[449] "Hallóse por esto presente a ver llevar i entregar al fuego muchos delinquentes aconpañados de sus guardas de a pie i de a cavallo, que ayudaron a la execucion." Cabrera, Filipe Segundo, lib. V. cap. 3.
It may be doubted whether the historian means anything more than that Philip saw the unfortunate man led to execution, at which his own guards assisted. Dávila, the friar who, as I have noticed, pronounced a funeral oration on the king, speaks of him simply as having assisted at this act of faith,—"Assistir a los actos de Fe, como se vio en esta Ciudad." (Sermones Funerales, fol. 77.) Could the worthy father have ventured to give Philip credit for being present at the death, he would not have failed to do so. Leti, less scrupulous, tells us that Philip saw the execution from the windows of his palace, heard the cries of the dying martyrs, and enjoyed the spectacle! The picture he gives of the scene loses nothing for want of coloring. Vita di Filippo II., tom. I. p. 342.
[450] How little sympathy, may be inferred from the savage satisfaction with which a wise and temperate historian at the time dismisses to everlasting punishment one of the martyrs at the first auto at Valladolid. "Jureque vivus flammis corpore cruciatus miserrimam animam efflavit ad supplicia sempiterna." Sepulveda, Opera, tom. III. p. 58.
[451] Balmes, one of the most successful champions of the Romish faith in our time, finds in the terrible apathy thus shown to the sufferings of the martyrs a proof of a more vital religious sentiment than exists at the present day! "We feel our hair grow stiff on our heads at the mere idea of burning a man alive. Placed in society where the religious sentiment is considerably diminished; accustomed to live among men who have a different religion, and sometimes none at all; we cannot bring ourselves to believe that it could be, at that time, quite an ordinary thing to see heretics or the impious led to punishment." Protestantism and Catholicity compared in their Effects on the Civilization of Europe, Eng. trans., (Baltimore, 1851,) p. 217.
According to this view of the matter, the more religion there is among men, the harder will be their hearts.
[452] The zeal of the king and the Inquisition together in the work of persecution had wellnigh got the nation into more than one difficulty with foreign countries. Mann, the English minister, was obliged to remonstrate against the manner in which the independence of his own household was violated by the agents of the Holy Office. The complaints of St. Sulpice, the French ambassador, notwithstanding the gravity of the subject, are told in a vein of caustic humor that may provoke a smile in the reader: "I have complained to the king of the manner in which the Marseillese, and other Frenchmen, are maltreated by the Inquisition. He excused himself by saying that he had little power or authority in matters which depended on that body; he could do nothing further than recommend the grand-inquisitor to cause good and speedy justice to be done to the parties. The grand-inquisitor promised that they should be treated no worse than born Castilians, and the 'good and speedy justice'came to this, that they were burnt alive in the king's presence." Raumer, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, vol. I. p. 111.
[453] The archbishop of Toledo, according to Lucio Marineo Siculo, who wrote a few years before this period, had jurisdiction over more than fifteen large towns, besides smaller places, which of course made the number of his vassals enormous. His revenues also, amounting to eighty thousand ducats, exceeded those of any grandee in the kingdom. The yearly revenues of the subordinate beneficiaries of his church were together not less than a hundred and eighty thousand ducats. Cosas Memorables de España, (Alcalá de Henares, 1539,) fol. 13.
[454] Salazar, Vida de Carranza, (Madrid, 1788,) cap. 1-11.—Documentos Inéditos, tom. V. p. 389 et seq.—Llorente, Inquisition d'Espagne, tom. II. p. 163; tom. III. p. 183 et seq.
[455] "En que se quemaron mas de 400 casas principales, y ricas, y algunas en aquel barrio donde él estaba; no solo no lo entendió el Arzobispo, pero ni lo supo hasta muchos años despues de estár en Roma." Salazar, Vida de Carranza cap. 15.
[456] Salazar, Vida de Carranza, cap. 12-35.—Documentos Inéditos, tom. V. pp. 453-463.—Llorente, Inquisition d'Espagne, tom. III. p. 218 et seq.