History of the Inquisition from Its Establishment Till the Present Time

by William Sime

After repeated audiences, in which this unhappy person was exceedingly harassed, he at length told his judges, that he remembered being in a house in 1553, where several persons, whom he named, were present, and discoursed on the law of Moses, but that he himself did not join in the conversation. Nothing more could be forced from him, though he was subjected to the torture; and accordingly, on the 18th of October, 1566, he was declared to be a Jewish heretic, and condemned to the flames. On the day of his execution, the 9th of December, the fear of death induced him to accuse fourteen or fifteen individuals as forming part of the assembly, and to confess that he himself believed for twelve months what was said in the Mosaic Law; but that he had not confessed, because he thought there was no proof of his heresy in the depositions of the witnesses. In consequence of this confession, Melchior was remanded to prison, instead of being conducted to the place of execution.

From this period till the 8th of June 1567, when it was again determined he should be burnt, Melchior was admitted to numerous audiences, and closely questioned, for the purpose of eliciting from him further evidence of his own heresy, and new accusations against others. In order to escape a second time, he denounced a great number of individuals, and added new accusations against himself. The execution of the sentence was accordingly for some time longer suspended, in the hope of his accusing more of his acquaintances. But after fifteen audiences, having made no more disclosures, he was sentenced for the third time to be committed to the flames. Still desirous to save his life, on the day appointed, Melchior had recourse to the same expedients as formerly, pretending that he remembered others who were guilty; and in five subsequent audiences he not only accused many individuals, but added greatly to the list of crimes alleged to have been committed by himself.

The Inquisitors then told him, "That he was still guilty of concealment, in not mentioning several persons not less distinguished and well known than those he had already denounced, and that he could not be supposed to have forgotten them." Confounded at the injustice and barbarity of his oppressors, Melchior exclaimed, "What can you do to me? burn me? well, then, be it so: I cannot confess what I do not know. Know, however, that all those whom I have accused, are perfectly innocent. I have invented what I said, because I perceived that you wished me to denounce innocent persons; and, unacquainted with the names and quality of these unfortunate people, I named all whom I could think of, in the hope of finding an end of my misery. I now perceive that my situation admits of no relief, and I therefore retract all my depositions; and now I have fulfilled this duty, burn me as soon as you please." Hardened in their iniquity, the Inquisitors condemned Melchior for the last time to suffer death on the 7th of June. Previous to this, however, they again and again solicited him to retract his last declaration; but all they could obtain from him was, "That he knew nothing of the subject on which he was examined."

The Inquisitors then asked him how this declaration could be true, seeing he had several times declared that he had attended the Jewish assemblies, believed in their doctrines, and persevered in the belief for the space of one year, until he was undeceived by a priest. "I spoke falsely," replied Melchior, "when I made a declaration against myself." "But how is it," rejoined the Inquisitors, "that what you have confessed of yourself, and many other things which you now deny, are the result of the depositions of a great many witnesses?" "I do not know if that is true or false," answered Melchior, "for I have not seen the writings of the trial; but if the witnesses have said that which is imputed to them, it is because they were placed in the same situation as I am. They do not love me better than I love myself; and I have certainly declared against myself both truth and falsehood." "What motive had you for declaring things injurious to yourself, if they were false?" said the Inquisitors. "I did not think it would be injurious to me," replied Melchior; "on the contrary, I expected to derive great advantages from it; because I saw that if I did not confess any thing, I should be considered as impenitent, and the truth would lead me to the scaffold. I thought that falsehood would be most useful to me, as I found it to be so in two autos-da-fé."

Before his execution, Melchior made the following declaration:—"That at the point of appearing before the tribunal of the Almighty, and without any hope of escaping from death by new delays, he thought himself bound to declare that he had never conversed on the Mosaic Law; that all he had said on the subject was founded on the wish to preserve life, and the belief that his confessions were pleasing to the Inquisitors; that he asked pardon of the persons implicated, that God might pardon him, and that no injury might be done to their honour and reputation." After making this declaration, Melchior was burnt, and all his property seized.

Throughout the whole of the proceedings in this case we discover nothing but injustice, avarice, and cruelty; while, on the other hand, the effect of all the punishments inflicted on this unhappy victim of Inquisitorial vengeance, tended only to force him for some time to be guilty of hypocrisy.

