The History of the Inquisition of Spain from the Time of its Establishment to the Reign of Ferdinand Part 29

An account has been already given of the persecutions of Don Ferdinand de Talavera, first Archbishop of Granada; of Juan Davila, surnamed the Apostle of Andalusia; and of San Juan de Dios, founder of the congregation of Hospitallers. The following is a list of other holy persons who have been prosecuted by the holy office:--

St. Ignacius de Loyola was denounced as an _illuminati_ to the Inquisition of Valladolid; and when the inquisitors were about to arrest him, he went to France, afterwards to Italy, and arrived at Rome, where he was tried and acquitted; after having been so likewise in Spain by a juridical sentence of the vicar-general of the Bishop of Salamanca. His real name was Inigo.

Melchior Cano says, in an unpublished work written during the life of Inigo, "that he fled from Spain when the Inquisition intended to arrest him as a heretic of the sect of _Illuminati_. He went to Rome, and wished to be judged by the Pope. As no person appeared to accuse him, he was discharged."

It is certain that St. Ignacius was arrested at Salamanca in 1527, as a _fanatic_ and _illuminati_, and that he recovered his liberty in about twenty-two days; he was enjoined in his preaching from qualifying mortal or venial sins, until he had studied theology four years. It is also true that when the inquisitors of Valladolid learnt that the saint was in prison, they wrote to cause an inquest to be made of the words and actions which caused a suspicion that he was one of the _Illuminati_.

But it is not proved that Ignacius quitted Spain to escape from punishment; it appears that he only fulfilled his intention of studying theology at Paris. The humility of the saint was so great, that when he was denounced a second time in that city, to Matthew d'Ory the apostolical inquisitor, he surrendered himself voluntarily, and had no difficulty in proving his orthodoxy.

It is not more certain that he went to Rome at that time, since he was still at Paris in 1535, and he afterwards returned to Spain, where he remained a year without being molested, though he preached in several provinces. He then embarked for Italy, went first to Bologna, and then to Venice, where he was a third time denounced as a heretic, but justified himself to the papal nuncio, and was admitted into the priesthood in that city. Ignacius arrived in Rome in 1538.

It cannot be proved that he was acquitted at Rome because he had no accuser, since any criminal may be prosecuted by the minister of the public and punished. It is true that there was not at that time a particular tribunal of the Inquisition at Rome; but the civil judges could punish heretics, and the procurator-fiscal impeached the criminals. St. Ignacius was again denounced by a Spaniard named Navarro.

The informer deposed that Ignacius had been accused and convicted of several heresies in Spain, France, and Venice, and charged him with some other crimes. Fortunately his three judges knew his innocence, and he was acquitted. His accuser was banished for life, and three Spaniards who had supported his evidence were condemned to retract.

Thus it appears that Melchior Cano was misinformed when he wrote, ten years after, that Inigo was acquitted because no accuser appeared.

St. Francis de Borgia, a disciple of Loyola, and third general of his order, succeeded Lainez, in 1565, and died 1572. He had been the Duke de Gandia, and was cousin to the king in the third degree, by his mother, Jane of Arragon.

In 1559, the Inquisition of Valladolid tried several Lutherans, who were condemned. Many of these heretics, who endeavoured to justify themselves by supporting their doctrine by the opinions of St. Francis de Borgia, whose virtue was well known, related some discourses and actions of this saint, to prove that they thought as he did on the justification of souls by faith, on the pa.s.sion and death of Jesus Christ; and added, to strengthen their defence, the authority of some mystic treatises. Among these involuntary persecutors, was Fray Dominic de Roxas, his near relation, and advantage was taken of a former denunciation of his _Treatise on Christian Works_, which he composed while he was known as the Duke of Gandia.

