“I surely could not have said so, as I am not cognisant of the fact,” answered Munebrega blandly. “Be assured that for your sake I will endeavour to win him over to the truth.” Much more was urged by the Archbishop, but poor Leonor’s mind was in too great a whirl to understand the meaning of what he said. Cruel indeed was the conflict going on within her. “For the sake of appearances you will have to undergo some penances; but I will take care that they shall be as light as possible, that your health may be in no way injured,” he remarked; and with a treacherous smile the tempter left her.
No words can describe the unhappy Leonor’s feelings at seeing her husband among those condemned to the stake. It had been hoped by Munebrega, from the position in which she was placed, that she would not have discovered him. The effect has been described. On being conducted back to the convent to which she had been removed, she at once refused to continue the penances which had been prescribed. No persuasions could make her alter her determination; and therefore, as an obstinate heretic, she was returned to a cell in the Inquisition. Munebrega was soon in her presence. He reminded her that she was a widow and helpless—that he had the power of setting her at liberty. He entreated her on his knees once more to recant—to preserve her life—not to allow her beauty to be marred by a long imprisonment. She turned from him with loathing. Munebrega well knew the importance of caution. His chief and brother inquisitors were very indifferent what means were made use of (even the most abominable), provided they contributed to bring about the objects they had in view; but they would allow no private interests to be gratified. Day after day Munebrega visited the unhappy lady. His protestations, his arguments, every subject he introduced, only tended to strengthen her resolution. “Get thee behind me, Satan,” was her daily ejaculation when he appeared. She did not trust to her own strength, but hourly sought strength and grace from above to withstand all the trials and temptations to which she was exposed. Like Peter, she had fallen once; severe was the lesson she had learned. Like Peter’s repentance, hers had been deep and truly sincere. No longer did she trust to herself. Munebrega at last retired, gnashing his teeth at having been foiled by a weak woman, utterly incapable of comprehending the mighty power which had been fighting on her side against him. He now allowed other persons to attempt to move her.
Among others, her former admirer, Don Francisco de Vivers, was induced to visit her. He was still unmarried. What arguments he used it is not necessary to state. He was not hardened to the craft of the priests, and he left the prison abashed and confused. He visited her again more than once, and the idea was entertained by the inquisitors that he was moving her obdurate heart. At length, however, he was missing from Valladolid, and some of his friends feared, from some words that he had let drop, that he had offended the inquisitors, and was immured in their prisons.
It would be impossible to imagine, much less to describe, the cruelties practised on Leonor de Cisneros; and yet there were many hundreds of delicately-nurtured females and hidalgos of high rank suffering as she was physically in the numerous prisons of the Inquisition throughout Spain—many shut up in loathsome dungeons, destined never again to see the light of day.
Numerous autos-da-fé succeeded each other for the purpose of stamping out Protestant principles from Spain. The second celebrated at Valladolid took place on the 8th of October, 1559, for the purpose of celebrating the return of Philip the Second, husband of Queen Mary of England, who was employed at that time in burning her own bishops and other subjects for the same cause. King Philip was himself present, enjoying the spectacle, with his unhappy son Carlos, his sister, the Prince of Parma, three ambassadors from France, and a numerous assembly of prelates and nobility of both sexes.
The Inquisitor-General, Valdes, advancing to the bed of state, administered the same oath which had been taken by Don Carlos and the Queen of Portugal. Philip took it without hesitation, and, rising from his seat, drew his sword, in token of his determination to use it in support of the Holy Office.
A similar group to that before described, clothed in yellow garments covered with pictures of flames and devils, stood on the platform before the King and his court. The most noble-looking and highest in rank was Don Carlos de Seso, the upturning flames on whose robe showed that he was doomed to the stake. With him was Domingo de Roxas, Pedro de Cazalla, parish priest of Pedroso, who was destined to share the fate of his family. Doña Isabella de Castilla, wife of Don Carlos de Seso, was there, and her niece, Doña Catalina—condemned to lose all their property, to wear the san-benito, and to be imprisoned for life. There were also three nuns of San Belem; one of them, Doña Mariana de Guevara, was condemned to be strangled and then thrown into the flames; she was highly born, and even connected with Valdes, the Chief Inquisitor, but he could not save her from the consequences of her opinions. His subordinates resisted the applications he was said to have made on her behalf as an interference with their jurisdiction, and a proof of partiality and weakness unworthy of one of those whose office required him to be insensible to the feelings of nature and friendship.
The death of Don Carlos de Seso was worthy of his life; though gagged on the platform and on the way to execution, the instrument was removed when he was bound to the stake by the friars, who stood round exhorting him to confess. He replied in a loud voice, “I could demonstrate to you, unhappy men, that you ruin yourselves by not imitating my example; but there is no time. Executioners, light the pile which is to consume me.” These were his last words. The order was instantly obeyed, and, looking up, he died without a groan.
Another martyr was Juan Sanchez. Entrapped in the Low Countries by the emissaries of the Inquisition, he was brought a prisoner to Valladolid, and condemned to the stake. The cords which bound him having rapidly been consumed, he leaped unconsciously on to the stage where the friars were confessing some who had recanted at the last moment. The friars immediately collected round him, and urged him to retract his errors. Looking at the unhappy penitents who were risking their salvation to escape a few moments’ suffering, and then at the noble De Seso, standing unmoved amid the rising flames, he walked deliberately back to the stake, exclaiming, “I will die like De Seso.” More fuel was brought, and he was quickly in the joy of his Lord.
Numbers bore testimony to “the truth as it is in Jesus” by dying fearlessly like De Seso. At the same time, eight females, of irreproachable character, some of them of high rank, were burned alive; among them Maria Gomez, who so nearly betrayed the Protestants during a sudden fit of insanity. Having recovered her senses she returned to the Protestant faith, and soon was brought before the Inquisitors. She suffered with her three daughters and a sister. So hardened had the populace become by similar scenes, that not a single expression of sympathy escaped them as they thus witnessed the destruction of a whole family. Year after year passed away, and the same horrors continued to be enacted; the bloody-minded inquisitors being hounded on to their work of death by the bigot king; that king who, it has truly been said, was busily engaged in making Spain what she in a few years became, the lowest and least influential among the nations of Europe; while as truly was Elizabeth, by her wise measures, laying the foundation of England’s greatness and power.