History of the Inquisition of Spain. Henry Charles Lea

can readily be imagined that, in spite of the character of Ximenes, the death of Ferdinand and the uncertainty as to the views of the distant sovereign had sensibly diminished the awe felt for the Inquisition. There is an indication of this in a complaint made by the Suprema, in September, 1517, that, when it moved with the court from place to place, the alcaldes of the palace refused to furnish mules and wagons to transport its books and papers and personnel, or, at most, only did so after all the other departments of the government had been supplied.[588] There is significance also in a tumult occurring in Orihuela, in 1517, when the inquisitors of Cartagena made a visitation there, obliging the Licenciado Salvatierra to invoke the royal intervention.[589] The Conversos, though decimated and impoverished, still had money and influence and the abuses which Ximenes had not been able to eradicate still excited hostility. When Charles, after his arrival in Spain, in September, 1517, held his first Córtes at Valladolid in 1518, the deputies petitioned him to take such order that justice should be done by the Inquisition, so that the wicked alone should be punished and the innocent not suffer; that the canons and the common law should be observed; that the inquisitors should be of gentle blood, of good conscience and repute and of the age required by law, and, finally, that episcopal Ordinaries should be judges in conformity with justice.[590] Although drawn in general terms this formal complaint indicates that the people felt the Holy Office to be an engine of oppression, for the furtherance of the private ends of the officials, to the disregard of law and justice. Charles made reply that he would consult learned and saintly men, with whose advice he would so provide that injustice should cease and meanwhile he would receive memorials as to abuses and projects of reform. The deputies made haste to give him ample information as to the tribulations of his subjects and the injury resulting to his dominions, and the outcome of the consultations of his advisers was a series of instructions to the officials of the Inquisition which, if carried into effect, would have deprived the Holy Office of much of its efficiency for persecution as well as of its capacity for injustice. Peter Martyr tells us that the New Christians, to procure this, gave to the high chancellor, Jean le Sauvage, who was a thoroughly corrupt man, ten thousand ducats in hand, with a promise of ten thousand more when it should go into effect, but that, fortunately for the Inquisition, he fell sick towards the end of May and died early in July.[591] The Instructions had been finally engrossed and lacked only the signatures; they were drawn in the names of Charles and Juana and were addressed not only to the officials of the Inquisition but to those of the state and secular justice, but nothing more was heard of them, for the new chancellor, Mercurino di Gattinara, was a man of different stamp, and Charles as yet was swayed by the influences surrounding him. The elaborate project is therefore of no interest except as an acknowledgement, in its provisions for procedure, of the iniquity of the inquisitorial process as we shall see it hereafter, and, in its prohibitory clauses, that existing abuses exaggerated in every way the capacity for evil of the system as practised. Thus it prohibited that the salaries of the inquisitors should be dependent on the confiscations and fines which they pronounced, or that grants should be made to them from confiscated property or benefices of those whom they condemned, or that sequestrated property should be granted away before the condemnation of its owners; that inquisitors and officials abusing their positions should be merely transferred to other places instead of being duly punished; that those who complained of the tribunals should be arrested and maltreated; that those who appealed to the Suprema should be maltreated; that inquisitors should give information to those seeking grants as to the property of prisoners still under trial; that prisoners under trial should be debarred from hearing mass and receiving the sacraments; that those condemned to perpetual prison should be allowed to die of starvation.[592] The general tenor of these provisions indicate clearly what a tremendous stimulus to persecution and injustice was confiscation as a punishment of heresy, how the whole business of the Inquisition was degraded from its ostensible purpose of purifying the faith into a vile system of spoliation, and how those engaged in it were inevitably vitiated by the tempting opportunity of filthy gains.

      Although Charles, on the death of his chancellor, dropped the proposed reform, he seems to have recognized the existence of these evils. When his Inquisitor-general, Cardinal Adrian, was elevated to the papacy in 1522, he sent from Flanders his chamberlain La Chaulx to congratulate him before he should leave Spain, and among the envoy’s instructions was the suggestion that he should be careful in his appointments and provide proper means to prevent the Inquisition from punishing the innocent and its officials from thinking more about the property of the condemned than the salvation of their souls—a pious wish but perfectly futile so long as the methods of the institution were unchanged, and its expenses were to be met and its officials enriched by fines and confiscations.[593]

      OFFERS OF THE NEW CHRISTIANS

      The sufferers had long recognized this and offers had more than once been vainly made to Ferdinand to compound for the royal right of confiscation—offers of which we know no details. With the failure of the comprehensive scheme of reform, this plan was revived and, before Charles left Spain, May 21, 1520, to assume the title of King of the Romans, a formal proposition was made to him to the effect that if justice should be secured in the Inquisition, by appointing judges free from suspicion who should observe the law, so that the innocent might live secure and the wicked be punished and the papal ordinances be obeyed, there were persons who would dare to serve him as follows. Considering that greed is the parent of all evils; that it is the law of the Partidas that the property of those having Catholic children should not be confiscated[594] and further that the royal treasury derived very little profit from the confiscations, as they were all consumed in the salaries and costs of the judges and receivers who enriched themselves, his Majesty could well benefit himself by a composition and sale of all his rights therein, for himself and his descendants for ever, obtaining from the pope a bull prohibiting confiscations and pecuniary penances and fines. If this were done the parties pledged themselves to provide rents sufficient, with those that Ferdinand had assigned towards that purpose, to defray all the salaries and costs of the Inquisition, on a basis to be defined by Charles. Moreover, they would pay him four hundred thousand ducats—one hundred thousand before his departure and the balance in three equal annual payments at the fair of Antwerp in May. Or, if he preferred not to do this in perpetuity, he could limit the term, for which two hundred thousand ducats would be paid, in similar four instalments. For the collection of the sum to meet these engagements there must be letters and provisions such as the Catholic king gave for the compositions of Andalusia, and it must be committed in Castile to the Archbishop of Toledo (Cardinal de Croy), and in Aragon to the Archbishop of Saragossa (Alfonso de Aragon) from whose decisions there was to be no appeal. But to furnish the necessary personal security for the fulfilment of this offer, it was significantly added that it would be necessary for the king and Cardinal Adrian to give safe-conducts to the parties, protecting them from prosecution by the Inquisition and these must be issued in the current month of October so that there might be time to raise the money.[595] It is scarce necessary to say that this proposition was unsuccessful. Charles was under the influence of Cardinal Adrian and Adrian was controlled by his colleagues. It was asking too much of inquisitors that they should agree to allow themselves to be restricted to the impartial administration of the cruel laws against heresy, to be content with salaries and forego the opportunities of peculation. It was also in vain that the Córtes of Coruña, in 1520, repeated the request of those of Valladolid for a reform in procedure.[596] Charles sailed for Flanders leaving his subjects exposed to all the evils under which they had groaned so long. There were still occasional ebullitions of resistance for, in 1520, when the tribunal of Cuenca arrested the deputy corregidor it gave rise to serious troubles and Inquisitor Mariano of Toledo was despatched thither with his servants and familiars to restore peace, a task which occupied him for five months.[597]

      A still further project for mitigating the rigors of the Inquisition was laid before Charles in 1520, apparently after his arrival in Flanders. This proposed no payment, but suggested that the expenses should be defrayed by the crown, which should wholly withdraw the confiscations from the control of the inquisitors. With this were connected various reforms in procedure—revealing the names of witnesses, allowing the accused to select his advocate and to see his friends and family in presence of the gaoler, the punishment of false witness by the talio, the support of wife and children during the trial from the sequestrated property and some others.[598] There would seem also, about 1522, to have been a further offer to Charles