The History of the Inquisition of Spain from the Time of its Establishment to the Reign of Ferdinand Part 37

The death of that prince, and the consequent change in the politics of the government, inspired Perez with the hope of arranging his affairs at Madrid; but the misfortune of having been prosecuted by the Inquisition rendered his efforts unavailing. The reader is referred to the _Relations_ for all that concerns this part of the history.

Perez had, at Paris, been intimate with Fray Francis de Sosa, general of the Franciscans, then Bishop of the Canaries, and a counsellor of the Inquisition, who often advised him to give himself up to the holy office, as the only means of obtaining a reconciliation. Perez replied that he would do so, and even wished it, but was deterred by the fear of being arrested by the government, after being set at liberty by the Inquisition. Sosa then tried to persuade him that he would avoid that danger by obtaining a safe conduct from the inquisitor-general and the Supreme Council, promising that he should be set at liberty when his trial was terminated by the holy office. Sosa, at that time, was little acquainted with the Inquisition, of which he was afterwards a member.

Perez wrote again to Sosa in 1611 concerning this affair; the bishop replied, and his letter determined Perez to inform him that he was ready to surrender to the Inquisition as soon as the safe conduct was sent to him: he sent at the same time to his wife, a pet.i.tion addressed to the Supreme Council, in which he renewed his promise. His wife presented it, and added to it one from herself, to interest the judges in her husband's favour. The attempt was fruitless, and Perez died at Paris on the 3rd of November, in the same year, after giving many proofs of his Catholicism, which were afterwards useful to his children in obtaining the revocation of the sentence given at Saragossa in 1592, and in _rehabilitating_ his memory.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

OF SEVERAL TRIALS OCCASIONED BY THAT OF ANTONIO PEREZ.

The trial of Antonio Perez was the cause of a great number of prosecutions against persons who had taken part in the tumults and the flight of Perez and his companion. The censures and penalties of the bull of Pius V., destined to punish those who opposed the exercise of the ministry of the holy office, were applied to them.

On the 12th of November, 1591, Don Alphonso de Vargas entered Saragossa at the head of his army; this expedition re-established the inquisitors, and they secretly informed against the instigators of the rebellion.

On the 8th of January, 1592, the fiscal of the holy office gave in a complaint against the rebels in general, as suspected in matters of faith; and he composed a list of the authors of the sedition, and of those who were suspected of being implicated in it: it amounted to three hundred and seventy-two individuals, who had compromised themselves either by their words or actions.

The inquisitors imprisoned a hundred and seventy, and made arrangements for the arrest of others who were only suspected, as the charges were not proved against them. Of this number, only a hundred and twenty-three individuals were taken, because the others had either been already taken to the royal prison by the command of Vargas, to be tried by Doctor Lanz, a senator of Milan, and the king's special commissioner on this occasion, or had made their escape; some who had only taken an indirect part in the event came under the jurisdiction of the commissioner, and obtained permission to remain as prisoners in their own houses. The following are some of the most remarkable trials, from the high rank of the individuals:--

Don Juan de la Nuza, Chief Justice of Aragon, not only had not opposed the exercise of the holy office, but might have been reproached for having given up more than the privileges of the kingdom allowed. He however suffered the fate of a rebel subject, because in the struggle which ensued he was unfortunately the weakest. The oath which the king had taken to observe the privileges of the kingdom did not allow him to send into it more than five hundred soldiers. The permanent deputation, on being informed of the preparations for the entrance of the army of Vargas, remonstrated; Philip replied that they were destined for France: the deputies then represented the danger which might arise from their being permitted to pa.s.s through Saragossa; they were then informed that the army would only remain in their city for the period necessary to restore the authority of justice, which had been almost entirely destroyed in the late seditions.

The deputies, on receiving this last reply, consulted thirteen lawyers on the sense of the _Fueros_; they declared that their rights were infringed by the entrance of the troops into Aragon, and that every Aragonese was bound to resist and prevent them. Circulars were then sent to all the towns, and to the permanent deputation of Catalonia and Valencia, to demand the aid stipulated by the treaties, in case either country was invaded. The chief justice, whom the laws of the kingdom called to the command, was ordered to place himself immediately at the head of the troops. When the Castilians came within six miles of Saragossa, the chief justice found himself almost deserted, and consequently retired and left the pa.s.sage free to the troops, who entered the town.

On the 28th of November, Don Francis de Borgia, Marquis de Lombay, arrived at Saragossa; he was commissioned to treat with the permanent deputies and the princ.i.p.al gentlemen of the kingdom concerning the points on which it was a.s.serted the privileges had been infringed.

Several conferences took place without any result, because the deputies declared that the _Fueros_ did not permit them while the country was occupied by foreign troops.