This book, the discourse of Melchior Cano, and the Dominicans, caused him to be accused as favouring the heresy of the _Illuminati_. Neither his merit, nor his near relations.h.i.+p to the king, would have saved him from the prisons of Valladolid, if he had not hastened to Rome the moment he was informed that his trial had commenced, and that his enemies would endeavour to secure his person. He escaped from the Inquisition, but he had the mortification of seeing his work twice placed in the Index, in 1559 and in 1583.

Juan de Ribera was a natural son of Don Pedro Afan de Ribera, Duke of Alcala, and Viceroy of Naples and Catalonia. In 1568, he pa.s.sed from the bishopric of Badajoz to the archbishopric of Valencia. His life was irreproachable; but his great charity and ardent zeal, in endeavouring to reform the clergy, made him many enemies.

In 1570 Philip II. commanded him to visit the University of Valencia, and reform some of its rules. The archbishop began to fulfil his commission, but offended some of the doctors, who conspired against him. They circulated defamatory libels concerning him, during a whole year, and the affair was carried so far that a monk prayed for his conversion publicly in the church of Valencia. Ribera was denounced to the Inquisition, as a heretic, fanatic, and one of the _Illuminati_.

St. Juan de Ribera would not demand the punishment of his slanderers; but the procurator-fiscal being informed that Onuphrius Gacet, a member of the college, was the princ.i.p.al author of the intrigue, denounced him to the provisor and vicar-general of the archbishop. Gacet being convicted, was imprisoned. The archbishop did not think it proper that a judge belonging to his own household should take cognizance of offences which concerned him personally; and in order to remove all suspicion of partiality, he wished that the trial should be transferred to the Inquisition of Valencia, as some of the libels and texts of Scripture were employed in so scandalous a manner, that they came under the jurisdiction of the tribunal.

St. Juan de Ribera communicated his design to the Cardinal Espinosa, inquisitor-general, who commanded the inquisitors of Valencia to continue the trial. The inquisitors had already begun the preparatory instruction against the archbishop according to the denunciations; witnesses were found to support them, which is not surprising, since every accuser caused the men devoted to his party to sign his deposition as witnesses. The trial, however, took a sudden turn; instead of proceeding in the usual forms, the inquisitor caused a decree to be read in all the churches of Valencia, enjoining every individual to denounce all those who employed pa.s.sages of the Holy Scriptures in a scandalous manner, on pain of excommunication. The informations began, and the inquisitors arrested both priests and laymen. The affair was carried on as a matter of faith; some of the accused were already condemned, and others on the point of being so, when the procurator of the holy office declared that doubts existed of the competence of the inquisitors, and advised that the affair should be referred to the Pope, who would appease the scruples.

The tribunal approved of the proposition, and in 1572, Gregory XIII.

expedited a brief, which contained all that has been here related, and authorized the inquisitor-general, and the provincial inquisitors, to decide in similar cases, and at the same time sanctioned all that had been done. The inquisitors then condemned several persons, some to corporal punishments, others to pecuniary penalties, declaring that they should have been more severe, but from consideration for the archbishop, who had solicited the pardon of the criminals, that no person might suffer from an injury done to him.

St. Theresa de Jesus, one of the most celebrated women in Spain for her talents, was accused before the Inquisition of Seville. She was not imprisoned, because the trial was suspended after the preparatory instructions. She was born at Avila, in 1515.

St. Juan de la Crux, who united with St. Theresa in reforming the Convents of Carmelites, was born at Ontiveros in the diocese of Avila, in 1542. He was prosecuted by the Inquisitions of Seville, Toledo, and Valladolid. He was denounced as a fanatic, and of the _Illuminati_: the proceedings did not go farther than the preparatory instruction. St.

Juan de la Crux died at Ubeda, in 1591. He composed several works on mental orisons.

St. Joseph de Calasanz, founder of the inst.i.tute of regular clerks of the Christian schools. He was imprisoned in the dungeons of the holy office as a fanatic, and of the _Illuminati_; but he justified himself and was acquitted. He died some time after, at the age of ninety-two. He was born in 1556.

