• Chapter 1 - Review of the Ecclesiastical History of Spain
• Chapter 2 - Of the State of Literature in Spain
• Chapter 3 - Of the Inquisition
• Chapter 4 - Introduction of the Reformed Doctrine
• Chapter 5 - Causes of the Progress
• Chapter 6 - Progress of the Reformation in Spain
• Chapter 7 - Suppression of the Reformation in Spain
• Chapter 8 - Protestant Exiles From Spain.
• Chapter 9 - Effects Which the Suppression
• Appendix
  • No. 1 - Dedication By Francisco De Enzinas
  • No. 2 - Extracts From a Preface By Juan Perez
  • No. 3 - Extracts From the Confession of a Sinner
  • No. 4 - Letter From Francisco Farias and Nicolas Molino
  • No. 5 - Specimens of Early Spanish Translations
    • Ferrer’s Version.
    • Enzinas’s Version.
• Footnotes

• Publishers Notes

REVIEW OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF SPAIN BEFORE THE ERA OF THE REFORMATION.

ERRONEOUS opinions as to their early history, originating in vanity, and fostered by ignorance and credulity, have been common among almost every people. These are often harmless; and while they afford matter of good-humored raillery to foreigners, excite the more inquisitive and liberal-minded among themselves to exert their talents in separating truth from fable, by patient research, and impartial discrimination. But they are sometimes of a very different character, and have been productive of the worst consequences. They have been the means of entailing political and spiritual bondage on a people, of rearing insurmountable obstacles in the way of their improvement, of propagating feelings no less hostile to their domestic comfort than to their national tranquillity, and of making them at once a curse to themselves and a scourge to all around them.

If the natives of Spain have not advanced those extravagant pretensions to high antiquity which have made the inhabitants of some other countries ridiculous, they have unhappily fallen under the influence of national prejudices equally destitute of truth, and far more pernicious in their tendency. Every true Spaniard is disposed to boast of the purity of his blood, or, in the established language of the country, that he is “an Old Christian, free from all stain of bad descent.” The meanest peasant or artisan in Spain looks upon it as a degradation to have in his veins the least mixture of Jewish or Moorish blood, though transmitted by the remotest of his known ancestors, in the male or female line. To have descended from that race, “of which, as concerning the flesh, Christ came,” or from Christians who had incurred the censure of a tribunal whose motto is the reverse of his who “came not to destroy men’s lives but to save them,” is regarded as a greater disgrace than to have sprung from savages or pagans, or from those who had incurred the last sentence of justice for the most unnatural and horrid crimes. “I verily believe,” says a modern Spanish writer who sometimes smiles through tears at the prejudices of his countrymen, “that were St. Peter a Spaniard, he would either deny admittance into heaven to people of tainted blood, or send them into a corner, where they might not offend the eyes of the Old Christian.” ^f1 We might go further, and say, that if a Spaniard had the keys of heaven in his keeping, St. Peter, and all the apostles with him, would be “removed into a corner.” It is easy to conceive what misery must have been felt by persons and families who have incurred this involuntary infamy in their own estimation, or in that of their neighbors; and what bitter and rancorous feelings must have been generated in the hearts of individuals and races of men living together or contiguously, both in a state of peace and of warfare.

But, when the records of antiquity are consulted, the truth turns out to be, that in no other country of Europe has there been such an intermixture of races as in Spain—Iberian, Celtic, Carthaginian, Roman, Greek, Gothic, Jewish, Saracennic, Syrian, Arabian, and Moorish. With none are the Spaniards more anxious to disclaim all kindred than with the Jews and Moors. Yet anciently their Christian kings did not scruple to form alliances with the Moorish sovereigns of Grenada, to appear at their tournaments, and even to fight under their banners. Down to the middle of the fifteenth century, the Spanish poets and romancers celebrated the chivalry of “the Knights of Grenada, gentlemen though Moors.” ^f2 It was no uncommon occurrence for the Christians in Spain to connect themselves by marriage with Jews and Moors; and the pedigree of many of the grandees and titled nobility has been traced up to these “cankered branches” by the Tizon de Espana, or Brand of Spain, a book which neither the influence of the government, nor the terror of the Inquisition, has been able to suppress. ^f3 Nor is greater credit due to the opinion which has long been prevalent in the Peninsula, that its inhabitants have uniformly kept themselves free from all stain of heretical pravity, and preserved the purity of the faith inviolate since their first reception into Christianity.

The ancient state of the church in Spain is but little known. Modern writers of that nation have been careful to conceal or to pass lightly over those spots of its history which are calculated to wound the feelings or abate the prejudices of their countrymen. Shut out from access to original documents, or averse to the toil of investigating them, foreigners have generally contented themselves with the information which common books supply. And knowing that the Spaniards have signalized their zeal for the See of Rome and the catholic faith during the last three centuries, the public, as if by general agreement, have come to the hasty conclusion that this was the fact from the beginning. To correct such mistakes, and to furnish materials for an accurate judgment, it may be proper to take a more extensive view of the state of religion in Spain before the Reformation, than would otherwise have been necessary to our undertaking.

The ecclesiastical history of Spain during the three first centuries may be comprised in two facts,—that the Christian religion was early introduced into that country; and that churches were erected in various parts of it, notwithstanding the persecution to which they were exposed at intervals. All beside this is fable or conjecture. That the gospel was first preached to their ancestors by St. James, the son of Zebedee, is an opinion which has been long so popular among the Spaniards, and so identified with the national faith, that such of their writers as were most convinced of the unsound foundation on which it rests have been forced to join in bearing testimony to its truth. The ingenuity of the warm partisans of the popedom has been put to the stretch in managing the obstinate fondness with which the inhabitants of the Peninsula have clung to a prepossession so hazardous to the claims of St. Peter and of Rome. They have alternately exposed the futility of the arguments produced in its support, and granted that it is to be received as a probable opinion, resting on tradition. At one time they have urged that the early martyrdom of the apostle precludes the idea of such an expedition; and at another time they have tendered their aid to relieve the Spaniards from this embarrassment, and to “elude the objection,” by suggesting, with true Italian dexterity, that the Spirit might have carried the apostle from Palestine to Spain, and after he had performed his task, conveyed him back with such celerity that he was in time to receive the martyr’s crown at Jerusalem. ^f4 By such artful managements, they succeeded at last in settling the dispute, after the following manner; that, agreeably to the concurring voice of antiquity, the seven first bishops of Spain were ordained by St. Peter, and sent by him into the Peninsula; but that, as is probable, they had been converted to the Christian faith by St. James, who despatched them to Rome to receive holy orders from the prince of the apostles; from which the inference is, that St. James was the first who preached the gospel to the Spaniards, but St. Peter was the founder of the church of Spain. ^f5 Leaving such fabulous accounts, which serve no other purpose than to illustrate human credulity, and the ease with which it is wrought upon by artifice and cunning, we proceed to the period of authentic history.

The facts which we have to bring forward may be arranged under three heads:—the doctrine of the ancient church of Spain; her government; and her worship.

I. Sentiments which by common consent have been regarded as heretical, without as well as within the pale of that church which arrogates to herself the title of catholic, sprang up repeatedly in Spain, and in some instances overran the whole country. In the fourth century, Priscillian, a native of Gallicia, founded a new sect, which united the tenets of the Manichaeans and Gnostics. It made many converts, including persons of the episcopal order, and subsisted in Spain for two hundred years. ^f6 When they boast of the pure blood of the Goths, the Spaniards appear to forget that their Gothic ancestors were Arians, and that Arianism was the prevailing and established creed of the country for nearly two centuries. ^f7 Nor did Spain long preserve her faith uncontaminated, after she had adopted the common doctrine under Reccared, who reigned in the close of the sixth century. To pass by the spread of Nestorianism and some tenets of less note, ^f8 she gave birth, in the eighth century, to the heresy called adoptionarian, because its disciples held that Christ is the adopted Son of God. This opinion was broached by Elipand, archbishop of Toledo, who was at the head of the Spanish church; it was vigorously defended by Felix, bishop of Urgel, a prelate of great ability; and maintained itself for a considerable time, in spite of the decisions of several councils, supported by the learning of Alcuin and the authority of Charlemagne. ^f9

Nor were there wanting in the early ages Spaniards who held some of the leading opinions afterwards avowed by the protestant reformers. Claude, bishop of Turin, who flourished in the ninth century, and distinguished himself by his valuable labors in the illustration of the scriptures, was a native of Spain. His decided condemnation of the worship of images, and of the veneration paid to the relics and sepulchers of the saints, together with his resistance to the ecclesiastical authority which imposed these practices, has exposed the memory of this pious and learned divine to the deadly hatred of all the devotees of superstition and spiritual despotism. ^f10 In support of his principal tenet, Claude could plead the authority of one of the most venerable councils of his native church, which ordained that there should be no pictures in churches, and that nothing should be painted on the walls which might be worshiped or adored. ^f11

Galindo Prudentio, bishop of Troyes, was a countryman and contemporary of Claude. His learning was superior to that of the age in which he lived; and the comparative purity of his style bears witness to his familiarity with the writings of the ancient classics. Having fixed his residence in France, he enjoyed the confidence of Charlemagne, who employed him in visiting and reforming the monasteries. In the predestinarian controversy which divided the French clergy of that time, he took part with Goteschalcus against Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims, and the noted schoolman, Joannes Scotus, surnamed Erigena. The sentiments which Prudentio held on that subject bear a striking resemblance to those which the church of Rome has since anathematized in the writings of Luther and Calvin. ^f12

II. The Spanish church, at the beginning of the fourth century, acknowledged no other officers than bishops, presbyters, and deacons. ^f13 She was equally a stranger to the superior orders of metropolitans and archbishops, and to the inferior orders of sub-deacons and lectors. Her discipline was at that time characterized by great strictness and even rigor, of which there was a palpable relaxation when the government of the church came to be formed upon the model of the empire, after Constantine had embraced christianity. ^f14 This change was, however, introduced more slowly into Spain than into some other countries. The church of Africa was careful to guard the parity of episcopal power against the encroachments of the metropolitans; and the Spanish bishops, who appear from an early period to have paid great deference to her maxims and practices, continued for a considerable time to evince the same jealousy. ^f15 To the supremacy of the bishops of Rome the ancient church of Spain was a stranger, and there is no good evidence that she acknowledged, during the eight first centuries, their right to interfere authoritatively in her internal affairs.

The titles of pope or father, apostolical bishop, and bishop of the apostolic see, were at first given promiscuously to all who were invested with the episcopal office. ^f16 After they came to be used in a more restricted sense, they were still applied to a number in common. ^f17 The bishops of Rome early acquired high consideration among their brethren, founded on the dignity of the city in which they had their residence, the number of the clergy over whom they presided, and the superior sanctity of life by which some of their line had been distinguished; to which must be added the opinion, which soon became general, that they were the successors of St. Peter. In matters which concerned religion in general, or in difficult questions relating to internal managements, it was a common practice to ask the advice of foreign and even transmarine churches. On these occasions the bishops of Rome were consulted, but not to the exclusion of others. The African bishops, in a council held at Carthage, agreed to take the advice of Siricius, bishop of Rome, and Simplician, bishop of Milan, on the affair of the Donatists; and in a subsequent council, they agreed to consult Anastasius and Venerius, who at that time filled the same sees, on the controversy respecting the validity of the baptism of heretics. ^f18 With this the practice of the Spanish church agreed. ^f19 Indeed, the bishops of Rome, in those days, disclaimed the pretentions which they afterwards put forth with such arrogance. Gregory the Great himself, when in danger of being eclipsed by his eastern rival, acknowledged this in the memorable words, which have so much annoyed his successors and their apologists. Speaking of the title of universal patriarch, which the bishop of Constantinople had assumed, he says:—“Far from the hearts of Christians be this name of blasphemy, which takes away the honors of the whole priesthood, while it is madly arrogated by one!—None of my predecessors would ever consent to use this profane word, because if one patriarch is called universal, the rest are deprived of the name of patriarchs.” ^f20

But there is positive evidence that the ancient church of Spain maintained its independence, and guarded against the interference of the Roman See, or any other foreign authority. Whatever judgment we form concerning the disputed canon of the council of Sardis, as to the references to the bishop of Rome, ^f21 it is certain that an African council, which met at Mela in the year 416, decreed that if any of the clergy had a dispute with his bishop, he might bring it before the neighboring bishops; but if he thought proper not to rest in their decision, it should be unlawful for him to make any appeal except to an African council, or to the primates of the African churches. ^f22 In accordance with the spirit of this canon, with some variation in particulars, the ninth council of Toledo, in the year 655, determined that appeals should lie from a bishop to a metropolitan, and from a metropolitan to the royal audience; a regulation which was confirmed by a subsequent council held in the same city. ^f23 In the fifth and sixth centuries Arianism was predominant in Spain. During that period the bishops who adhered to the orthodox faith being few in number, discountenanced by the royal authority, and rarely allowed to assemble in provincial councils, were naturally induced to turn their eyes to Rome for counsel and support; while the popes laid hold of the opportunity which the circumstances afforded them to extend their influence over that country, by holding correspondence with the dissenting clergy, and conferring on some of them the title of apostolical vicars. ^f24 But, strange as the assertion may appear to some, this intercourse ceased as soon as Spain embraced the catholic faith.

Spain is always spoken of as a catholic country from the time that she renounced Arianism under Reccared; and if we are to believe some of her writers, her monarchs obtained, at that early period, the title of Catholic kings, which they retain to this day, as expressive of their devotion to the faith and authority of the Roman see. But this is a glaring mistake, originating in, or concealed by the equivocal use of a word which was anciently understood in a sense very different from its modern acceptation. It was by adopting the common doctrine received by the church at large, in opposition to the Arian and other errors condemned by the first ecumenical or universal councils, that Spain became catholic, and that her kings, bishops, and people, obtained this designation, and not by conforming to the rites of the church of Rome, or owning the supremacy of its pontiffs. Ecclesiastical affairs were managed in Spain without any interference on the part of the See of Rome, or any reference to it, during the whole of the century which elapsed after the suppression of Arianism. This is so undeniable, that those advocates of the pontifical authority who have examined the documents of that age, have been forced to admit the fact, and endeavor to account for it by saying, that such interference and reference was unnecessary during a peaceful state of the church; a concession which goes far to invalidate the whole of their claims. ^f25 The pall sent from Rome to Leander, bishop of Seville, forms no exception to the remark now made; for, not to mention that it was never received, it was not intended to confer any prerogative upon him, but merely as a testimony of his sanctity, and a mark of personal esteem from pope Gregory, who had contracted a friendship with him when they met at Constantinople. It was of the nature of a badge of honor conferred by a prince on a deserving individual belonging to another kingdom. ^f26

There is one piece of history which throws great light on the state of the Spanish church during the seventh century, and which I shall relate at some length, as it has been either passed over or very partially brought forward by later historians. The sixth ecumenical council, held at Constantinople in the year 680, condemned the heresy of the Monothelites, or those who, though they allowed that Christ had two natures, ascribed to him but one will and one operation. In 683, Leo II., bishop of Rome, sent the acts of that council, which he had received from Constantinople, to Spain, requesting the bishops to give them their sanction, and to take measures for having them circulated through their churches. As a council had been held immediately before the arrival of the papal deputation, and a heavy fall of snow prevented the reassembling of the members at that season, it was thought proper to circulate the acts among the bishops, who authorized Julian, archbishop of Toledo, to transmit a rescript to Rome, intimating in general their approbation of the late decision at Constantinople, and stating at considerable length the sentiments of the Spanish church on the controverted point. A council, convened in Toledo during the following year, entered on the formal consideration of this affair, in which they proceeded in such a manner as to evince their determination to preserve at once the purity of the faith and the independence of the Spanish church. They examined the acts of the council at Constantinople, at which it does not appear that they had any representative, and declared that they found them consonant with the decisions of the four preceding canonical councils, particularly that of Chalcedon, of which they appeared to be nearly a transcript. “Whereof (say they) we agree that the acts of the said council be reverenced and received by us, inasmuch as they do not differ from the foresaid councils, or rather as they appear to coincide with them. We allot to them therefore that place in point of order to which their merit entitles them. Let them come after the council of Chalcedon, by whose light they shine.” The council next took into consideration the rescript which archbishop Julian had sent to Rome, and pronounced it “a copious and lucid exposition of the truth concerning the double will and operation of Christ;” adding, “wherefore, for the sake of general instruction, and the benefit of ecclesiastical discipline, we confirm and sanction it as entitled to equal honor and reverence, and to have the same permanent authority, as the decretal epistles.” ^f27

The council of Constantinople had condemned pope Honorius I. as an abettor of the Monothelite heresy; a stigma which the advocates of papal infallibility have labored for ages to wipe off. But the Spanish council, on the present occasion, proceeded farther, and advanced a proposition which strikes at the very foundation on which the bishops of Rome rest their claims, by declaring, that the rock on which the church is built is the faith confessed by St. Peter, and not his person or office. ^f28

But this was not all that the Spanish clergy did. When the rescript of the archbishop of Seville reached Rome, it met with the disapprobation of Benedict II., who had succeeded Leo in the popedom. Having drawn up certain animadversions upon it, his Holiness gave them to the Spanish deputy to communicate to his constituents, that they might correct those expressions savoring of error which they had been led incautiously to adopt. An answer, not the most agreeable to the pope, was returned by Julian in the mean time; and the subject was afterwards taken up by a national council held in 688 at Toledo. Instead of retracting their former sentiments, or correcting any of the expressions which the pope had blamed, the Spanish prelates drew up and sanctioned a labored vindication of the paper which had given offence to his Holiness, of whom they speak in terms very disrespectful, and even contemptuous. They accuse him of “a careless and cursory perusal” of their rescript, and of having passed over parts of it which were necessary to understand their meaning. He had found fault with them for asserting that there are three substances in Christ, ^f29 to which they reply: “As we will not be ashamed to defend the truth, so there are perhaps some other persons who will be ashamed at being found ignorant of the truth. For who knows not that in every man there are two substances, namely, soul and body?” After confirming their opinion by quotations from the fathers, they add: “But if any one shall be so shameless as not to acquiesce in these sentiments, and acting the part of a haughty inquirer, shall ask, whence we drew such things, at least he will yield to the words of the gospel, in which Christ declares that he possessed three substances.” Having quoted and commented on several passages of the New Testament, the council concludes in these terms: “If, after this statement, and the sentiments of the fathers from which it has been taken, any person shall dissent from us in any thing, we will have no farther dispute with him, but keeping steadily in the plain path, and treading in the footsteps of our predecessors, we are persuaded that our answer will commend itself to the approbation of all lovers of truth who are capable of forming a divine judgment, though we may be charged with obstinacy by the ignorant and envious.” ^f30

III. The independence of the ancient church of Spain will appear more fully if we attend to its form of worship. All the learned who have directed their attention to ecclesiastical antiquities are now agreed that, although the mode of worship was substantially the same throughout the Christian church, during the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, yet different liturgies or forms of celebrating divine service were practiced in different nations, and sometimes in different parts of the same nation. The Ambrosian liturgy, used by the church of Milan, differed from the Roman. f31 It was adopted in many parts of France, and continued in use there until the time of Charlemagne, when it was supplanted by the Roman or Gregorian. f32 So far was the church of Rome from having at first regulated the religious service of other churches by her laws or even by her example, that she did not even preserve her own forms, which were superseded in their most important parts, by the sacramentary or missal which was drawn up by pope Gelasius, corrected finally by Gregory at the close of the sixth century, and imposed gradually, and at distant periods, on the several divisions of the western church. ^f33 Different offices, or forms of celebrating divine service, were used in Spain down to the year 633, when the fourth council of Toledo passed a decree that one uniform order should be observed in all the churches of the Peninsula. ^f34 This decree led to the adoption of that liturgy which has been called the Gothic, and sometimes the Isidorian, or the Ildefonsian, from St. Isidore and Ildefonso, archbishops of Seville, by whom it was revised and corrected. That this ritual was quite different from the Roman or Gregorian is put beyond all doubt, by the references made to both in the course of the adoptionarian controversy, which raged in the eighth century. The patrons of the adoptionarian tenet in Spain appealed to their national ritual, “compiled by holy men who had gone before them,” and quoted passages from it as favorable to their views. To this argument the fathers of the council of Frankfort replied: “It is better to believe the testimony of God the Father concerning his own Son, than that of your Ildefonso, who composed for you such prayers, in the solemn masses, as the universal and holy church of God knows not, and in which we do not think you will be heard. And if your Ildefonso in his prayers called Christ the adopted Son of God, our Gregory, pontiff of the Roman see, and a doctor beloved by the whole world, does not hesitate in his prayers to call him always the only begotten.” ^f35 In like manner Alcuin, after insinuating that they might have taken improper liberties in their quotations, says: “But it matters not much whether these testimonies have been altered or correctly quoted by you; for we wish to be confirmed in the truth of our assertion and faith by Roman rather than Spanish authority.” ^f36

The Gothic or Isidorian office has also been called the Mozarabic or Mixtarabic, probably because it was used and held in great veneration by the Christians in Spain who lived under the dominion of the Arabians or Moors. The identity of these formularies has, indeed, been of late disputed by several learned men. ^f37 But it is most probable that they were originally the same office, and that alterations were made upon it, both by the Mozarabes and the Montanes, (as those were called who betook themselves to the mountains to escape the yoke of the Moors,) during the period that they lived asunder.

Other instances in which the worship of the ancient church of Spain differed widely from the modern might be produced. We have already mentioned that a national council, in the beginning of the fourth century, prohibited the worship of images, and the use of pictures in churches. ^f38 It may be added, that the first council of Braga, held in the year 561, forbade the use of uninspired hymns, which came afterwards to be tolerated, and were ultimately enjoined under the highest penalties. ^f39

Having produced these facts as to the early opinions and usages of the Spanish church, we proceed to state the manner in which she was led to adopt the rites, and submit to the authority of the church of Rome.

In the eleventh century Spain was divided into three kingdoms—the kingdom of Leon and Castile, of Aragon, and of Navarre, of which the two first were by far the most powerful. In the latter part of that century, Alfonso, the sixth of Leon, and first of Castile, after recovering Valentia by the valor of the famous Cid, Ruy Diaz de Bivar, finally obtained possession of Toledo, which had been in the power of the Moors for three centuries and a half. He had married, for his second wife, Constance, a daughter of the royal house of France, who, from attachment to the religious service to which she had been accustomed, or under the influence of the priests who accompanied her, instigated her husband to introduce the Roman liturgy into Castile. Richard, abbot of Marseilles, the papal legate, exerted all his influence in favor of a change so agreeable to the court which he represented. The innovation was warmly opposed by the clergy, nobility, and people at large, but especially by the inhabitants of Toledo and other places which had been under the dominion of the Moors. To determine this controversy, recourse was had, according to the custom of the dark ages, to judicial combat. Two knights, clad in complete armor, appeared before the court and an immense assembly. The champion of the Gothic liturgy prevailed; but the king insisted that the litigated point should undergo another trial, and be submitted to, what was called, the judgment of God. Accordingly, in the presence of another great assembly, a copy of the two rival liturgies was thrown into the fire. The Gothic resisted the flames and was taken out unhurt, while the Roman was consumed. But upon some pretext—apparently the circumstance of the ashes of the Roman liturgy curling on the top of the flames and then leaping out—the king, with the concurrence of Bernard, archbishop of Toledo, who was a Frenchman, gave out that it was the will of God that both offices should be used; and ordained, that the public service should continue to be celebrated according to the Gothic office in the six churches of Toledo which the Christians had enjoyed under the Moors, but that the Roman office should be adopted in all the other churches of the kingdom. The people were displeased with the glaring partiality of this decision, which is said to have given rise to the proverb, The law goes as kings choose. ^f40 Discountenanced by the court and the superior ecclesiastics, the Gothic liturgy gradually fell into disrepute, until it was completely superseded by the Roman. ^f41

The introduction of the Roman liturgy had been undertaken rather more early in Aragon than in Castile, but was completed in both kingdoms about the same time. The modern inhabitants of the Peninsula please themselves with the idea that they are hearing the self-same mass which has been performed in Spain from the days of the apostles; whereas, the exact day and place in which the modern service began, can be pointed out. The first mass, according to the Roman form, was celebrated in Aragon in the monastery of St. Juan de la Pena, on the 21st of March 1071; and in Castile, in the Grand Mosque of Toledo, on the 25th of October 1086. ^f42 Gregory VII. commemorates this change, “as the deliverance of Spain from the illusion of the Toledan superstition.” ^f43 His Holiness was more clear-sighted than those moderns, who, looking upon all forms of worship as equal, treat with contempt or indifference the efforts made by a people to defend their religious rights against the encroachments of domestic, or the intrusions of foreign authority. The recognition of the papal authority in Spain followed upon the establishment of the Roman liturgy; nor would the latter have been sought with such eagerness, had it not been with a view to the former. Having once obtained a footing in the Peninsula, the popes pushed their claims, until at last the whole nation, including the highest authorities in it, civil as well as ecclesiastical, acknowledged the supremacy of the Roman see.

It is sufficient to exemplify this statement in the subjugation of the crown and kingdom of Aragon. Don Ramiro I., who died in 1063, was the first Spanish king, according to the testimony of Gregory the Great, who recognized the pope and received the laws of Rome. ^f44 In 1204, Don Pedro II., eight years after he had ascended the throne, went to Rome, and was crowned by pope Innocent III. On that occasion his Holiness put the crown on his head in the monastery of Pancracio, after Pedro had given his corporal oath that he and all his successors would be faithful to the church of Rome, preserve his kingdom in obedience to it, defend the catholic faith, pursue heretical pravity, and maintain inviolate the liberties and immunities of the holy church. Then going to the chapel of St. Peter, the pope delivered the sword into the hands of the king, who, armed as a cavalier, dedicated all his dominions to St. Peter, the prince of the apostles, and to Innocent and his successors, as a fief of the church; engaging to pay an annual tribute, as a mark of homage and gratitude for his coronation. In return for all this his Holiness granted, as a special favor, that the kings of Aragon, instead of being obliged to come to Rome, should afterwards be crowned in Saragossa, by the archbishop of Tarragona, as papal vicar. This act of submission was highly offensive to the nobility, who protested for their own rights, and to the people at large, who complained that their liberties were sold, and power given to the popes to disturb the peace of the kingdom at their pleasure. ^f45 It was not long before these fears were realized. The king, having a few years after offended the pope by taking arms in defence of heretics, was laid under the sentence of excommunication, for violating the oath which he had sworn; and his grandson, Pedro the Great, was deprived of his kingdom, as a vassal of the church, which kindled a civil war, and led to the invasion of Aragon by the French. ^f46 Attempts to release themselves from this degrading vassalage were made by different monarchs, but these always issued in the renewal of their oaths of fealty to Rome; and they found it too late to throw off a yoke which had by this time been received by all the nations around them, and which they had taught their own subjects to revere and hold sacred.

The history of Spain during the period we are reviewing, furnishes important notices respecting the Waldenses, Vaudois or Albigenses, whom we formerly met with in tracing the progress of the Reformation in Italy. It is well known, that these early reformers had fixed their abode in the southern provinces of France, where they multiplied greatly in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. ^f47 —Various causes contributed to this. The inhabitants of the south of France, though inferior in arms, were superior in civilization, to those of the north. They had addicted themselves to commerce and the arts. Their cities, which were numerous and flourishing, enjoyed privileges favorable to the spirit of liberty, and which raised them nearly to the rank of the Italian republics, with which they had long traded. They possessed a language rich and flexible, which they cultivated both in prose and verse; academies for promoting the Gui Saber, or polite letters, were erected among them; and the Troubadours, as the Provençal poets were called, were received with honor, and listened to with enthusiasm, at the courts of the numerous petty princes among whom the country was divided. A people advanced to this stage of improvement were not disposed to listen with implicit faith to the religious dogmas which the clergy inculcated, or to submit tamely to the superstitious and absurd observances which they sought to impose. Add to this, that the manners of the clergy, both higher and lower, in these provinces, were disorderly and vicious to a proverb. “I would rather be a priest, than have done such a thing!” was a common exclamation among the people on hearing of any unworthy action. With these feelings they were prepared to listen to the reformers, who exposed the errors and corruptions which had defaced the beauty of the primitive church, and whose conduct formed, in point of decency and sobriety, a striking contrast to that of the established clergy. For the last mentioned fact we have the testimony of those monkish writers, who strove to blacken their characters, by alleging that they practiced all kinds of licentiousness in secret. “I will relate (says the abbot of Puy Laurens) what I have heard bishop Fulco tell as to a conversation which he had with Pons Ademar de Rodelia, a prudent knight. ‘I cannot bring myself to believe,’ said the latter, ‘that Rome has sufficient grounds to proceed against these men’—‘Are they not unable to answer our arguments?’ demanded the bishop. ‘I grant it,’ said the other. ‘Well, then’ rejoined the bishop; ‘why do you not expel and drive them from your territories?’ ‘We cannot do it,’ replied the knight; ‘we have been brought up with them; we have our friends among them; and we see them living honestly.’ After relating this anecdote on the authority of the archbishop of Thoulouse, the great adversary of the Albigenses, the historian adds: “Thus it is that falsehood, veiled under the appearance of a spotless life, draws uncautious men from the truth.” ^f48

The Albigensian barbs, or pastors, enjoying a respite from persecution during the early part of the twelfth century, applied themselves to the study of the scriptures, and devoted their hours of relaxation to the cultivation of poetry. They were held in veneration by the people, who named them in their wills, and left for the support of the new worship those sums which had been formerly bequeathed to the priests or appropriated for the saying of masses for their own souls and those of their departed relations. They had chapels in the principal castles; their religious service was frequented by persons of all ranks; and they numbered among their converts many individuals of noble birth, and who held some of the principal situations in the country. Among their protectors were the powerful counts of Toulouse, Raymond VI. and VII., the counts of Foix and Comenges, the

viscounts of Beziers and Bearn, Savary de Mauleon, seneschal of

Aquitaine, Guiraud de Minerve, and Olivier de Termes, a cavalier who had distinguished himself greatly in the wars against the infidels in the Holy Land, in Africa and in Majorca. Their opinions were avowedly entertained by the wives and sisters of these great lords, as well as by the heads of the noble houses of Mirepoix, Saissac, Lavour, Montreal, St. Michael de Fanjaux, Durfort, Lille-Jourdain, and Montsegur. ^f49

When we have stated these facts, we have said enough to account for the implacable hostility to this sect on the part of the ruling ecclesiastics, and the bloody crusades preached up against it by the monks, and conducted, under the direction of the popes, by Simon de Montfort and Louis VIII. of France, during the early part of the thirteenth century. By means of these the attempted reformation of the church was suppressed, and its disciples nearly exterminated; one of the finest regions of the world was laid waste by countless and successive hordes of barbarous fanatics—its commerce destroyed, its arts annihilated, its literature extinguished; and the progress of the human mind in knowledge and civilization, which had commenced so auspiciously, was arrested and thrown back for ages. ^f50

The intimate connection which subsisted between Spain and the South of France had great influence on the fate of the Albigensian reformers. Provence and Languedoc were at that time more properly Aragonese than French. As count of Provence, the king of Aragon was the immediate liege lord of the viscounts of Narbonne, Beziers, and Carcassone. Avignon and other cities acknowledged him as their baronial superior. The principal lords, though they did homage to the king of France or to the emperor, yielded obedience in reality to the Spanish monarch, lived under his protection, and served in his armies. And several of them, by gifts from the crown, or by marriages, possessed lands in Spain.

