The next day the Inquisitors complained to Philip; but that monarch calmly replied, "I am very sorry; but I cannot help it; my crown is in danger, and my grandfather defends it, and this is done by his troops. If it had been done by my troops, I should have applied a speedy remedy; but you must have patience till things take another turn." They were accordingly obliged to exercise that patience for a period of eight months.
The archbishop, however, deeply concerned for the honour of the holy tribunal, requested M. Legal to send the women to his palace, promising that he would take care of them, and threatening with excommunication all who should dare to defame, by groundless reports, the tribunal of the Inquisition. M. Legal professed his willingness to comply with this request; but as to the young women, he informed his grace, that they had already been taken away by the French officers. This affair, which is related by Gavin, and other writers, shows at once the detestable nature of a tribunal where deeds of darkness, "of which it is a shame even to speak," were so unblushingly committed. For these young women "were chiefly ladies, beautiful and accomplished, who had been forcibly carried away, at the pleasure of the Inquisitors, from the most opulent families in the city, to enrich their seraglio, and who probably would never have been seen without the walls of the holy office, but for such a deliverance as that which was effected by the French soldiers."
Philip was not so devoted to the court of the Inquisition as his predecessors had been. In the first year of his reign, a solemn auto-da-fé was celebrated in honour of his accession to the throne; but though Philip declared it to be his intention to protect the tribunal of the holy office, yet he decidedly refused to be present at a scene so barbarous. During the reign of this monarch, however, which lasted forty-six years, one auto-da-fé was annually celebrated by every Inquisition throughout the kingdom, at which, it has been calculated, upwards of fourteen thousand individuals suffered, who had been condemned by the holy tribunal to different punishments. It was in the reign of Philip, too, that the freemasons became the objects of persecution by the Inquisition. Pope Clement XII. had excommunicated them in a bull which he issued in 1738; and, copying the example of his holiness, Philip in 1740 enacted several severe laws against all who were, or should be connected with that order; in consequence of which many of the fraternity were arrested and condemned to the galleys. Never behind in any species of cruelty or oppression, the Inquisitors apprehended every freemason upon whom they could lay their hands; and in a short time they seemed to be more intent upon their suppression than even upon that of heretics.
The same rigour against freemasonry existed under the reign of Ferdinand VI., which lasted from 1746 to 1759. Yet during these years, no general auto-da-fé, and only thirty-four private ones, were celebrated in Spain. At these private acts of faith, one hundred and eighty individuals were punished, ten of whom only were burnt alive. Historians differ in opinion as to the cause of this decrease in the number of autos-da-fé at that period in Spain, and the consequent diminution of the victims who were sacrificed by the tribunal of the holy office. The following account, given by Llorente, who was secretary to the Inquisition, seems to be the most probable: "The rise of good taste in literature in Spain," says that author, "the restoration of which was prepared under Philip V. was dated from the reign of Ferdinand VI. On this circumstance is founded the opinion, that the accession of the Bourbons caused a change in the system of the Inquisition; yet these princes never gave any new laws to the Inquisition, or suppressed any of the ancient code, and consequently did not prevent any of the numerous autos-da-fé which were celebrated in their reigns. But Philip established at Madrid two royal academies, for history and the Spanish language, on the model of that of Paris, and favoured a friendly intercourse between the literati of the two nations. The establishment of weekly papers made the people acquainted with works they had never before heard of, and informed them of resolutions of the Catholic princes concerning the clergy, which a short time before they would have considered as an outrage against religion and its ministers. These circumstances, and some other causes, during the reign of Philip V., prepared the way for the interesting revolution in Spanish literature, under Ferdinand VI. This change was followed by a great benefit to mankind; the Inquisitors, and even their inferior officers, began to perceive that zeal for the purity of the Catholic religion is exposed to the admission of erroneous opinions."
The Inquisition remained in nearly a similar condition, during the reigns of Charles III. and Charles IV., the former supporting it because he hated freemasons, and the latter "because the French revolution seemed to justify a system of surveillance, and he found a firm support in the zeal of the Inquisitors-general, always attentive to the preservation and extension of their power, as if the sovereign authority could find no surer means of strengthening the throne than the terror inspired by the Inquisition."
A great number of the works which were published in France, at the period of the revolution in that country, having been conveyed to Spain, and eagerly read by the people, the Inquisitors lost no time in prohibiting and seizing all books, pamphlets, and newspapers relating to French affairs, and gave peremptory orders to every person to denounce all who were friendly to the revolutionary principles. The consequence was, that informations were lodged against vast numbers, who were immediately apprehended, and thrown into prison. Among others, two booksellers in Valladolid were condemned in 1799 to two months' imprisonment, two years' suspension of their trade, and to banishment from the kingdom.
The invasion of Spain by Bonaparte in 1808, and abdication of the throne by Charles IV. in favour of his son Ferdinand VII., gave a tremendous blow to the Inquisition. In that year Napoleon Bonaparte suppressed the holy office at Chamastin near Madrid; and, with the approbation of Joseph Bonaparte, Llorente burnt all the criminal processes in the Inquisition, excepting those which belonged to history.
On the 22d of February, 1813, the Cortes-general of the kingdom assembled at Madrid, and having decreed that the existence of the Inquisition was incompatible with the political constitution which had been adopted by the nation, that assembly fully suppressed that odious tribunal, and restored to the bishops and secular judges, the jurisdiction which they had anciently enjoyed.
"Thus ended the existence of a tribunal," to use the words of the translator of Puigblanch, "which in Spain had lorded it over the people for more than three hundred and twenty years, had been an outrage to humanity, and a powerful engine of internal police in the hands of despots. Thus perished a tremendous and inconsistent power, which even in Rome no longer held sway; and though the triumph was unfortunately short, the daring and enlightened measure of the Cortes will ever remain on record as part of that great attempt to rally round the sacred standard of civil and religious liberty, as far as was possible in a country so benighted as that over which they presided; and, as a meritorious act, the destruction of the Inquisition thence entitles them to the respect of their contemporaries, and the gratitude of posterity."
But, alas! notwithstanding the abolition of this most detestable tribunal, and the praiseworthy efforts of many Spanish patriots to prevent its ever again disgracing their country, it is most distressing to be compelled to add, that it was soon afterwards re-established by Ferdinand VII. No sooner did that monarch find himself again in possession of the throne, for his restoration to which he was indebted to the valour of the British nation, than he annulled the acts of the Cortes, and re-established the Inquisition in its full powers. The following are the terms of the edict, which set up anew this unjust court.