Philip II. appointed the Count de Morata to be viceroy in the place of the Bishop of Teruel, who had retired to his see, alarmed at the danger he had incurred. The viceroy made his public entry into Saragossa, on the 6th of December, to the great joy and satisfaction of the inhabitants; but their joy was of short duration. On the 18th of the same month, Don Gomez Velasquez arrived with a commission to arrest a great number of persons, and with a positive order to behead the chief justice of Aragon, as soon as he entered the town; this order was obeyed with so much expedition, that on the 28th Don Juan de la Nuza was no longer in existence. All Aragon was filled with consternation at the news of this execution. It is impossible to express how much La Nuza was respected by the people on account of his high office, which had been filled by the ill.u.s.trious members of his family for more than a hundred and fifty years. On this event, many gentlemen fled to France and Geneva, and those who, from an ill-founded confidence, remained, soon had cause to repent.

Don Francis d'Aragon, Duke de Villahermosa, Count de Ribagorza, did not escape the persecution, although he had the advantage of being of royal blood, being descended from John II. King of Aragon and Navarre, by his son Don Alphonso d'Aragon. In his trial before the Inquisition he was not accused of having opposed the measures of the tribunal during the insurrections, or of taking any part in them: but Don Francis Torralba, lieutenant to the chief justice (who had been deprived of his office in consequence of some serious complaints of Perez), pretended that the duke was, by the nature of his blood, an enemy to the holy tribunal, since he descended from Jews, who had been burnt and subjected to penances, by Estengua Conejo, a Jewess, who, on her baptism, took the name of Mary Sanchez, and afterwards became the wife or concubine of Don Alphonso d'Aragon, first Duke of Villahermosa, and grandfather to the present duke, whom he denounced. Torralba minutely detailed the proofs of what he a.s.serted.

When the inhabitants of Saragossa resolved to oppose the entrance of the Castilian army in their city, the duke, according to the laws of the kingdom, offered his services to the chief justice. The royal commissioner, not satisfied with his trial before the Inquisition, arrested him on the 19th of December, and sent him into Castile, in contempt of another law of the _Fuero_. The duke was beheaded at Burgos, as convicted of treason; his property was confiscated, and the king bestowed the duchy on the next in succession.

The Count d'Aranda, Don Louis Ximenez de Urrea, was also arrested on the 19th of December, but died in the prison of Alaejos, on the 4th of August, 1592. It appears from his trial by the Inquisition, that when Perez was sent to the prison of the kingdom, he declared himself his protector, according to a promise he had given to the wife of Perez at Madrid; that he was one of the princ.i.p.al instigators of the popular commotions; that he had influenced the lawyers, who declared the act, by which Perez was consigned a second time to the Inquisition, to be illegal; and lastly, that he had a.s.sisted in the military arrangements for the resistance of the royal troops. It has been already stated, that Diego de Heredia accused the Count d'Aranda and Antonio Perez of having conspired against the life of the Marquis d'Almenara. This deposition is not found in the trial, but Don Diego declared he had already informed the senator Lanz, while he was imprisoned by that magistrate. But if the circ.u.mstances independent of this conspiracy may be considered as crimes, why did Philip after the first revolt write to request him to lend a.s.sistance to the authorities, and afterwards to thank him for having so well performed his mission? It must excite indignation, to see a powerful monarch deceiving his subjects, and punis.h.i.+ng them by surprise.

The Count de Morata, Don Michael Martinez de Luna, Viceroy of Aragon, was denounced to the Inquisition, after the insurrection of Saragossa.

It appears that he blamed the conduct of the tribunal and the civil authorities towards Perez. Some witnesses supposed that he was one of the princ.i.p.al instigators of the first insurrection; but that afterwards learning that Philip had said that Perez was an unfaithful minister, he ceased to defend him. This is certainly an historical error, for the declaration of the king concerning Perez was made in August, 1590, after the act by which the king abandoned the prosecution relating to the death of Escobedo, and the insurrections at Saragossa took place in May, 1591. The change in the opinions of Martinez de Luna must have had some other cause. Some circ.u.mstances in his trial lead to the belief that he was acquainted with the proceedings of the council appointed at Madrid to consider the affairs, and that he foresaw that the consequences would be serious, which induced him to change his system.

When he was made viceroy, the inquisitor suppressed the preparatory instruction of the trial, and the decree of arrest which had already been resolved upon. The tribunal had received another information against the Count in 1577, concerning some _ill-sounding_ propositions, but they had not sufficient proof to proceed upon.