In consequence of this connection between the two countries, some of the Vaudois had crossed the Pyrenees and established themselves in Spain as early as the middle of the twelfth century. ^f51 They appear to have enjoyed repose there for some time; but in the year 1194, pope Celestin III. sent the cardinal St. Angelo as legate to attend a council at Lerida, who prevailed on Alfonso II. king of Aragon, to publish an edict, ordering the Vaudois, or Poor Men of Lyons, and all other heretics, to quit his territories under severe pains. ^f52 This edict not having produced any effect, was renewed three years after by Pedro II, in consequence of a decree of a council held at Gironna. With the view of securing the execution of this measure, the subscriptions of all the grandees of Catalonia were procured to the decree; and all governors and judges were required to swear before the bishops, that they would assist in discovering and punishing those infected with heresy, under the penalty of being themselves treated as heretics. ^f53 Notwithstanding this edict, and the engagements he had contracted at his coronation, Pedro was disposed to be favorable to this sect. He was from the beginning displeased at the crusade which raged on the north of the Pyrenees; and having at last joined his army to those of his brother-in-law Raymond, count of Toulouse, he fell, in the year 1213, fighting in defence of the Albigenses in the battle of Muret. ^f54

This disaster, together with those that followed it, induced multitudes of the Albigenses to take refuge in Aragon, who gave ample employment to the inquisition after it was established in that country. From the accession of pope Gregory IX. to that of Alexander IV. (that is, from 1227 to 1254,) they had grown to such numbers and credit as to have churches in various parts of Catalonia and Aragon, which were provided with bishops, who boldly preached their doctrine. ^f55 Gregory, in a brief which he addressed to the archbishop of Tarragona and his suffragans, in 1232, complains of the increase of heresy in their dioceses, and exhorts them to make strict inquisition after it by means of the Dominican monks; and his successor Alexander repeated the complaint. ^f56 In 1237, the flames of persecution were kindled in the viscounty of Cerdagne and Castlebon, within the diocese of Urgel; forty-five persons being condemned, of whom fifteen were burnt alive, and eighteen disinterred bodies cast into the fire. ^f57 In 1267, the inquisitors of Barcelona pronounced sentence against Raymond, count of Forcalquier and Urgel, ordering his bones, as those of a relapsed heretic, to be taken out of the grave; ^f58 and two years after they passed the same sentence on Arnold, viscount of Castlebon and Cerdagne, and his daughter Ermesinde, wife of Roger-Bernard II. count of Foix, surnamed the Great. ^f59 Both father and daughter had been dead upwards of twenty years, yet their bones were ordered to be disinterred, “provided they could be found;” a preposterous and unnatural demonstration of zeal for the faith, which is applauded by the fanatical writers of that age, but was in fact dictated by hatred to the memory of the brave and generous Count de Foix. When summoned in his life-time to appear before the inquisition at Toulouse, that nobleman not only treated their order with contempt, but in his turn summoned the inquisitors of the county of Foix to appear before him as his vassals and subjects. During his exile at the court of his fatherin-law, he was excommunicated by the bishop of Urgel as a favorer of heresy; and although the sentence was removed, and he died in the communion of the church, yet the inquisitors never could forgive the disinterested and determined resistance which he had made to their barbarous proceedings. They put one of his servants to the torture, with the view of extorting from him some evidence upon which they might pronounce that his master had died a heretic; and, having failed in that attempt, they now sought to wreck their vengeance on the memory and the ashes of the countess and her father. ^f60

It has been said that the Poor Men of Lyons or Waldenses, when they made their first appearance, were looked upon at Rome as an order of monks who wished to revive the decaying fervor of piety among the people, and to lead a life of superior sanctity among themselves; and that it was seriously proposed at one time to give the pontifical sanctions to their internal regulations. ^f61 Whatever truth there may be in this statement, it is a curious fact, that, in Spain, some individuals of this sect did obtain a temporary respite from persecution by forming themselves into a new religious fraternity. In consequence of a dispute held at Pamiers in Languedoc, Durando de Huesca, a native of Aragon, with a number of his Albigensian brethren, yielded to the Romish missionaries, and having obtained liberty to retire into Catalonia, formed a religious community under the name of the Society of Poor Catholics. In 1207 Durando went to Rome, where he obtained from Innocent III. the remission of his former heresy, and an approbation of his fraternity, of which he was declared superior. Its members lived on alms, applied themselves to study and the teaching of schools, kept lent twice a-year, and wore a decent habit of white or grey, with shoes open at the top, but distinguished by some particular marks from those of the Poor Men of Lyons, who, from this part of their dress, were sometimes called Insabatati. The new order spread so rapidly, that in a few years it had numerous convents both to the south and north of the Pyrenees. But although the Poor Catholics professed to devote themselves to the conversion of heretics, and their superior wrote some books with that in view, they soon incurred the suspicion of the bishops, who accused them of favoring the Vaudois, and concealing their heretical tenets under the monastic garb. They had interest to maintain themselves for some time, and even to procure letters from his Holiness, exhorting the bishops to endeavor to gain them by kindness instead of alienating their minds from the church by severe treatment; but their enemies at last prevailed, and within a short time no trace of their establishments was to be found. ^f62

The Albigenses were not confined to Aragon and Catalonia. Of the extent to which they spread in the kingdom of Castile and Leon, we may form some judgment from an amusing anecdote, related from personal knowledge, by Lucio, bishop of Tuy, known, as a writer against the Albigenses, by the name of Lucas Tudensis; and which I shall give as nearly in his own words as is consistent with perspicuity. After the death of Roderic, bishop of Leon, (in the year 1237 ^f63 ) great dissension arose about the election of his successor. Taking advantage of this circumstance, the heretics flocked from all quarters to that city. In one of the suburbs, where every kind of filth was thrown, lay, along with those of a murderer, the bones of a heretic, named Arnald, who had been buried sixteen years before. Near to this was a fountain, over which they erected an edifice, and having taken up the bones of Arnald, whom they extolled as a martyr, deposited them in it. To this place a number of persons, hired by the heretics, came; and feigning themselves to be blind, lame, and afflicted with other disorders, they drank of the waters of the fountain, and then went away, saying that they were suddenly and miraculously healed. This being noised abroad, great multitudes flocked to the spot. After they had got a number of the clergy, as well as laity, to give credit to the pretended cures, the heretics disclosed the imposition which they had practiced, and then boasted that all the miracles performed at the tombs of the saints were of the same kind. By this means, they drew many to their heresy. In vain did the Dominican and Franciscan friars attempt to stem the torrent of defection, by exclaiming against the sin of offering sacrilegious prayers in a place defiled by profane bones. They were cried down as heretics and unbelievers. In vain did the adjacent bishops excommunicate those who visited the fountain or worshipped in the temple. The devil had seized upon the minds of the people and fascinated their senses. At last, a deacon, who resided at Rome, hearing of the state of matters in his native city, hastened to Leon, and “in a kind of frenzy,” at the risk of his life, upbraided the inhabitants for favoring the heretics, and called on the magistrates to abate the nuisance. For some months before his arrival, the country had been afflicted with a severe drought. This he declared to be a judgment from heaven on account of their sin, but promised that it should be removed within eight days from the time that they pulled down the heretical temple.

The magistrates granted him permission, and he razed the building to its foundation. Scarcely was this done, when a fire devoured a great part of the city, and for seven days no symptom of rain appeared; upon which the heretics insulted over the deacon. But on the eighth day the clouds collected, and poured down copious and refreshing showers on all the surrounding country. “After this, the foresaid deacon raised persecution against the heretics, who, being forced to leave the city, were miserably scattered abroad.” ^f64 We are assured, and not without great probability, that the deacon was no other than Lucas Tudensis, whose modesty induced him to suppress his name in relating the prediction and the persecution, in both of which he appears to have equally gloried. ^f65

In spite of the occupation given to the clergy by the suppression of the Knights Templars, and the schism of the anti-popes, the persecution of the Albigenses seldom relaxed during the fourteenth century. Scarce a year passed in which numbers were not barbarously led to the stake. ^f66 Among those who were condemned for heresy at this period, was Arnaldo of Villaneuva in Aragon, a celebrated physician and chemist. ^f67 He taught, that the whole Christian people had, through the craft of the devil, been drawn aside from the truth, and retained nothing but the semblance of ecclesiastical worship, which they kept up from the force of custom; that those who lived in cloisters threw themselves out of charity, and that the religious orders in general falsified the doctrine of Christ; that it is not a work of charity to endow chapels for celebrating masses for the dead; that those who devoted their money to this purpose, instead of providing for the poor, especially the poor belonging to Christ, exposed themselves to damnation; that offices of mercy and medicine are more acceptable to the Deity than the sacrifice of the altar; and that God is praised in the eucharist not by the hands of the priest, but by the mouth of the communicant. ^f68 Such being his avowed sentiments, we need not wonder that he was doomed to expiate his temerity by suffering the fire, from which he saved himself by flying from his native country, and taking refuge with Ferdinand, king of Sicily. ^f69 To Arnald we may add a writer of the following century, Raimond de Sebonde, author of a treatise on natural theology, who was charged with heresy for asserting that all saving truths are contained, and clearly proposed, in the sacred scriptures. ^f70

From 1412 to 1425, a great number of persons who entertained the sentiments of the Vaudois were committed to the flames by the inquisitors of Valentia, Rousillon, and Majorca. It appears, that the followers of Wicliffe had migrated to the Peninsula; for in 1441, the inquisitors of Aragon and Valentia reconciled some of them to the church, and condemned others to the fire as obstinate heretics. ^f71 If we may trust the monkish annalists, Spain was also visited at this period by the Beghards, a fanatical sect which the corruptions of the church and the ignorance of the times had generated in Germany and other parts of Europe. But this is uncertain, as it was common for the clergy to apply this and similar names to the Vaudois, with the view of exciting odium against them, and justifying their own cruelties. In 1350, we are told, a warm inquisition was commenced in Valentia against the Beghards, whose leader was condemned to perpetual imprisonment, and the bones of many of his disciples dug up and consigned to the flames; and in 1442, it was found they had multiplied at Durango, a town of Biscay, and in the diocese of Calahorra. Alfonso de Mella, a Franciscan, and brother of the bishop of Zamora, who was afterwards invested with the purple, having incurred the suspicion of being at the head of this party, fled along with his companions, to the Moors, among whom “he died miserably at Grenada, being pierced with reeds; an example, (says the biographer of his brother) worthy to be recorded, of the variety of human affairs, and the opposite dispositions of persons who lay in the same womb.” ^f72 On application to John II. king of Castile, a band of royal musqueteers was sent to scour the mountains of Biscay, and the higher districts of Old Castile, who drove down the heretics like cattle before them, and delivered them to the inquisitors, by whom they were committed to the flames at St. Domingo de la Calzado, and Valladolid. ^f73 Thus were the Albigenses, after a barbarous and unrelenting persecution of two centuries, exterminated in Spain, with the exception of a few, who contrived to conceal themselves in the more remote and inaccessible parts of the country, and at a subsequent period, furnished occasionally a straggling victim to the familiars of the inquisition, when surfeited with the blood of Jews and Moriscoes.

During these proceedings, Rome succeeded in establishing its empire a second time in Spain, and that in a more durable form than in the days of the Scipios and Augustus. This conquest was achieved chiefly by means of the monks and friars. Anciently the number of convents and of monks in Spain was small; but it multiplied greatly from the twelfth to the fifteenth century. The beginning of that period was marked by the infliction of that scourge of society, and outrage of all decency,—privileged and meritorious mendicity. Of all the orders of mendicant friars, the most devoted to the See of Rome were those founded by St. Dominic and St. Francis, the former the most odious, the latter the most frantic, of modern saints. Within a few years after their institution, convents belonging to both these orders were to be found in every part of Spain. Though the Dominicans, owing to the patronage of the court of Rome, or to their founder, being a Spaniard, enjoyed the greatest share of political power, yet the reception given to the Franciscans left them no ground to complain of Spanish inhospitality. An event which happened at the close of the fifteenth century contributed to the still more rapid increase of religious houses. A great part of the wealth which flowed into Spain after the discovery of the New World, found its way to the church. Imitating the Pagan warriors who dedicated the spoils which they had gained to their gods, the Spaniards who enriched themselves by pillaging and murdering the Indians, sought to testify their gratitude or to expiate their crimes by lavishing ornaments on churches, and endowing monasteries. The following examples show the rate at which the regular clergy increased. The first Franciscan missionaries entered Spain in the year 1216; and, in 1400, they had, within the three provinces of Santiago, Castile, and Aragon, including Portugal, twenty-three custodiae, composed of an hundred and twenty-one convents. ^f74 But in the year 1506, the Regular Observantines, who formed only the third division of that order, had a hundred and ninety convents in Spain, excluding Portugal. ^f75 In the year 1030, the city of Salamanca did not contain a single convent; in 1480, it possessed nine, of which six were for males, and three for females; and in 1518, it could number thirty-nine convents, while its nuns alone amounted to eleven thousand. ^f76

The corruption of the monastic institutions kept pace with the increase of their numbers and wealth. The licentiousness of the regular clergy became notorious. They broke through the rules prescribed by their founders, and laid aside that austere mode of living by which they had at first acquired all their reputation. ^f77 Even those who had vowed the most rigid poverty, such as the Observantines, or third order of St. Francis, procured dispensations from Rome, in virtue of which they possessed rents, and property in houses and lands. By the original regulations of St. Francis, all belonging to his order bound themselves to live purely on alms and were strictly prohibited from receiving any money, on whatever pretext, even as wages for labor performed by them, “unless for the manifest necessity of infirm brethren.” ^f78 The monastic historians are greatly puzzled to account for the glaring departure from this rule of poverty; probably forgetting, or not wishing to have recourse to the well known maxim, that nature abhors a vacuum. Sometimes they wish to account for it by saying that a destructive pestilence, about the beginning of the fourteenth century, thinned the monasteries, which were afterwards filled with novices of a more earthly mould. ^f79 But they are forced to trace the evil to a more remote source, and to impute it to brother Elias, ^f80 a native of Cortona, and vicar-general of the order of Franciscans, under its founder. As early as 1223, he began to hint to his brethren that the rule prescribed to them was a yoke which neither they nor their successors could bear; but was silenced by the authority of St. Francis. After the death of the saint, he was more successful in gaining proselytes to his opinion, and drew upon himself the sentence of excommunication, from which, however, he was ultimately relieved. ^f81

The kings of Spain attempted at different times to correct these abuses, but the monks and friars had always the influence or the address to defeat the measure. When the glaring nature of the evil induced Ferdinand and Isabella to renew the attempt at the close of the fifteenth century, they were obliged to employ force; nor would their united authority have been sufficient to carry the point, had they not availed themselves of the sagacity and firmness of the celebrated cardinal Ximenes, himself a friar, and inflamed with the passion of restoring the order of St. Francis, of which he was then provincial, to all the poverty and rigor of its original institution. Lorenzo Vacca, abbot of the monastery of the Holy Spirit at Segovia, relying on the papal bulls which he had procured, made such resistance to the plans of his provincial, that the government found it necessary to commit him to prison, from which he escaped, and repairing to Rome, exerted himself, through the influence of Ascanio Sforza and other cardinals, in counteracting the reform of the religious orders in Spain. ^f82 The Franciscan friars of Toledo carried their resistance so far, that an order was issued to banish them from the kingdom; upon which they left the city in solemn procession, carrying a crucifix before them, and chaunting the psalm which begins, When Israel went up out of Egypt, &c. ^f83 The biographers of Ximenes represent him as having reformed all the religious institutions in Spain; but it is evident that his success was partial, and chiefly confined to his own order. So far as they proceeded on the rigid principles of monachism, the regulations which he introduced were unnatural and pernicious, and such of them as were favorable to morals were soon swept away by the increasing tide of corruption.

It has been said, that Ximenes abolished a number of superstitious practices which had crept into the worship of the Spanish church during the dark ages; and in proof of this we are told that he revived the Mozarabic office, and appointed it to be used in all the churches of his diocese. ^f84 But the writers who make this assertion have fallen into a mistake, both as to what was done by the cardinal, and as to the object he had in view. Perceiving that the Mozarabic service had fallen into desuetude in the six churches of Toledo, in which its use had been enjoined by an old law, ^f85 he was desirous to preserve this venerable relic of antiquity. With this view he employed Alfonso Ortiz, one of the canons of his cathedral, to collate all the copies of that liturgy which could be found; and, the Gothic letters in which they were written being changed into Roman, he caused the work to be printed. ^f86 Some years after ^f87 he erected a chapel in the cathedral church, with an endowment for thirteen priests, whose duty it was to celebrate the service according to that liturgy. ^f88 There is reason to think that he ordered it to be also used on certain festivals in the churches commonly called Mozarabic; but it is certain that the order did not extend to the other churches of his diocese. So far was it from his intention to make any innovation on the existing forms of worship, or to supplant the Roman by the ancient Spanish liturgy, that he interpolated his edition of the latter, in order to render it more conformable to the former; thus destroying its character and use as an ancient document. Among these interpolations are “a prayer for the adoration of the cross,” and offices for a number of saints who lived before as well as after the compilation of the liturgy; for the ancient Goths and Mozarabes commemorated none but martyrs in their public service.—Ferdinand de Talavera, archbishop of Granada, endowed, about the same time, a chapel in Salamanca, in which the service continued to be celebrated according to the ritual at the close of the seventeenth century. ^f89

It might be presumed, from the statements already made, and from what we know of other countries, that the Spanish clergy had sunk very low in point of knowledge, and that the absurdities which one of their countrymen afterwards exposed so wittily in Fray Gerundio, were not less common or less ridiculous before the revival of letters. But on this head we are not left to conjecture. In address to queen Isabella, cardinal Ximenes acknowledges the gross ignorance that prevailed among the priests. ^f90 This led to the adoption of the most absurd opinions, and the practice of the most extravagant superstitions. Legends and lives of saints formed the favorite reading of the devout, while the vulgar fed on the stories of everyday miracles which the priests and friars ministered fresh to their credulity. The doctrine of the immaculate conception of the Virgin met with believers in other countries; but Spain could boast of an order of nuns consecrated to the honor of that newly-invented mystery. ^f91 The doctrine of transubstantiation, which many even at that period could not digest without difficulty, was no trial of faith to a Spaniard. “Do you believe that this wafer is the body of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost?” was the question which the parish priests of Valencia, in the fourteenth century, were accustomed to put to dying persons; and on obtaining an affirmative answer, they administered the host. Another attempt to extend the mysterious process a little farther met with greater opposition. Eimeric, the author of the celebrated Guide to Inquisitors, wrote against Bonnet and Mairon, who maintained that St. John the Evangelist became the real son of the Virgin, in consequence of his body being transubstantiated into that of Christ, by the words pronounced on the cross, Ecce filius tuus, Behold thy son. ^f92

CHAPTER 2.

OF THE STATE OF LITERATURE IN SPAIN BEFORE THE ERA OF THE REFORMATION.

HAVING taken a general survey of the state of religion in Spain before the Reformation, let us look back for a little and trace the restoration of letters, which opened the prospect of a better order of things in that country. The learning of Isidore, archbishop of Seville, who flourished in the seventh century, and next to St. James, is venerated by the Spaniards as a tutelary saint, rests on a better foundation than the encomium of Gregory the Great, who called him a second Daniel. Besides various theological and historical treatises, ^f93 he composed a work on etymology, which, though disfigured by errors, discovers a considerable portion of philological knowledge, and contributed to check the barbarism which had already invaded every country in Europe. But ages of darkness succeeded, during which, while the name of St. Isidore was held in veneration, his works were disregarded, by an ignorant priesthood, into whose hands the key of knowledge had fallen.

It is not to the credit of Christianity, or at least of those who professed it, that, during the middle ages, letters were preserved from extinction, and even revived from the decline which had seized them, by the exertions of the followers of Mahomet. The tenth century, which has been denominated the leaden age of Europe, was the golden age of Asia. Modern writers have perhaps gone to an extreme on both sides in forming their estimate of the degree in which European literature is indebted to the Arabians. But when we find that this people have left such evident marks of their language upon that of Spain, it seems unreasonable to doubt that they had also great influence upon its literature. Cordova, Granada, and Seville, rivalled one another in the magnificence of their schools and libraries, during the empire of the Saracens, who granted to the Spanish Christians, whom they had subjugated, that protection in their religious rights, which the latter were far from imitating when they in their turn became the conquerors. ^f94 The two languages were spoken in common. ^f95 The Christians began to vie with their masters in the pursuit of science, composed commentaries on the scriptures in Arabic, and transfused the beauties of eastern poetry into the Castilian language. ^f96 It is even said, that a bishop of Seville, at this early period, translated the scriptures into the Arabic tongue. ^f97

If the Spanish language was in danger of suffering from the predominance of the Arabians, the evil was counteracted by the cultivation of Provençal poetry. In the twelfth century, Alfonso II. of Aragon, whose name has an honorable place among the Troubadours, zealously patronized those who wrote in the Catalonian or Valencian dialect. ^f98 In the subsequent century, Alfonso X. of Castile, surnamed the Wise, showed himself equally zealous in encouraging the study of the Castilian tongue, in which he wrote several poems; at the same time that he extracted the knowledge which was to be found in the books of the Arabians; as appears, among other proofs, from the astronomical tables, called from him Alphonsine. ^f99 the writings of Dante, Checo Dascoli, and Petrarch, gave a new impulse to the literature of Spain. From this period the study of the ancient classics imparted greater purity and elevation to works of imagination; and a taste for poetical compositions in their native tongue began to be felt by the Spanish gentry, who had hitherto found their sole pastime in arms and military tournaments. ^f100 Among those who distinguished themselves by improving the taste of their countrymen in the first part of the fifteenth century, were two persons of illustrious birth, in whose families the love of learning was long hereditary. Henry of Aragon, marquis of Villena, descended from the royal houses of Aragon and Castile, revived the Consistorio de la Gaya Sciencia, an academy situated at Barcelona for the encouragement of poetry, of which he was the president. His superior knowledge, combined perhaps with a portion of that learned credulity of which those who addicted themselves to astronomy and experimental science during the middle ages were often the dupes, brought on him the suspicion of necromancy. In consequence of this, his books were seized after his death, by the orders of Juan II. king of Castile, and sent for examination to Lope de Barrientos, a Dominican monk of considerable learning, and preceptor to the prince of Asturias. “Barrientos,” says a contemporary writer, “liking better to walk with the prince than to revise necroman-cies, committed to the flames upwards of a hundred volumes, without having examined them any more than the king of Morocco, or understood a jot of their contents more than the dean of Ciudad Rodrigo. There are many in the present day,” continues he, “who become learned men, by pronouncing others fools and magicians; and what is worse, make themselves saints, by stigmatizing others as sorcerers.” This indignity done to the memory of “the ornament of Spain and of the age,” was bewailed, both in verse and prose, by writers of that time. ^f101

Equally learned as Villena, but more fortunate in preserving his good name and his books, was Inigo Lopez de Mendoza, marquis of Santillana, who, in a treatise, intended as a preface to his own poetical works, has acted the part of historian to his countrymen who preceded him in paying court to the muse. ^f102 The merits of both marquises have been celebrated by the pen of Juan de Mena, unquestionably the first Spanish poet of that age.

It is not unworthy of remark here, that the Jews, while they enjoyed protection in Spain, co-operated with the Christians in the cultivation of polite letters. Rabbi Don Santo, who flourished about the year 1360, makes the following modest and not inelegant apology for taking his place among the poets of the land which had given him birth:—

The rose that twines a thorny sprig, Will not the less perfume the earth; Good wine, that leaves a creeping twig, Is not the worse for humble birth.

The hawk may be of noble kind, That from a filthy aiery flew; And precepts are not less refined, Because they issue from a Jew. ^f103

Long after their expulsion from Spain, the Jews cherished an ardent attachment to the Castilian tongue, in which they continued to compose works both in prose and verse. ^f104

On looking into the writings of the ancient Spanish poets, we are induced to conclude, that they were not in the habit of using those liberties with the church and clergy which were indulged in by the poets of Italy and the Troubadours of Provence. There is reason however to think, that the absence of these satires is to be accounted for, in no small degree, by the prudence of the editors of their works, and the vigilance of the censors of the press, after the invention of printing. Accordingly, of later years, since the severity of the Inquisition relaxed, and a passion to do justice to their literary antiquities has been felt by the Spaniards, poems have been brought to the light, though still with much caution, ^f105 which two centuries ago would have earned for their learned editors a perpetual prison. The poems of Juan Ruiz, archpriest of Hita, who flourished in the middle of the fourteenth century, contain severe satires on the avarice and loose manners of the clergy. He represents money as opening the gates of Paradise, purchasing salvation to the people, and benefices to priests; as equally powerful at the court of Rome and elsewhere, with the pope and all orders of the clergy, secular and regular; as converting a lie into the truth, and the truth into a lie. ^f106 In another poem he is as severe against the manners of the clergy, whom he describes as living avowedly in concubinage. He represents Don Gil de Albornoz, archbishop of Talavera, as having procured a mandate from the pope, ordering all his clergy to put away their wives or concubines whom they kept in their houses, under the pain of excommunication. When this mandate was read to them in a public assembly, it excited a warm opposition; violent speeches were made against it by the dean and others; some of them declared that they would sooner part with their dignities; and it was finally agreed that they should appeal from the pope to the king of Castile. ^f107

About the middle of the fifteenth century, literature was advanced under the patronage of Alfonso V. of Aragon. The education of this monarch had been neglected, and the early part of his life was spent in arms; but at fifty years of age he applied himself to study with such eagerness that he was soon able to read with ease the Roman classics, which became his constant companions. He disputed with the house of Medici the honor of entertaining men of letters, and rescuing the writings of antiquity from oblivion. When he had taken a town, his soldiers could not do the prince a greater pleasure than to bring him a book which they had discovered among the spoils; and Cosmo de’ Medici, by the present of an ancient manuscript, procured from him a treaty highly favorable to Florence. Anthony of Palermo, usually styled Panormitanus, who wrote the history of his life, resided at his court in great honor; and Laurentius Valla, one of the most profound and elegant scholars of that age, ^f108 when persecuted for the freedom of his opinions, was protected by Alfonso at Naples, where he opened a school for Greek and Roman eloquence. ^f109

Alfonso de Palencia, having visited Italy, became acquainted with cardinal Bessarion, and attended the lectures which the learned Greek Trapezuntius delivered on eloquence and his native tongue. On his return to Spain, he was made historiographer to Henry IV. of Castile, and afterwards to queen Isabella; and by his translations from Greek into the Castilian language, as well as by a work on grammar, excited a taste for letters among his countrymen. ^f110 He was followed by Antonio de Lebrixa, usually styled Nebrissensis, who became to Spain what Valla was to Italy, Erasmus to Germany, and Budé to France. After a residence of ten years in Italy, during which he had stored his mind with various kinds of knowledge, he returned home in 1473, by the advice of the younger Philelphus and Hermolaus Barbarus, with the view of promoting classical learning in his native country. Hitherto the revival of letters in Spain was confined to a few inquisitive individuals, and had not reached the schools and universities, whose teachers continued to teach a barbarous jargon, under the name of Latin, into which they initiated the youth by means of a rude system of grammar, rendered unintelligible, in some instances, by a preposterous intermixture of the most abstruse questions in metaphysics. ^f111 By the lectures which he read in the universities of Seville, Salamanca, and Alcala, and by the institutes which he published on Castilian, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew grammar, Lebrixa contributed in a wonderful degree to expel barbarism from the seats of education, and to diffuse a taste for elegant and useful studies among his countrymen. ^f112 His improvements were warmly opposed by the monks, who had engrossed the art of teaching, and who unable to bear the light themselves, wished to prevent all others from seeing it; but, enjoying the support of persons of high authority, he disregarded their selfish and ignorant outcries. ^f113 Lebrixa continued, to an advanced age, to support the literary reputation of his native country. ^f114 During his residence at Salamanca, he was joined by three able coadjutors. The first was Arius Barbosa, a Portuguese, who had studied under the elegant Italian scholar, Angelo Politiano, and was equally skilled in Greek as Lebrixa was in Latin. ^f115 The second was Lucio Marineo, a native of Sicily, who, in 1485, accompanied the grand admiral of Castile into Spain, and began to read lectures on poetry. ^f116 The third was Peter Martyr of Anghiera, to whose letters we are indebted for some interesting particulars respecting the state of literature in Spain, along with much valuable information on the political transactions of that country, and the affairs of the New World. In 1488, he was persuaded to leave Italy by the conde de Tendilla, who inherited that love of letters which had distinguished his illustrious ancestor, the marquis of Santillana. Martyr commenced his literary career in Spain, by reading, with great applause, a lecture on one of the satires of Juvenal, at Salamanca; but he was soon called from that station to an employment of higher responsibility, for which he was eminently qualified. Under the patronage, and at the earnest desire of queen Isabella, who had herself taken lessons from Lebrixa, he undertook to superintend the education of the sons of the principal nobility, with the view of rooting out an opinion almost universally prevalent among persons of that order in Spain, that learning unfitted them for military affairs, in which they placed all their glory. The school was accordingly opened at court, not without a flattering prospect of success. But Spain was destined to exhaust her energies in gratifying the mad ambition for conquest of a succession of princes, and then to sink into inactivity under the benumbing influence of superstition and despotism. Finding the prejudice against education, in the minds of his pupils, more inveterate than he had anticipated, Martyr accepted of a political appointment; and the plan for inspiring the nobility with the love of polite letters, was abandoned soon after it had been begun under such good auspices. ^f117

In the mean time, the passion for learning spread from Salamanca to the other universities of the kingdom. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, Francesco Ximenes, at that time archbishop of Toledo, restored and enlarged the university of Alcala de Henares, in which he founded a trilingual college. To acquire celebrity to his favorite institution he procured learned teachers to fill its chairs, among whom were Demetrius Ducas and Nicetas Phaustus, two natives of Greece, ^f118 and Fernando Nunez, a descendant of the noble house of Guzman. The latter, who had sacrificed his prospect of civil honors to the love of study, was inferior to none of his learned countrymen, and has left behind him a name in the republic of letters. ^f119

Living in the midst of Jews and Moors, and frequently engaged in controversy with them on their respective creeds, the Christians in Spain had better opportunities and a more powerful stimulus to study the oriental languages, than their brethren in other parts of Europe. About the middle of the thirteenth century, Raymond de Pennaforte, general of the Dominicans, persuaded Juan I. king of Aragon, to appropriate funds for the education of young men who might be qualified for entering the lists in argument with Jews and Mahometans. ^f120 And in 1259 it was appointed, at a general chapter of the Dominicans held in Valencia, that the prior of that order in Spain should see to the erection of a school for Arabic, at Barcelona or elsewhere. ^f121 From this school proceeded several individuals who distinguished themselves as disputants, both orally and by writing. Among the latter was Raymond Martini, the author of Pugio Fidei, or Poignard of the Faith against Jews and Moors; a work which discovers no contemptible acquaintance with the Hebrew language, and with the Rabbinical writings, which it quotes and comments upon in the original. ^f122

To the attention paid to the oriental tongues in Spain may be traced the decree of the council of Vienne, held under pope Clement V. in the year 1311, which ordained that Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic, should be taught in whatever place the pontifical court might be held, and in the universities of Bologna, Paris, Oxford, and Salamanca. ^f123

The ardor with which these studies were prosecuted, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, led to the publication of the famous Complutensian Polyglot. This chef d’oeuvre of Spanish erudition was executed under the patronage and at the expense of cardinal Ximenes, then archbishop of Toledo; a prelate whose pretensions to learning were slender, ^f124 but whose ambition prompted him to seek distinction equally in the convent, the academy, the cabinet, and the field. In imitation of the celebrated Origen, he projected an edition of the Bible in various languages, and expended large sums of money in supporting the learned men who were engaged in the undertaking, purchasing manuscripts for their use, and providing the requisite printers and types. The work commenced in the year 1502, and the printing was finished in 1517, in six volumes folio, at the press of Complutum, or Alcala de Henares. ^f125 The Old Testament contained the original Hebrew text, the Vulgate or Latin version of Jerome, and the Greek version of the Septuagint, arranged in three columns; and at the foot of each page of the Pentateuch was printed the Chaldee paraphrase of Onkelos, accompanied with a Latin translation. The New Testament contained the original Greek, and the Vulgate Latin version. To the whole were added a grammar and dictionary of the Hebrew language, and a Greek lexicon or vocabulary, with some other explanatory treatises. John Brocar, the son of the printer, was accustomed to relate, that when the last sheet came from the press, he, being then a boy, was sent in his best clothes with a copy of it to the cardinal, who gave thanks to God for sparing him to that day, and turning to his attendants, said that he congratulated himself on the completion of that work more than on any of the acts which had distinguished his administration. ^f126

Spanish writers have been too lavish of their encomiums on the Polyglot of Alcala. The Hebrew and Greek manuscripts employed by its compilers were neither numerous nor ancient; and instead of correcting the text of the Septuagint from the copies which were in their possession, they made alterations of their own, with the view of adapting it to the Hebrew text. Some of the learned men who labored in this work, must have been ashamed of the following specimen of puerile devotion to the Vulgate, which occurs in one of the prologues written in the name of Ximenes. Speaking of the order in which the matter is disposed in the columns, he says: “We have put the version of St. Jerome between the Hebrew and Septuagint, as between the synagogue and eastern church, which are like the two thieves, the one on the right and the other on the left hand, and Jesus, that is, the Roman church, in the middle: for this alone, being founded upon a solid rock, remains always immovable in the truth, while the others deviate from the proper sense of scripture.” ^f127 But notwithstanding these defects, when we consider the period at which it was composed, and the example which it held out, we cannot hesitate in affirming that this work reflects great credit on its authors, and on the munificence of the prelate at whose expense it was executed.

