and rest assured that there is not, nor will there be, more than I have said here. May God preserve your Lordship for happy years. Given at the palace, November 21, 1635.
Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera”
Since the above letter makes mention of the forcing of the guardhouse, I shall narrate to your Grace what occurred. Don Pedro de Monrroy, since he was not provisor, left the city. The governor, fearing that if he returned hither, the matter would be more unsettled than ever, left orders at the city gates that Don Pedro should not be allowed to enter, should he make the attempt. But on November 21—on the same day and at the same hour when the governor was with the archbishop in the convent of St. Francis, trying to settle the matter—the said Don Pedro Monrroy, clad as a Franciscan friar, with another Franciscan friar as companion, attempted to enter by a gate near the convent of St. Dominic, at the time of the Ave Marias. A great number of religious went out of the convent to receive him. The commandant at the gate, one Alférez Don Francisco de Ribera, recognized him; he seized him, and called out to his soldiers to take their arms, and prevent Don Pedro’s entrance. But there were so many friars of St. Dominic, who charged down and defended him by fighting with their fists, that the soldiers could not use their weapons or prevent his entrance. Consequently, forcing the guardhouse, they took him into the city. The governor felt just anger at this. He ordered the commandant and soldiers to be arrested, and he was about to garrote the commandant and punish the soldiers for not having obeyed his order. They exculpated themselves quite sufficiently in the report that they made of having done their utmost, but that the fury of the religious gave them no time to do any more. The governor in great anger wrote to the father vicar-provincial of St. Dominic, Fray Antonio Gonsalez, regarding the matter; and the latter responded very coolly that his religious had not done such a thing, and that he had proof and information to the contrary. The father vicar added that Don Pedro de Monrroy had entered the city in obedience to the summons of the Inquisition. For your Grace must suppose that as the friars saw the matter was ending ill, and as their passion against the fathers of the Society was so great, they endeavored by all means to make it a case of Inquisition against them. Therefore, on November 19, the father commissary sent for a copy of the act of the judge-conservator, in which the latter ordered the archbishop to produce the protest or defamatory libel, under penalty of suspension; that act was affixed to the archbishop’s door, as he was not at home, and as he could not be found to notify him. Father Fray Francisco de Paula[23] acted as notary on this occasion. He ordered a writing-desk to be placed in the street, and, with great pomp and clatter, had the said act removed, and copied it on the writing-desk. Next morning the father commissary sent another friar, named Fray Ignacio Muñoz,[24] to act as notary to summon the judge, Don Fabian de Santillan; he did it in so clamorous a manner, and at such a time, that people thought he was trying to place some stain on the said judge. The latter, in order to purge himself from it, asked the father commissary for an official statement stating that he had not been summoned for any crime, but only to be told that the trial of the said protest did not pertain to him. At nine o’clock in the morning of the twenty-third of the same month of November, two lay brothers of the same Order of St. Dominic, also in the capacity of notaries, went to the judge-conservator, who was at [the convent of] the Society, to notify him that he must surrender Diego de Rueda. And because the doorkeeper of the Society told them to wait a moment, they began to cry aloud and to attest by witnesses that they were being prevented from attending to the affairs of the Inquisition. On the twenty-sixth of the same month, another notification was made to the same judge, asking for Diego de Rueda, and ordering that he be sent to demand the protest. Many other notifications were served on him through the agency of Fray Antonio Espexo[25] of the same order. From this your Grace will observe that they had a different notary for each day; this is a matter on which I may reflect much, and I even imagine that the inquisitors of Mexico would not be pleased with so great a variety of notaries for one commissary—some being lay brothers and others ordained priests, some youths and others of greater age—and usually but little restrained. To show that, I will only tell your Grace of one thing that one of those notaries, Fray Ignaçio de Muñoz, said, when going one day to a garden with another friar of his order, Fray Pedro de Ledo,[26] and with the collegiates of Santo Thomas: “I shall not stop until I see all the Theatins [i.e., Jesuits] put to the knife.” What a fine disposition is that, your Grace, and what a good inclination in a notary of so holy, upright, and dispassionate a tribunal as is that of the holy Inquisition! Finally, the father commissary asked the judge-conservator to surrender to him an information that he had brought against Don Pedro de Monrroy, because he had said that Lutero and Calvino [i.e., Luther and Calvin] and other heretics had not done so much harm to the Church of God as had the fathers of the Society. The judge gave him the original, but kept a copy, which the father commissary also sent to get from him. The judge refused to give it to him, saying that he could not give it up, and that it was necessary to adduce in the cause; and that although it pertained to the father commissary, as far as it was a mischievous statement, yet it pertained to the judge himself, so far as if was an injury against the Society, of whom he was the conservator. The father commissary notified him, besides, that he himself would send to demand the protest or defamatory libel, since, being such, it pertained to the Inquisition to try it. The judge answered him that it did not pertain exclusively to the Inquisition, and that he had begun to try that cause, as it concerned the principal cause. The father commissary served many different notifications on the judge, in which it could be plainly seen that he was trying to embarrass the affair, so that if should not proceed further. Accordingly, the judge notified the commissary, or rather, father Fray Francisco de Herrera, not to lay obstacles in the path of his apostolic jurisdiction, and to cause him no hindrance in it. In order to conclude this part of the matter, I shall cite here the answer given by the judge-conservator to an act by the father commissary; it is as follows:
“I, Don Fabian de Santillan y Gavilanes, schoolmaster of the holy cathedral church of this city, apostolic judge-conservator for the observance and immunity of the privileges, rights, and actions, of the Order of the Society of Jesus, etc., declare that, having examined the reply of the reverend father Fray Francisco de Herrera, commissary of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, given to the act issued by myself on the twenty-eighth of the present month and year, he says therein that he is not trying and never has tried to disturb the peace, or anything that the said judge-conservator could do in its defense; but only to take cognizance of what pertains to the Holy Office of the Inquisition in order to fulfil his obligation (to which pertains all that of which he has been notified), and to obtain the papers regarding the said causes, according to the terms of the briefs of the supreme pontiffs, so that no paper shall remain in possession of any judge, notary, or any other person; and that the said judge-conservator has no brief to oppose to this, nor can he have such. As for the chief order in the said my act, it is not that the said reverend father commissary should not disturb the peace, nor do all that which he may do in defense of it, but that he restrain himself from hindering and disturbing, in any manner, the exercise of my apostolic jurisdiction, which I am actually exercising; and, especially, that he do not ask for papers which do not pertain to him, but to my court and to the cause that I have in hand. Such are the papers that the said reverend father commissary asks from me; for the originals of those which belong to the cause of Don Pedro de Monrroy I have delivered without waiting to have them asked from me, as I have mentioned in the said my act—only because in a certain manner they may belong to the said tribunal of the holy Inquisition. But they belong principally to my court, and to the cause that I have in hand; for the words spoken by the said Don Pedro de Monrroy are especially injurious and insulting to the said Society of Jesus and its religious. It is necessary for this reason that an authenticated copy of the papers which I delivered to the said reverend father commissary remain in the records of this cause, in order that I may not fail in my duty and jurisdiction, and that I may give a good account to his Holiness of the affairs under my charge. As for the assertion that the briefs of the supreme pontiffs order that the said tribunal of the Holy Office shall obtain all the papers (both original and copies) touching the causes that pertain to the Holy Office, and that no paper remain in possession of any judge, notary, or any other person—that is understood, as is apparent from the said briefs, to mean the causes which belong strictly to the said tribunal of the Holy Office, and to no other court. Likewise, those which are asked from me belong—inasmuch as they contain injurious and insulting words against the said Society, whose apostolic judge-conservator I am—peculiarly and chiefly to my court; and if I handed them over I would be greatly delinquent in the obligations of my office, and I would cease to be a judge-conservator of the said Society of Jesus. Neither can I be ordered to refrain from requesting the protest or paper that I am asking from the archbishop of Manila, Don Fray Hernando Guerrero; for it contains affronts and insults uttered recently against the said Society of Jesus, and against my jurisdiction, and the acts that I have pronounced. And supposing that it could also pertain to the said tribunal of the Holy Office to try the defamatory libels against religious persons, it has not hitherto been understood that the exclusive trial of such causes has pertained to it. And since this cause is at least mixtifori;[27] and since I am actually trying this cause as apostolic judge-conservator, and consequently, with exclusive apostolic authority, without anyone having the power to take it from my hands, except his Holiness (whose delegate I am, and to whom only I am immediately subject); and since, for all this [authority], it is unnecessary for me to produce any other brief except the apostolic authority and jurisdiction of judge-conservator which I hold and which I am exercising; and since with less justification can the said reverend father commissary restrain me from asking the said paper or protest from the said archbishop, and make me leave it to the said reverend father commissary—first, because he has a part in this affair, as he was present and signed the first act of the said archbishop against the said Society of Jesus on the ninth of October of this present year, together with certain religious of his order, whose signatures I have in my possession (that act having been the foundation and origin of all the insults received by the said Society of Jesus, and the reason whereby they were incited to appoint me their judge-conservator); and second, because, the said archbishop having made the said protest or defamatory libel, the said reverend father commissary cannot lawfully demand it, for the said archbishop is not his subordinate, while I, forsooth, can ask it as being his legitimate apostolic judge, and moreover I can constrain him with fines and censures against his obstinacy and disobedience to the apostolic mandates; hence the said reverend father commissary’s command that I leave to him the demand for the said protest or defamatory libel, and that I refrain from asking for it, means that I should allow him to exceed the authority of his commission, and that I refrain from fulfilling mine: therefore I order the said reverend father commissary to observe and obey the act of which he was notified yesterday, the twenty-eighth, exactly as is therein contained, without exceeding it in any point, under the penalties and censures therein contained, to which I regard him as immediately liable in their fullest measure if he does the contrary. By this act, I decree and order, and affix my signature. If the said father commissary should not appear so that this notification may be served by the notary who shall make it, the latter shall serve it at the doors of the college of Santo Thomas, where the said father commissary is rector and where he lives; and the notary shall affix a copy of this act to the doors so that he may consider it as completely a damage and injury as if the notification were made and read to him in person. And the notary shall establish this act by an attestation. Given in Manila, November twenty-nine, one thousand six hundred and thirty-five. The schoolmaster,
Don Fabian Santillan y Gavilanes
By his order:
Diego de Aldave, apostolic notary.”