Although the inquisitors had been so indulgent to the count, he was not devoted to their party. His indifference induced the fiscal to bring a complaint against him in 1592, and to require that he should be arrested. He founded his requisition on the following allegation: the inquisitor-general Quiroga had published an edict of grace in favour of all the criminals who had not been arrested, that they might be absolved from all censures; and this edict having been communicated to the count before the publication, he declared that it was impertinent, useless, and ridiculous. The fiscal gave this as an instance of the contempt of the count for the censures under which he pretended that he had fallen, as the princ.i.p.al instigator of the first revolt. Some other expressions were construed into a sign of his hatred of the Inquisition.

It is certain that the count would not have escaped the vengeance of the Inquisitors, in his quality of viceroy. When he quitted his office they were fully occupied with other trials, and his affair was too unimportant, and too old, to attract the attention of their successors.

The opinion of the count on the edict of grace was very just. This _grace_ was not accorded until the inquisitors had celebrated a solemn _auto-da-fe_ in which seventy-nine inhabitants of the town were _relaxed_, and a much greater number of honourable persons condemned to infamy, on pretence of publicly absolving them from censure; besides that, those already in prison were excluded from the pardon.

After the executions of the chief justice, the Duke de Villahermosa, and the Count d'Aranda, the king granted a general pardon on the 24th December, 1592, with the exception of many individuals who had excited and directed the sedition. This edict saved the lives of several thousand Aragonese; palliating circ.u.mstances afterwards caused the capital punishment to be remitted to all those who were excepted in the general pardon.

The Baron de Barboles, Don Diego Fernandez de Heredia, brother and presumptive heir to the Count de Fuentes, a grandee of Spain, was to have been arrested by the Inquisition; but he was taken by order of Vargas, claimed his privilege, and was taken to the prison of the _Manifestados_, and on the 9th of October, 1592, had his head struck off at the back of the neck as guilty of treason. He had made several depositions before the Senator Lanz, and all that concerned Antonio Perez was communicated to the inquisitors; he had already been examined twice on that subject as a witness of the fiscal, and deposed to a great number of facts which proved that he had excited the people, and kept up the rebellion with the Count d'Aranda and others, and that he was engaged in the plan to a.s.sa.s.sinate the Marquis d'Almenara, but that he repented and revoked the orders he had given concerning it; nevertheless some witnesses deposed that they had seen him in the road encouraging the a.s.sa.s.sins. The Baron de Barboles also declared that he was the princ.i.p.al author of the complaint brought by Antonio Perez before the ordinary judge of Saragossa, against the secretary, major-domo, and squire of the Marquis d'Almenara and several other persons, whom he accused of having, by order of the marquis, suborned several witnesses in 1591, to depose against Perez several facts required by the inquisitors; that he had directed and instigated the efforts which were made to find witnesses to confirm by their declarations the articles of their complaint, and that he had deposed as from himself what he had only heard from the agent of Perez.

Another inquest against Don Diego existed in the Inquisition, in which he was accused of having made use of necromancy to discover treasures, and sending horses to France. The Judge Torralba also deposed that he had heard it said that Don Diego had been arrested by the Inquisition of Valencia for having concealed a Moresco from an alguazil; he added that it was not surprising that Don Diego was an enemy to the holy office, because though the blood of his ancestors had not been sullied by that of the Jews, his children had not that advantage, since his wife, the Baroness d'Alcaraz, was of Jewish origin.

Philip II. wished to show the Count de Fuentes that though he punished the guilty he knew how to reward a faithful subject, and made him governor of the Low Countries. The Count hated Perez, whom he considered as the cause of the misfortunes of de Barboles; it is not therefore surprising that he took an active part in the conspiracy formed in London against his life. This attempt did not succeed, and two of the conspirators were put to death at the requisition of the English fiscal, who had been commanded by Queen Elizabeth to prosecute the authors of the plot.

The Baron de Purroy, Don Juan de Luna, a member for the n.o.bility in the deputation of the kingdom, was executed on the same day with Barboles; the charges against him were very similar to the preceding. His offences against the Inquisition were, that he was the cause of the resolution taken in the committee of the deputation to defend the independence of the prison of the _Manifestados_ against the pretensions of the inquisitors; to confine their jurisdiction to the crime of heresy, and to prevent them from taking cognizance of offences in the revolt and similar crimes, which they undertook, because they said that some of the persons concerned in it opposed the exercise of their office; lastly, Don Juan was implicated in the subornation of witnesses in the affair of Perez.

The Baron de Biescas, Don Martin de la Nuza, Lord of Sallen and the towns of the valley of Tena, fled to France, but afterwards returned to Spain; he was arrested in Tudela of Navarre, and was beheaded. The trial before the Inquisition states, that besides the crimes committed like the other rebels, the Baron de Biescas was guilty of having received Antonio Perez into his house, and concealed him until he could fly to France; and of entering into the Spanish territory at several points with a corps of Bearnese troops, and declaring that he would not lay down his arms until he had driven the Castilian army out of Aragon, and revenged the death of his relation the chief justice.