The Arabic language was also cultivated at this time by some individuals in Spain. ^f128 This branch of study was zealously patronized by Fernando de Talavera, who, after the overthrow of the Moorish kingdom, was appointed the first archbishop of Granada. This pious and amiable prelate, being desirous of converting the Moors who resided in his diocese by gentle and rational methods, and consequently of promoting the knowledge of Christianity among them, encouraged the clergy under his charge to make themselves masters of the Arabian tongue. With the view of assisting them in this task, he employed his chaplain, Pedro de Alcala, a Hieronymite monk, to draw up an Arabic grammar, vocabulary, and catechism containing the first rudiments of Christian doctrine, for the use of parish priests and catechists; which were the first books ever printed in that language. ^f129 In order the more effectually to promote the same object, the archbishop caused the religious service to be performed in their vernacular tongue, to such of the Moors as had submitted to baptism, or were willing to be instructed; and, accordingly, Arabic translations of the collects from the Gospels and Epistles were also made by his orders. It was his intention to have the whole scriptures translated into that language, agreeably to what is said to have been done at an early period of the Moorish dominion in Spain. ^f130

These measures, which were applauded by all enlightened men, met with the strenuous opposition of cardinal Ximenes, who, while he wished to be regarded as the patron of learning, was a determined enemy to the progress of knowledge. The archbishop had appealed to the authority of St. Paul, who said, “In the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.” But the cardinal pleaded that the times were changed, and appealed to St. Peter. To put the sacred oracles into the hands of those who were but newly initiated into our religion, was, in his opinion, to throw pearls before swine. Nor did he think it a whit safer to intrust the old Christians with this treasure; for, (added he, changing the metaphor,) in this old age of the world, when religion is so far degenerated from that purity which prevailed in the time of St. Paul, the vulgar are in danger of wresting the scriptures to their destruction. Knowing that the common people are inclined to revere what is concealed, and to despise what is known, the wisest nations have always kept them at a distance from the mysteries of religion. Books written by men of approved piety, and calculated, by the examples which they propose, or by the fervor of their style, to raise the dejected, and recall the minds of men from the things of sense to divine contemplation, might be safely circulated in the vulgar tongue; ^f131 and it was the cardinal’s intention, as soon as he found leisure, to publish some works of this description; but the sacred scriptures ought to be exclusively preserved in the three languages in which the inscription on our Saviour’s cross was written; and if ever this rule should be neglected, the most pernicious effects would ensue. ^f132 This opinion, which is merely a commentary on the favorite maxim of the church of Rome, that ignorance is the mother of devotion, has met with the warm approbation of his biographer, and was afterwards produced as a proof of his prophetic gift, along with his miracles, in the application which the Colegio Mayor de San Ildefonso made to the papal court for his canonization. ^f133 The arguments of Ximenes were not of a kind to carry conviction to the minds of those who favored enlightened measures; but they were the arguments of a man who, unfortunately for the best interests of Spain, had even then acquired great influence in the councils of government, and continued for many years to have the chief direction of the affairs of the nation, both civil and ecclesiastical. The books which the cardinal had promised as a substitute for the Gospels and Epistles made their appearance, consisting of treatises of mystic or rather monastic devotion, and the lives of some of its most high-flying zealots, both male and female; such as, the Letters of Santa Catalina de Sena, of Santa Angela de Fulgino, and of Santa Matilda, the Degrees of San Juan Climaco, the Instructions of San Vicente Ferrer, and of Santa Clara, the Meditations of the Carthusian Thomas Landulpho, and the Life of St. Thomas a Becket, archbishop of Canterbury. ^f134

The opposition of Ximenes, and the violent and impolitic measures which the government adopted against the Jews and Moors, checked the cultivation of oriental literature to such a degree, that, in the year 1535, when an enthusiastic scholar visited Spain, he found Hebrew neglected, and could not met with a single native acquainted with Arabic, except the venerable Nunez, who still recollected the characters of a language to which he had paid some attention in his youth. ^f135

A translation of the scriptures into Spanish, of which I shall afterwards speak, had probably little influence in preparing for the introduction of the reformed opinions, as all the copies of it appear to have been destroyed soon after it came from the press. Considerable light was thrown upon the sacred writings by those who studied them in the original languages, at the close of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century. Pablo de San Maria of Burgos, commonly called Paulus Burgensis, a converted Jew, discovered the same acquaintance with Hebrew which distinguishes the Postilla, or notes on scripture, by Nicolas de Lira, to which he made additions. ^f136 Alfonso Tostado, bishop of Avila, who wrote commentaries on the historical books of the Old Testament, and on Matthew, had formed correct notions of the literal and proper sense of scripture, and of the duty of an interpreter to adhere to it in opposition to the method of the allegorizing divines; but he swelled his works to an immoderate bulk, by indulging in digressions on common places. ^f137 Pedro de Osma, professor of theology at Salamanca, employed his talents in correcting the original text of the New Testament, by a critical collation of different manuscripts. He displayed the same freedom of opinion on doctrinal points; and in 1479 was forced to abjure eight propositions relating to the power of the pope, and the sacrament of penance, which were extracted from a book written by him on Confession, and condemned as erroneous by a council held at Alcala. ^f138 Besides his services in the cause of polite literature, Antonio Lebrixa wrote several works illustrative of the scriptures, for which he was brought before the Inquisition, and would have incurred the same censure as De Osma, had he not been so fortunate as to secure the protection of their Catholic Majesties. ^f139

By the labors of these men, together with the writings of their countryman Ludovicus Vives, who had settled in the Low Countries, and of his friend Erasmus, a salutary change was produced on the minds of the youth at the universities. They became disgusted at the barbarism of scholastic theology, read the scriptures for themselves, consulted them in the originals, and from these sources ventured to correct the errors of the Vulgate, and to expose the absurd and puerile interpretations which had so long passed current under the shade of ignorance and credulity.

Having put the reader in possession of the circumstances connected with the state of letters and knowledge which tended to facilitate the introduction of the reformed doctrine into Spain, I shall now take a view of the obstacles with which it had to contend, of which the most formidable by far was the Inquisition.

CHAPTER 3.

OF THE INQUISITION, AND OTHER OBSTACLES TO THE REFORMATION IN SPAIN.

SOON after the Roman empire became Christian, laws were enacted, subjecting those who propagated erroneous opinions to punishment, under the false idea that heresy, or error in matters of revelation, was a crime and an offence against the state. The penalties were in general moderate, compared with those which were decreed at a subsequent period. Manicheism, which was considered as eversive of the principles of natural religion, and dangerous to morals, was the only heresy visited with capital punishment; a penalty which was afterwards extended to the Donatists, who were chargeable with exciting tumults in various parts of the empire. The bishops of that time were far from soliciting the execution of these penal statutes, which in most instances had passed at their desire, or with their consent. They flattered themselves that the publication of severe laws, by the terror which it inspired, would repress the hardihood of daring innovators, and induce their deluded followers to listen to instruction, and return to the bosom of the faithful church. When Priscillian was put to death for Manicheism, at Treves in 384, St. Martin, the apostle of the French, remonstrated with the emperor Maximus against the deed, which was regarded with abhorrence by all the bishops of France and Italy. ^f140 St. Augustine protested to the proconsul of Africa, that, if capital punishment was inflicted on the Donatists, he and his clergy would suffer death at the hands of these turbulent heretics sooner than be instrumental in bringing them before the tribunals. ^f141 But it is easier to draw than to sheathe the sword of persecution; and the ecclesiastics of a following age were zealous in stimulating reluctant magistrates to execute these laws, and in procuring the application of them to persons who held opinions which their predecessors looked upon as harmless or laudable. In the eleventh century, capital punishment, even in its most dreadful form, that of burning alive, was extended to all who obstinately adhered to opinions differing from the received faith. ^f142

Historians have not pointed out with precision the period at which this extension of the penal code took place, or the grounds on which it proceeded. Instances of the practice occur previously to the imperial edict of Frederic II. in 1224, and even to that of Frederic I. in 1184. ^f143 It appears to me to have been at first introduced by confounding the different sects which arose with the followers of Manes. Taking advantage of the circumstances, that some individuals belonging to those who went by the names of Henricians, Arnoldists, Poor Men of Lyons, and Vaudois, held the leading tenet of Manicheism, the clergy fixed this stigma on the whole body, and called on magistrates to visit them with the penalty decreed against that odious heresy. In an ignorant age this charge was easily believed. It was in vain that the victims of persecution protested against the indiscriminate accusation, or disowned the sentiments imputed to them. By the time that undeniable facts cleared their innocence, the public mind had learned to view the severity of their fate with indifference or approbation; and the punishment of death, under the general phrase of delivering over to the secular arm, came to be considered as the common award for all who entertained opinions opposite to those of the church of Rome, or who presumed to inveigh against the corruptions of the priesthood.

Other causes, some of which had been long in operation, continued to work, in the course of the eleventh century, a great change on the criminal proceedings against heretics. The sentence of excommunication, which at first only excluded from the privileges of the church, was now considered as inflicting a mark of public infamy on those who incurred it; from which the transition was not difficult, in a superstitious age, to the idea that it deprived them of all the rights, natural or civil, of which they were formerly in possession. The unhappy individuals who were struck with this spiritual thunder, felt all the bonds which connected them with society suddenly dissolved, and were regarded as objects at once of divine execration and human abhorrence. Subjects threw off their allegiance to their legitimate sovereigns; sovereigns gave up their richest and most peaceable provinces to fire and sword; the territories of a vassal became lawful prey to his neighbors; and a man’s enemies were those of his own house. The Roman pontiffs, who had extended their authority by affecting an ardent zeal for the honor of the Christian faith, found a powerful engine for accomplishing their ambitious designs, in the crusades, undertaken at their instigation, to deliver the Holy Land, and the sepulchre of Christ, from the pollution of infidels. These mad expeditions, whose indirect influence was ultimately favorable to European civilization, were in the mean time productive of the worst effects. While they weakened the sovereigns who embarked in them, they increased the power of the popes, and placed at their disposal immense armies, which they could direct against all who opposed their measures. They perverted, in the minds of men, the essential principles of religion, justice, and humanity, by cherishing the false idea that it is meritorious to wage war for the glory of the Christian name,—by throwing the veil of sanctity over the greatest enormities of which a licentious soldiery might be guilty,—by conferring the pardon of their sins on all who arrayed themselves under the banners of the cross,—and by holding out the palm of martyrdom to such as should have the honor to fall in fighting against the enemies of the faith. Nor were the popes either dilatory or slack in availing themselves of these prejudices. Finding that their violent measures for suppressing the Albigenses were feebly seconded by the barons of Provence, they proclaimed a crusade against heretics, launched the sentence of excommunication against both superiors and vassals, and carried on a war of extermination in the south of France during a period of twenty years. It was amidst these scenes of blood and horror that the Inquisition arose.

Historians are divided in opinion as to the exact time at which the Inquisition was founded. Inquisitors and informers are mentioned in a law published by the emperor Theodosius against the Manicheans; but these were officers of justice appointed by the prefects, and differed entirely from the persons who became so notorious under these designations many centuries after that period. ^f144 The fundamental principle of that odious institution was undoubtedly recognized in 1184, by the council of Verona; which however established no separate tribunal for the pursuit of heretics, but left this task entirely in the hands of the bishops. Rainier, Castelnau, and St. Dominic, who were sent into France at different times from 1198 to 1206, had a commission from the pope to search for heretics, and in this sense may be called inquisitors; but they were invested with no judicial power to pronounce a definite sentence. ^f145 The council of the Lateran in 1218 made no innovation on the ancient practice. The council held at Toulouse in 1229, ordained that the bishops should appoint, in each parish of their respective dioceses, “one priest and two or three laics, who should engage upon oath to make a rigorous search after all heretics and their abettors, and for this purpose should visit every house from the garret to the cellar, together with all subterraneous places where they might conceal themselves.” ^f146 But the Inquisition, as a distinct tribunal, was not erected until the year 1233, when pope Gregory IX. took from the bishops the power of discovering and bringing to judgment the heretics who lurked in France, and committed that task to the Dominican friars. In consequence of this the tribunal was immediately set up in Toulouse, and afterwards in the neighboring cities, from which it was introduced into other countries of Europe. ^f147

It may be considered as a fact at least somewhat singular, that in the proceedings of the first Spanish council whose records have reached our time, we find a deeper stigma attached to the character of informers than to that of heretics. The council of Elvira, after limiting the duration of the penance of those who might fall into heresy, decreed that “if a catholic become an informer, and any one be put to death or proscribed in consequence of his denunciation, he shall not receive the communion, even at the hour of death.” ^f148 On a review of criminal proceedings in Spain anterior to the establishment of the court of Inquisition, it appears in general that heretics were more mildly treated there than in other countries. Jews who relapsed, after having been baptized, were subject to whipping and spare diet, according to the age of the offenders. ^f149 Those who apostatized to paganism, if nobles or freemen, were condemned to exile, and if slaves, to whipping and chains. ^f150 The general law against heretics was, that such as refused to recant, if priests, should be deprived of all their dignities and property, and if laics, that they should, in addition, be condemned to perpetual banishment. ^f151 Even after the barbarous custom of committing obstinate heretics to the flames had been introduced into other parts of Europe, Spain testified her aversion to sanguinary measures. In 1194, when Alfonso II. of Aragon, at the instigation of the legate of pope Celestine, published an edict, commanding the Vaudois, and all other sectaries, to quit his dominions, those who remained after the time specified were expressly exempted from suffering either death or the mutilation of their bodies. ^f152

No sooner had the Inquisition received the papal sanction, than measures were taken for having it introduced into Spain, where the Dominicans had already established convents of their order. In the course of the thirteenth century, inquisitorial tribunals were permanently erected in the principal towns of the kingdom of Aragon, from which they were extended to Navarre. ^f153 Though a papal brief was issued in 1236 for the special purpose of introducing the Holy Office into Castile, and Ferdinand III. surnamed the Saint, is said to have carried with his own hand the wood destined for burning of his subjects,—yet it does not appear that there ever was a permanent tribunal in that kingdom under the ancient form of the Inquisition; either because heresy had made little progress among the Castilians, or because they were averse to the new method of extirpating

_it. f154

The mode of proceeding in the court of Inquisition, when first erected, was simple, and differed very little from that which was followed in the ordinary courts of justice. In particular, the interrogatories put to persons accused, and to witnesses, were short and direct, evincing merely a desire to ascertain the truth on the subjects of inquiry. ^f155 But this simplicity soon gave place to a system of the most complicated and iniquitous circumvention. Grossly ignorant of judicial matters, the Dominicans modelled their new court after what is called in the Roman church, the Tribunal of Penance. Accustomed, in the confessional, to penetrate into the secrets of conscience, they converted to the destruction of the bodies of men all those arts which a false zeal had taught them to employ for the saving of their souls. Inflamed with a passion for extirpating heresy, and persuading themselves that the end sanctified the means, they not only acted upon, but formally laid down, as a rule for their conduct, maxims founded on the grossest deceit and artifice, according to which they sought in every way to ensnare their victims, and by means of false statements, delusory promises, and a tortuous course of examination, to betray them into confessions which proved fatal to their lives and fortunes. ^f156 To this mental torture was soon after added the use of bodily tortures, together with the concealment of the names of witnesses.

After this court had subsisted for two centuries and a half, it underwent what its friends have honored with the name of a reform; in consequence of which it became a more terrible engine of persecution than before. Under this new form it is usually called the Modern Inquisition, though it may with equal propriety bear the name of the Spanish, as it originated in Spain, and has been confined to that country, including Portugal, and the dominions subject to the two monarchies.

The war of the Albigenses was the pretext used by the popes for the establishment of the ancient Inquisition; the necessity of checking the apostasy of the converts from Judaism was urged as the reason for introducing the modern. While the Spaniards were engaged in continual wars with one another or with the Moors, the Jews, who had been settled for ages in the Peninsula, by addicting themselves to trade and commerce, had, in the fourteenth century, engrossed the wealth of the nation, and attained to great influence in the government both of Castile and Aragon. Those who were indebted to them, and those who envied them on account of the civil offices which they held, united in stirring up the religious prejudices of the populace against them; and in one year five thousand Jews fell a sacrifice to popular fury. With the view of saving their lives, many submitted to baptism, and it is computed that, in the course of a few years, nearly a million of persons renounced the law of Moses and made profession of the Christian faith. The number of converts, as they were called, was increased in the beginning of the fifteenth century, by the zeal of the Dominican missionaries, and especially of St. Vincent Ferrer, to whom the Spanish historians have ascribed more miracles and conversions than were wrought by the apostles. ^f157 These converts were called New Christians, and sometimes Marranos from a form of execration then in use among the Jews. As their adoption of the Christian profession proceeded from the fear of death, or a desire to secure secular emoluments, rather than internal persuasion, the greater part repented of having abjured the religion of their fathers, and resumed the practice of its rites in secret, while they publicly conformed to those of the Christians. This forced conformity could not fail to be painful to their minds, and was relaxed in proportion as the fears which they felt for their safety abated. The consequence was, that many of them were discovered by the monks, who cried out that if some severe means were not adopted to repress the evil, the whole body of converted Jews would soon relapse into their former habits, and the faith of the old Christians would be corrupted and overthrown by these concealed apostates with whom they were intermingled.—But, although more immediately intended to guard the fidelity of the New Christians, the modern Inquisition, like the ancient, was charged with the discovery and punishment of all kinds of heresy, and extended its jurisdiction over the Old Christians, as well as Jewish and Moorish converts.

It is proper that the names of those individuals to whom Spain owes this institution should not be forgotten. The most active were Felippe de Barberis, inquisitor of Sicily, and Alfonso de Hoyeda, prior of Seville, both of them Dominican friars, assisted by Nicolas Franco, bishop of Treviso, who was at that time nuncio from pope Sixtus IV. to the Spanish court. ^f158

The whole of Spain was at this period united into one kingdom by the marriage of Ferdinand, king of Aragon, and Isabella, queen of Castile. Ferdinand readily acceded to a proposal which gave him the prospect of filling his coffers by means of confiscations; it was equally agreeable to Sixtus, from its tendency to promote the views of the court of Rome; and they succeeded, by the help of the friars, in overcoming the repugnance which it excited in the humane but superstitious mind of Isabella. The bull for establishing the Inquisition in Castile was issued on the 1st of November 1478; and on the 17th of September 1480, their catholic majesties named the first inquisitors, who commenced their proceedings on the 2d of January 1481, in the Dominican convent of St. Paul at Seville. The tribunal did not however assume a permanent form until two years after, when friar Thomas Torquemada, prior of Santa Cruz in the town of Segovia, was placed at its head, under the designation of inquisitor-general, first of Castile, and afterwards of Aragon. ^f159 Torquemada proceeded without delay to exercise the high powers with which he was intrusted, by choosing his assessors, and erecting subordinate tribunals in different cities of the united kingdom. Over the whole was placed the Council of the Supreme, consisting of the inquisitor-general as president, and three counsellors, two of whom were doctors of law. This regulated and controlled the inferior tribunals; and by its fundamental laws, the counsellors had a deliberative voice in all questions relating to civil law, but a consultative voice only in those which appertained to ecclesiastical law, of which Torquemada was constituted the sole judge by the apostolical bulls. These counsellors appear to have been appointed with the view of preventing encroachments on the secular authorities, and accordingly altercations did sometimes arise between the inquisitors-general and the counsellors of the Supreme; but as the latter were all of the clerical order, and as no clear line of distinction between civil and ecclesiastical affairs was drawn, the questions which came before the court were generally brought under the rules of canon law, or in other words, decided according to the pleasure of the president. Torquemada’s next employment was to form a body of laws for the government of his new tribunal. This appeared in 1484; additions were made to it from time to time; and, as a diversity of practice had crept into the subordinate courts, the inquisitor-general Valdes, in 1561, made a revisal of the whole code, which was published in eighty-one articles, and continues, with the exception of a few slight alterations, to be the law to this day. ^f160 From these constitutions, as illustrated by the authentic documents connected with the history of the Inquisition which have been lately made public, a correct idea may be formed of the mode of process observed in that dreadful tribunal. Instead however of entering here into details which may be found elsewhere, I shall select such particulars as show that the Inquisition possessed powers which enabled it effectually to arrest the progress of knowledge, and to crush every attempt which might be made for the reformation of religion and the church.

The first thing which presents itself to our view, is the immense apparatus which the Inquisition possesses for the discovery of heresy, and the apprehension of those who are suspected of having incurred its taint. Deceived by the importance attached to denunciation in the instructions of the Holy Office, some writers would lead us to believe that there is no way in which a process can be commenced before the Inquisition, except by a formal charge preferred by some individual; whereas the truth is, that information, in whatever way it may be obtained, is sufficient for this purpose. ^f161 The Inquisition is not only a court of justice, but also, as its name intimates, a body of police, employed in discovering the offenses on which it is afterwards to sit in judgment. Every individual belonging to its tribunals, supreme or subordinate, from the inquisitor-general down to the lowest alguazil or familiar, is charged with this employment. At those periods when its vigilance was aroused by the alarm of heresy, it had its secret spies and authorized agents at every port and pass of the kingdom, as regularly as government had its tide-waiters and custom-house officers, armed with authority to arrest the persons and property of all who incurred their suspicions. In addition to its internal resources, it avails itself of the superstitious prejudices of the people, whom it raises en masse, to drive the poor heretics into the legal toils spread for them in all parts of the country. At any time which it judges proper, but statedly on two Sundays every year during lent, an edict is published in all the churches of the kingdom, requiring every one who knows any person suspected of heresy to give information to the Inquisition within six days, upon pain of incurring mortal sin and excommunication by their silence. At the same time, the priests in the confessional exert all the influence which they possess over the minds of their penitents to persuade them to comply with this order. In this way the worst and the best, the weakest and the strongest passions of the human breast are engaged; and persons are induced to become informers from private malice, from pious scruples, and from selfish fears. The father sometimes informs against his own child, the wife against the husband, and the lovesick maiden against the object of her tenderest attachment. Though the holy fathers prefer a process by denunciation to one ex officio, ^f162 and in order to encourage informers, conceal their names, yet anonymous informations are received without any scruple, provided they furnish the smallest clue by which the charge may be brought home to the accused. One prosecution is often the means of fastening the suspicion of heresy on a number of individuals; for it is an invariable rule with the inquisitors, not to inform a witness of the particular object for which he is cited, but to commence by desiring him to task his memory and say if he recollects having seen or heard any thing which appeared to be inconsistent with the catholic faith; in consequence of which, he is led to mention names not implicated in the process. If, upon inquiry, the inquisitors are of opinion that they will find it difficult to convict the suspected person, they do not examine him, because this would only serve to put him on his guard; nor do they use any means to recover him from the supposed errors into which he has fallen; but suspending their proceedings, wait until they obtain additional proof to substantiate the charge. ^f163 If the evidence is deemed sufficient, they issue the order of arrest to the alguazil, who, accompanied by the sequestrator and receiver of goods, instantly repairs to the house of the accused; and, provided the latter has absconded, the familiars are furnished, not only with a minute description of his person, but also with his picture, so that it is next to impossible that their prey can escape them. ^f164

Nor is it less difficult for a person to escape without condemnation, if he once has had the misfortune to be apprehended. It is only in the way of being able to convict him of heresy, that the inquisitors are entitled to seize on his property; and as it is an established maxim of theirs, that the Holy Office cannot err, they consider it as a reflection on its proceedings, if any individual whom it has apprehended shall clear himself from suspicion. Without acquainting him either with his accuser or the charge brought against him, every art is employed, both by his judges in the repeated examinations to which they subject him, and also by the jailer to whose care he is intrusted, to induce the prisoner to confess that he has been guilty of some offence against the faith. He is strictly interrogated as to his kindred, connections, acquaintances, and manner of life; the records of all the tribunals of the Holy Office are ordered to be searched; and if it is found that any of his ancestors or relations, however remote, either in the male or female line, or any of those with whom he has consorted, were Jews, Moors, or heretics, or had incurred the censures of the Inquisition, this circumstance is regarded as sufficient to fasten on him a legitimate presumption of guilt. Even a failure to repeat the Ave Maria or creed exactly after the manner of the Roman church, is viewed in the same light. ^f165

The impenetrable secrecy with which all the proceedings of the Inquisition are shrouded, is at once an instrument of terror, and an encouragement to every species of injustice. Every person who enters its walls is sworn, before he is permitted to depart, to observe the most profound silence as to all that he may have seen, heard, or uttered. ^f166 The names of the witnesses are carefully concealed from the prisoner; and they are not confronted with him, nor, so far as appears, with one another. ^f167 No check is imposed on the infidelity or ignorance of the notaries or clerks who take down the depositions. The accused is not furnished with a copy of the evidence against him, but merely with such garbled extracts as his judges are pleased to order; and, taking advantage of the different modes of expression used by the witnesses in speaking of the same fact, the procurator-fiscal often converts one charge into three or four, by which means the prisoner is thrown into confusion on his defence, and exposed to popular odium, as a person laden with crimes, if he is ultimately brought out in the public autoda-fe. Every thing which the witnesses in their examination may have said in his favor, or which might be conducive to his exculpation, is studiously and totally suppressed.

The same partial and unjust rules are observed in forming the extracts, both at the commencement and termination of the process, are submitted to certain divines, called qualificators of the Holy Office, whose business it is to say whether the propositions imputed to the accused individual are heretical, or to what degree they subject him to the suspicion of heresy. These individuals, besides, are generally monks or scholastic divines, imbued with false notions, and ready to qualify, or stigmatize as heretical, opinions sanctioned by the authority of the most approved doctors of the church, merely because they have not met with them in the contracted circle of their studies.

It is not easy to conceive a greater mockery of justice than is to be found in the provisions made for the defence of the prisoner. The judges appoint one of their advocates to act as his counsel, who has no means of defending his client, except the garbled extracts from the depositions of the witnesses already mentioned. But the truth is, that his ability is as great as his inclination; for, while nominally the advocate of the prisoner, he is really the agent and proctor of the court, in obedience to whose directions, given at the time of his nomination, he labors in most instances to induce his client to confess and throw himself on the mercy of the judges. ^f168 Nor is the pretended privilege of challenging the witness less nugatory and insulting to the prisoner. Deprived of every means of knowing the persons who have deponed against him, he can have recourse to conjecture only; malice is the sole ground of exception which he is permitted to urge; he may have been accused from fanaticism, fear, or ignorant scruples; or his personal enemy may have put forward, as the instrument of his malice, an individual whom the prisoner would never think of suspecting; and sometimes the procurator-fiscal takes the precaution of secretly establishing the credibility of his witnesses beforehand, with the view of defeating the challenge. The inquisitors are uniformly disposed to favor the witnesses for the prosecution, and to screen them from punishment, even in cases of perjury. ^f169 Nor is this evil to be traced to the character of particular judges; it springs from the very genius of the tribunal, which induces all who are connected with it to set at defiance the most essential principles of justice by which every other court is governed, and even to disregard its own regulations, for the sake of encouraging informations and indulging a morbid jealousy. Of the same illusory nature is the privilege which, in certain cases, they give the prisoner to bring forward exculpatory evidence. For, in the first place, he is restricted in his choice of witnesses. While the testimony of persons of all descriptions—relations, domestics, New Christians, malefactors, infamous characters, children, and even idiots, is admissible against him; ^f170 he, on the contrary, is directed to name, for his exculpation, only Christians of ancient race, of unimpeached character, and who are neither his relatives nor domestics. And, in the second place, the tribunal reserves to itself the power of examining such of the prisoner’s witnesses only as it shall judge “most fit and worthy of credit.” ^f171

The injustice of the inquisitorial process can only be equalled by its cruelty. Persons of undoubted veracity, who had the happiness to escape from the secret prisons of the Inquisition during the sixteenth century, have described them as narrow and gloomy cells, which admitted the light only by a small chink,—damp, and resembling graves more than prisons, if they were subterraneous; and if they were situated in the upper part of the building, feeling in summer like heated furnaces. ^f172 At present, they are described as, in general, good vaulted chambers, well lighted, free of humidity, and of such size as to allow the prisoner to take a little exercise. ^f173 But even those who give the most favorable description of these abodes admit, that nothing can be conceived more frightful than the situation of the individual who is immured in them, left as he is to conjecture respecting his accuser and the particular crime with which he is charged; kept in ignorance of the state of his process; shut out from every kind of intercourse with his friends; denied even the consolation of conversing confidentially with the person to whom his defence has been intrusted; refused all use of books; afraid, if he has a fellow-prisoner with him for a few days, to do more than exchange salutations with him, lest he should be confiding in a spy; threatened if he hum a tune, and especially a sacred one, to relieve his languor; plunged, during the rigor of the winter months, in total darkness for fifteen hours of every day in an abode that never saw the cheerful blaze of a fire; and, in fine, knowing that if ever he should be set free, he must go out to the world lost for ever in public opinion, and loaded with an infamy, heavier than that of the pardoned assassin or parricide, which will attach to his children of the remotest generation. What wonder that such prisoners as are not induced, at an early period of their confinement, to confess guilt, become a prey to dejection, and seek relief from their miseries in death, or else sink into a hopeless and morbid insensibility, from which the rack itself is scarcely sufficient to rouse them?