That avarice, indeed, was one of the chief motives which influenced the Inquisitors to commit so many cruelties, is evident from numerous facts; one or two of which, in addition, we shall notice here. Nicolas Burton, an Englishman, was apprehended by the Inquisition at Seville, and after enduring many indignities and sufferings, was burnt for his attachment to the Protestant faith. At his commitment, all his property, a great part of which belonged to English merchants for whom he was factor, was seized. One of these merchants, on hearing of the imprisonment of Burton, and the sequestration of his effects, sent an attorney of the name of Frontom to Spain, for the purpose of recovering his property. But after daily solicitations, attended by no inconsiderable expense, during the period of four months, the Inquisitors informed him that more documents from England were required. Four months additional were thus consumed, and more money expended, in attending to all the forms of that wily court, all to no purpose. The importunity of Frontom at length tired out the patience of the Inquisitors, but determined to keep possession of the property so unjustly acquired, they appointed a day when Frontom should appear before them, and on which they promised to put a period to the matter which had remained so long unsettled. Frontom appeared at the time appointed; but instead of restoring the effects of his employer, they threw him into the secret prisons of the Inquisition. After lying there for four days, he was admitted to an audience; but instead of entering on the business of the English merchant, the Inquisitors commanded him to recite the "Ave Mary." Not wishing to irritate them, Frontom repeated the words following: "Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is Jesus, the fruit of thy womb. Amen." This was enough. He had omitted these words: "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners,"—an omission which implied that he did not believe in the intercession of saints. The consequence was, that after being confined in his dungeon till the next auto-da-fé, he was condemned to wear the sanbenito as suspected of heresy; all his employer's property was confiscated, and he himself doomed to suffer a further imprisonment for twelve months!

Another example of Inquisitorial avarice is given by Gonsalvius Montanus. About the middle of the seventeenth century, an English vessel having entered the port of Cadiz, was searched as usual by the familiars of the Inquisition. Several persons on board were immediately seized, as being suspected of heresy, among whom was a child about twelve years of age, the son of the proprietor of the vessel. Their pretext for apprehending this boy was, that he had in his possession the Psalms of David in English—though the real cause of his imprisonment was evidently the knowledge which they had acquired of his father's wealth, and to serve as a screen for confiscating both the ship and her cargo. This accordingly took place; but the boy, instead of being liberated after this unjust seizure, was detained so long in prison, that he lost the use of both his legs. He was subsequently removed from one place of confinement to another: and his afflicted father, notwithstanding his efforts to procure his release, met only with the most heart-rending repulses. What became of the child never was known; though it appears that he resisted all their solicitations to embrace the Romish faith, and adhered so firmly to the truths which he had been taught in his father's house, that the jailer himself once exclaimed, that "he was already grown a great little heretic."

But the Inquisitors do not confine their prosecutions to those who are accused of the crime of heresy. An offence, however trivial, committed against any of the fraternity of the holy office, is summarily visited with the utmost severity. For example, what can be more disgusting than the following puerile yet tyrannical conduct of the Inquisitors of Seville, as related by Gonsalvius? "The bishop of Terragone," says that author, "chief Inquisitor at Seville, went one summer for his diversion to some gardens, situate by the sea side, with all his Inquisitorial family, and walked out, according to custom, with his episcopal attendants. A child of the gardener, two or three years old, accidently sat playing upon the side of a pond in the garden, where the bishop was taking his pleasure. One of the boys who attended his lordship snatched out of the hand of the gardener's child a reed with which he was playing, and made him cry. Hearing his child crying, the gardener came to the place, and ascertaining the cause, he desired the boy to restore the reed to the child. But this having been refused, accompanied by the most offensive and insolent expressions, the gardener took it from him, in effecting which, he slightly scratched the boy's hand. Like all who are connected with the holy tribunal, the boy resolved to be revenged, and complained to the Inquisitor of the treatment which he had received. The gardener was immediately apprehended, thrown into the prisons of the Inquisition, and loaded with irons; and his wife and children were reduced to absolute beggary. After suffering nine months' confinement, the holy office thought fit to release him, with the consolatory intimation, that they had dealt with him much more mercifully than his crime deserved."