_Venerables._

The venerable Fray Louis de Grenada, born in 1504, was the disciple of Juan d'Avila; he was of the order of St. Dominic, and left several works on religion. He was implicated in the trial of the Lutherans at Valladolid; Fray Dominic de Roxas defended his opinions, by saying that they were the same as those of Fray Louis de Grenada, Carranza, and other good Catholics. The procurator-fiscal made Fray Dominic renew his declaration, with the intention of producing him as a witness in the trial of Fray Louis: Fray Dominic was burnt five days after. A sentence condemning some of his works was also brought against Fray Louis.

He was denounced a third time as one of the _Illuminati_, but was acquitted. Fray Louis died in 1588. His works are well known: it is singular that the Index in which his condemnation was published, was afterwards prohibited by the inquisitor-general Quiroga.

The venerable Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, the natural son of Don James Palafox, afterwards Marquis de Hariza and of Donna Maria de Mendoza (who soon after became a Carmelite); he was born in 1600. He was made Bishop de la Puebla de los Angelos, in America, in 1639; afterwards Archbishop and Viceroy of Mexico; and lastly, Bishop of Osma, in Spain, in 1653. He died in 1659, leaving several works on history, devotion, and mysticity, and with so great a reputation of sanct.i.ty, that his canonization is pending at Rome.

Don Juan had great disputes with the Jesuits in America, on account of the privileges of his rank, of which the Fathers wished to deprive him.

The most important of his writings, is his letter to Pope Innocent X., who terminated their disputes, to a certain degree, by a brief, in 1648.

The Jesuits did not consider themselves vanquished; they denounced the archbishop as one of the _Illuminati_ and a false devotee, at Rome, at Madrid, and at Mexico. The provincial inquisitors of the last city applied to the Supreme Council, and the venerable Palafox suffered everything from them which they could inflict, except imprisonment.

They condemned and prohibited the writings which the archbishop had published in his defence, and circulated those of his adversaries, and some libels which they had framed to ruin Don Antonio Gabiola, procurator-fiscal to the Inquisition, who openly disapproved of the conduct of the Jesuits.

This officer wrote to Palafox in 1647, exhorting him to make every effort, that the trials before the Inquisition of Mexico should proceed in a regular manner, according to the spirit of the inst.i.tution, and encouraging him to oppose his formidable enemies.

The Jesuits, by their intrigues, succeeded in causing some of the works of Palafox to be placed in the Index, but the congregation of cardinals having afterwards declared that they contained nothing reprehensible, or which could impede his beatification, the inquisitors were obliged to efface them from the catalogue.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

OF THE CELEBRATED TRIAL OF DON CARLOS, PRINCE OF THE ASTURIAS.

All Europe has believed that Philip II. caused the Inquisition to proceed against Don Carlos his only son; that the inquisitors condemned the prince to death, and that they only differed on the manner in which the sentence was to be executed. Some writers have gone so far as to record the conversations which took place, on this occasion, between Philip and the inquisitor-general, Don Carlos and other persons, with as much confidence as if they had been present at them, and have even quoted part of the sentence as if they had read it.

As it has been my princ.i.p.al aim to ascertain the truth, I have examined the archives of the Council of the Inquisition and others, and I, in consequence, affirm, that Don Carlos was never tried or condemned by the Inquisition; an opinion only was given against the prince by the councillors of state, whose president was the Cardinal Espinosa, who at that time was the king's favourite. The circ.u.mstance of the cardinal being inquisitor-general may have been the cause of the mistake; the deaths of the Count de Egmont and other n.o.blemen, and the intention of establis.h.i.+ng the Inquisition in the Low Countries, may have tended to confirm the general opinion.

Don Carlos lost his life in consequence of a verbal sentence approved by his father, and the holy office was not concerned in it. As I wrote only the history of the Inquisition, this fact renders it unnecessary to say more on the subject; but as almost all the historians of Europe have said that the inquisitors condemned Don Carlos, the beat way of disproving it is to relate the facts as they occurred.