That part of the process which relates to the torture is a monstrous compound of injustice and barbarity. If, after the evidence is closed, the tribunal find that there is only a demi-proof of guilt against the prisoner, it is warranted, by its instructions, to have recourse to the torture, in order to force him to furnish additional evidence against himself. ^f174 He is allowed, indeed, to appeal to the council of the Supreme against the sentence of the inquisitors ordering him to be tortured; but then, by a refinement in cruelty, it is provided that the inquisitors shall be judges of the validity of this appeal, and “if they deem it frivolous, shall proceed to the execution of their sentence without delay.” ^f175 In this case, the appeal of the poor prisoner is as little heard of as are the shrieks which he utters in the subterraneous den to which he is conducted without delay, where every bone is moved from its socket, and the blood is made to start from every vein of his body. But it is not my intention to shock the feelings of the reader by any description of the infernal operation; and, instead of trusting myself to make any reflections of my own on a practice so disgraceful to human nature, I shall merely quote those of the late historian and exsecretary of the Inquisition. “I do not stop (says he) to describe the several kinds of torture inflicted on the accused by order of the Inquisition; this task having been executed with sufficient exactness by a great many historians. On this head, I declare that none of them can be accused of exaggeration. I have read many processes which have struck and pierced me with horror, and I could regard the inquisitors who had recourse to such methods in no other light than that of cold-blooded barbarians. Suffice it to add, that the council of the Supreme has often been obliged to forbid the repetition of the torture in the same process; but the inquisitors, by an abominable sophism, have found means to render this prohibition almost useless, by giving the name of suspension to that cessation from torture which is imperiously demanded by the imminent danger to which the victim is exposed of dying among their hands. My pen refuses to trace the picture of these horrors, for I know nothing more opposed to the spirit of charity and compassion which Jesus Christ inculcates in the gospel, than this conduct of the inquisitors; and yet, in spite of the scandal which it has given, there is not, after the eighteenth century is closed, any law or decree abolishing the torture.” ^f176

Of the punishments inflicted by the Inquisition, of the san-benito, or coat of infamy, and the auto-da-fe, with all its dread accompaniments, we shall have too much occasion to speak in the sequel.

The principles of the ancient and modern Inquisition were radically the same, but they assumed a more malignant form under the latter than under the former. Under the ancient Inquisition, the bishops had always a certain degree of control over its proceedings; the law of secrecy was not so rigidly enforced in practice; greater liberty was allowed to the accused on their defence; and in some countries, as in Aragon, in consequence of the civil rights acquired by the people, the inquisitors were restrained from sequestrating the property of those whom they convicted of heresy. ^f177 But the leading difference between the two institutions consisted in the organization of the latter into one great independent tribunal, which, extending over the whole kingdom, was governed by one code of laws, and yielded implicit obedience to one head. The inquisitor-general possessed an authority scarcely inferior to that of the king or the pope; by joining with either of them, he proved an overmatch for the other; and when supported by both, his power was irresistible. The ancient Inquisition was a powerful engine for harassing and rooting out a small body of dissidents; the modern Inquisition stretched its iron arms over a whole nation, upon which it lay like a monstrous incubus, paralysing its exertions, crushing its energies, and extinguishing every other feeling but a sense of weakness and terror.

In the course of the first year in which it was erected, the inquisition of Seville, which then extended over Castile, committed two thousand persons alive to the flames, burnt as many in effigy, and condemned seventeen thousand to different penances. ^f178 According to a moderate computation, from the same date to 1517, the year in which Luther made his appearance, thirteen thousand persons were burnt alive, eight thousand seven hundred were burnt in effigy, and one hundred and sixty-nine thousand seven hundred and twenty-three were condemned to penances; making in all one hundred and ninety-one thousand four hundred and twenty-three persons condemned by the several tribunals of Spain in the course of thirty-six years. ^f179 There is reason for thinking that this estimate falls much below the truth. For, from 1481 to 1520, it is computed that in Andalusia alone thirty thousand persons informed against themselves, from the dread of being accused by others, or in the hope of obtaining a mitigation of their sentence. ^f180 And down to the commencement of the seventeenth century, the instances of absolution were so rare, that one is scarcely to be found in a thousand cases; the inquisitors making it a point, that, if possible, none should escape without bearing a mark of their censure, as at least suspected de levi, or in the lowest degree. ^f181

It was to be expected that the inquisitors would exert their power in checking the cultivation of biblical learning. In 1490, many copies of the Hebrew Bible were committed to the flames at Seville by the order of Torquemada; and in an auto-da-fe celebrated soon after at Salamanca, six thousand volumes shared the same fate, under the pretext that they contained judaism, magic, and other illicit arts. ^f182 Deza, archbishop of Seville, who had succeeded Torquemada as inquisitor-general, ordered the papers of Lebrixa to be seized, and passed sentence against him as suspected of heresy, for the corrections which he had made on the text of the Vulgate, and his other labors in elucidation of the scriptures. “The archbishop’s object (says Lebrixa, in an apology which he drew up for himself) was to deter me from writing. He wished to extinguish the knowledge of the two languages on which our religion depends; and I was condemned for impiety, because, being no divine but a mere grammarian, I presumed to treat of theological subjects. If a person endeavor to restore the purity of the sacred text, and point out the mistakes which have vitiated it, unless he will retract his opinions, he must be loaded with infamy, excommunicated, and doomed to an ignominious punishment! Is it not enough that I submit my judgment to the will of Christ in the scriptures? must I also reject as false what is as clear and evident as the light of truth itself? What tyranny! To hinder a man, under the most cruel pains, from saying what he thinks, though he express himself with the utmost respect for religion, to forbid him to write in his closet or in the solitude of a prison, to speak to himself, or even to think! On what subject shall we employ our thoughts, if we are prohibited from directing them to those sacred oracles which have been the delight of the pious in every age, and on which they have meditated by day and by night?” ^f183

Arbitrary as this court was in its principles, and tyrannical and cruel as it has proved in its proceedings, so blinded did the Spanish nation become as to felicitate herself on the establishment of the Inquisition. The cities of ancient Greece vied with one another for the honor of having given birth to Homer. The cities of modern Germany have warmly disputed the honor of having invented the art of printing. Even the credit of having first adopted this German invention has given rise to an honorable rivalry among the states of Italy; and the monastery of St. Subiac, in the Campagna di Roma, has endeavored to wrest the palm from both Milan and Venice. ^f184 But the cities of Spain have engaged in a more than inglorious contest for the credit of having been the first seat of an institution which, after failing to strangle learning in its birth, has all along persecuted it with the most unrelenting malice. The claims of the inhabitants of Seville are engraven on a monument erected in their city to the memory of this event. Segovia has contested this honor with Seville, and its historians are seriously divided on the question, whether the Holy Office held its first sitting in the house of the marques de Moya, or in that of the majorat de Caceres. ^f185

It is but justice, however, to the Spaniards to state, that this perverted and degrading sentiment was the effect of the Inquisition, and formed no original trait in the national character. The fact is now ascertained beyond all question, that the erection of this tribunal was viewed by the nation with the greatest aversion and alarm. ^f186 Talavera, the excellent archbishop of Granada, resisted its introduction with all his influence. The most enlightened Spaniards of that age spoke of its proceedings with horror and shame. “The losses and misery which the evil ministers of the Inquisition have brought upon my country can never be enough deplored,” says the chevalier de Cordova, Gonzalez de Ayora, in a letter to the secretary of king Ferdinand. ^f187 “O unhappy Spain, mother of so many heroes, how unjustly disgraced by such a horrible scourge!” exclaims Peter Martyr. ^f188 D’Arbues, the first inquisitor of Aragon, and afterwards canonized as a martyr, was not the only individual who fell a sacrifice to the indignation against the Inquisition, shared by all classes of the community. Torquemada, the first inquisitor-general, was obliged to adopt the greatest precautions for his personal safety. In his journeys he was uniformly accompanied by a guard of fifty familiars on horseback, and two hundred on foot; and he had always on his table the tusk of a wild animal, to which he trusted for discovering and neutralizing poisons. ^f189 In Aragon, where the inhabitants had been accustomed to the old Inquisition for two centuries and a half, the introduction of it in its new form excited tumults in various places, and met with a resistance almost national. ^f190 No sooner had the inhabitants of Castile felt the yoke, than they sought to throw it off; and the cortes of that kingdom joined with those of Aragon and Catalonia, in representing the grievances which they suffered from the Inquisition, and in demanding a radical reform on its iniquitous and oppressive laws. ^f191 It is unnecessary to say, that these attempts, which were renewed at intervals during thirty years from the establishment of that tribunal, proved finally abortive.

This unfortunate issue was in no small degree owing to cardinal Ximenes, who contributed more than any other individual to rivet the chains of political and spiritual despotism on his native country. Possessed of talents which enabled him to foresee the dire effects which the Inquisition would inevitably produce, he was called to take part in public affairs at a time when these effects had decidedly appeared. It was in his power to abolish that execrable tribunal altogether as an insufferable nuisance, or at least to impose such checks upon its procedure as would have rendered it comparatively harmless. But he not only allowed himself to be placed at its head, but employed all his influence and address in defeating every attempt to reform its worst and most glaring abuses. In 1512, the New Christians made an offer of six hundred thousand crowns to Ferdinand, to assist him in carrying on the war in Navarre, on condition that a law were passed enjoining the testimonies of the witnesses, in processes before the Inquisition, to be made public. With the view of diverting the king from acceding to this proposal, Ximenes seconded his remonstrances against it by placing a large sum of money at the royal disposal. And, in 1516, when a similar offer was made to the ministers of Charles V., and when the universities and learned men of Spain and Flanders had given their opinion, that the communication of the names and depositions of the witnesses was conformable both to divine and human laws, the cardinal again interposed, and by messengers and letters urged the rejection of the measure, upon the wretched plea that a certain nameless witness had been assassinated, and that the person of the king was put in danger by the admission of converted Jews into the palace. ^f192 He exerted himself with equal zeal in resisting the applications which the New Christians made to the court of Rome for the same object. ^f193 During the eleven years that he was at the head of this tribunal, fifty-one thousand one hundred and sixty-seven persons were condemned, of whom two thousand five hundred and thirty-six were burnt alive. ^f194 Not satisfied with perpetuating the Inquisition in his native country, he extended the precious boon to two quarters of the globe, by establishing one tribunal at Oran in Africa, and another at Cuba in America. With the exception of the check which, at the commencement of his ministry, he put on the mad proceedings of the inquisitor Luzero, who, by listening to false accusations, had harassed the good archbishop of Granada, the marquis of Pliego, and many of the most respectable persons of the kingdom, ^f195 the reforms which the cardinal made on the Inquisition are confined to the substitution of a St. Andrew’s cross, in place of the ordinary one, on the san-benito, and the allotment of separate churches for the New Christians. If mankind were to be treated as their foolish admiration of talents merits, they would be left to groan under the rod of oppression. Ximenes has obtained the title of a great man, from foreigners as well as natives of Spain. ^f196 But in spite of the eulogiums passed upon him, I cannot help being of opinion, with a modern writer, ^f197 that Ximenes bore a striking resemblance to Philip II., with this difference, that the cardinal was possessed of higher talents, and that his proceedings were characterized by a certain openness and impartiality, the result of the unlimited confidence which he placed in his own powers. His character was essentially that of a monk, in which the severity of his order was combined with the impetuosity of blood which belongs to the natives of the south.

The cardinal would be still more inexcusable if he were the author of an unpublished work which has been ascribed to him. It is a fictitious composition, after the manner of the Utopia of Sir Thomas More, and treats of the best mode of governing a kingdom. In one part of it, the abuses of the Holy Office are discussed freely and at large in the presence of Prudenciano, monarch of the kingdom of Truth, who, after hearing the inquisitors, decides, with the advice of his counsellors, that all persons accused of heresy shall be put in possession of the names and depositions of the witnesses; that they shall have the same liberty of holding intercourse with their advocates, procurators and friends, which is granted to other prisoners; that they shall not be excluded from the benefit of divine service during their confinement; that New Christians, and the descendants of heretics, shall be admissible to all offices, and exempted from every stigma; that, to prevent ignorant convictions, the tribunals of the inquisition shall be provided with judges well instructed in questions of faith; that the confiscation of the goods of those condemned for heresy shall be limited to the property which they actually possess at the time, and shall not extend to the portions which they had previously given to their married children, nor interfere with the fulfillment of any lawful engagement which they had contracted; and in general, that processes before the Inquisition shall be conducted on the maxims which regulate other courts of criminal judicature. ^f198 This treatise, drawn up during the minority of Charles V., was intended for the instruction of that young prince, and proves that Spain possessed at that time persons of superior illumination; but we may safely acquit cardinal Ximenes from the suspicion of being the author of a work containing principles of liberal policy and enlightened justice, which there is no reason to think that ghostly statesman ever entertained at any period of his life.

The history of the Inquisition, during the first thirty years after its erection, discloses a series of intrigue, in which it is hard to say whether the court of Rome, the court of Spain, or the Holy Office, acted the most deceitful and unprincipled part. While they combined to oppress and impoverish the people of Spain, each of them sought to overreach the other and to promote its own selfish designs. The court of Rome readily gave its sanction to the establishment of the Inquisition; and Sixtus IV., in a letter to queen Isabella, signified that “he had felt the most lively desire to see it introduced into the kingdom of Castile.” ^f199 Notwithstanding this, the papal court both secretly and openly encouraged the New Christians to appeal to Rome, reversed the sentences which the Inquisition had pronounced against them in Spain, and admitted them to reconciliation in secret. But after it had extorted large sums of money for these favors, no sooner did the Spanish monarch, at the instigation of the inquisitors, reclaim against these proceedings, than it revoked its decisions, suspended the execution of its bulls, and left the victims of its avarice and duplicity to the vengeance of their incensed persecutors. ^f200 It was evidently on the same avaricious principle that Leo X., in the year 1517, authorized the inquisitors at Rome to judge in complaints of heresy against natives of Spain. On that occasion, Geronimo Vich, the Spanish ambassador, received orders from his court to remonstrate against this decree, as inflicting a stigma on a nation which had testified such zeal for the catholic faith, and to request that the remedy against heresy should be applied equally to those of other countries. To this representation Leo gravely replied, that so far from wishing to inflict a disgrace, he had intended to confer an honor on the Spanish nation; that he had dealt with them as a rich man does with his jewels, which he guards with greater care than the rest of his property; and thought that, as the Spaniards entertained so high an esteem for the Inquisition at home, they would not be offended with it abroad. ^f201

The conduct of the Inquisition presented the same glaring contradiction of the avowed principles on which it was founded. Amidst all their professions of zeal for the purity of the faith, the inquisitors carried on the scandalous traffic of commuting canonical censure for pecuniary mulcts. To retain Christians within the sacred enclosure of the catholic church, and in dutiful subjection to its supreme head, was the grand object of the institution of the Holy Office; and the exercise of its powers was delegated to the monks, who were the most devoted supporters of the Roman pontiff, and held that his decrees in matters of faith, when pronounced ex cathedra, were infallible. Yet, when the decrees of the holy see were opposite to their own determinations, or interfered with their particular interests, they made no scruple of resisting them, and engaging the government of the country in their quarrel. ^f202

It was not to be expected that the conduct of the court of Spain would be less selfish. All are agreed that Ferdinand, in supporting the Inquisition, regarded it, not as a means of preserving the purity of religion, but as an instrument of tyranny and extortion. Nor was his grandson Charles V. actuated by higher motives. On assuming the reins of government in Spain, he swore to observe certain equivocal regulations for correcting the abuses of the Inquisition; but he declared, at the same time, in private, that this promise had been extorted from him by the importunity of the representatives of certain cities. Despairing of any relief from this quarter, the cortes of Aragon sent deputies to Rome, and, by the distribution of a sum of money among the cardinals, obtained three briefs reforming the Inquisition, and placing its procedure on the footing of common law. Charles, who wished to employ that formidable tribunal as an engine for suppressing the tumults which his arbitrary measures had excited in various parts of the kingdom, applied to Leo X. for a bull annulling the obnoxious briefs. The negotiation which ensued, and was protracted during three years, is equally disgraceful to both parties. His Holiness told Senor de Belmonte, the Spanish ambassador, that he had been informed by credible persons, that the Inquisition was the cause of terrible mischief in Spain; to which the ambassador bluntly replied, that the persons who gave this information were believed, because they were liberal of their money. At the same time, he advised his master to have recourse to that system of bribery of which he complained. “Cardinal Santiquatro (writes he) can be of great service in this affair, because he draws as much money as possible to his master and himself. It is only on this condition that he is authorized by the pope to act, and he executes his task with great adroitness. The cardinal of Ancona is a learned man, and an enemy to the former. He is minister of justice, and can be useful, as he is well disposed, to serve your majesty; but he is reckoned as great a thief as his colleague.” In another missive he says, “Always I am assured that, in what relates to the Inquisition, money is a means of gaining over these cardinals.” And after soliciting instructions from his court, he adds, “All this is necessary, and something besides; for money does much here. The pope expects (from Aragon and Catalonia) forty-six or forty-seven thousand ducats.” The cardinals were too “wise in their generation” to be deceived by the flattering representations which the ambassador made of his master’s disinterestedness, and laughed at the idea of sovereigns supporting the Inquisition “from pure zeal for religion.” In vain did Charles himself endeavor to quicken the tardy steps of Leo, by writing that “the world surmised that his Holiness and he understood one another, and wished to squeeze as much money as possible from the bull in question.” The crafty pontiff, assuming the tone of justice, threatened, by a decree of the sacred Rota, to annul all the sentences of confiscation pronounced against those Spaniards who had made a voluntary confession of heresy; “and I am told,” says the ambassador, “that if this measure pass, as is expected, your majesty will be obliged to restore more than a million of ducats acquired in that way.” ^f203 A few persons, through perversion of judgment, have burnt men alive for the love of God, but, in the greater number of instances, I apprehend it will be found that this has been done

for the love of money.

Leo X., having died during this dispute, was succeeded by Adrian, the preceptor of Charles V., who continued to hold the situation of inquisitorgeneral of Spain, along with that of supreme pontiff, for nearly two years. This union of offices, in the person of the spiritual adviser of the young monarch, led to measures which extinguished every hope of procuring a reform of the Holy Office. Despairing of relief, the nation submitted to the yoke; habit reconciled them to it; and, making a virtue of necessity, they soon came to congratulate themselves on an institution which they had regarded as an engine of the most intolerable and degrading servitude.

Other causes contributed, along with the Inquisition, to rivet the chains of religious bondage on the minds of the Spaniards, and to render the prospect of ecclesiastical reform among them next to hopeless.

One of these causes was the suppression of their civil liberties. Formerly the victims of persecution had often found shelter within the independent domains of the nobles, or the privileged walls of great cities. Cardinal Ximenes, by flattering the commons without adding to their real consequence, had succeeded in breaking the power of the nobility. Charles pursued the line of policy which his minister had begun, by invading the rights of the people. Irritated by the assistance which the latter had given to the attack on their immunities, the nobles either stood aloof from the contest which ensued, or sided with the crown. The consequence was, that the commons, after an enthusiastic resistance, were subdued; the cortes and the chartered towns were stripped of their privileges; and the authority of the sovereign became absolute and despotical throughout the united kingdom.

The great accession of wealth and reputation which Spain acquired by the discovery of the New World, proved no less fatal to her religious than to her personal liberty. Columbus appears to have been at first actuated solely by an enthusiastic passion for nautical discovery; but during the discouragements with which his ardent and unconquerable spirit had to contend, another feeling arose of a no less powerful kind, which was cherished, if not infused, by the monks of La Rabida, among whom he resided for some time, and who zealously assisted him in his applications to the court of Castile, and in his exertions to fit out the fleet with which he entered on his daring enterprise. His imagination was now fired with the idea of not only adding to the boundaries of the known world, but also of enlarging the pale of the catholic church, by converting to the Christian faith the inhabitants of those rich and populous countries with which he hoped to open a communication, by stretching across the waters of the western ocean. Similar views, but associated with baser feelings, were adopted by the successors of Columbus. As the see of Rome, in virtue of the universal authority which it arrogated, had granted to Spain all the countries which she might discover beyond the Atlantic, the conquerors of America looked upon themselves as the servants of the church as much as of the sovereigns from whom they immediately received their commission; their cupidity was inflamed by fanaticism; and the consideration that every battle which they won was subservient to the spread of the catholic faith, atoned for and sanctified, in their eyes, the unheard-of cruelties which they inflicted on the intimidated and unoffending natives of the New World. Sanctioned as they were by the government and clergy, these views were easily diffused through the nation. Astonished at the intelligence which they received from their countrymen who had visited the newly-discovered regions, elated by the splendid success which had crowned their undertakings, and flushed with the hopes of the inexhaustible riches which would continue to flow in upon them, the Spaniards were thrown into a feverish intoxication, which, meeting with other causes, produced an important change on their sentiments and character. New feelings sprung up in their breasts; and late transactions were seen by them in a light different from that in which they had formerly viewed them. Reflecting that they had expelled the Jews, the hereditary and inveterate enemies of Christianity, from their coasts, overturned the Mahomedan empire which had been established for ages in the Peninsula, and planted the standard of the cross among pagans on a new continent of incalculable extent, they began to consider themselves as the favorites of heaven, destined to propagate and defend the true faith, and bound, by national honor as well as duty, to preserve their sacred soil from being polluted by the slightest taint of heretical pravity.

To these causes must be added the vast increase of strength which the Spanish monarchy received by the succession of its youthful sovereign to his paternal dominions in the Low Countries, Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary; and by his elevation to the imperial throne of Germany, under the name of Charles V. The chief obstacle which this presented to the spread of the reformed opinions in Spain, did not lie in the ease with which it enabled him to crush the least symptom of revolt from the established faith. Independently of all personal convictions, Charles, in seeking to realize his towering projects of universal empire, must have seen it his interest to cultivate the friendship of the court of Rome; and although he was involved in contests with particular pontiffs, and held one of them for some time a prisoner in his own castle, yet he uniformly testified the warmest regard for the catholic faith, and the honor of the popedom. In the forcible measures to which he had recourse for suppressing the Reformation in Germany, he relied chiefly on the troops which he drew from Spain, whose detestation of heresy was heightened by the hostilities which they waged against its professors. To their countrymen at home, who already regarded them as champions of the faith, they transmitted the most hateful representation of the protestants, whom they described as at once the pest of the church, and the great obstacle to the execution of the splendid schemes of their beloved monarch. Thus the glory of the Spanish arms became associated with the extirpation of heresy. And when the protestant cause ultimately triumphed over the policy and power of the emperor, the mortification felt by the Spaniards settled into a deadly antipathy to every thing which proceeded from Germany, and a jealous dread lest the heresy with which it was infected should secretly find its way into their own country.

CHAPTER 4.

INTRODUCTION OF THE REFORMED DOCTRINE INTO SPAIN.

THE boldness with which Luther attacked, first the abuses, and afterwards the authority of the Roman see, soon attracted general attention throughout Christendom. Nor could his opinions remain long unknown in Spain, especially after the intercourse between that country and Germany because frequent, in consequence of the advancement of the Spanish monarch to the imperial throne.

So early as the beginning of the year 1519, John Froben, a celebrated printer at Basle, sent to Spain a quantity of a collection of tracts by Luther, which he had lately reprinted. ^f204 These were in Latin, and consequently were confined to the learned. But, in the course of the following year, the reformer’s commentary on the Galatians, a work which exhibited the doctrinal sentiments on the most important points, was translated into Spanish. ^f205 This was followed by translations into the same language of his treatise on Christian liberty, and his reply to Erasmus on free-will. ^f206 These books appear to have been translated and printed at Antwerp, a place of great trade within the paternal dominions of Charles V., from which the Spanish merchants, who were at the expense of the publication, could most easily get copies conveyed to their native country. ^f207

Alfonso Vales, a young man of talents who accompanied Charles V., as secretary, to his coronation in 1520, sent to Spain, at the request of Peter Martyr, a particular account of the religious dispute in Germany, from the first declaration of Luther against indulgences to his burning of the pontifical decrees at Wittenberg. In another letter, written during the following year, he continued his account to the close of the diet of Worms. His narrative is in general correct; and although he expresses great horror at the boldness with which the reformer attacked the papal authority, he acknowledges the necessity of reform, and ascribes the continuance of the evil to the aversion of the pope to a general council, and “his preferring his private interest to the public good.” “While he tenaciously adheres to his rights,” says he, “and shutting his ears, under the influence of a pious feeling perhaps, wishes to have Luther devoted to the flames, the whole Christian commonwealth is going to ruin, if God interpose not.” ^f208 Martyr, who seems to have felt in the same way with his correspondent, imparted these letters to his friends; but it may be mentioned, as a proof of the state of feeling in Spain, that he declined giving them any account of Luther’s opinions, referring them for this to the writings of his opponents, “which they could easily procure, if they wished them, and in which they would find the antidote along with the poison.” ^f209

Another Spaniard of greater authority, who was in Germany at the same time, felt somewhat differently from Valdes. Francisco de Angelis, provincial of the religious order called Angeli in Spain, had been present at the coronation of the emperor, by whom he was despatched, after the diet of Worms, to assist in quelling the revolt which had broken out in Castile. On his way home he stopped at Basle, where he had a long conversation with Conrad Pellican on the opinions of Luther, with whom he professed to agree upon most points. ^f210

Who would have thought of the Spanish ambassador at Rome writing home in favor of Luther? We have already adverted to the difficulty which Charles found in procuring the recall of certain briefs which the pope had issued for the reform of the Inquisition. It occurred to Don Juan de Manuel, as a stroke of policy, that his master should give countenance to another species of reform which his Holiness dreaded. Accordingly, in a letter dated 10 May 1520, he advises his majesty “to undertake a journey to Germany, and to appear to show a little favor to a certain friar, Martin Luther, at the court of Saxony, who gives great uneasiness to the sovereign pontiff, by certain things which he preaches and publishes against the papal authority. This monk (adds the ambassador) is said to be very learned, and creates great embarrassment to the pope.” Nor was this a mere passing thought; for he recurs to the subject in a subsequent letter. “As to the affair of Liege, the pope appears much more discontented, because it has been told him that the bishop favours friar Martin Luther, who condemns the pontifical power in Germany. He is also displeased with Erasmus in Holland, and for the same reason. I say, they complain here of the bishop of Liege in the affair of Luther, who gives them more distress than they could wish. ^f211

On the 20th of March 1521, Leo X. issued two briefs, one addressed to the constable and the other to the admiral of Castile, who governed the kingdom in the absence of Charles V., requiring them to adopt measures for preventing the introduction of the books of Luther and his defenders into Spain. In the course of the following month, cardinal Adrian charged the inquisitors to seize all books of this description; and this charge was reiterated by him in the year 1523, after he had ascended the papal throne, on which occasion he required the corregidor of Guipuscoa to furnish the officers of the Inquisition with every assistance which they might require in the execution of this duty. ^f212

These were not measures of mere precaution, or intended only for the purpose of display; for the works of Luther were read and approved of in Spain. The report of this fact drew from Erasmus the sarcasm which gave great offence to the duke of Alva, “that the Spaniards favored Luther, in order that they might be thought Christians.” ^f213 So eager were the inquisitors in their search after the disciples of the new doctrine, that they fixed their suspicions on the venerable Juan de Avila, commonly called the apostle of Andalusia. In his preaching, which was recommended by the exemplary piety and charity of his life, he kept to the simplicity of scripture, rejecting the abstruse and foolish questions of the schools. Irritated by his reproofs, and envious of his fame, the monks, in 1525, denounced to the Inquisition some propositions advanced by him, as Lutheran, or savoring of Lutheranism and the doctrine of the illuminati. He was thrown into prison, and would have been condemned, had not Manrique, one of the mildest of the inquisitors-general, who felt a high respect for his character, extended to him the shield of his powerful protection, which did not however prevent his works from being afterwards put into the list of prohibited books. ^f214

The Spanish monks were diverted for a time from searching after the writings of Luther, by their anxiety to suppress those of Erasmus, from which they dreaded more immediate danger. This learned man, to whom the name of the forerunner of Luther has not unjustly been given, had many friends in Spain, who were so confident in their strength, as to write him that they expected to be victorious in the contest. They were mistaken; for his adversaries outnumbered them in an ecclesiastical junta held at Madrid in the year 1527; and in consequence of this, his Colloquies, his Praise of Folly, and his Paraphrase of the New Testament, were censured, and prohibited to be explained in schools, or to be sold or read. ^f215 “How I am to be pitied!” exclaims he; “the Lutherans attack me as a convicted papist, and the Catholics run me down as a friend of Luther.”