The senator Lanz likewise condemned to death many other n.o.ble gentlemen, besides labourers and artisans. Many who fled to France or Geneva were condemned to death: these individuals remained in exile till after the death of Philip II. His successor, Philip III., permitted them to return to their country, and annulled all the articles in the sentences p.r.o.nounced against those who had been executed, which were contrary to the interests of their families; _the king declaring that none of them were guilty towards the state: and that he acknowledged that each person had considered himself bound to defend the rights of his country_.

The cruelty of the inquisitors was not satiated by these executions.

They represented to the Supreme Council that they did not dare to demand the prisoners of the General Vargas, although it would be much better if they were tried by the Inquisition: but that nevertheless they thought it would be useful if the Baron de Barboles was given up to them, since his execution, in that case, would strike more terror into the guilty.

The council rejected the request of the inquisitors; they, however, retained in their prisons many ill.u.s.trious persons, among whom were some women.

When the inquisitors published the edict of grace, more than five hundred persons presented themselves to demand absolution. Each person confessed the crime for which they were to be absolved; some of these are rather ludicrous.

Mary Ramirez declares, that on seeing Antonio Perez taken to prison, she exclaimed--_Poor wretch! after such long imprisonments, they have not yet found him an heretic._

Christoval de Heredia _confesses that he has often wished that Perez might get out of his troubles_.

Donna Geronima d'Arteaga, _that she raised a little subscription for Antonio Perez, during his imprisonment, because he could not enjoy his own property_.

Louis de Anton, _that he was the prosecutor of Perez, and that he did several things to serve him_.

Martina de Alastuey, _that she prepared the food of Perez, in her house, and that her son Antonio Anoz, who was his servant, carried it to him in the prison_.

Don Louis de Gurrea _demands absolution only to rea.s.sure his conscience, although it does not reproach him_!

Don Michael de Sese also claims it, _to appease the same scruples_!

Doctor Murillo, _that he visited Perez in the prison when he was ill_.

The following are instances of a spirit quite contrary to the preceding examples:--

The Doctor Don Gregory de Andia, vicar of the parish of St. Paul, being informed that a priest had refused absolution to more than two hundred persons, because they had not been absolved from the censures incurred by the bull of St. Pius V., could not help saying, _That priest is an ignorant fellow. Let all those people come to me, and also all those who revolted: I would absolve them with pleasure of all their sins, and feel no fear for such an action._ The vicar was arrested for his boldness, and taken to the secret prisons. Many persons shared his fate, among whom were,--

Juan de Cerio, a familiar of the holy office, who, on hearing it remarked that the Aragonese ought not to endure the Inquisition any longer, replied: "As for me, they may burn the house, the papers, the prisons, and even the inquisitors: I shall have nothing to say against it."

A brother of the Trinity, who, on hearing that the Castilians wished to reduce the Aragonese, and destroy their privileges, said, "_If Jesus Christ was a Castilian, I would not believe in him._"

Michael Urgel, procurator of the royal audience, confessed that after he had heard the declaration of the four counsellors, that it was an infringement of the _Fueros_ to transfer Perez to the Inquisition, he said: "We must treat the letters of the inquisitors with contempt, and if the king supports them, he is a tyrant: let us get rid of him and elect a native king of Aragon, since we have a right to do so."

These are a few instances of the pretended sins for which absolution was demanded, and for which many persons were arrested, but they are sufficient to shew the spirit of the people and of the inquisitors.

Donna Juana de Coello, the wife of Perez, and her young children, were also victims to the events at Saragossa. They had been detained in the Castle of Pinto, two leagues from Madrid, since the month of April, 1590, where that heroine had favoured the escape of her husband at the expense of her own liberty. After his second flight from Saragossa, their imprisonment became still more rigorous. It is proved by the trial of Perez, that he often said when in prison, that nothing should induce him to renounce the privileges of the prison of the kingdom, except the a.s.surance that his wife and children enjoyed their liberty; but that he was certain if he gave himself up to the inquisitors he should be sent to Madrid and executed.

This information induced the inquisitors at the end of September, 1591, to request that Donna Juana and her children might be more strictly imprisoned, since he would hear of it, and it might induce him to return to the prison of the kingdom. This idea was inspired by the perfidious Basante. In fact, Perez was informed that his wife and children were removed to a sort of bastion or tower of the castle, which was much more inconvenient than the former prison; however, Donna Juana requested her husband to think only of his own safety, since the news of his flight had been sufficient to keep her and her children in good health. Donna Juana remained in prison during the life of Philip II., who on his death advised his successor to set her and her family at liberty.