History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain, Vols. 1 and 2

by William Hickling Prescott

PROSECUTION OF CARRANZA.

Under the royal sanction, the work of persecution now went forward more briskly than ever.[452] No calling was too sacred, no rank too high, to escape[{179}] the shafts of the informer. In the course of a few years, no less than nine bishops were compelled to do humiliating penance in some form or other for heterodox opinions. But the most illustrious victim of the Inquisition was Bartolomé Carranzo, archbishop of Toledo. The primacy of Spain might be considered as the post of the highest consideration in the Roman Catholic Church after the papacy.[453] The proceedings against this prelate, on the whole, excited more interest throughout Christendom than any other case that came before the tribunal of the Inquisition.

Carranza, who was of an ancient Castilian family, had early entered a Dominican convent in the suburbs of Guadalajara. His exemplary life, and his great parts and learning, recommended him to the favor of Charles the Fifth, who appointed him confessor to his son Philip. The emperor also sent him to the Council of Trent, where he made a great impression by his eloquence, as well as by a tract which he published against plurality of benefices, which, however, excited no little disgust in many of his order. On Philip's visit to England to marry Queen Mary, Carranza accompanied his master, and while in that country he distinguished himself by the zeal and ability with which he controverted the doctrines of the Protestants. The alacrity, moreover, which he manifested in the work of persecution made him generally odious under the name of the "black friar,"—a name peculiarly appropriate, as it applied not less to his swarthy complexion than to the garb of his order. On Philip's return to Flanders, Carranza, who had twice refused a mitre, was raised—not without strong disinclination on his own part—to the archiepiscopal see of Toledo. The "nolo episcopari," in this instance, seems to have been sincere. It would have been well for him if it had been effectual. Carranza's elevation to the primacy was the source of all his troubles.

The hatred of theologians has passed into a proverb; and there would certainly seem to be no rancor surpassing that of a Spanish ecclesiastic. Among the enemies raised by Carranza's success, the most implacable was the grand-inquisitor, Valdés. The archbishop of Seville could ill brook that a humble Dominican should be thus raised from the cloister over the heads of the proud prelacy of Spain. With unwearied pains, such as hate only could induce, he sought out whatever could make against the orthodoxy of the new prelate, whether in his writings or his conversation. Some plausible ground was afforded for this from the fact, that, although Carranza, as his whole life had shown, was devoted to the Roman Catholic Church, yet his long residence in Protestant countries, and his familiarity with Protestant works, had given a coloring to his language, if not to his opinions, which resembled that of the Reformers. Indeed, Carranza seems to have been much of the same way of thinking with Pole, Contarini, Morone, and other illustrious Romanists, whose liberal natures and wide range of study, had led them to sanction more than one of the Lutheran dogmas which were subsequently proscribed by the Council of Trent. One charge strongly urged against the primate was his assent to the heretical doctrine of justification by faith. In support of this, Father Regla, the confessor, as the reader may remember, of[{180}] Charles the Fifth, and a worthy coadjutor of Valdés, quoted words of consolation employed by Carranza, in his presence, at the death-bed of the emperor.[454]

The exalted rank of the accused made it necessary for his enemies to proceed with the greatest caution. Never had the bloodhounds of the Inquisition been set on so noble a quarry. Confident in his own authority, the prelate had little reason for distrust. He could not ward off the blow, for it was an invisible arm stronger than his own that was raised to smite him. On the twenty-second of August, 1559, the emissaries of the Holy Office entered the primate's town of Torrelaguna. The doors of the episcopal palace were thrown open to the ministers of the terrible tribunal. The prelate was dragged from his bed at midnight, was hurried into a coach, and while the inhabitants were ordered not so much as to present themselves at the windows, he was conducted, under a strong guard, to the prisons of the Inquisition at Valladolid. The arrest of such a person caused a great sensation throughout the country, but no attempt was made at a rescue.

The primate would have appealed from the Holy Office to the pope, as the only power competent to judge him. But he was unwilling to give umbrage to Philip, who had told him in any extremity to rely on him. The king, however, was still in the Netherlands, where his mind had been preoccupied, through the archbishop's enemies, with rumors of his defection. And the mere imputation of heresy, in this dangerous crisis, and especially in one whom he had so recently raised to the highest post in the Spanish church, was enough, not only to efface the recollection of past services from the mind of Philip, but to turn his favor into aversion. For two years Carranza was suffered to languish in confinement, exposed to all the annoyances which the malice of his enemies could devise. So completely was he dead to the world, that he knew nothing of a conflagration which consumed more than four hundred of the principal houses in Valladolid, till some years after the occurrence.[455]

At length the Council of Trent, sharing the indignation of the rest of Christendom at the archbishop's protracted imprisonment, called on Philip to interpose in his behalf, and to remove the cause to another tribunal. But the king gave little heed to the remonstrance, which the inquisitors treated as a presumptuous interference with their authority.

In 1566, Pius the Fifth ascended the pontifical throne. He was a man of austere morals and a most inflexible will. A Dominican, like Carranza, he was greatly scandalized by the treatment which the primate had received, and by the shameful length to which his process had been protracted. He at once sent his orders to Spain for the removal of the grand-inquisitor, Valdés, from office, summoning, at the same time, the cause and the prisoner before his own tribunal. The bold inquisitor, loth to lose his prey, would have defied the power of Rome, as he had done that of the Council of Trent. Philip remonstrated; but Pius was firm, and menaced both king and inquisitor with excommunication. Philip had no mind for a second collision with the papal court. In imagination he already heard the thunders of the Vatican rolling in the distance, and threatening soon to break upon his head. After a confinement of now more than seven years' duration, the archbishop[{181}] was sent under a guard to Rome. He was kindly received by the pontiff, and honorably lodged in the castle of St. Angelo, in apartments formerly occupied by the popes themselves. But he was still a prisoner.

PROSECUTION OF CARRANZA.

Pius now set seriously about the examination of Carranza's process. It was a tedious business, requiring his holiness to wade through an ocean of papers, while the progress of the suit was perpetually impeded by embarrassments thrown in his way by the industrious malice of the inquisitors. At the end of six years more, Pius was preparing to give his judgment, which it was understood would be favorable to Carranza, when, unhappily for the primate, the pontiff died.