The patrons of ignorance resolved to pursue their victory, and prosecutions of heresy were immediately commenced against some of the most learned men in the kingdom. Pedro de Lerma professor of divinity and chancellor of the university of Alcala, was denounced to the inquisition of Toledo, as suspected of the Lutheran opinions, and fled to Paris. His nephew and successor, Luis de Cadena, soon fell under the same suspicion, and followed his example. ^f216 Juan de Vergara, one of the editors of the Polyglot, and his brother Bernardin Tobar, were less fortunate; for, being seized by the orders of the inquisitors of Toledo, they were not permitted to leave the dungeons of the Holy Office, until they had abjured the heresy of Luther as persons slightly suspected, received absolution ad cautelam, and submitted to certain penances. ^f217

Two events which happened at this time had considerable influence in turning the attention of the Spaniards to the cause of Luther, and giving them a more favorable impression of his opinions. The first was the dispute between Charles V. and pope Clement VII., which led, in 1527, to the sack of Rome and imprisonment of the pontiff. Though Charles, on that occasion, ordered the public rejoicings for the birth of his son Philip to be suspended, as a mark of his sorrow for so untoward an occurrence, yet it was regarded as a triumph by the nation, and gave occasion to satirical ballads against the pope and see of Rome. ^f218 The other event was the presenting, in 1530, of the protestant confession of faith to the imperial diet of Augsburg, at which Charles was present, attended by a great body of Spanish nobles and clergy. ^f219 This had no inconsiderable effect in dissipating the false idea of the opinions of Luther which had hitherto been industriously propagated. At the diet of Worms in 1521, the Spanish attendants of the emperor, instead of admiring the heroism displayed by Luther, treated him with insult as he retired from the court-room to his lodgings. ^f220 But there was a marked difference in their behavior on the present occasion. Persons of note, including the emperor’s confessor, who was a native of Spain, acknowledged that they had hitherto been deceived. ^f221 When Charles asked the advice of the Spanish nobility who were present, they replied, after perusing the confession in a French translation, that if his majesty found it contrary to the articles of faith, he ought to suppress the Lutherans; but if it merely required the abolition of certain ceremonies and such like things, he ought not to have recourse to violent measures against them; and they gave it as their advice, that the litigated points should be submitted to some pious persons who were addicted to neither party. ^f222 Alfonso Valdes, the emperor’s secretary, of whom we have already spoken, ^f223 had several friendly and confidential interviews with Melanchthon at this important crisis. He read the Augsburg confession before it was presented to the diet; and the only objection which he appears to have made to it was, that its language was rather too severe for its opponents. ^f224 In one of the conversations between these two learned men, held in the presence of Cornelius Scepper, an agent of the king of Denmark, Melanch-thon lamented the strong prejudices which the natives of Spain had conceived against the reformers, and said, that he had frequently endeavored, both by word of mouth and by letters, to convince them of the misconceptions under which they labored, but with very little success. Valdes acknowledged that it was a common opinion among his countrymen, that Luther and his followers believed neither in God nor the Trinity, in Christ nor the Virgin; and that in Spain it was thought as meritorious an action to strangle a Lutheran as to shoot a Turk. ^f225 He added, that his influence had been exerted to relieve the mind of the emperor from such false impressions; and that, at a late interview, he had received it in charge to say, that his majesty wished Melanchthon to draw up a clear summary of the opinions of the Lutherans, contrasted, article by article, with those of their opponents. The reformer readily complied with this request, and the result of his labors was communicated by Valdes to Campegio, the papal legate. ^f226

These proceedings did not escape the vigilant eye of the Inquisition. When Vales returned soon after to his native country, he was accused before the Holy Office, and condemned as a suspected Lutheran; a censure which he incurred by his exertions to promote polite letters in his native country, as well as by the familiarity which he had cultivated with the reformers of Germany. ^f227 Alfonso de Virves met with the same treatment as his friend Valdes, and for the same reasons. This learned Benedictine was chaplain to Charles V. who had taken him along with him in his late visits to Germany, and was so fond of him that, on his return to Spain, he would hear no other preacher. Virves had favored, though with much reserve, the writings of Erasmus, and was known to have conversed with some of the principal reformers. ^f228 On these grounds his conduct was watched, and he soon found himself in the hands of the inquisitors at Seville. In vain did he appeal to a work against Melanchthon which he had prepared for the press; and, what is more singular, in vain did the emperor interpose to stop the process, banish the inquisitor-general from Seville, and signify his displeasure against the other members of the council of the Supreme. Virves was kept in the secret prisons for four years, during which, to use his own words, “he was occupied, without breathing or respite, with charges, replies, rejoinders, depositions, defences, arguments, acts, (words, the very utterance of which made him shudder) errors, heresies, schisms, blasphemies, anathemas.” At last, in 1537, a definitive sentence was pronounced, condemning him, as suspected of holding the errors of Luther, to make a formal abjuration, to be absolved ad cautelam, to be confined in a monastery for two years, and to be prohibited from preaching for other two years. He was accordingly obliged to abjure, on the day of his autoda-fe in the metropolitan church of Seville, all the heresies of Luther in general, and those in particular which he was suspected of entertaining. The emperor procured a brief from the pope, absolving his favorite preacher from the remaining pains of censure; but when he afterwards presented him to the bishopric of the Canaries, it was with the utmost reluctance that his Holiness granted the bull of confirmation to a man who had incurred the suspicion of heresy in the eyes of the Inquisition. ^f229 “Many have adopted the maxim,” says Virves, speaking of the proper manner of converting heretics, “that it is lawful to abuse a heretic by word and writing, when they have it not in their power to kill or torture him. If they get a poor man, whom they can persecute with impunity, into their hands, they subject him to a disgraceful sentence; so that, though he prove himself innocent and obtain an acquittal, he is stigmatized for life as a criminal. If, on the other hand, the unhappy person has fallen into error through inadvertence, or the conversation of those with whom he associated, his judges do not labor to undeceive him by explaining the doctrine of scripture, soft persuasion, and paternal advice, but, in spite of the character of fathers to which they lay claim, have recourse to the prison, the torture, chains, and the axe. And what is the effect of these horrible means? All these torments inflicted on the body can produce no change whatever on the dispositions of the mind, which can be brought back to the truth only by the word of God, which is quick, powerful, and sharper than a two-edged sword.” ^f230

These reflections are so excellent in themselves, and so refreshing as coming from the pen of a Spanish catholic of the sixteenth century, that, in reading them, we feel disposed to rejoice, instead of grieving at that imprisonment which, if it did not suggest them, must have served to deepen their impression on his mind. No thanks, however, to the persecutors.

Some writers have expressed their surprise that the proceedings against Virves and others did not open the eyes of Charles V. to the iniquity of the Inquisition; and they think he continued to be its protector from horror at Lutheranism. ^f231 But Charles was instructed in the nature of that court, and had given it his decided support, before the name of Luther became formidable. A despotical monarch may be displeased at the procedure of a tribunal of terror when it happens to touch one of his favorites, and may choose to check its encroachments on his own authority, without feeling the slightest wish to weaken its power as an engine for enslaving and oppressing his subjects.

In the mean time every method was taken to prevent the spread of Lutheran books and opinions. The council of the Supreme, in 1530, addressed a circular letter to the inquisitors dispersed over the kingdom, informing them that the writings of Luther had made their way into the country under fictitious names, and that his errors were introduced in the form of notes appended to the works of catholic authors; and therefore requiring them to add to the annual edict of denunciation a clause relating to such books, and to examine all public libraries with the view of discovering them. This led to the domiciliary visits which the familiars of the Inquisition were accustomed, at a subsequent period, to pay to private houses. During the following year the inquisitors were authorized to strike with the sentence of excommunication all who hindered them in the discharge of their duty, and all who read or kept such books, or who did not denounce those whom they knew to be guilty of that offence. The same penalty was extended to the parish priests who did not publish the edict in every city, town, and village; and all prelates of the regular orders, confessors, and preachers, were laid under an obligation to urge their hearers and penitents, under the pain of incurring mortal sin, to inform against themselves and others. The edict enumerated the different articles of the Lutheran heresy, down to the slightest deviation from the ceremonies of the church, and required the informers to declare “if they knew or had heard it said, that any person had taught, maintained, or entertained in his thoughts, any of these opinions. ^f232

Hitherto we have not met with a single Spaniard who avowed the reformed tenets, or who was convicted on good grounds of holding them. We have every reason, however, to think that there were persons of this description in Spain, though their names have not come down to us. If this had not been the case, the inquisitors would have been guilty of the grossest indiscretion, in exposing the ears of the people to the risk of infection by publishing, with such particularity, the opinions of the German heretic in every parish church of the kingdom. Yet it must be acknowledged that, in their eagerness to discover what did not exist, and to aggravate the slightest deviation from the received faith into a dangerous error, they were sometimes instrumental in propagating what they sought to extirpate. A simple countryman was brought before the inquisitors in Seville, accused of having said among friends, that he did not think there was any purgatory but the blood of Christ. He confessed that he had thought so, but, understanding that it was offensive to the holy fathers, declared himself ready to retract the sentiment. This was by no means satisfactory to the inquisitors, who told him, that by adopting that one error he had involved himself in a multitude; for, if there was no purgatory, then the pope, who had decreed the contrary, was not infallible, then general councils had erred, then justification was by faith; and so on. In vain did the poor man protest that such ideas had never once entered into his mind; he was remanded to prison until he should be prepared to retract them. The consequence was, that he was led seriously to think on these topics, and came out of the Inquisition a confirmed Lutheran. ^f233

The study of polite letters had been communicated from Spain to Portugal, ^f234 and the knowledge of the reformed opinions proceeded in the same course. As early as 1521, Emanuel, the Portuguese monarch, addressed a letter to the elector of Saxony, urging him to punish Luther, and extirpate his pernicious tenets, before they should spread farther in Germany and penetrate into other Christian countries. ^f235 In 1534, pope Clement VII. being informed that the reformed opinions were daily making progress in Portugal, appointed Diego de Silva as inquisitor of that kingdom; and in the following year, we find the king representing to the court of Rome that a number of the converted Jews had become protestants. ^f236

It has been conjectured that the first converts to the reformed doctrine in Spain belonged to the religious fraternity of Franciscans, because the pope, in 1526, granted power to the general and provincials of that order to absolve such of their brethren as had imbibed the new opinions, and were willing to abjure them. ^f237 But this is rather to be viewed in the light of a privilege, craved by the Franciscans to exempt them from the jurisdiction of the inquisitors, who were at first chosen from the rival order of Dominicans. Few of those who afterwards became protestants belonged to the brotherhood of St. Francis.

Juan Valdes, with whom we have met elsewhere, ^f238 was the first person, so far as I can discover, who embraced and was active in spreading the reformed opinions in Spain. He was of a good family, and had received a liberal education. If we may judge from those with whom he was on terms of intimacy, he had studied at the university of Alcala. Having attached himself to the court, he quitted Spain about the year 1535 in the company of Charles V., who sent him to Naples to act as secretary to the viceroy. ^f239 The common opinion has been that he became a convert to the Lutheran creed in Germany, but the fact is, that his mind was imbued with its leading tenets before he left his native country. This appears from a treatise drawn up by him under the title of Advice on the Interpreters of sacred scripture, which was circulated privately among his acquaintance. It was originally sent in the form of a letter to his friend Bartolomé Carranza, who afterwards became archbishop of Toledo, but had early incurred the suspicions of the Holy Office by the freedom of his opinions. ^f240 This tract was found among the papers of the primate when he was subsequently seized by the order of the Inquisition, and formed one of the gravest articles of charge against that distinguished and long-persecuted prelate. The Advice contained the following propositions, among others: first, that in order to understand the sacred scriptures, we must not rely on the interpretations of the fathers; second, that we are justified by a lively faith in the passion and death of our Saviour; and third, that we may attain to certainty concerning our justification. The agreement between these and the leading sentiments maintained by Luther, renders it highly probable that Valdes had read the writings of that reformer or of some of his adherents. At the same time we are told that the principal things in this tract were taken from the Christian Institutes of Tauler. ^f241 This fact throws light on the sentiments of Valdes, and the peculiar cast of his writings. John Tauler was a distinguished German preacher of the fourteenth century, and one of those writers in the church of Rome who have obtained the name of mystics. They were disgusted with the intricate and jejune theology of the scholastic divines, and with the routine of exterior services which constituted the whole practice of piety in the convents; but, being imperfectly instructed in the doctrine of the gospel, in flying from the vice of their age they fell into the opposite extreme. They resolved religion almost entirely into contemplation and meditation; their discourses, consisting of soliloquies on the love of God and the sufferings of Christ, were chiefly calculated to stimulate the passions; and they occasionally made use of extravagant and hyperbolical expressions, which implied that the soul of the devotee was absorbed in the divine essence, and, when favored with supernatural visitations, was rendered independent upon and superior to external means and ordinances. The Exercises, or meditations, on the Life of Christ by Tauler bear a strong resemblance to the better-known work of Thomas à Kempis on the Imitation of Christ. They have the same excellencies and the same faults; breathe the same rich odor of spiritual devotion, and labor under the same deficiency of clear and distinct views of divine truth. ^f242 Those who are well grounded in the doctrines of Christianity may reap great advantage from a perusal of them; candidates for the ministry will find in them an excellent supplement to a course of systematic divinity; but in minds warm and uninformed they are apt to foster a self-righteous and servile disposition, and to give rise to enthusiastic notions. ^f243

The mystic theology had its votaries in Spain. A Spanish translation of the Imitation of Christ, and of an earlier work of the same character, entitled the Ladder of Paradise, were published at the close of the fifteenth century. ^f244 Juan de Avila, Luis de Granada, confessor to the queen regent of Portugal, and St. Francis de Borgia, duke of Gandia, and third general of the order of Jesuits, were the authors of works, for which they were persecuted before the Inquisition as mystics and illuminati. ^f245 Several of the protestants, who were afterwards brought to the stake at Valladolid, appealed to the writings of the two last-named individuals as containing sentiments similar to those which they held on the head of justification. ^f246

Valdes may have become acquainted with the writings of Tauler through the recommendation of Luther, who, at one period of his life, was enamored with them, and republished, with a commendatory preface, a work written in the same strain, but more liable to exception, under the title of German Theology. In a letter to his friend Spalatin, the reformer says, “If you wish to read in your own language the ancient and pure divinity, procure Tauler’s sermons, of which I now send you an abstract; for nowhere, either in Latin or German, have I met with a theology more wholesome and accordant to the gospel.” ^f247 The doctrines of justification by faith in Christ, and of regeneration by the agency of the Spirit, form the groundwork in the writings of Valdes, and so far his creed is Lutheran or protestant; but we can trace in them the influence of the transcendental divinity which he had caught from Tauler. More intellectual and speculative than the mystic divines, he exhibits in his works the rationale of their creed rather than an exemplification of their mode of writing, and hazards some sentiments which gave just offence to several of the principal reformers. ^f248 It is amusing to observe his natural inquisitiveness contending with and overcoming that principle in his creed which led him to condemn as sinful all curious inquiries into matters of religion, or indeed into any other matter.

Valdes left his native country at an early period, but he contributed greatly to the spread of the reformed opinions in it by his writings, several of which were published in Spanish. ^f249 Though he had remained, his personal presence would most probably have produced little effect. It required a person of less caution and more adventurous spirit to burst the terrible barrier which opposed the entrance of the gospel into Spain, and to raise the standard of truth within sight of the flames of the Inquisition. Such a person was found in the man of whom I am now to speak.

Rodrigo de Valer, a native of Lebrixa, distant about thirty miles from Seville, had spent his youth in those idle and dissipated habits which were common among the nobility and gentry of Spain. The love of dress, and of horses and sports, engrossed his attention; and in Seville, which was his favorite residence, he shone in the first rank among the young men of fashion in every scene of amusement and feat of gallantry. All of a sudden he disappeared from those places of entertainment of which he had been the life and ornament. He was in good health, and his fortune had sustained no injury. But his mind had undergone a complete change; his splendid equipage was laid aside; he became negligent of his dress; and, shut up in his closet, he devoted himself entirely to reading and meditation on religion. Had he become unexpectedly pious, and immured himself in a convent, his conduct would not have excited general surprise among his countrymen; but to retire from the world, and yet to shun those consecrated abodes, the choice of which was viewed as the great and almost exclusive mark of superior sanctity, appeared to them unaccountable on any other supposition than that of mental derangement. Valer had acquired a slight acquaintance with the Latin language in his youth. He now procured a copy of the Vulgate, the only translation of the Bible permitted in Spain; and having by dint of application, by day and by night, made himself master of the language, he, in a short time, became so well acquainted with the contents of the scriptures, that he could repeat almost any passage in them from memory, and explain it with wonderful promptitude and intelligence. Whether he had any other means of instruction, or what these were, must remain a secret; but it is certain that he was led to form a system of doctrine not different from that of the reformers in Germany, and to lay the foundations of a church in Seville which was Lutheran in all the main articles of its belief.

When Valer had informed and satisfied his mind as to the truths of religion, he left off that solitary life which had been chosen by him as an instrument and not as an end. He now returned to company, but with a very different spirit and intention. His great desire was now to impart to others those impressions of divine truth which had been made on his own mind. With this view, he courted the society of the clergy and monks, with whom he dealt, first by argument and persuasion, and afterwards in the severer style of reproof. He set before them the general defection, among all classes, from primitive Christianity, both as to faith and practice; the corruptions of their own order, which had contributed to spread infection over the whole Christian community; and the sacred obligations which they were under to apply a speedy and thorough remedy to the evil before it should become altogether incurable. These representations were uniformly accompanied with an appeal to the sacred writings as the supreme standard in religion, and with an exhibition of the principal doctrines which they taught. When the clergy, weary of the ungrateful theme, shunned his company, he threw himself in their way, and did not hesitate to introduce his favorite but dangerous topics in the public walks and other places of concourse. His exhortations were not entirely without success; but in most instances their effects were such as might have been anticipated from the situation and character of those to whom they were addressed. The surprise excited by his first address gave place to indignation and disdain. It was not to be borne that a layman, and one who had no pretensions to learning, should presume to instruct his teachers, and inveigh against doctrines and institutions which were held in reverence by the universal church, and sanctioned by its highest authority. Whence had he his pretended knowledge of the scriptures? Who gave him a right to teach? And what were the signs and proof of his mission? To these questions Valer replied with candor, but with firmness. That it was true he had been brought up in ignorance of divine things; he had derived his knowledge, not from the polluted streams of tradition and human inventions, but from the pure fountain of revealed truth, through the teaching of that Spirit by whose influence living waters are made to flow from the hearts of those who believe in Christ; there was no good reason for supposing that these influences were confined to persons of the ecclesiastical order, especially when it was so deeply depraved as at present; private and illiterate men had convicted a learned sanhedrim of blindness, and called a whole world to the knowledge of salvation; he had the authority of Christ for warning them of their errors and vices; and none would require a sign from him but a spurious and degenerate race, whose eyes could not bear the brightness of that pure light which laid open and reproved their works of darkness.

It was not to be expected that he would be long permitted to continue in this offensive course. He was brought before the inquisitors, with whom he maintained a keen dispute on the church, the marks by which it is distinguished, justification, and similar points. On that occasion, some individuals of considerable authority, who had secretly imbibed his sentiments, exerted themselves in his favor. Their influence, joined to the purity of his descent, the station which he held in society, and the circumstances that his judges either believed or wished it to be believed that he was insane, procured for him a milder sentence than that jealous and inexorable tribunal was accustomed to pronounce. He was dismissed with the loss of his property. But neither confiscation of goods, nor the fear of a severer punishment, could induce Valer to alter his conduct. He yielded so far to the importunities of his friends as to abstain from a public declaration of his sentiments for a short time, during which he explained to them in private the Epistle to the Romans. ^f250 But his zeal soon burst through his restraint. He considered himself in the light of a soldier sent on the forlorn hope, and resolved to fall in the breach, trusting that others, animated by his example, would press forward and secure the victory. Resuming his former reproofs of the reigning errors and superstition, he was a second time denounced to the Holy Office, which condemned him to wear a san-benito, and to be imprisoned for life. When conducted, along with other penitents, to the church of St. Salvador in Seville, to attend public service on festival days, instead of exhibiting the marks of sorrow exacted from persons in his situation, he scrupled not to address the audience after sermon, and to warn them against the erroneous doctrine which they had heard from the preacher, whenever he thought it contrary to the word of God. This of itself would have been reckoned sufficient cause for adjudging him to the flames; but the reasons already mentioned had influence to save him from that fate. To rid themselves in the most quiet way of so troublesome a penitent, the inquisitors came to the resolution of confining him in a monastery belonging to the town of San Lucar, near the mouth of the Guadalquivir, where, secluded from all society, he died about the age of fifty. His san-benito, which was hung up in the metropolitan church of Seville, long attracted curiosity by its extraordinary size, and the inscription which it bore,—“Rodrigo Valer, a citizen of Lebrixa and Seville, an apostate, and false apostle who pretended to be sent of God.” ^f251

It was about the year 1541 that the final sentence was pronounced on Valer. ^f252 The most distinguished of his converts was Juan Gil, commonly called Dr. Egidius. He was born at Olvera in Aragon, and educated at the university of Alcala, where he distinguished himself by his skill in scholastic theology, the only science then valued in Spain, except among a few individuals who, by addicting themselves to the study of scripture in the original languages, were derisively named Biblists. After obtaining the highest academical honors, he was appointed professor of divinity at Siguenza. Such was his celebrity, that when the office of canon-magistral, or preacher, in the cathedral church of Seville became vacant, he was chosen to fill it by the unanimous vote of the chapter, without being required to undergo the comparative trial prescribed in such cases. But how well versed soever in the writings of Lombard, Aquinas and Scotus, he proved an unpopular preacher; and not being indifferent to his reputation and usefulness, he felt, after continuing for some years, nearly as anxious to relinquish his situation as the people were to get rid of him. In this state of mind he was accosted by Valer, who had the penetration to discover his feelings, and to perceive the good dispositions, as well as talents, with which he was endowed. He pointed out the defects of his mode of preaching, and exhorted him, as the sure remedy, to give himself to the diligent and serious perusal of the word of God. This advice, frequently repeated, produced at last the desired effect. He took the course pointed out to him, and his “profiting appeared to all.” He soon became the most acceptable preacher who had appeared in Seville. Instead of the dry, abstruse, and unprofitable discussions which he had formerly pursued, he brought forward the great truths of the Bible; and the frigid manner in which he had been accustomed to acquit himself in public was succeeded by powerful appeals to the consciences, and affectionate addresses to the hearts of his auditors. Their attention was aroused; deep convictions of the necessity and suitableness of that salvation which the gospel reveals were made on their minds; and they were prepared for receiving those new views of divine truth which the preacher presented to them, as they were gradually unfolded to himself, and with a caution which regard to the weakness of the people, as well as to his own perilous situation, seemed to warrant and require. ^f253 In this manner, by a zeal more tempered with prudence than that of his revered instructor, he was honored not only to make converts to Christ, but to train up martyrs for the truth. “Among the other gifts divinely bestowed on this holy man,” says one who owed his soul to him, “was the singular faculty which he had of kindling in the breasts of those who listened to his instructions a sacred flame which animated them in all the exercises of piety, internal and external, and made them not only willing to take up the cross, but cheerful in the prospect of the sufferings of which they stood in jeopardy every hour; a clear proof that the master whom he served was present with him, by his Spirit engraving the doctrine which he taught on the hearts of his hearers.” ^f254

Egidius was not left alone in the work of enlightening the citizens of Seville. In addition to those who, like himself, had profited by the conversation of Valer, he was joined by Doctor Vargas and Constantine Ponce de la Fuente, who had been his fellow-students at the university, and were men of superior talents and learning. He imparted to them his knowledge of evangelical truth, and they in their turn contributed by their conversation to the improvement of his ministerial gifts. The three friends concerted a plan, according to which they might co-operate in advancing the common cause. Vargas read lectures to the more learned, in which he expounded the Epistle to the Romans, and subsequently the book of Psalms; and Constantine, of whom we shall have occasion to speak more particularly afterwards, assisted Egidius occasionally in the pulpit. Their zeal, while it awakened the suspicions, provoked the diligence of the clergy who were devoted to the ancient superstition; and the city was divided in its attachments between the two classes of preachers. Those of the one class urged the necessity and importance of the repetition of prayers at certain stated hours, the frequent hearing of mass, the visiting of consecrated places, and the regular observance of fasting and of auricular confession; while they exhorted those who aimed at higher degrees of sanctity to dedicate their substance to pious uses, or, renouncing the world, to take on them the triple vow. Those of the other class either passed over these things entirely, or inculcated their inefficacy; exhorted their hearers to rely on the merits of Christ instead of their own works, and to prove the genuineness of their faith by obedience to the commands of God; and, in place of recommending rosaries and scales of devotion, spoke in the warmest style of the advantages to be derived from a serious and daily perusal of the sacred writings. The first class carried along with them the great body of the people, whose religion is the creature of authority and habit. But the eloquence of Egidius and his two associates, their prudence, unaffected piety, and irreproachable morals, and the harmony with which they continued to act, gradually subdued the prejudices of the multitude, and thinned the ranks even of their clerical opponents. Assiduously employed in the duties of their public functions through the day, they met in the evening with the friends of the reformed doctrine, sometimes in one private house and sometimes in another; the small society in Seville grew insensibly, and became the parent stock, from which branches were taken and planted in the adjacent country.

The Inquisition had for some time fixed its jealous eyes on the three preachers; nor were there wanting persons ready to accuse them, and especially Egidius, who was most obnoxious on account of his greater openness of disposition, and his appearing more frequently in the pulpit. Surmises unfavorable to his orthodoxy were circulated, spies were set on his conduct, and consultations held in secret as to the surest method of ruining one who had become popular among all ranks. While these things were going on he was deprived of his two trusty associates; Vargas being removed by death, and Constantine called to the Low Countries. But even after he was thus left alone his enemies were afraid to proceed against

_him. ^f255

So great was the reputation of Egidius, that in 1550 the emperor nominated him to the vacant bishopric of Tortosa, which was one of the richest benefices in Spain, and had been held by cardinal Adrian, the preceptor of Charles V., immediately before his elevation to the popedom. This distinguished mark of royal favor inflamed the resentment of his adversaries, and determined them to proceed to extremities. Instead of confining themselves as formerly to murmurs, they now charged him openly with heresy, and predicted that his elevation to the episcopate would prove the most disastrous calamity which Spain had witnessed. He was formally denounced to the Holy Office, and, the preliminary steps having been taken, was thrown into its secret prisons. The charges against him related to the doctrine of justification, assurance of salvation, human merits, plurality of mediators, purgatory, auricular confession, and the worshipping of images. He was also accused of having favored Rodrigo de Valer on his trial, and opposed the erection of a crucifix in the room of one who had been accidentally burnt. In his defence he drew up an ample statement of his sentiments on the head of justification, with the reasons on which they were founded; a display of frankness which proved hurtful to his cause, as it furnished the procurator fiscal at once with evidence in support of his charges and materials for increasing their number. The friends of Egidius now became alarmed for his safety. The emperor, hearing of the danger to which he was exposed, wrote in his favor to the inquisitor general. The chapter of Seville followed his example. And, what is more strange, the licentiate Correa, one of the most inexorable judges of the Holy Office, became an advocate for him, influenced, it is said, by indignation at the conduct of Pedro Diaz, another inquisitor, who had formerly been a disciple of Valer along with Egidius, whom he now prosecuted with base and unrelenting hostility. In consequence of this powerful intercession the inquisitors found it necessary to adopt a moderate course, and agreed, instead of remitting the articles of charge to the ordinary qualificators, to submit them to two arbiters chosen by the parties.

Egidius, after nominating Bartolomé Carranza and several other individuals, who were either absent from the country or objected to by the inquisitors, at last fixed, with the approbation of his judges, on Domingo de Soto, a Dominican and professor at Salamanca, as his arbiter. Soto came to Seville, and having obtained access to Edigius, with whom he had been acquainted at the university, professed, after mutual explanations, to coincide with him in his views of justification, ^f256 which was the main article in the indictment, and to think that there would be no difficulty in procuring an amicable adjustment in the affair. It was arranged between them, that each should draw up a paper containing his sentiments on the disputed point expressed in his own words, and that these papers should be read in the presence of the inquisitors. As the cause had excited great interest from its relation to a bishop elect and a preacher so popular in Seville, it was thought proper that it should be discussed at a public meeting held in the cathedral. On the day appointed for the trial, pulpits were allotted for Egidius and his arbiter Soto; but, either from design or accident, they were placed at a great distance from one another. After sermon was ended, Soto read the declaration of his sentiments. Egidius, owing partly to the distance at which he sat, and partly to the bustle prevailing in a crowded and anxious assembly, was unable to follow the speaker; but taking it for granted that what was read agreed with what had passed between them in conversation, he nodded assent to it, as Soto raised his voice and looked toward him at the end of every proposition. He then proceeded to read his own declaration, which in the judgment of all who were present, whether friends or foes, contradicted the former on all the leading points. The inquisitors availed themselves of this variance between his gestures and language to raise an outcry against him. These two declarations were instantly joined in process, and sentence was given forth, declaring him violently suspected of the Lutheran heresy, and condemning him to abjure the propositions imputed to him, to be imprisoned for three years, to abstain from writing or teaching for ten years, and not to leave the kingdom during that period, under the pain of being punished as a formal and relapsed heretic, or, in other words, of being burnt alive. Confounded at the unexpected issue of the process, abashed by the exultation of his enemies, and half-convinced, by the mortification which he read in the countenances of his friends, that he must have said something far wrong, Egidius lost courage, and silently acquiesced in the sentence pronounced against him. It was not until some time after he had returned to his prison that he learned from one of his companions the base treachery of the friend in whom he had confided. ^f257

Such is the account of the process given by De Montes. The late historian of the Inquisition is disposed to call in question the truth of his statement so far as concerns the artifice imputed to the professor of Salamanca; upon this ground, that Carranza, archbishop of Toledo, during his trial, retaliated upon Soto by accusing him of “having been too indulgent in regard to Doctor Egidius of Seville.” ^f258 But this objection is by no means conclusive. For, in the first place, Llorente bears witness to the general accuracy of De Montes, who expressly asserts that he received his information from Egidius in prison. In the second place, the charge of Carranza is not irreconcilable with the narrative which has been given; for De Montes states that Soto claimed the merit of having procured a lenient sentence for Egidius. ^f259 In fine, Llorente has shown, in reference to another case, that Soto was perfectly capable of the disgraceful conduct imputed to him on this occasion. ^f260

No sooner was it known that Edigius was condemned, than a flight of hungry applicants gathered round the fat benefit of Tortosa like crows round carrion. The holy fathers assembled at Trent were not so intently occupied in watching over the interests of the catholic church as not to have one eye turned to Spain, and ready to discern what might happen there to their advantage. While the trial of the bishop elect was in dependence, cardinal Granville, then bishop of Arras and prime minister of Spain, had his table covered with applications, in which the incense of adulation was thickly sprinkled on rancid avarice. In a letter, dated from Trent on the 19th of November 1551, the titular bishop Jubin, in partibus Infidelium, writes: “We have received intelligence here, that the bishop elect of Tortosa has been condemned to perpetual imprisonment. I shall be infinitely obliged to you to think of me—the least of your servants— provided his lordship of Elna shall be translated to the bishopric of Tortosa, now vacant by this means.” ^f261 On the preceding day, the bishop of Elna had addressed a letter to the same quarter, in which, without giving the least hint of the object he had in view, he begs the premier to command him “as the meanest domestic of his household,” calls himself “his slave,” ^f262 and assures him that the rare qualities of his eminence, his native goodness, and the favors he had conferred, were so deeply seated in the heart of his servant that he remembered him without ceasing, especially “in his poor sacrifices, ^f263 the fittest time to make mention of one’s masters.” Two days after, the modest bishop has acquired as much courage as to name his request: he acknowledges that the bishopric of Tortosa was “too weighty a burden for his weak shoulders,” but urges that he could discharge his episcopal functions better in such a tranquil spot than in the frontier province of Roussillon, where his pious exercises were interrupted by the noise of warlike instruments, and that he “felt a strong desire to end his days in tending his infirm sheep in the peace of God.” ^f264 The bishop of Algeri was equally disinterested as his brethren in seeking promotion. “It was not avarice that induced him to ask the favor” to be translated from the island of Sardinia; he only wished to “have his residence on terra firma,” that his spirit being relieved from the continual agitation in which it was kept by the restless waves which surrounded him, he might be “at more liberty to serve God, and pray for the life of the king and his minister.” ^f265 The bishop of Elna having been unsuccessful in his application, renewed it in the course of the following year, when he had recourse to a new line of argument in its support. After telling the premier “that his hands had made him,” he requests him to remember, “if he pleased,” that his majesty had certain rights in Valencia called les bayles de Morella, of which large sums were due to the treasury, as would appear from the lists which he had procured and took the liberty to transmit to his eminence; that most luckily the diocese of Tortosa included that district, though the episcopal seat was in his native country of Catalonia; and that, if it should please his majesty to gratify him with that bishopric, he could see to the payment of these dues without leaving his diocese, and “thus would have it in his power to serve God and the king at the same time.” ^f266

O the duplicity, the selfishness, the servility of the clergy! What good cause but one would they not have ruined? And how deeply has that been marred by them! Boccaccio relates, (it is a tale, but deserves to be repeated for the sake of the moral it teaches,) that two persons, a Christian layman and a Jew, lived together in a retired spot on the northern boundary of Italy. The Christian had long piously labored to convert his neighbor, and had succeeded so far as to be in daily expectation of his submitting to baptism, when all at once the idea struck the latter that he would previously visit the capital of Christendom. Dreading the effects of his journey, the Christian endeavored to divert him from it; but in vain. After an absence of some weeks the Jew returned, and repairing to the house of the Christian, who had given up his convert for lost, surprised him with the intimation that he was now ready to be baptized; “for (added he) I have been at Rome, and have seen the pope and his clergy, and I am convinced that if Christianity had not been divine, it would have been ruined long ago under the care of such guardians.”