Don Carlos was born at Valladolid, on the 8th of July in 1545, and lost his mother, Maria of Portugal, four days after his birth. Charles V.

scarcely ever saw him until the year 1557, when he abdicated and retired to the monastery of St. Juste in Estremadura. He visited his grandson in pa.s.sing through Valladolid. It is not true that Charles V. educated Don Carlos, and formed his mind; but during his various journeys he gave him good preceptors. The young prince was nine years old, and his father was on the point of embarking for England, when the emperor wrote a letter from Germany, dated the 3rd of July, 1554, in which he speaks (among other tutors intended for his grandson) of Don Honorato Juanez, one of the greatest humanists of his age, and afterwards Bishop of Osma[34]. It is evident that Don Carlos was not fond of learning, by a letter from his father, dated Brussels, 15th of March, 1558, in which he thanks the preceptor for the trouble he took to give his pupil a taste for reading and to inculcate moral principles; he desires him to pursue the same plan, adding, that "though Don Carlos may not profit by it so much as he ought, it will not be entirely useless. I have also written to Don Garcia to pay particular attention in selecting those who see and visit the prince; it will be better to put a taste for study into his head than many other things[35]." Philip had imbibed a very disadvantageous opinion of his son's character; he had been informed that the prince amused himself with cutting the throats of the young rabbits which were brought to him, and that he appeared to take pleasure in seeing them expire. Fabian Estrada relates that the same thing was remarked by a Venetian amba.s.sador[36].

War had been declared between France and Spain, and the two powers were on the point of giving battle in August, 1558, but at the same time were negotiating a peace in the secret conference held at the Abbey of Corpans. One of the articles states that Don Carlos, when he arrived at a proper age, should marry Isabella, daughter to Henry II., King of France: the prince was thirteen years of age, and the princess twelve.

This circ.u.mstance, and the custom observed at that period, of keeping the preliminaries of a peace secret till its conclusion, entirely disproves all that has been said of the love of the young princess, which is the more improbable, as she had never even seen the prince's picture, and very unfavourable accounts of his education had been received. Charles V., after his retirement, had been heard to say, that he thought his grandson showed a very vicious disposition. This may be attributed to the education given him by his uncle and aunt, Maximilian, King of Bohemia, afterwards Emperor, and Jane of Austria. They paid the greatest attention to the health of Don Carlos, but neglected to repress his violent inclinations, and confided the care of forming his character to his governor, his master, and his princ.i.p.al chaplain.

The secret preliminaries only preceded the definitive treaty of peace, which was concluded at Cambray on the 8th of April, 1559. Mary, Queen of England, died during the interval, and Philip II., being then a widower, and only thirty-two years of age, while Don Carlos was scarcely fourteen, Henry II. thought it better to marry his daughter to the king.

The marriage of Isabella to Philip was therefore agreed upon in the twenty-seventh article, and the secret article in the preliminaries was not mentioned.

The marriage was celebrated at Toledo, on the 2nd of February, 1560. The general Cortes of the kingdom was then held: the members took the oaths of fidelity to Don Carlos, and acknowledged him as the successor to the crown, on the 22nd of the same month. The young queen could not attend this ceremony, as she was attacked by the small pox a few days after her marriage. Don Carlos had also fallen sick of the quartan fever, some time before the arrival of the queen in Spain. Although this disorder did not prevent him from riding on horseback, and attending at the a.s.sembly of the Cortes, it appears, from contemporary writers, that it rendered him thin, weak, and pale. This circ.u.mstance makes it improbable that he was handsome, and renders the journey which Mercier pretends that he made to meet the queen at Alcala extremely doubtful.

