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

by William Hickling Prescott

The Holy Office, stung by the prospect of its failure, now strained every nerve to influence the mind of the new pope, Gregory the Thirteenth, to a contrary decision. New testimony was collected, new glosses were put on the primate's text, and the sanction of the most learned Spanish theologians was brought in support of them. At length, at the end of three years further, the holy father announced his purpose of giving his final decision. It was done with great circumstance. The pope was seated on his pontifical throne, surrounded by all his cardinals, prelates, and functionaries of the apostolic chamber. Before this august assembly, the archbishop presented himself unsupported and alone, while no one ventured to salute him. His head was bare. His once robust form was bent by infirmity more than by years; and his care-worn features told of that sickness which arises from hope deferred. He knelt down at some distance from the pope, and in this humble attitude received his sentence.

He was declared to have imbibed the pernicious doctrines of Luther. The decree of the Inquisition prohibiting the use of his catechism was confirmed. He was to abjure sixteen propositions found in his writings; was suspended from the exercise of his episcopal functions for five years, during which time he was to be confined in a convent of his order at Orvieto; and, finally, he was required to visit seven of the principal churches in Rome, and perform mass there by way of penance.

This was the end of eighteen years of doubt, anxiety, and imprisonment. The tears streamed down the face of the unhappy man, as he listened to the sentence; but he bowed in silent submission to the will of his superior. The very next day he began his work of penance. But nature could go no further; and on the second of May, only sixteen days after his sentence had been pronounced, Carranza died of a broken heart. The triumph of the Inquisition was complete.

The pope raised a monument to the memory of the primate, with a pompous inscription, paying a just tribute to his talents and his scholarship, endowing him with a full measure of Christian worth, and particularly commending the exemplary manner in which he had discharged the high trusts reposed in him by his sovereign.[456]

Such is the story of Carranza's persecution,—considering the rank of the party, the unprecedented length of the process, and the sensation it excited throughout Europe, altogether the most remarkable on the records of the Inquisition.[457] Our sympathy for the archbishop's sufferings may be reasonably[{182}] mitigated by the reflection, that he did but receive the measure which he had meted out to others.

While the persecution of Carranza was going on, the fires lighted for the Protestants continued to burn with fury in all parts of the country, until at length they gradually slackened and died away, from mere want of fuel to feed them. The year 1570 may be regarded as the period of the last auto da fé in which the Lutherans played a conspicuous part. The subsequent celebrations were devoted chiefly to relapsed Jews and Mahometans; and if a Protestant heretic was sometimes added to this list, it was "but as the gleaning of grapes after the vintage is done."[458]

Never was there a persecution which did its work more thoroughly. The blood of the martyr is commonly said to be the seed of the church. But the storm of persecution fell as heavily on the Spanish Protestants as it did on the Albigenses in the thirteenth century; blighting every living thing, so that no germ remained for future harvests. Spain might now boast that the stain of heresy no longer defiled the hem of her garment. But at what a price was this purchased! Not merely by the sacrifice of the lives and fortunes of a few thousands of the existing generation but by the disastrous consequences entailed for ever on the country. Folded under the dark wing of the Inquisition, Spain was shut out from the light which in the sixteenth century broke over the rest of Europe, stimulating the nations to greater enterprise in every department of knowledge. The genius of the people was rebuked, and their spirit quenched, under the malignant influence of an eye that never slumbered, of an unseen arm ever raised to strike. How could there be freedom of thought, where there was no freedom of utterance? Or freedom of utterance, where it was as dangerous to say too little as too much? Freedom cannot go along with fear. Every way the mind of the Spaniard was in fetters.

His moral sense was miserably perverted. Men were judged, not by their practice, but by their professions. Creed became a substitute for conduct. Difference of faith made a wider gulf of separation than difference of race, language, or even interest. Spain no longer formed one of the great brotherhood of Christian nations. An immeasurable barrier was raised between that kingdom and the Protestants of Europe. The early condition of perpetual warfare with the Arabs who overran the country had led the Spaniards to mingle religion strangely with their politics. The effect continued when the cause had ceased. Their wars with the European nations became religious wars. In fighting England or the Netherlands, they were fighting the enemies of God. It was the same everywhere. In their contest with the unoffending natives of the New World, they were still battling with[{183}] the enemies of God. Their wars took the character of a perpetual crusade, and were conducted with all the ferocity which fanaticism could inspire.

RECEPTION OF ISABELLA.

The same dark spirit of fanaticism seems to brood over the national literature; even that lighter literature which in other nations is made up of the festive sallies of wit, or the tender expression of sentiment. The greatest geniuses of the nation, the masters of the drama and of the ode, while they astonish us by their miracles of invention, show that they have too often kindled their inspiration at the altars of the Inquisition.