All the applicants for the bishopric of Tortosa took care to urge the services which they had done to the emperor at the council of Trent. Several authors have spoken in high terms of the liberal views and independent spirit displayed by the Spanish divines who sat in the council; and Father Simon, in particular, asserts that they were ready, upon the refusal of the ecclesiastical reforms which they sought, to join with the French church in throwing off the authority of the court of Rome, if Charles V. had not, from political motives, discouraged them by withdrawing his support. ^f267 A perusal of their correspondence and that of the imperial embassy serves to abate, in no small degree, the high opinion which these commendations are calculated to produce. If the Italian bishops were passive tools in the hands of the papal legates, their brethren of Spain were not less under the influence of the imperial ambassadors; and it is quite as clear that their zeal for the reformation of abuses was at first excited, as that it was afterwards restrained, by the policy of the emperor. Several of the reforms which they demanded were in favor of their own order, and would have added to their power and wealth in proportion as they diminished those of the papal see; a circumstance which did not escape the observation of the court of Spain. ^f268 At the same time they satisfied themselves with murmuring in private at the shameful arts by which the council was managed, and had not the courage to resent the attacks made on its freedom, or the insults openly offered to their colleagues. The bishop of Verdun happening to apply the term pretended reformation to some of the plans proposed in the council, the papal legate, cardinal Crescentio, assailed him publicly with invective, calling him a thoughtless young man and a fool, and ordering him to be silent. “Is this a free council?” said the elector of Cologne to the Spanish bishop of Orense, who sat next him. “It ought to be free,” replied the bishop, with a caution which would not have disgraced an Italian. “But tell me your opinion candidly. Is the synod free?” “Do not press me at present, my lord,” rejoined the prudent bishop; “that’s a difficult question; I will answer it at home.” ^f269 It has been alleged that the papal influence over the council was confined to matters of discipline and ecclesiastical polity, and did not extend to points of faith, in the decision of which all the members were of one accord. ^f270 But this is contradicted by unquestionable documents. Some of the most learned divines who were at Trent were dissatisfied with certain parts of the doctrine of the council, and with the confused and hurried manner in which this important part of the business was transacted. ^f271 After the article concerning the sacraments of penance and extreme unction had received the formal sanction of the holy and universal council, the divines of Louvain succeeded in convincing the leaders that it was erroneous. What was to be done? They agreed in a private conclave to alter it, after taking precautions to have the whole affair buried in silence, lest they should incur the ridicule of the Lutherans. “A great misfortune!” says the archbishop of Cologne; “but the least of two evils.” The reflections of the counsellor of the imperial embassy are more unceremonious. “I believe (says he) that God has permitted this occurrence to cover them with shame and confusion. Surely, after this, they will open their eyes, according to the saying of the psalmist, Fill their faces with shame, that they may seek thy name. God grant they may comprehend this; but I dare not hope for so much, and have always said that nothing short of a miracle will work a change.” ^f272 It is impossible to conceive any thing more deplorable than the picture of the council drawn in the confidential correspondence of Vargas, who was attached, as a legal adviser, to the embassy sent by Charles V. to Trent. “The legate is always the same,” says he in a letter to the cardinal-bishop of Arras; “he is a man lost to all shame.

Believe me, Sir, I have not words to express the pride and effrontery which he displays in the affairs of the council. Perceiving that we are timid, and that his majesty is unwilling to hurt or offend the pope, he endeavors to terrify us by assuming stately airs and a haughty tone. He treats the bishops as slaves; threatens and swears that he will depart. It is useless for his majesty to continue longer to urge the pope and his ministers. It is speaking to the deaf, and trying to soften the stones. It serves only to make us a laughing-stock to the world, and to furnish the heretics with subjects for pasquinades. We must delay till the time when God will purify the sons of Levi. That time must come soon, and, in my opinion, this purification will not be accomplished without some extraordinary chastisement. Things cannot remain long in their present state: the evils are too great. All the nerves of ecclesiastical discipline are broken. the traffic in things sacred is shameful. . . . The prediction of St. Paul is about to be accomplished in the church of Rome, That day cannot come, unless there come a falling away first. As to the manner of treating doctrines, I have already written you, that they precipitate every thing, examine few questions, and do not submit them to the judgment of the learned divines who are here in attendance. Many of the bishops give their vote, and say placet, on points which they do not understand and are incapable of understanding. There is no one here who appears on the side of God, or dares to speak. We are all dumb dogs that cannot bark.” Notwithstanding all this, and much more to the same purpose, Vargas adds, like a true son of the church: “As for myself, I obey implicitly, and will submit without resistance to whatever shall be determined in matters of faith. God grant that all may do this.” ^f273

These facts are not irrelative to the subject. The secrets of the council of Trent soon transpired; and several individuals, who were afterwards brought to the stake in Spain, acknowledged that their eyes were first opened to the radical corruptions of the church of Rome by the accounts they received from some of the members of that synod as to the scandalous manner in which its decisions were influenced. ^f274

Egidius appeared among the criminals condemned to penance, in an autoda-fe celebrated at Seville in 1552. ^f275 The term of his imprisonment having expired in 1555, he, in the course of the following year, paid a visit to Valladolid, where he found a number of converts to the reformed doctrine. His wounded spirit was refreshed by what he saw of the grace of God in that city, and after spending a short time in the company of his brethren, and exhorting them to constancy in the faith, he returned to Seville. But the fatigue of traveling, to which he had been unaccustomed for some years, brought on a fever, which cut him off in a few days. He left behind him a number of writings in his native tongue, none of which appears to have been printed. ^f276 His bones were afterwards taken from their grave, and committed to the flames, his property confiscated, and his memory declared infamous, by a sentence of the inquisitors, finding that he had died in the Lutheran faith. ^f277

The first introduction of the reformed doctrine into Valladolid was attended with circumstances nearly as extraordinary as those which had led to its reception in Seville. Francisco San-Roman, a native of Burgos, and son of the alcayde mayor of Bribiesca, having engaged in mercantile pursuits, went to the Low Countries. In the year 1540 his employers sent him from Antwerp to Bremen, to settle some accounts due to them in that city. The reformed religion had been introduced into Bremen; and the young Spaniard, curious to become acquainted with that doctrine which was so much condemned in his native country, went to one of the churches, where he heard James Sprent, formerly prior of the Augustinian monastery at Antwerp, and one of the first persons of note who embraced the opinions of Luther in the Netherlands. ^f278 The sermon made so deep an impression on the mind of San-Roman, that he could not refrain from calling on the preacher, who, pleased with his candor and thirst for knowledge, introduced him to the acquaintance of some of his pious and learned friends. Among them was our countryman Doctor Maccabeus, ^f279 then at Bremen, by whose conversation he profited greatly. Like some young converts he greatly flattered himself that he could easily persuade others to embrace those truths which appeared to his own mind as clear as the light of day; and he burned with the desire of returning home and imparting the knowledge which he had received to his relations and countrymen. In vain did Sprent endeavor to restrain an enthusiasm from which he had himself suffered at an earlier period of his life. In the letters which he wrote to his employers at Antwerp, San-Roman could not help alluding to the change which his religious sentiments had undergone, and lamenting the blindness of his countrymen. The consequence was, that on his return to that city he was immediately seized by certain friars, to whom the contents of his letters had been communicated; and a number of Lutheran books and satirical prints against the church of Rome being found in his possession, he was thrown into prison. After a rigorous confinement of eight months, he was released at the solicitation of his friends, who represented that his zeal was now cooled, and that he would be duly watched in his native country. Going to Louvain, he met with Francisco Enzinas, one of his fellow-citizens, of whom we shall afterwards speak, who urged him not to rush upon certain danger by an indiscreet or unnecessary avowal of his sentiments, and to confine himself to the sphere of his proper calling, within which he might do much good, instead of assuming the office of a public teacher, or talking on religious subjects with every person who fell in his way. San-Roman promised to regulate his conduct by this prudential advice; but having gone to Ratisbon, where a diet of the empire was then sitting, and being elated at hearing of the favor which the emperor showed to the protestants, ^f280 with the view of securing their assistance against the Turks, he forgot his prudent resolutions. Obtaining an introduction to Charles, he deplored the state of religion in his native country, and begged him to use his royal power in restraining the inquisitors and priests, who sought, by every species of violence and cruelty, to prevent the entrance of the only true and saving doctrine of Jesus Christ into Spain. By the mild answer which he received from the emperor, he was emboldened to renew his application, at which some of the Spanish attendants were so incensed that they would have thrown him instantly into the Danube, had not their master interposed, by ordering him to be reserved for trial before the proper judges. He was accordingly cast into chains, and conveyed, in the retinue of the emperor, from Germany into Italy, and from Italy to Africa. After the failure of the expedition against Algiers, he was landed in Spain, and delivered to the Inquisition at Valladolid. His process was short. When brought before the inquisitors, he frankly professed his belief in the cardinal doctrine of the Reformation, that salvation comes to no man by his own works, merit or strength, but solely from the mercy of God through the sacrifice of the one Mediator; and he pronounced the mass, auricular confession, purgatory, the invocation of saints, and the worshipping of images, to be blasphemy against the living God. If his zeal was impetuous, it supported him to the last. He endured the horrors of a protracted imprisonment with the utmost fortitude and patience. He resisted all the importunities used by the friars to induce him to recant. He refused, at the place of execution, to purchase a mitigation of punishment by making confession to a priest, or bowing to a crucifix which was placed before him. When the flames first reached him on his being fastened to the stake, he made an involuntary motion with his head, upon which the friars in attendance exclaimed that he was become penitent, and ordered him to be brought from the fire. On recovering his breath, he looked them calmly in the face, and said, “Did you envy my happiness?” at which words he was thrust back into the flames, and almost instantly suffocated. Among a great number of prisoners brought out in this public spectacle, he was the only individual who suffered death. The novelty of the crimes with which he was charged, joined to the resolution which he displayed on the scaffold and at the stake, produced a sensible impression on the spectators. A proclamation was issued by the inquisitors, forbidding any to pray for his soul, or to express a favorable opinion of such an obstinate heretic. Notwithstanding this, some of the emperor’s bodyguards collected his ashes as those of a martyr; and the English ambassador, who happened to be at Valladolid at that time, used means to procure a part of his bones as a relic. The guards were thrown into prison, and the ambassador was prohibited from appearing at court for some time. It is not unworthy of observation, that the sermon at this auto-da-fe was preached by the well-known Carranza, who was afterwards tried by the Inquisition, and died in prison after a confinement of seventeen years. ^f281

This even took place in the year 1544. ^f282 The reformed doctrine had previously been introduced into Valladolid, but its disciples contented themselves with retaining it in their own breasts, or talking of it in the most cautious way to their confidential friends. The speculation excited by the martyrdom of San-Roman took off this restraint. Expressions of sympathy for his fate, or of astonishment at his opinions, led to conversations, in the course of which the favorers of the new faith, as it was called, were easily able to recognize one another. The zeal, and even magnanimity, which he evinced in encountering public odium, and braving so horrible a death, for the sake of the truth, provoked to emulation the most timid among them; and within a few years after his martyrdom, they formed themselves into a church, which met regularly in private for the purposes of religious instruction and worship. ^f283

CHAPTER 5.

CAUSES OF THE PROGRESS OF THE REFORMED DOCTRINE IN SPAIN.

BEFORE proceeding farther with the narrative of the religious movement in Spain, it may be proper to give an account of some facts which happened without the kingdom. This will furnish the reader with interesting information respecting Spaniards who embraced the Reformation abroad, and whose pious and enlightened exertions, in publishing the scriptures and other books in their native tongue, had great influence in disseminating the knowledge of the truth among their countrymen at home.

About the year 1540, three brothers, Jayme, Francisco, and Juan, sons of a respectable citizen of Burgos in Old Castile, were sent to study at Louvain, a celebrated seat of education, to which the Spanish youth had long been accustomed to resort. The family name of the young men was Enzinas, though they were better known among the learned in Germany by their assumed name of Dryander. ^f283 Polite letters had been for some time cultivated in the university of Louvain, and the students indulged in a freedom of opinion, which was not tolerated at Paris and other places where the old scholastic ideas and modes of teaching were rigidly preserved. Along with a taste for elegant literature, the young Spaniards acquired the knowledge of the reformed doctrines. They lived in terms of great intimacy with the celebrated George Cassander, ^f284 who corresponded with the leading protestant divines, and afterwards distinguished himself by a fruitless attempt to reconcile the popish and reformed churches. Dissatisfied with the temporizing principles of this learned man, and the partial reforms in which he was disposed to rest, the three brothers entered with the most cordial zeal into the views of those who had formally separated from the church of Rome.

Juan Enzinas, or Dryander, the younger brother, chose the medical profession, and having settled in Germany, became a professor in the university of Marburg. He was the author of several works on medicine and astronomy, and acquired a reputation by the ingenuity which he displayed in the invention and improvement of instruments for advancing these sciences. ^f285

Jayme Enzinas, the elder brother, removed in 1541, by the direction of his father, to Paris. During his residence in that city he became confirmed in his attachment to the Reformation, and was successful in communicating his impressions to some of his countrymen who were prosecuting their studies along with him. The expectations which he had formed from the far-famed university of the French metropolis were miserably disappointed. He found the professors to be generally pedants and bigots, and the students equally destitute of good manners and a love for liberal pursuits. It was with the deepest emotion that he beheld the Christian heroism shown by protestant martyrs under the cruel treatment to which they were exposed. There was something solemn, though appalling, in the composure with which a Spanish assembly witnessed the barbarous spectacle of an auto-de-fe; but the wanton ferocity with which a Parisian mob shouted, when the executioner, with his pincers, tore the tongue from the mouth of his victim, and struck him with it repeatedly in the face, before binding his body to the stake, was disgustingly horrible and fiendish. ^f286 Unable to remain in a place where he could find neither learning nor humanity, Jayme Enzinas left Paris and returned to Louvain. Thence he went to Antwerp to superintend the printing of a catechism which he had drawn up in his native language for the benefit of his countrymen. ^f287 Soon after this he received orders from his father, who entertained sanguine hopes of his advancement in the church, to visit Italy and spend some time in the capital of Christendom. Nothing could be more contrary to his inclinations; but yielding to the dictates of filial duty he set out, leaving his heart with his brothers and other friends in the Netherlands. To a delicate taste and generous independence of spirit, Jayme Enzinas added a tenderness of conscience and candor of disposition which exposed him to peculiar danger in Italy, at a time when the jealousy of the priests was roused by the recent discovery that the reformed tenets had spread extensively in that country. After spending several years in great uneasiness of mind, without being able to procure liberty from his father to return, he resolved at last, in compliance with the urgent request of his brothers, to repair to Germany, and was preparing to quit Rome, when he was betrayed by one of his countrymen, who denounced him as a heretic to the Inquisition. The circumstance of a Spaniard being accused of Lutheranism, together with the character which he bore for learning, attracted much interest in Rome; and his examination was attended by the principal bishops and cardinals. Undaunted by the solemnity of the court, he avowed his sentiments, and defended them with such spirit that his judges, irritated at his boldness, condemned him instantly to the flames; a sentence which was loudly called for by such of his countrymen as were present. Attempts were afterwards made to induce him to recant, by the offer of reconciliation to the church upon his appearing publicly with the san-benito, according to the custom of his native country. But he refused to purchase his life on such conditions, and died at the stake with the utmost constancy and courage. His martyrdom happened in the year 1546. ^f288

About the same time that Enzinas suffered, one of his countrymen and intimate friends met with a still more tragical fate in Germany. Juan Diaz, a native of Cuenca, after he had studied for several years at Paris, was converted to the protestant religion by the private instructions of Jayme Enzinas. Being liberally educated, he had, previously to that event, conceived a disgust at the scholastic theology, and made himself master of the Hebrew language, that he might study the Bible in the original. With the view of enjoying the freedom of professing the faith which he had embraced, he left Paris in company with Matthew Budé and John Crespin, and went to Geneva, where he resided for some time in the house of his countryman Pedro Gales. ^f289 Having removed to Strasburg in the beginning of the year 1546, his talents and suavity of manners recommended him so strongly to the celebrated Bucer, that he prevailed on the senate to join the Spanish stranger with himself in a deputation which they were about to send to a conference on the disputed points of religion to be held at Ratisbon. On going thither Diaz met with his countryman Pedro Malvenda, whom he had known at Paris, and was now to confront as an antagonist at the conference. To the pride and religious prejudices of his countrymen, Malvenda added the rudeness of a doctor of the Sorbonne, and the insolence of a minion of the court. ^f290 When informed by Diaz of the change which had taken place in his sentiments, he expressed the utmost surprise and horror; saying, that the heretics would boast more of making a convert of a single Spaniard than of ten thousand Germans. Having labored in vain, at different interviews, to reclaim him to the catholic faith, he laid the matter before the emperor’s confessor. It is not known what consultations they had; but a Spaniard, named Marquina, who had transactions with them, repaired soon after to Rome, and communicated the facts to a brother of Diaz, Doctor Alfonso, ^f291 who had long held the office of advocate in the sacred Rota. The pride and bigotry of Alfonso were inflamed to the highest degree by the intelligence of his brother’s defection; and taking along with him a suspicious attendant, he set out instantly for Germany, determined, in one way or other, to wipe off the infamy which had fallen on the hitherto spotless honor of his family. In the mean time, alarmed at some expressions of Malvenda, and knowing the inveteracy with which the Spaniards hated such of their countrymen as had become protestants, Bucer and the other friends of Juan Diaz had prevailed upon him to retire for a season to Neuburg, a small town in Bavaria situated on the Danube. On arriving at Ratisbon, Alfonso succeeded in discovering the place of his brother’s retreat, and after consulting with Malvenda, repaired to Neuburg. By every art of persuasion he sought during several days to bring back his brother to the church of Rome. Disappointed in this, he altered his method,—professed that the arguments which he had heard had shaken his confidence, and listened with apparent eagerness and satisfaction to his brother while he explained to him the protestant doctrines, and the passages of scripture on which they rested. Finding Juan delighted with this unexpected change, he proposed that he should accompany him to Italy, where there was a greater field of usefulness in disseminating the doctrines of the gospel than in Germany, which was already provided with an abundance of laborers. The guileless Juan promised to think seriously on this proposal, which he submitted to the judgment of his protestant friends. They were unanimously of opinion that he should reject it; and in particular Ochino, who had lately fled from Italy and was then at Augsburg, pointed out the danger and hopeless nature of the project. Alfonso did not yet desist. He insisted that his brother should accompany him at least as far as Augsburg, promising to acquiesce in the decision which Ochino should pronounce after they had conversed with him on the subject. His request appeared so reasonable that Juan agreed to it; but he was prevented from going by the arrival of Bucer and two other friends, who, having finished their business at Ratisbon, and fearing that Juan Diaz might be induced to act contrary to their late advice, had agreed to pay him a visit. Concealing the chagrin which he felt at this unexpected obstacle, Alfonso took an affectionate leave of his brother, after he had, in a private interview, forced a sum of money upon him, expressed warm gratitude for the spiritual benefit he had received from his conversation, and warned him to be on his guard against Malvenda. He proceeded to Augsburg on the road to Italy; but next day, after using various precautions to conceal his route, he returned, along with the man whom he had brought from Rome, and spent the night in a village at a small distance from Neuburg. Early next morning, being the 27th of March 1546, they came to the house where his brother lodged. Alfonso stood at the gate, while his attendant, knocking at the door and announcing that he was the bearer of a letter to Juan Diaz from his brother, was shown up stairs to an apartment. On hearing of a letter from his brother, Juan sprang from his bed, hastened to the apartment in an undress, took the letter from the hand of the bearer, and as it was still dark, went to the window to read it, when the ruffian, stepping softly behind him, despatched his unsuspecting victim with one stroke of an axe which he had concealed under his cloak. He then joined the more guilty murderer, who now stood at the stair-foot to prevent interruption, and ready, if necessary, to give assistance to the assassin whom he had hired to execute his purpose. ^f292

Alarmed by the noise which the assassin’s spurs made on the steps as he descended, the person who slept with Juan Diaz rose hastily, and going into the adjoining apartment beheld, with unutterable feelings, his friend stretched on the floor and weltering in his blood, with his hands clasped, and the instrument of death fixed in his head. The murderers were fled, and had provided a relay of horses to convey them quickly out of Germany; but the pursuit after them, which commenced as soon as the alarm could be given, was so hot, that they were overtaken at Inspruck, and secured in prison. Otho Henry, count palatine of the Rhine and duke of Bavaria, within whose territories the crime was perpetrated, lost no time in taking the necessary measures for having it judicially tried. Lawyers were sent from Neuburg with the night-cap of the deceased, the bloody axe, the letter of Alfonso, and other documents; but though the prisoners were arraigned before the criminal court at Inspruck, the trial was suspended through the influence of the cardinals of Trent and Augsburg, to whom the fratricide obtained liberty to write at the beginning of his imprisonment. When his plea for the benefit of clergy was set aside as contrary to the laws of Germany, various legal quirks were resorted to; and, at last, the judges produced an order from the emperor, prohibiting them from proceeding with the trial, and reserving the cause for the judgment of his brother Ferdinand, king of the Romans. When the protestant princes, at the subsequent diet of Ratisbon, demanded, first of the emperor and afterwards of his brother, that the murderers should be punished, their requests were evaded; ^f293 and, in the issue, the murderers were allowed to escape untried and with impunity, to the outraging of humanity and justice, and the disgrace of the church of Rome, whose authorities were bound to see that the most rigorous scrutiny was made into the horrid deed, under the pain of being held responsible for it to heaven and to posterity. The liberated fratricide appeared openly at Trent, along with his bloody accomplice, without exciting a shudder in the breasts of the holy fathers met in council; he was welcomed back to Rome; and finally returned to his native country, where he has admitted to the society of men of rank and education, who listened to him while he coolly related the circumstances of his sanctified crime. ^f294 Different persons published accounts, ^f295 agreeing in every material point, of a murder which, all circumstances considered, has scarcely a parallel in the annals of blood since the time of the first fratricide, and affords a striking proof of the degree in which fanatical zeal will stifle the tenderest affections of the human breast, and stimulate to the perpetration of crimes the most atrocious and unnatural. The narrative which I have followed was drawn up and published at the time by Claude Senarcle, ^f296 a noble young Savoyard, who was strongly attached to Juan Diaz, had accompanied him from the time he left Paris, and slept in the same bed with him on the night before his murder. Its accuracy is confirmed by the attestation of Bucer, who was personally acquainted with many of the facts, as well as with the character of the author. ^f297 But indeed so far were the Roman catholics from denying the facts, that many of them, and especially the countrymen of Diaz, justified and even applauded the deed. ^f298 Juan Ginez de Sepulveda, who professes to have received the facts from the mouth of the terrible hero of the tragedy, has given an account of them so completely in accordance with Senarcle’s, that we might suppose he had abridged that work, in the way of substituting the atrocious moral of fanaticism for the touching sentiments of friendship, charity, and piety, which pervade the whole narrative of the protestant historian. ^f299 It is humbling to think that Sepulveda was one of the most elegant prose writers who flourished at that time in Spain.

Francisco Enzinas continued, after his brother’s departure to Italy, to reside at Louvain. But though he lived on good terms with the professors of the university, he found his situation becoming daily more irksome and painful. Among the learned protestants in the neighborhood with whom he carried on a confidential correspondence were Albert Hardenberg, preacher to the Cistercian monastery of Adwert, which, since the days of John Wessel, the Dutch Wicliffe, had resembled an academy more than a convent; and the celebrated Polish nobleman, John a Lasco, who had left his native country from attachment to the reformed faith, and was eminently successful in diffusing the knowledge of the truth in East Friesland. It would appear that the parents of Enzinas had intended him for the army, to which he was now decidedly averse. In a letter to A Lasco, accompanying the present of an ancient and richly-mounted sword, which he had received from a nobleman, he says: “All the world will, I know, be in arms against me on account of the resolution which, in opposition to the advice of some worthy men, I have now formed to devote myself to literary pursuits. But I will not suffer myself, from respect to the favor of men, to hold the truth in unrighteous-ness, or to treat unbecomingly those gifts which God in his free mercy has been pleased to confer on me, unworthy as I am. On the contrary, it shall be my endeavor, according to my ability, to propagate divine truth. That I may do this by the grace of God, I find that it will be necessary for me, in the first place, to fly from the Babylonian captivity, and to retire to a place in which I shall be at liberty to cultivate undefiled religion and true Christianity, along with liberal studies. It is therefore my purpose to repair to Wittenberg, because that city contains an abundance of learned professors in all the sciences, and I entertain so high an esteem for the learning, judgment, and dexterity in teaching possessed by Philip Melanchthon in particular, that I would go to the end of the world to enjoy the company and instructions of such men. I therefore earnestly beg that, as your name has great weight, you will have the goodness to favor me with letters of introduction to Luther, Philip, and other learned men in that city. ^f300 He accordingly paid a visit to Wittenberg, where he was warmly received by all, and especially by the individual for whom he had expressed so high a veneration. But he returned to the Low Countries, probably by the advice of Melanchthon, to labor in a work which promised to be of the greatest benefit to his native country. This was the translation of the New Testament into the Spanish language.

Though Spain was the only nation which at that time did not possess the scriptures in the vulgar language, it had not always labored under that deficiency. In the year 1233, Juan I. of Aragon, by a public edict, prohibited the use of any part of the Old or New Testament in the vernacular tongue, and commanded all, whether laity or clergy, who possessed such books, to deliver them to their ordinaries to be burnt, on the pain of being held suspected of heresy. ^f301 On the other hand, Alfonso

X. of Castile caused the sacred scriptures to be translated into Castilian, with the view of improving the native language of his people; and a copy of that translation, executed in the year 1260, is still preserved in manuscript. ^f302 Other ancient versions of the scriptures into the Limosin, or Catanolian, and Castilian dialects, are still to be seen, in whole or in part, among the manuscripts in the public libraries of Spain and France. ^f303 Bonifacio Ferrer, brother of St. Vincente Ferrer, and prior of the Carthusian monastery of Portaceli in Valencia, who died in the year 1417, translated the whole scriptures into the Valencian or Catalonian dialect of Spain. His translation was printed at Valencia in the year 1478, at the expense of Philip Vizlant, a merchant of Isny in Germany, by Alfonso Fernandez, a Spaniard of Cordova, and Lambert Philomar, a German. But, although it was the production of a catholic author, and underwent the examination and correction of the inquisitor James Borrell, it had scarcely made its appearance when it was suppressed by the Inquisition, who ordered the whole impression to be devoured by the flames. ^f304 So strictly was this order carried into execution, that scarcely a single copy appears to have escaped. Long after the era of the Reformation, it was taken for granted by all true Spaniards, that their language had never been made the unhallowed instrument of exposing the Bible to vulgar eyes; and with the exception of two incidental allusions, the translation of Ferrer remained unnoticed for nearly two hundred years after its publication. ^f305 At length, in 1645, the last four leaves of a copy of this edition were discovered in the library belonging to the monastery of Portaceli. The number was reduced within a short time to one leaf; but happily this contained the imprint, or final epigraph, indicating the names of the translator and printers, together with the place and year of the impression. ^f306 According to some authors, the version of Ferrar underwent, about the year 1515, a second impression, which shared the same fate as its predecessor; but of this statement the evidence is less complete and satisfactory. ^f307

Apparently ignorant that his native country had once possessed such a treasure, and anxious that they should be supplied with it, Francisco de Enzinas undertook a translation of the New Testament into the Castilian tongue. Having finished his task, he submitted the work to the judgment of the divines of Louvain. They allowed that there was no law of the state prohibiting the printing of translations of the scriptures, but expressed their fears that such works would lead to the spread of heresy and disturbance of the peace of the church, and excused themselves from either sanctioning or censuring the undertaking, on the ground of their ignorance of the Spanish tongue. The private friends of the translator, who were acquainted with both languages, gave it as their opinion, after examining the work that it would be a great honor as well as benefit to Spain. ^f308 It was accordingly printed at Antwerp in the year 1543, under the title of “The New Testament, that is, the New Covenant of our only Redeemer and Saviour Jesus Christ, translated from Greek into the Castilian language.” The purblind monks, to whom it was submitted before publication, could not proceed farther than the title-page. One of them, whose pretensions to learning were not the least among those of his order, smelled Lutheranism in “the new covenant.” The leaf was cancelled, and the suspicious phrase struck out. He next pointed out the palpable heresy in the expression “our only Redeemer.” Recourse was again had to the operation of cancelling, and the obnoxious particle expelled. But his success in discovery only served to quicken the censorial organ of the monk; so that the author, despairing to see an end of the process, gave directions for putting the work into the hands of the booksellers. ^f309

The emperor having soon after arrived at Brussels, the author presented a copy of the work to him, and requested his permission to circulate it among his countrymen. Charles received it graciously, and promising his patronage, if it were found to contain nothing contrary to the faith, gave it to his confessor Pedro de Soto ^f310 to examine. After various delays, Enzinas, having waited on the confessor, was upbraided by him as an enemy to religion, who had tarnished the honor of his native country; and refusing to acknowledge a fault, was seized by the officers of justice and thrown into prison. Besides the crime of translating the scriptures, he was charged with having made a translation of a work of Luther, and visiting Melanchthon. ^f311 To add to his distress, his father and uncles, hearing of his imprisonment, paid him a visit, and participating in the common prejudices of their countrymen, reproached him for bringing calamity on himself, and dishonor on his kindred. He continued however to possess his soul in patience, ^f312 employed his time in translating the Psalms, and received many marks of sympathy from the citizens of Brussels, of whom he knew far more than four hundred warmly attached to the protestant faith. After a confinement of fifteen months, he one day found his prison doors open, and walking out without the slightest opposition, escaped from Brussels and arrived safely at Wittenberg; an escape the more remarkable that a hot persecution raged at that time throughout the Netherlands, and the portraits of the protestant preachers, accompanied with the offer of a reward for their apprehension, were to be seen affixed to the gates of all the principal cities. ^f313 The following extract shows the steps taken against him after his flight. “The inquisitors in Belgium have summoned my guest, the wise, upright and pious Spaniard, in his absence; and from the day fixed for his appearance, we conclude that sentence has already been pronounced against him. He sets out for your town to ascertain the fact, and to learn if there are any letters for him from that quarter. I have given him a letter to you, both that I may acquaint you with the cause of his journey, and because I know you feel for the calamities of all good men. He evinces great fortitude, though he evidently sees that his return to his parents and native country is now cut off. The thought of the anguish which this will give to his parents distresses him. These inquisitors are as cruel to us as the thirty tyrants were of old to their fellow-citizens at Athens; but God will preserve the remnant of his church, and provide an asylum for the truth somewhere.” ^f314 In another letter, written in the year 1546, the same individual says, “Franciscus the Spaniard has resolved to go to Italy, that he may assuage the grief of his mother.” ^f315 Whether he accomplished that journey or not, is uncertain; but in 1548 he went to England, on which occasion he was warmly recommended by Melanchthon to Edward VI. and archbishop Cranmer, as a person of excellent endowments and learning, averse to all fanatical and seditious tenets, and distinguished by his piety and grave manners. He obtained a situation at Oxford; but returning soon after to the continent, he resided sometimes at Strasburg and sometimes at Basle, where he spent his time in literary pursuits, and in the society of the wise and good. ^f316

In the same year in which the New Testament of Enzinas came from the press, a Spanish translation of the seven penitential Psalms, the Song of Solomon, and the Lamentations of Jeremiah, was printed at Antwerp by Ferdinand Jarava, who, three years before, had printed the Book of Job, and the Psalms for the office of the dead, in the same language and at the same place. There exists also a copy of a Spanish psalter in Gothic letter, without date, but apparently ancient. ^f317