When she became convalescent, Isabella must certainly have been made acquainted with the neglected education of Don Carlos, his bad principles, and his insupportable pride. She could not be ignorant how ill he treated his attendants; that when he was angry he broke anything he could seize; and she was probably informed of his behaviour to the Duke of Alva, at the a.s.sembly of the Cortes. The duke had the entire regulation of everything relating to the ceremonies, and was so much occupied, that he forgot to attend Don Carlos when he ought to have taken the oath of fidelity. He was sought for, and found, but the young prince was furious, and insulted him so grossly, that he almost made him forget the respect which was due to him. The king compelled Don Carlos to make an apology to the duke; but it was too late, they hated each other mortally all their lives.

I have not found in the MSS. I have examined, anything which might lead to the supposition that Don Carlos was in love with the queen; the opinion must have been founded on the article in the secret preliminaries, which, there is reason to suppose, the prince was never acquainted with. He had scarcely recovered, and the queen was still in a state of convalescence, when the king sent him to Alcala de Henares. He was accompanied by Don John of Austria, his uncle, and by Alexander Farnese, the hereditary Prince of Parma, his cousin; his governor, master, and almoner, also attended him, with other domestics. The king expected that this journey would restore the health of his son, and also wished that he should apply himself to his studies, for he did not yet understand Latin. Don Honorato Juanez perceived his dislike to learning foreign languages, and therefore gave him his lessons in Spanish.

On the 9th of May, 1552, Don Carlos, who was then seventeen years of age, fell down the staircase of his palace, and received several wounds, princ.i.p.ally in the spine and head, some of which appeared to be mortal.

As soon as the king was informed of the accident, he set off for the palace, that he might give him every a.s.sistance, and ordered all the archbishops, and other superior ecclesiastics of the kingdom, to offer up prayers for the recovery of his son. The king, supposing him to be already at the point of death, sent for the body of the blessed Diego, a lay Franciscan, by which it was said that many miracles had been performed. This body was laid upon that of Don Carlos, and as he began to recover from that time, it was attributed to the protection of St.

Diego, who was canonized a short time after, at the request of Philip II. It must be observed, that the prince was attended by the celebrated Don Andrea Basilio, the king's physician, who opened his skull, freed it from a considerable quant.i.ty of water which had acc.u.mulated, and thus saved his life; but he never entirely recovered, and was subject to pains and weakness in the head, which prevented him from studying, and by producing a disorder in his ideas, rendered his character still more insupportable.

Don Carlos returned to court in 1564, emanc.i.p.ated from his masters: Philip recompensed Don Honorato Juanez, by making him bishop of Osma.

The solid piety and amiableness of this prelate had inspired Don Carlos with an affection which their separation did not interrupt: this is proved by his letters, which do not give a very advantageous idea of his capacity or information. He often left sentences imperfect, and a different meaning might be inferred from them from what he wished to express. The following is a letter addressed to the prelate:--

"To my master the bishop.--My master: I have received your letter in the wood: I am well. G.o.d knows how much I should have been delighted to go to see you with the queen[37]: let me know how you were, and if there was much expense. I went from Alameda to Buitrago, which appeared to me very well. I went to the wood in two days; I returned here in two days, where I have been from Wednesday till to day. I am well; I finish. From the country, June 2nd. My best friend in this world. I will do every thing that you wish: I, the Prince." He finishes another letter dated on St. John's day, in the same terms.

Don Carlos was so much attached to the bishop, that he obtained a brief from the Pope, granting him permission to reside half the year in Madrid, that he might enjoy his society; but the infirmities of Don Honorato prevented him from making use of the permission, and soon caused his death. This prelate availed himself of the attachment of Don Carlos to give him good advice: the prince appears to have received it as he ought, but his conduct was not improved by it. He gave himself up without restraint to the impetuosity of his pa.s.sions. Some instances may undeceive those who approve the pompous eulogium bestowed on the talents and generosity of Don Carlos, by St. Real, Mercier, and others.