The Jews appear to have early had translations of the Old Testament, or parts of it, in Spanish. In 1497, only five years after their expulsion from the peninsula, they printed the Pentateuch in that language at Venice. In 1547 this work was printed at Constantinople in Hebrew characters, and in 1552 it was reprinted at the same place in Roman characters. ^f318 In 1553 they printed at Ferrara two editions of the Old Testament in Spanish; the one edited by Abraham Usque, and the other by Duarte Pinel. Bibliographers have generally held that the first of these was intended for the use of Jews, and the last for the use of Christians; ^f319 an opinion which does not seem to rest on good grounds. ^f320

At the time that Egidius was thrown into prison, several of his religious friends became alarmed for their safety, and took refuge in Germany and Switzerland. Among these were Juan Perez, Cassiodoro de Reyna, and Cypriano de Valera, who were industriously employed during their exile, in providing the means of religious instruction for their countrymen. Juan Perez was born at Montilla, a town of Andalusia. He was sent to Rome in 1527, as charge d’affaires of Charles V., and procured from the pope a suspension of the decree by which the Spanish divines had condemned the writings of Erasmus. ^f321 Subsequently he was placed at the head of the College of Doctrine, an endowed school at Seville, where he contracted an intimacy with Egidius and other favorers of the reformed opinions. He received the degree of doctor of divinity in his native country; and his talents and probity secured him a high place in the esteem of the foreigners among whom he resided, first at Geneva and afterwards in France. ^f322 The works which he composed in his native tongue were of the most valuable kind. His version of the New Testament came from the press in 1556; ^f323 his version of the Book of Psalms followed in the course of the subsequent year; ^f324 and his Catechism, and Summary of Christian doctrine, appeared about the same time. ^f325 They were all printed at Venice. Besides these, he published in Spanish several of the works of his countryman Juan Valdez. ^f326 Being called from Geneva, and having officiated as a preacher at Blois, and as chaplain to Renée, duchess of Ferrara, in the castle of Montargis, he died of the stone at Paris, after he had bequeathed all his fortune to the printing of the Bible in his native tongue. ^f327 The task which he left unfinished was continued by Cassiodoro de Reyna, who, after ten years’ labor, produced a translation of the whole Bible, which was printed in 1569 at Basle. ^f328 It was revised and corrected by Cypriano de Valera, who published the New Testament in 1596 at London, and both Testaments in 1602 at Amsterdam. ^f329 It is no slight proof of the zeal with which the Spanish protestants sought to disseminate the scriptures among their countrymen, that Juan Lizzarago published, in 1571, a translation of the New Testament in Basque, or the language of Biscay, which differs widely from the other dialects spoken in the Peninsula. ^f330 The versions of the three writers last mentioned did not appear until the Reformation was suppressed in Spain; but they were of great utility to many individuals, and the reprinting of De Valera’s translation at a recent period was the means of provoking the Spanish clergy to make the dangerous experiment of translating the scriptures into their native tongue. ^f331

All these versions were accompanied with vindications of the practice of translating the scriptures into vernacular languages, and the right of the people to read them. This formed one of the points most warmly contested between the Romanists and reformers. The Spanish divines distinguished themselves by their intemperate support of the illiberal side of the question; and the determination of Alfonso de Castro, “that the translation of the scriptures into the vernacular tongues, with the reading of them by the vulgar, is the true fountain of all heresies,” continued long to be the standard of orthodoxy in Spain. ^f332 There was, however, one honorable exception. Frederico Furio, ^f333 a learned native of Valencia, defended the cause of biblical translation intrepidly and ably, first, in an academical dispute with John de Bononima, rector of the university of Louvain, and afterwards from the press. ^f334 This raised against him a host of enemies, and his book was strictly prohibited; ^f335 but he was protected by Charles V., and what is singular, continued during life about the person of Philip II., that most determined patron of ignorance and the Inquisition. ^f336

The versions of the scriptures by which the Reformation was promoted in Spain, were those of Enzinas and Perez. In spite of the suppression of the former in the Low Countries, copies of it were conveyed to the Peninsula. Accordingly pope Julius III. states in a bill addressed to the inquisitors in 1550, that he was informed that there were in the possession of booksellers and private persons a great number of heretical books, including Spanish Bibles, marked in the catalogue of prohibited books which the university of Louvain, at the desire of the emperor, had drawn up in the preceding year. And at a period somewhat later, Philip, who governed Spain during the absence of his father, ordered an examination of certain Bibles introduced into the kingdom but not mentioned in the late index; and the council of the Supreme, having pronounced them dangerous, gave instructions to the provincial inquisitors to seize all the copies, and proceed with the utmost rigor against those who should retain them, with out excepting members of universities, colleges or monasteries. ^f337

At the same time the strictest precautions were adopted to prevent the importation of such books by placing officers at all the sea-ports and land-passes, with authority to search every package that should enter the kingdom. It might be supposed that these measures would have reared an insuperable barrier to the progress of illumination in Spain. But the thirst for knowledge, when once excited, is irresistible; and tyranny, when it goes beyond a certain point, inspires its victims at once with daring and ingenuity. The books provided by the Spanish refugees remained for some time locked up in Geneva, none choosing to engage in the hazardous and almost desperate attempt to convey them across the Pyrenees. But at last an humble individual had the courage to undertake, and the address to execute the task. This was Julian Hernandez, a native of Villaverda in the district of Campos, who on account of his small stature was commonly called Julian the Little. Having imbibed the reformed doctrine in Germany, he had come to Geneva and entered into the service of Juan Perez as amanuensis and corrector of the press. ^f338 Two large casks, filled with translations of the scriptures, and other protestant books in Spanish, were in 1557 committed to his trust, which he undertook to convey by land; and having eluded the vigilant eyes of the inquisitorial familiars, he lodged his precious charge safely in the house of one of the chief protestants of Seville, by whom the contents were quickly dispersed among his friends in different parts of the country. ^f339

CHAPTER 6.

PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION IN SPAIN

THE circumstances attending the condemnation of Egidius inflicted a severe shock on the infant church of Seville. While the enemies of truth triumphed in his fall, its friends felt “as when a standard-bearer fainteth.” His release from imprisonment, and the proofs which he gave of unabated attachment to the doctrine which he had formerly taught, were consolatory to them; but the obstinacy with which he continued to the last to upbraid himself for his imbecility, together with the restraints under which he was laid, threw a melancholy air over his instructions, which had a tendency to discourage those who needed to be animated by the countenance and advice of a person of unbroken courage and high reputation. Providence furnished them with such a head, a little before the death of Egidius, by the return of the individual who had been his associate in his early labors, and who was unquestionably the greatest ornament of the reformed cause in Spain.

Constantine Ponce de la Fuente was a native of San Clemente de la Mancha, in the diocese of Cuença. ^f340 Possessing a good taste and a love of genuine knowledge, he evinced an early disgust for the barbarous pedantry of the schools, and attachment to such of his countrymen as sought to revive the study of polite letters. Being intended for the church, he made himself a master of Greek and Hebrew, to qualify him for interpreting the scriptures. At the same time he spoke and wrote his native language with uncommon purity and elegance. Like Erasmus, with whose writings he was first captivated, he was distinguished for his lively wit, which he took pleasure in indulging at the expense of foolish preachers and hypocritical monks. But he was endowed with greater firmness and decision of character than the philosopher of Rotterdam. During his attendance at the university, his youthful spirit had betrayed him into irregularities, of which his enemies afterwards took ungenerous advantage; but these were succeeded by the utmost decorum and correctness of manners, though he always retained his gay temper, and could never deny himself a jest. One of his contemporaries remarked, “that he never knew any man who loved or hated Constantine moderately;” a treatment which is experienced by every person who possesses superior talents and poignancy of wit combined with generosity and benevolence. His knowledge of mankind made him scrupulous in forming intimate friendships, but he treated all his acquaintance with a cordial and easy familiarity. Notwithstanding the opportunities he had of enriching himself, he was so exempt from avarice that his library, which he valued above all his property, was never large. His eloquence caused his services in the pulpit to be much sought after; but he was free from vanity, the besetting sin of orators, and scorned to prostitute his talents at the shrine of popularity. He declined the situation of preacher in the cathedral of Cuença, which was offered him by the unanimous vote of the chapter. When the more honorable and lucrative office of preacher to the metropolitan church of Toledo was afterwards put in his offer, and thanking the chapter for their good opinion of him he declined it, alleging as a reason, “that he would not disturb the bones of their ancestors;” alluding to a dispute between them and the archbishop Siliceo, who had insisted that his clergy should prove the purity of their descent. Whether it was predilection for the reformed opinions that induced him at first to fix his residence in Seville, is uncertain; but we have seen that he co-operated with Egidius in his plans for disseminating scriptural knowledge. The emperor having heard him preach during a visit to that city, was so much pleased with the sermon, that he immediately named him one of his chaplains, to which he added the office of almoner; and he soon after appointed him to accompany his son Philip to Flanders, “to let Flemings see that Spain was not destitute of polite scholars and orators.” ^f341 Constantine made it a point of duty to obey the orders of his sovereign, and reluctantly quitted his residence in Seville, for which he had hitherto rejected the most tempting offers. His journey gave him the opportunity of becoming personally acquainted with some of the reformers. Among these was James Schopper, a learned man of Biberach in Suabia, by whose conversation his views of evangelical doctrine were greatly enlarged and confirmed. ^f342 In 1555 he returned to Seville, and his presence imparted a new impulse to the protestant cause in that city. A benevolent and enlightened individual having founded a professorship of divinity in the College of Doctrine, Constantine was appointed to the chair; and by means of the lectures which he read on the scriptures, together with the instructions of Fernando de St. Juan, provost of the institution, the minds of many of the young men were opened to the truth. ^f343 On the first Lent after his return to Seville, he was chosen by the chapter to preach every alternate day in the cathedral church. So great was his popularity, that though the public service did not begin till eight o’clock in the morning, yet when he preached, the church was filled by four and even by three o’clock. Being newly recovered from a fever when he commenced his labors, he felt so weak that it was necessary for him repeatedly to pause during the sermon, on which occasions he was allowed to recruit his strength by taking a draught of wine in the pulpit; a permission which had never been granted to any other preacher. ^f344

While Constantine was pursuing this career of honor and usefulness, he involved himself in difficulties by coming forward as a candidate for the place of canon magistral in the cathedral of Seville. There are three canonries in every episcopal church in Spain, which must be obtained by comparative trials. These are chiefly filled by fellows belonging to the six Collegios Mayores, who form a kind of learned aristocracy, which has long possessed great influence in that country. No place of honor or emolument in the church or the departments of law is left unoccupied by these collegians. Fellows in orders, who possess abilities, are kept in reserve for the literary competitions; such as cannot appear to advantage in these trials, are provided through court-favour to stalls in the wealthier cathedrals; while the absolutely dull and ignorant are placed in the tribunals of the Inquisition, where, passing judgment in their secret halls, they may not by their blunders disgrace the college to which they belonged. ^f345 The place of canon magistral in Seville having become vacant by the death of Egidius, the chapter, in accordance with the general wish of the city, fixed their eyes upon Constantine, as the person most fitted by his talents for filling that important office. Egidius had been introduced into it without engaging in the literary competition; but, in consequence of his unpopularity when he first ascended the pulpit, the canons had entered on their records a resolution that the usual trials should take place in all future elections. Constantine had uniformly ridiculed these literary jousts, as resembling the exercises of schoolboys and the tricks of jugglers. Finding him obstinate in refusing to enter the lists, the chapter were inclined to dispense with their resolution, when Fernando Valdes, the archbishop of Seville and inquisitor general, who had conceived a strong dislike to Constantine on account of a supposed injury which he had received from him when he was preacher to the emperor, interposed his authority to prevent the suspension of the law. A day was accordingly fixed for the trial, and edicts were published in all the principal cities, requiring candidates to make their appearance. The friends of Constantine now pressed him to lay aside his scruples; and an individual, who had great influence over his mind, represented so strongly the services which he would be able to render to the cause of truth in so influential a situation, and the hurtful effects which would result from its being occupied by some noisy and ignorant declaimer, that he consented at last to offer himself as a candidate. The knowledge of this fact prevented others from appearing, with the exception of two individuals who came from a distant part of the country. One of them declined the contest as soon as he became acquainted with the circumstances; but the other, a canon of Malaga, instigated by the archbishop, who wished to mortify his competitor, descended into the arena. Despairing, however, of being able to succeed by polemical skill, or by interest with the chapter, he had recourse to personal charges and insinuations, in which he was supported by all those who envied the fame of Constantine, had felt the sting of his satire, or hated him for his friendship with Egidius. He was accused of having contracted a marriage before he entered into holy orders; it was alleged that there were irregularities in his ordination and the manner in which he obtained his degree of doctor of divinity; and an attempt was made to fasten on him the charge of heresy. In spite of these accusations he carried his election, was installed in his new office, and commenced his duty as preacher in the cathedral with high acceptance. But this contest arrayed a party against him, which sought in every way to thwart his measures, and afterwards found an opportunity to make him feel the weight of its vengeance. ^f346

Constantine, while he instructed the people of Seville from the pulpit, was exerting himself to diffuse religious knowledge through the nation at large by means of the press. In the character of his writings, we have one of the clearest indications of the excellence of his heart. They were of that kind which was adapted to the spiritual wants of his countrymen, and not calculated to display his own talents, or to acquire for himself a name in the learned world. They were composed in his native tongue, and in a style level to the lowest capacity. Abstruse speculations and rhetorical ornaments, in which he was qualified both by nature and education to excel, were rigidly sacrificed to the one object of being understood by all, and useful to all. Among his works were a Catechism, whose highest recommendation is its artless and infantine simplicity; a small treatise on the doctrine of Christianity, drawn up in the familiar form of a Dialogue between a master and his pupil; an Exposition of the first Psalm in four sermons, which show that his pulpit eloquence, exempt from the common extremes, was neither degraded by vulgarity, nor rendered disgusting by affectation and effort at display; and the Confession of a sinner, in which the doctrines of the gospel, poured from a contrite and humbled spirit, assume the form of the most edifying and devotional piety. ^f347 His Summary of Christian Doctrine, without being deficient in simplicity, is more calculated to interest persons of learning and advanced knowledge. In this work he proposed to treat first of the articles of faith; and secondly, of good works and the sacrament. The first part only came from the press; ^f348 the second being kept back until such time as it could be printed with greater safety, a period which never arrived. It was not the author’s object to lay down or defend the protestant doctrines, but to exhibit from the scriptures, and without intermeddling with modern disputes, the great truths of the gospel. The work was translated into Italian, and has been highly praised by some Roman catholic writers. ^f349 But it was viewed with great suspicion by the ruling clergy, who took occasion from it to circulate reports unfavorable to the author’s orthodoxy, and held secret consultations on the propriety of denouncing him to the Inquisition. They complained that he had not condemned the Lutheran errors, nor vindicated the supremacy of the bishop of Rome; and that, if at any time he mentioned indulgences, purgatory and human merit, instead of extolling, he derogated from these authorized doctrines of the church, by warning his readers not to risk their salvation on them. When these charges came to the ears of Constantine, he contented himself with saying, that these topics did not properly belong to the first part of his treatise, but that he would explain his views respecting them in his second volume, which he was preparing for the press. This reply, backed by the popularity of which he was in possession, silenced his adversaries for that time. ^f350

Previously to the period of which we have been speaking, an occurrence took place which had nearly proved fatal to the disciples of the reformed faith in Seville. Francisco Zafra, a doctor of laws, and vicar of the parish church of San Vicente, had long cherished a secret predilection for the Lutheran sentiments. Being a man of learning, he was frequently called, in the character of qualificator, to pronounce judgment on the articles laid to the charge of persons denounced to the Holy Office, and had been instrumental in saving the lives of many individuals, who otherwise would have been condemned as heretics. ^f351 He had received into his house Maria Gomez, a widow, who was a zealous and constant attendant on the private meetings of the protestants, and consequently well acquainted with all the persons of that persuasion in the city. In the year 1555 she became deranged in her intellect, and having conceived, as is not unusual with persons in that unhappy state of mind, a violent antipathy to her former friends, she talked of nothing but vengeance on heretics. It was found necessary to lay her under an easy restraint; but, escaping from her domestic confinement, she went straight to the castle of Triana, in which the inquisitors held their sittings, and, having obtained an audience, told them that the city was full of Lutherans, while they, whose duty it was to guard against the entrance and spread of this plague, were slumbering at their post. She ran over the names of those whom she accused, amounting to the number of more than three hundred. The inquisitors had no apprehension of the extent to which the reformed doctrines had been embraced in Seville, and could not but perceive marks of derangement in the appearance and incoherent talk of the informer; but, acting according to the maxim of their tribunal, that no accusation is to be disregarded, they resolved to make inquiry, and ordered the instant attendance of Zafra. Had he yielded to the sudden impressions of fear, and attempted to make his escape, the consequences would have been fatal to himself and his religious connections. Instead of this, he, with great presence of mind, repaired on the first notice to the Holy Office, treated the accusation with indifference, stated the symptoms of the woman’s distemper, with the reason which induced him to confine her, and referred to the members of his family and the neighbours for the truth of the facts. His statement, together with the character which he bore, succeeded in removing the suspicions of the inquisitors, who were persuaded that Maria labored under a confirmed lunacy, and that her representations had no other foundation than the visionary workings of a disordered brain. Accordingly they requested Zafra to take the unfortunate woman along with him, and to keep her under a stricter confinement than that from which she had escaped. Thus did this dark cloud pass away, by the kindness of Providence, which watched over a tender flock, yet not sufficiently prepared for encountering the storm of persecution. ^f352

In the mean time the protestant church in Seville was regularly organized, and placed under the pastoral inspection of Christobal Losada, a doctor of medicine. He had paid his addresses to the daughter of a respectable member of that society, and was rejected on a religious ground; but having afterwards become acquainted with Egidius, he embraced the reformed opinions, and recommended himself so strongly to those of the same faith by his knowledge of the scriptures, and other gifts, that they unanimously chose him as their pastor. His future conduct did not disgrace their choice. ^f353 He was assisted by a friar named Cassiodoro, whose ministry was uncommonly successful. ^f354 The church met ordinarily in the house of Isabella de Baena, a lady not less distinguished for her piety than for her rank and opulence. ^f355 Among the nobility who attached themselves to it, the two most distinguished were Don Juan Ponce de Leon, and Domingo de Guzman. The former was a younger son of Don Rodrigo, count de Baylen, cousin german of the duke D’Arcos, and allied to the principal grandees of Spain. So unbounded was this nobleman in charity to the poor, that, by distributing to their necessities, he encumbered his patrimonial estate, and reduced himself to those straits in which others of his rank involve themselves by prodigality and dissipation. He was equally unsparing in his personal exertions to promote the reformed cause. ^f356 Domingo de Guzman was a son of the duke de Medina Sidonia, and being destined for the church, had entered the order of St. Dominic. His extensive library contained the principal Lutheran publications, which he lent and recommended with uncommon industry. ^f357

Most of the religious institutions in Seville and the neighborhood were leavened with the new doctrines. The preacher of the Dominican monastery of St. Paul’s was zealous in propagating them. ^f358 They had disciples in the convent of St. Elizabeth, a nunnery established according to the rule of St. Francis d’Assisa. ^f359 But they made the greatest progress in the Hieronymite convent of San Isidro del Campo, situated within two miles of Seville. This was owing in a great degree to a person whose singular character merits examination.

Garcia de Arias, commonly called Doctor Blanco, on account of the extreme whiteness of his hair, possessed an acute mind and extensive information; but he was undecided and vacillating in his conduct, partly from timidity and partly from caution and an excess of refinement. He belonged to that class of subtle politicians, who, without being destitute of conscience, are wary in committing themselves, forfeit the good opinion of both parties by failing to yield a consistent support to either, and trusting to their address and dexterity to extricate themselves from difficulties, are sometimes caught in the toils of their own intricate management. There is no reason to question the sincerity of his attachment to the reformed tenets, but his adoption of them was known only to the leaders of the Sevillian church, with whom he was secretly in correspondence. By the ruling clergy, he was regarded not only as strictly orthodox, but as the ablest champion of their cause, and accordingly was consulted by them on every important question relative to the established faith. An anecdote which has been preserved is strikingly illustrative of his character and mode of acting. Gregorio Ruiz, in a sermon preached by him in the cathedral of Seville, employed expressions favorable to the protestant doctrine concerning justification and the merit of Christ’s death, in consequence of which he was denounced to the Inquisition, and had a day fixed for answering the charges brought against him. In the prospect of this, he took the advice of Arias, with whose real sentiments he was perfectly acquainted, and to whom he confidentially communicated the line of defence which he meant to adopt. But on the day of his appearance, and after he had pleaded for himself, what was his surprise to find the man whom he had trusted rise, at the request of the inquisitors, and in an elaborate speech refute all the arguments which he had produced! When his friends remonstrated with Arias on the impropriety of his conduct, he vindicated himself by alleging that he had adopted the course which was safest for Ruiz and them; but, galled by the censures which they pronounced on the duplicity and baseness with which he had acted, he began to threaten that he would inform against them to the Holy Office. “And if we shall be forced to descend into the arena,” said Constantine to him, “do you expect to be permitted to sit among the spectators?”

Yet this was the man who was made the instrument of conveying the light of divine truth into the convent of San Isidro, when it was immersed in the most profound ignorance and superstition. Without laying aside his characteristic caution, he taught his brethren, that true religion was something very different from what it was vulgarly supposed to be; that it did not consist in chanting matins and vespers, or performing any of those acts of bodily service, in which their time was consumed; and that if they expected to obtain the approbation of God, it behoved them to have recourse to the scriptures to know his mind. By inculcating these things in his sermons and in private conversation, he produced in the breasts of the monks a feeling of dissatisfaction with the circular and monotonous devotions of the cloister, and a spirit of inquiry after a purer and more edifying piety. But from versatility, or with the view of providing for his future safety, he all at once altered his plans, and began to recommend, by doctrine and example, austerities and bodily mortifications more rigid than those which were enjoined by the monastic rules of his order. During Lent he urged his brethren to remove every article of furniture from their cells, to lie on the bare earth, or sleep standing, and to wear shirts of haircloth, with iron girdles, next their bodies. The monastery was for a time thrown into confusion, and some individuals were reduced to a state of mind bordering on distraction. But this attempt to revive superstition produced a reaction which led to the happiest consequences. Suspecting the judgment or the honesty of the individual to whom they had hitherto looked up as an oracle, some of the more intelligent resolved to take the advice of Egidius and his friends in Seville; and having received instructions from them, began to teach the doctrines of the gospel to their brethren in a plain and undisguised manner; so that, within a few years, the whole convent was leavened with the new opinions. ^f360 The person who had the greatest influence in effecting this change was Cassiodoro de Reyna, afterwards celebrated as the translator of the Bible into the language of his country. ^f361

A more decided change on the internal state of this monastery took place in the course of the year 1557. An ample supply of copies of the scriptures and protestant books, in the Spanish language, having been received, they were read with avidity by the monks, and contributed at once to confirm those who had been enlightened, and to extricate others from the prejudices by which they were inthralled. In consequence of this, the prior and other official persons, in concurrence with the fraternity, agreed to reform their religious institute. Their hours of prayer, as they were called, which had been spent in solemn mummeries, were appointed for hearing prelections on the scriptures; prayers for the dead were omitted, or converted into lessons for the living; papal indulgences and pardons, which had formed a lucrative and engrossing traffic, were entirely abolished; images were allowed to remain, without receiving homage; habitual temperance was substituted in the room of superstitious fasting; and novices were instructed in the principles of true piety, instead of being initiated into the idle and debasing habits of monachism. Nothing remained of the old system but the monastic garb and the external ceremony of the mass, which they could not lay aside, without exposing themselves to imminent and inevitable danger. ^f362

The good effects of this change were felt without the monastery of San Isidro del Campo. By their conversation, and by the circulation of books, these zealous monks diffused the knowledge of the truth through the adjacent country, and imparted it to many individuals who resided in towns at a considerable distance from Seville. ^f363 In particular, their exertions were successful in religious houses of the Hieronymite order; and the prior and many of the brotherhood of the Valle de Ecija, situated on the banks of the Xenil, were among the converts to the reformed faith. ^f364 Individuals of the highest reputation belonging to that order incurred the suspicion of heresy. Juan de Regla, prior of Santa Fe, and provincial of the Hieronymites in Spain, was a divine greatly celebrated for his talents and learning, and had assisted at the council of Trent during its second convocation. Being denounced to the inquisition of Saragossa, he was condemned to penance, and the abjuration of eighteen propositions savoring of Lutheranism. After his recantation, he verified the maxim respecting apostates, by his bitter persecution of those who were suspected of holding the new opinions, and was advanced to the office of confessor, first to Charles V. and afterwards to Philip II. ^f365 Francisco de Villalba, a Hieronymite monk of Montamarta, sat in the council of Trent along with Regla, and was preacher to Charles and Philip. He waited on the former in his last moments, and pronounced his funeral oration with such appalling eloquence, that several of his hearers declared that he made their hair stand erect. After the emperor’s death, a process was commenced against Villalba before the inquisition of Toledo, in which he was accused of having taught certain Lutheran errors. At the same time an attempt was made, in a chapter of the monks of St. Jerome, to attaint his blood, by showing that he was of Jewish extraction. This charge was refuted. But it was not so easy to put a stop to his trial before the inquisitors; all that he could obtain, through the intervention of the court, was, that his incarceration should be delayed until additional witnesses should be found; and while matters remained in this state, he was released from persecution, by the hand of death. ^f366

While the reformed doctrine was advancing in Seville and its vicinity, it was not stationary at Valladolid. The protestants in this city had for their first pastor Domingo de Roxas, a young man of good talents, and allied to some of the principal grandees of Spain. His father was Don Juan, first marquis de Poza; his mother was a daughter of the conde de Salinas, and descended from the family of the marquis de la Mota. Being destined for the church, Domingo de Roxas had entered into the order of Dominicans. He was educated under Bartolomé de Carranza, from whom he imbibed opinions more liberal than those which were common either in the colleges or convents of Spain. But the disciple did not confine himself to the timid course pursued by the master. The latter made use of the same language with the reformers respecting justification, and some other articles of faith; but he cautiously accompanied it with explications intended to secure him against the charge of heterodoxy. The former was bolder in his speculations, and less reserved in avowing them. Notwithstanding the warnings which he received from Carranza to be diffident of his own judgment, and submissive to the decisions of the church, De Roxas repudiated as unscriptural the doctrine of purgatory, the mass, and other articles of the established faith. Beside the books of the German reformers, with which he was familiar, he circulated certain writings of his own, and particularly a treatise entitled, Explication of the Articles of Faith; containing a brief statement and defence of the new opinions. By his zealous exertions, many were induced to join themselves to the reformed church in Valladolid, among whom were several individuals belonging to his own family, as well as that of the marquis of Alcagnizes, and other noble houses of Castille. ^f367

The protestants at Valladolid obtained an instructor of greater talents and reputation, though of inferior courage, in Doctor Augustin Cazalla. This learned man was the son of Pedro Cazalla, chief officer of the royal finances, and of Leanor de Vibero, both of them descended from Jewish ancestors. In 1526 a process was commenced before the Inquisition against Constanza Ortiz, the mother of Leanor de Vibero, as having died in a state of relapse to Judaism; but her son-in-law, by his influence with the inquisitor Moriz, prevented her bones from being disturbed, and averted the infamy which otherwise would have been entailed on his family. ^f368 His son, Augustin Cazalla, was born in 1510, and at seventeen years of age had Bartolomé Carranza for his confessor. After attending the college of San Gregorio at Valladolid, he finished his studies at Alcala de Henares, and was admitted a canon of Salamanca. ^f369 The interest possessed by his father, together with his own talents, opened up to him the most flattering prospect of advancement in the church. Being esteemed one of the first pulpit orators in Spain, ^f370 he was in 1545 chosen preacher and almoner to the emperor, whom he accompanied in the course of the following year to Germany. During his residence in that country, he was engaged in opposing the Lutherans, by preaching and private disputation. ^f371

Spanish writers impute the extensive spread of the protestant opinions in the Peninsula, in a great degree, to the circumstance that their learned countrymen, being sent into foreign parts to confute the Lutherans, returned with their minds infected with heresy; an acknowledgment not very honorable to the cause which they maintain, as it implies that their national creed owes its support chiefly to ignorance, and that, when brought to the light of scripture and argument, its ablest defenders were convinced of its weakness and falsehood. “Formerly,” says the author of the Pontifical History, “such Lutheran heretics as were now and then apprehended and committed to the flames, were almost all either strangers,—Germans, Flemings, and English, or, if Spaniards, they were mean people and of a bad race; but in these late years, we have seen the prisons, scaffolds, and stakes, crowded with persons of noble birth, and, what is still more to be deplored, with persons illustrious, in the opinion of the world, for letters and piety. The cause of this, and many other evils, was the affection which our catholic princes cherished for Germany, England, and other countries without the pale of the church, which induced them to send learned men and preachers from Spain to these places, in the hopes that, by their sermons, they would be brought back to the truth. But unhappily, this measure was productive of little good fruit; for of those who went abroad to give light to others, some returned home blind themselves, and being deceived, or puffed up with ambition, or a desire to be thought vastly learned, and improved by their residence in foreign countries, they followed the example of the heretics with whom they had disputed.” ^f372 This important fact is confirmed by the testimony of contemporary protestant writers, with a particular reference to those divines whom Philip II. brought along with him into England, on his marriage with queen Mary. “It is much more notable,” says the venerable Pilkington, “that we have seen come to pass in our days, that the Spaniards sent for into the realm on purpose to suppress the gospel, as soon as they were returned home, replenished many parts of their country with the same truth of religion to the which before they were utter enemies.” ^f373 It is probable that these authors include in their statement those divines who were accused to the Inquisition, and thrown into prison, on suspicion of heresy, though they were averse to Lutheranism, or, at most, favorably inclined to it in some points connected with the doctrine of justification. But there are at least two striking instances of the truth of their remark. It was during his attendance on the emperor in Germany, as we have already seen, that Constantine Ponce de la Fuente decidedly embraced the reformed faith; and Augustin de Cazalla became a convert to it in the same circumstances. ^f374

On returning to Spain in 1552, Cazalla took up his residence at Salamanca, where he remained for three years. But he kept up an epistolary correspondence with the protestants of Seville; and his office of royal chaplain leading him occasionally to visit Valladolid, he was induced by Domingo de Roxas to fix his abode in this city. He still continued, however, to be regarded as a patron of the established faith, and was consulted on the most important questions of an ecclesiastical kind. Soon after his return to Spain he was nominated by the emperor as a member of a junta of divines and lawyers, who were called to give their opinion on the conduct of Julius III. in transferring the general council from Trent to Bologna; on which occasion he joined with his colleagues in declaring that the pope was actuated in that measure more by personal considerations than regard to the good of the church. ^f375 He also preached at different times before Charles V. after his retirement into the convent of St. Juste, when he had for hearers the princess Joanna, who governed Spain in the absence of her brother Philip II., together with other members of the royal family. In spite of the caution which he used on these occasions, his real sentiments were discovered by the more intelligent of those who frequented the court; but they were unwilling to fix the stigma of heresy on a person of so great reputation, and could not permit themselves to believe that he would rush upon certain danger by transgressing the line of prudence which he appeared to have prescribed to himself. ^f376 In this opinion, however, they were deceived. After his settlement at Valladolid his mother’s house became the ordinary place in which the protestant church assembled for worship. The greater part of his relations were among its members. He could not resist the pressing requests which were made to him to take the charge of its spiritual interests; and favored with his talents and the authority of his name, it increased daily in numbers and respectability. ^f377

At Valladolid, as at Seville, the reformed doctrine penetrated into the monasteries. It was embraced by a great portion of the nuns of Santa Clara, and of the Cistercian order of San Belen; ^f378 and had its converts among the class of devout women, called in Spain beatas, who are bound by no particular rule, but addict themselves to works of charity. ^f379

The protestant opinions spread in every direction round Valladolid. They had converts in almost all the towns, and in many of the villages, of the ancient kingdom of Leon. In the town of Toro they were embraced by the licentiate Antonio Herezuelo, an advocate of great spirit, and by individuals belonging to the houses of the marquises de la Mota and d’Alcagnizes. ^f380 In the city of Zamora the protestants were headed by Don Christobal de Padilla, a cavalier, who had undertaken the task of tutor to a noble family of that place, that he might have the better opportunity of propagating the knowledge of the truth. ^f381 The reformed opinions were also introduced into Aldea del Palo and Pedroso, in the diocese of Zamora. In the last of these villages they had numerous converts, who enjoyed the instructions of Pedro de Cazalla, their parish priest. ^f382 Their spread was equally extensive in the diocese of Palencia. In the episcopal city they were taught by Doctor Alfonso Perez, a priest, and patronized by Don Pedro Sarmiento, a cavalier of the order of Santiago, commander of Quintana, and a son of the marquis de Roxas. The parish priest of the neighboring villages of Hormigos belonged to the family of Cazalla, which was wholly protestant. ^f383 From Valladolid, the new opinions were diffused through Old Castile to Soria in the diocese of Osma, and to Logrono on the borders of Navarre. In the last-named town they were embraced by numbers, including the individual who was at the head of the custom-house, and the parish priest of Villamediana in the neighbourhood of Logrono. ^f384

The propagation of the reformed doctrine in all these places was owing in a great degree to Don Carlos de Seso. This distinguished nobleman was born at Verona in Italy. Having performed important services for Charles V., he was held in great honor by that monarch, through whose interest he obtained in marriage Donna Isabella de Castilla, a descendant of the royal family of Castile and Leon. De Seso was not less elevated by dignity of character, mental accomplishments and decorum of manners, than by his birth and connexions. While he resided at Valladolid he connected himself with the protestants in that city. At Toro, of which he was corregidor, or mayor, at Zamora, and at Palencia, he zealously promoted the cause of reformation, by the circulation of books and by personal instructions. After his marriage, he settled at Villamediana, and was most successful in diffusing religious knowledge in the city of Logrono, and in all the surrounding country. ^f385

The reformed cause did not make so great progress in New Castile, but it was embraced by many in different parts of that country, and particularly in the city of Toledo. ^f386 It had also adherents in the provinces of Granada, ^f387 of Murcia, ^f388 and of Valencia. ^f389 But, with the exception of the places around Seville and Valladolid, nowhere were they more numerous than in Aragon. They had formed settlements in Saragossa, Huesca, Balbastro, and many other towns. ^f390 This being the case, it may appear singular that we have no particular account of the protestants in the eastern parts of Spain.

But one reason serves to account for both facts. The inhabitants of Bearn were generally protestants; and many of them, crossing the Pyrenees, spread themselves over Aragon, and, at the same time that they carried on trade, found the opportunity of circulating their religious books and tenets among the natives. When violent measures were adopted for crushing the Reformation in Spain, the greater part of them made good their retreat, without difficulty and without noise, to their native country, where the proselytes they had made found an asylum along with them; whereas their brethren who were situated in the interior of the kingdom either fell into the hands of their prosecutors, or, escaping with great difficulty, were dispersed over all parts of Europe; and thus the tragical fate of the one class, and the narrow and next to miraculous escape of the other, by exciting deep interest in the public mind, caused their names and their history to be inquired after and recorded.

By the facts which have been brought forward, the reader will be enabled to form an estimate of the extent to which the reformed doctrine was propagated in Spain, and of the respectability, as well as number, of its disciples. Perhaps there never was in any other country so large a proportion of persons, illustrious either from their rank or their learning, among the converts to a new and proscribed religion. This circumstance helps to account for the singular fact, that a body of dissidents, who could not amount to fewer than two thousand persons, scattered over an extensive country, and loosely connected with one another, should have been able to communicate their sentiments, and hold their private meetings, for a number of years, without being detected by a court so jealous and vigilant as that of the Inquisition. In forming a judgment of the tendency which existed at this time in the minds of Spaniards toward the reformed doctrine, we must take into account, not only the numbers who embraced it, but also the peculiar and almost unprecedented difficulties which resisted its progress. At the beginning of Christianity, the apostles had for some time the external liberty of preaching the gospel; and when persecution forced them to flee from one city, they found “an effectual door” opened to them in another. Luther, and his co-adjutors in Germany, were enabled to proclaim their doctrine from the pulpit and the press, under the protection of princes and free cities, possessing an authority within their own territories which was independent of the emperor. The reformers of Scotland enjoyed a similar advantage under their feudal chiefs. The breach of Henry VIII. with the pope, on a domestic ground, gave the people of England the Bible in their own language, which they were at least permitted to hear read from the pulpits, to which it was chained. In France, a Hugonot could not be seized without the concurrence and orders of the magistrates, who sometimes proved reluctant and dilatory. And the same check was imposed on the violence of a persecuting priesthood, in many of the Italian states. But not one of these advantages was enjoyed by the friends of the Reformation in Spain, where the slightest expression of public opinion in favor of the truth was prevented or instantly put down by a terrific tribunal, armed with both swords, and present at once in every part of the kingdom. That flame must have been intense, and supplied with ample materials of combustion, which could continue to burn and to spread in all directions, though it was closely pent up, and the greatest care was taken to search out and secure every aperture and crevice by which it might find a vent, or come into communication with the external atmosphere. Had these obstructions to the progress of the reformed doctrine in Spain been removed, though only in part and for a short time, it would have burst into a flame, which resistance would only have increased, and which, spreading over the Peninsula, would have consumed the Inquisition, the hierarchy, the papacy, and the despotism by which they had been reared and were upheld. These were not the sanguine anticipations of enthusiastic friends to the Reformation, but the deliberately-expressed sentiments of its decided enemies. ^f391 “Had not the Inquisition taken care in time,” says one of them, “to put a stop to these preachers, the protestant religion would have run through Spain like wildfire; people of all ranks, and of both sexes, having been wonderfully disposed to receive it.” ^f392 The testimony of another popish writer is equally strong. “All the prisoners in the inquisitions of Valladolid, Seville, and Toledo, were persons abundantly well-qualified. I shall here pass over their names in silence, that I may not, by their bad fame, stain the honor of their ancestors, and the nobility of the several illustrious families which were infected with this poison. And as these prisoners were persons thus qualified, so their number was so great, that had the stop put to that evil been delayed two or three months longer, I am persuaded all Spain would have been set in a flame by them.” ^f393 I subjoin the reflection of a protestant author, who resided for a considerable time in Spain, and, feeling a deep interest in this portion of its history, drew up a short account of its protestant martyrs. “So powerful (says he) were the doctrines of the Reformation in those days, that no prejudices nor interests were any where strong enough to hinder piously-disposed minds, after they came thoroughly to understand them, from embracing them. And that the same doctrines have not still the same divine force, is neither owing to their being grown older, nor to popery’s not being so gross, nor to any change in people’s natural dispositions, but is owning purely to the want of the same zeal for those doctrines in their professors, and especially for the three great doctrines of the Reformation, which the following martyrs sealed with their blood: which were, that the pope is antichrist; that the worship of the church of Rome is idolatrous; and that a sinner is justified in the sight of God by faith, and through Christ’s and not through his own merits. ^f394

CHAPTER 7

SUPPRESSION OF THE REFORMATION IN SPAIN

WE cannot condemn, either upon the principles of nature or revelation, those individuals who, finding themselves in the utmost peril of their lives, chose to forsake their native country, and to seek abroad for a place in which they were at liberty to worship God according to their consciences. Yet it was this step on the part of some of the Spanish protestants which led to the discovery of their brethren who remained behind. Their sudden disappearance led to inquiries as to the cause, and the knowledge of this excited suspicions that they were not the only persons who were disaffected to the religion of their country. The divines attached to the court of Philip II. at Brussels kept a strict watch upon the refugees from Spain who had settled in Geneva and different places of Germany; and, having got possession of their secrets by means of spies, conveyed information to the inquisitors, that a large quantity of heretical books had been sent to Spain, and that the protestant doctrine was spreading rapidly in the kingdom. This intelligence was received in the close of the year 1557. ^f395

Roused from their security, the inquisitors instantly put their extensive police in motion, and were not long in discovering the individual who had been active in introducing the heretical books. Juan Hernandez, in consequence of information received from a smith, to whom he had shown a copy of the New Testament, was apprehended and thrown into prison. ^f396 He did not seek to conceal his sentiments, and gloried in the fact that he had contributed to the illumination of his countrymen by furnishing them with the scriptures in their native tongue. But the inquisitors were disappointed in their expectations that they had formed from his apprehension. His life indeed was in their hands, and they could dispose of it according to their pleasure; but the blood of an obscure individual appeared, in their eyes, altogether inadequate to wash away the disgrace which they had incurred by their failure in point of vigilance, or to expiate the enormous crime which had defiled the land. What they aimed at was, to obtain from the prisoner such information respecting his associates as would enable them “at once to crush the viper’s nest,” (to use their own words) and set them at ease for the future. But they found themselves mortifyingly baffled in all their attempts to accomplish this object. In vain they had recourse to those arts of deceit in which they were so deeply practiced, in order to draw from Hernandez his secret. In vain they employed promises and threats, examinations and cross-examinations, sometimes in the hall of audience, and at other times in his cell, into which they sent alternately their avowed agents, and persons who “feigned themselves just men,” and friendly to the reformed doctrine. When questioned concerning his own faith, he answered frankly; and though destitute of the advantages of a liberal education, he defended himself with boldness, silencing, by his knowledge of the scriptures alone, his judges, together with the learned men whom they brought to confute him. But when asked to declare who were his religious instructors and companions, he refused to utter a word. Nor were they more successful when they had recourse to that horrid engine which had often wrung secrets from the stoutest hearts, and made them betray their nearest and best-beloved friends. Hernandez displayed a firmness and heroism altogether above his physical strength and his station in life. During the three years complete that he was kept in prison, he was frequently put to the torture, in every form and with all the aggravations of cruelty which his persecutors, incensed at his obstinacy, could inflict or devise; but, on every fresh occasion, he appeared before them with unsubdued fortitude; and when led, or rather dragged, from the place of torment to his cell, he returned with an air of triumph, chanting this refrain, in his native tongue:

Vencidos van los frayles, vencidos van: Corridos van los lobos, corridos van. ^f397 Conquered return the friars, conquered return: Scattered return the wolves, scattered return.

At length the inquisitors got possession of the secret which they were so eager to know. This was obtained at Seville, by means of the superstitious fears of one member of the protestant church, and the treachery of another, who had for some time acted as a concealed emissary of the Inquisition. ^f398 At Valladolid, it was obtained by one of those infernal arts, which that tribunal, whenever it served its purposes, has never scrupled to employ. Juan Garcia, a goldsmith, who had been in the habit of summoning the protestants to sermon; and aware of the influence which superstition exerted over the mind of his wife, he concealed from her the place and times of assembling. Being gained by her confessor, this demon in woman’s shape dogged her husband one night, and having ascertained the place of meeting, communicated the fact to the Inquisition. The traitress received her earthly reward in an annuity for life, paid from the public funds! ^f399

Having made these important discoveries, the council of the Supreme dispatched messengers to the several tribunals of inquisition through the kingdom, directing them to make inquiries with all secrecy within their respective jurisdictions, and to be prepared, on receiving further instructions, to act in concert. The familiars were employed in tracing out the remoter ramifications of heresy; and guards were planted at convenient places, to intercept and seize such persons as might attempt to escape. These precautions having been taken, orders were issued to the proper agents; and by a simultaneous movement, the protestants were seized at the same time in Seville, in Valladolid, and in all the surrounding country. In Seville and its neighborhood two hundred persons were apprehended in one day; and, in consequence of information resulting from their examinations, the number soon increased to eight hundred. The castle of Triana, the common prisons, the convents, and even private houses, were crowded with the victims. Eighty persons were committed to prison in Valladolid, and the number of individuals seized by the other tribunals was in proportion. ^f400 When the alarm was first given, many were so thunderstruck and appalled as to be unable to take the least step for securing their safety. Some ran to the house of the Inquisition, and informed against themselves, without knowing what they were doing; like persons who, rushing out of a house which has taken fire in the night-time, precipitate themselves into a devouring flood. Others, in attempting to make their escape, were pursued and overtaken; and some, who had reached a protestant country, becoming secure, fell into the snares laid for them by the spies of the Holy Office, were forcibly carried off, and brought back to Spain. Among those who made good their retreat, was the licentiate Zafra, formerly mentioned, who was peculiarly obnoxious to the inquisitors. He was apprehended among the first, but, during the confusion caused by want of room to contain the prisoners, contrived to make his escape, and to conceal himself, until he found a favorable opportunity of retiring into Germany. ^f401

The reader will recollect the reform which the monks of San Isidro had introduced into their convent. ^f402 Desirable as this change was in itself, and commendable as was their conduct in adopting it, it brought them into a situation both delicate and painful. They could not throw off the monastic forms entirely, without exposing themselves to the fury of their enemies; nor yet could they retain them, without being conscious of acting to a certain degree hypocritically, and giving countenance to a pernicious system of superstition, by which their country was at once deluded and oppressed. In this dilemma, they held a consultation on the propriety of deserting the convent, and retiring to some foreign land, in which, at the expense of sacrificing their worldly emoluments and spending their lives in poverty, they might enjoy peace of mind and the freedom of religious worship. The attempt was of the most hazardous kind, and difficulties presented themselves to any plan which could be suggested for carrying it into execution. How could so many persons, well known in Seville and all around it, after having left one of the most celebrated monasteries in Spain deserted, expect to accomplish so long a journey, without being discovered? If, on the other hand, a few of them should make the attempt and succeed, would not this step bring the lives of the remainder into the greatest jeopardy; especially as the suspicions of the inquisitors, which had for a considerable time been laid asleep, had been lately aroused? This last consideration appeared so strong that they unanimously resolved to remain where they were, and commit themselves to the disposal of an all-powerful and gracious providence. But the aspect of matters becoming hourly darker and more alarming, another chapter was held, at which it was agreed that it would be tempting instead of trusting providence to adhere to their former resolution, and that therefore every one should be left at liberty to adopt that course which in the emergency appeared to his own mind best and most advisable. Accordingly, twelve of their number left the monastery, and taking different routes, got safely out of Spain, and at the end of twelve months met in Geneva, which they had previously agreed upon as the place of their rendezvous. They were gone only a few days when the storm of persecution burst on the heads not only of their brethren who remained in San Isidro, but of all their religious connexions in Spain. ^f403

It was in the beginning of the year 1558 that this calamitous event befell Spain. Previously to that period Charles V., having relinquished his schemes of worldly ambition, and resigned the empire in favor of his brother Ferdinand, and his hereditary dominions to his son Philip, had retired into the convent of St. Juste, situated in the province of Estremadura, where he spent the remainder of his days in the society and devotional exercises of monks. Several historians of no inconsiderable reputation have asserted, that Charles, during his retreat, became favorable to the sentiments of the protestants of Germany, that he died in their faith, that Philip charged the Holy Office to investigate the truth of this report, and that he had at one time serious thoughts of disinterring the bones of his father as those of a heretic. ^f404 Various causes may be assigned for the currency of these rumors. Charles had three years before been involved in a dispute with Paul IV., who had threatened him with excommunication; Constantine Ponce and Augustin Cazalla, two of his chaplains, had embraced the protestant opinions; his confessor De Regla had been forced to abjure them; and Carranza and Villalba, who exhorted him on his deathbed, were soon after denounced to the Inquisition. To these presumptions it may be added, that the manner in which Philip treated his son Don Carlos, and the known fact that he never scrupled to employ the Inquisition as an engine for accomplishing purposes purely political, if not domestic also, have induced historians, from supposing him capable of any crime, to impute to him those of which he was never guilty. ^f405 There is the best reason for believing that Charles, instead of being more favorably disposed, became more averse to the protestants in his latter days, and that, so far from repenting of the conduct which he had pursued towards them, his only regret was that he had not treated them with greater severity. When informed that Lutheranism was spreading in Spain, and that a number of persons had been apprehended under suspicion of being infected with it, he wrote letters, from the monastery of St. Juste, to his daughter Joanna, governess of Spain, to Juan de Vega, president of the council of Castile, and to the inquisitor general, charging them to exert their respective powers with all possible vigor “in seizing the whole party, and causing them all to be burnt, after using every means to make them Christians before their punishment; for he was persuaded that none of them would become sincere catholics, so irresistible was their propensity to dogmatize.” He afterwards sent Luis Quixada, his major-domo, to urge the execution of these measures. ^f406 In conversation with the prior and monks of the convent, he took great credit to himself for having resisted the pressing solicitations of the protestant princes to read their books and admit their divines to an audience; although they promised on that condition to march with all their forces, at one time against the king of France, and at another against the Turk. ^f407 The only thing for which he blamed himself was his leniency to them, and particularly keeping faith with the heresiarch. Speaking of the charge he had given to the inquisitors respecting the heretics in Spain, “If they do not condemn them to the fire,” said he, “they will commit a great fault, as I did in permitting Luther to live. Though I spared him solely on the ground of the safe-conduct I had sent him, and the promise I had made at a time when I expected to suppress the heretics by other means, I confess nevertheless that I did wrong in this, because I was not bound to keep my promise to that heretic, as he had offended a master greater than I, even God himself. I was at liberty then, yea I ought, to have forgotten my word, and avenged the injury he had done to God. If he had injured me only, I should have kept my promise faithful; but, in consequence of my not having taken away his life, heresy continued to make progress, whereas his death, I am persuaded, would have stifled it in its birth.” ^f408 Nor does this rest merely on the evidence of reported conversations. In his testament, made in the Low countries, he charged his son “to be obedient to the commandments of holy mother church, and especially to favor and countenance the holy office of the Inquisition against heretical pravity and apostasy.” And in a codicil to it, executed in the convent of St. Juste a few weeks before his death, after mentioning the instructions he had formerly given on this subject, and the confidence which he placed in his son for carrying them into execution, he adds; “Therefore I entreat him and recommend to him with all possible and due earnestness, and moreover command him as a father, and by the obedience which he owes me, carefully to attend to this, as an object which is essential and nearly concerns him, that heretics be pursued and punished as their crime deserves, without excepting any who are guilty, and without showing any regard to entreaties, or to rank or quality. And that my intentions may be carried into full effect, I charge him to favour and cause to be favoured the holy Inquisition, which is the means of preventing and correcting so many evils, as I have enjoined in my testament; that so he may fulfil his duty as a prince, and that our Lord may prosper him in his reign, and protect him against his enemies, to my great peace and contentment.” ^f409

But though it appears from these facts that the imprisoned protestants had nothing to hope from Charles V., yet their calamities were aggravated by his retirement and the succession of Philip II. That bigotry which in the father was paralysed by the incipient dotage which had inflamed it, was combined in the son with all the vigor of youth, and with a temper naturally gloomy and unrelenting. Other circumstances conspired to seal the doom of the reformers in Spain. The wars which had so long raged between that country and France were terminated by the treaty of Chateau Cambresis, and the peace between the rival kingdoms was ratified by the marriage of Philip to the eldest daughter of the French king. Previously to that event the dissension between the Spanish monarch and the court of Rome had been amicably adjusted. The papal throne was filled at this time by Paul IV., a furious persecutor, and determined supporter of the Inquisition. And the office of inquisitor general in Spain was held by Francisco Valdes, a prelate who had already distinguished himself from his two immediate predecessors by the severity of his administration, and whose worldly passions were unmitigated by the advanced age to which he had arrived. The supreme pontiff, the inquisitor general, and the monarch, were alike disposed to adopt the most illegal and sanguinary measures for extinguishing heresy in the Peninsula.

When only sixteen years of age, Philip gave a proof of his extreme devotion to the Inquisition, and of the principles on which his future reign was to be conducted. In the year 1543 the marquis de Terranova, viceroy of Sicily, ordered two familiars of the Holy Office to be brought before the ordinary tribunals, for certain crimes of which they were guilty. Though this was in perfect accordance with a law which, at the request of the inhabitants, Charles V. had promulgated, suspending for ten years the powers of the inquisitors to judge in such causes within the island, yet a complaint was made, on the part of the familiars, to Philip, then acting as regent of the Spanish dominions, who addressed a letter to the viceroy, exhorting him, as an obedient son of the church, to give satisfaction to the holy fathers whom he had offended. The consequence was, that the marquis, who was grand constable and admiral of Naples, one of the first peers of Spain, and sprung from the royal stock of Aragon, felt himself obliged to do penance in the church of the Dominican monastery, and to pay a hundred ducats to the catchpolls of the Inquisition, whose vices he had presumed to correct. ^f410 During the regency of the prince, the Spanish inquisitors in more than one instance obtained the revival of those powers which had been suspended, as at once injurious to the civil judicatures and to the liberties of the subject. ^f411

During the negotiation in 1557 between the court of Spain and the Roman see, which ended so disgracefully to the former, Philip wrote to his general, the duke of Alva, “that Rome was a prey to great calamities at the time of his birth, and it would be wrong in him to subject it to similar evils at the commencement of his reign; it was therefore his will that peace should be speedily concluded on terms no way dishonorable to his Holiness; for he would rather part with the rights of his crown than touch in the slightest degree those of the holy see.” ^f412 In pursuance of these instructions, Alva, as viceroy of Naples, was obliged to fall on his knees, and, in his own name, as well as that of his master and the emperor, to beg pardon of the pope for all the offenses specified in the treaty of peace; upon which they were absolved from the censures which they had respectively incurred. After this ceremony was over, the haughty and gratified pontiff, turning to the cardinals, told them “that he had now rendered to the holy see the most important service it would ever receive; and that the example which the Spanish monarch had just given would teach popes henceforth how to abase the pride of kings, who knew not the extent of that obeisance which they legitimately owed to the heads of the church.” ^f413 With good reason might Charles V. say in his testament, when leaving his dying charge to extirpate heresy, “that he was persuaded the king his son would use every possible effort to crush so great an evil with all the severity and promptitude which it required.” ^f414

Paul IV. acceded with the utmost readiness to the applications which were now addressed to him by Philip, in concurrence with Valdes, the inquisitor general, for such enlargements of the authority of the Holy Office as would enable it to compass the condemnation of the heretics who were in prison, and to seize and convict others. On the 15th of February 1558 he issued a summary brief, renewing all the decisions of councils and sovereign pontiffs against heretics and schismatics; declaring that this measure was rendered necessary by the information he had received of the daily and increasing progress of heresy; and charging Valdes to prosecute the guilty, and inflict upon them the punishments decreed by the constitutions, particularly that which deprived them of all their dignities and functions, “whether they were bishops, archbishops, patriarchs, cardinals or legates,—barons, counts, marquises, dukes, princes, kings or emperors.” ^f415 This sweeping brief, from whose operation none was exempted but his Holiness, was made public in Spain with the approbation of the monarch, soon after he himself and his father had been threatened with excommunication and dethronement. Valdes, in concurrence with the council of the Supreme, prepared instructions to all the tribunals of the Inquisition, directing them, among other things, to search for heretical books, and to make a public auto-de-fe of such as they should discover, including many works not mentioned in any former prohibitory index. ^f416 This was also the epoch of that terrible law of Philip which ordained the punishment of death, with confiscation of goods, against all who sold, bought, read, or possessed any book that was forbidden by the Holy Office. ^f417 To ferret the poor heretics from their lurking-places, and to drive them into the toils of the bloody statute, Paul IV., on the 6th of January 1559, issued a bull, enjoining all confessors strictly to examine their penitents of whatever rank, from the lowest to that of cardinal or king, and to charge them to denounce all whom they know to be guilty of this offence, under the pain of the greater excommunication, from which none but the pope or the inquisitor general could release them; and subjecting such confessors as neglected this duty to the same punishment that was threatened against their penitents. ^f418 On the following day the pope declared, in full consistory, that the heresy of Luther and other innovators being propagated in Spain, he had reasons to suspect that it had been embraced by some bishops; on which account he authorized the grand inquisitor, during two years from that day, to hold an inquest on all bishops, archbishops, patriarchs, and primates of that kingdom, to commence their processes, and, in case he had grounds to suspect that they intended to make their escape, to seize and detain them, on condition of his giving notice of this immediately to the sovereign pontiff, and conveying the prisoners, as soon as possible, to Rome. ^f419

As if these measures had not been calculated sufficiently to multiply denunciations, Philip seconded them by an edict renewing a royal ordinance, which had fallen into desuetude or been suspended, and which entitled informers to the fourth part of the property of those found guilty of heresy. ^f420 But the existing code of laws, even after those which had been long disabled or forgotten were revived, was too mild for the rulers of this period. Statutes still more barbarous and unjust were enacted. At the request of Philip and Valdes, the pope, on the 4th of February 1559, gave forth a brief, authorizing the council of the Supreme, in derogation of the standing laws of the Inquisition, to deliver over to the secular arm those who were convicted of having taught the Lutheran opinions, even though they had not relapsed, and were willing to recant. It has been justly observed, that though history had had nothing else with which to reproach Philip II. and the inquisitor general Valdes, than their having solicited this bull, it would have been sufficient to consign their names to infamy. Neither Ferdinand V. and Torquemada, nor Charles V. and Manriquez, had pushed matters to this length. They never thought of burning alive, or subjecting to capital punishment, persons who were convicted of falling into heresy for the first time, and who confessed their errors; nor did they think themselves warranted to proceed to this extremity by the suspicion that such confessions were dictated by the fear of death. This was the last invention of tyranny, inflamed into madness by hatred and dread of the truth. Were it necessary to point out aggravations of this iniquity, we might state that the punishment was to be inflicted for actions done before the law was enacted; and that it was unblushingly applied to those who had long been immured in the cells of the Inquisition. ^f421

The next object was to find fit agents for carrying these sanguinary statutes into execution. It is one of the wise arrangements of a merciful providence for thwarting designs hurtful to human society, and for inspiring their authors with the dread of ultimate discomfiture, that wicked men and tyrants are disposed to suspect the most slavish and devoted instruments of their will. The individuals at the head of the inquisitorial tribunals of Seville and Valladolid had incurred the suspicions of Valdes, as guilty of culpable negligence, if not of connivance at the protestants, who had held their conventicles in the two principal cities of the kingdom, almost with open doors. To guard against any thing of this kind for the future, and to provide for the multiplicity of business which the late disclosures had created, he delegated his powers of inquisitor general to two individuals, in whom he could place entire confidence, Gonzales Munebrega, archbishop of Tarragona, and Pedro de la Gasca, archbishop of Palencia, who fixed their residence, the former at Seville, and the latter at Valladolid, in the character of vice-inquisitors general. ^f422 Both substitutes proved themselves worthy of the trust reposed in them; but the conduct of Munebrega gratified the highest expectations of Valdes and Philip. When engaged in superintending the examinations of the prisoners, and giving directions as to the torture which to which they should be put, he was accustomed to indulge in the most profane and cruel raillery, saying that these heretics had the commandment, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” so deeply seated in their hearts, that it was necessary to tear the flesh from their bones, to make them inform against their brethren. During the intervals of business, he was to be seen sailing in his barge on the river, or walking in the gardens of the Triana, dressed in purple and silk, accompanied with a train of servants, surrounded by wretched poetasters, and followed by hired crowds, who at one time saluted him with their huzzas, and at another insulted the protestants, whom they descried through the grated windows of the castle. ^f423 An anecdote which is told of him, though trifling compared with the horrors of that time, deserves to be repeated as a proof of the insolence of office, and one among many instances of the shameless manner in which the inquisitors converted their authority into an instrument of gratifying their meanest passions. A servant of the vice-inquisitor general snatched a stick one day from the gardener’s son, who was amusing himself in one of the avenues. The father, attracted by the cries of his child, came to the spot, and having in vain desired the servant to restore the stick, wrested it from his hand, which was slightly injured in the struggle. A complaint was instantly made to Munebrega; and the conduct of the gardener being found sufficient to fasten on him a suspicion of heresy de levi, he was thrown into prison, where he lay nine months heavily ironed. ^f424

The reader will mistake very much, if he suppose that the holy fathers undertook all these extraordinary services from pure zeal for the truth, or under the idea that their superabundant and supererogatory labors would secure to them an unseen and future recompense. If heretics were visited in this life with exemplary punishment for the sins of which they had been guilty, why should not the defenders of the faith have “their good things” in this life? To meet the expenses of this domestic crusade, the pope, at the request of the inquisitors, authorized them to appropriate to their use certain ecclesiastical revenues, and granted them, in addition, an extraordinary subsidy of a hundred thousand ducats of gold, to be raised by the clergy. The bull issued for that purpose stated, that the heresy of Luther had made an alarming progress in Spain, where it was embraced by many rich and powerful individuals; that, with the view of putting a stop to it, the inquisitor general had been obliged to commit to prison a multitude of suspected persons, to increase the number of judges in the provincial tribunals, to employ supernumerary familiars, and to purchase and keep in readiness a supply of horses in the different parts of the kingdom for the pursuit of fugitives; and that the ordinary revenue of the Holy Office was quite insufficient to defray the expenses of so enlarged an establishment, and at the same time to maintain such of the prisoners as were destitute of means to support themselves. Zealous as the clergy in general were against heresy, they fretted exceedingly against this tax on their income; and after the Inquisition had succeeded in exterminating the Lutherans, it needed to direct its thunders, and even to call in the assistance of the secular arm, against certain refractory canons, who resisted the payment of the sums in which they had been assessed. ^f425

While these preparations were going on, it is not easy to conceive, but easier to conceive than describe, the situation and feelings of the captive protestants. To have had the prospect of an open trial, though accompanied with the certainty of being convicted and doomed to an ignominious death, would have been relief to their minds. But, instead of this, they were condemned to a protracted confinement, during which their melancholy solitude was only broken in upon by attempts to bereave them of their best consolation; distracted, on the one hand, by the entreaties of their disconsolate friends, who besought them to purchase their lives by an early recantation, and harassed, on the other, by the endless examinations to which they were subjected by their persecutors; assured to-day that they would escape provided they made an ingenuous confession of all they knew, and told to-morrow that the confessions which they had made in confidence had only served to confirm the suspicions entertained of their sincerity; hearing, at one time, of some unhappy individual who was added to their number, and receiving, at another time, the still more distressing intelligence that a fellow-prisoner, entangled by sophistry, or overcome by torments, had consented to abjure the truth. A milder tribunal would have been satisfied with making an example of the ringleaders, or would have brought out the guilty for execution as soon as their trials could be overtaken. The policy of Philip II. and his inquisitors was different. They wished to strike terror into the minds of the whole nation, and exhibit to Europe a grand spectacle of zeal for the catholic faith, and vengeance against heresy. Filled with those fears which ever haunt the minds of tyrants, they imagined that heresy had spread more extensively than was really the case, and therefore sought to extort from their prisoners such confessions as would lead to the discovery of those who still remained concealed, or who might be in the slightest degree infected with the new opinions. While they had not the most distant intention of extending mercy to those who professed themselves penitent, and had already procured a law which warranted them to withhold it, they were nevertheless anxious to secure a triumph to the catholic faith, by having it in their power to read, in the public auto-de-fe, the forced retractions of those who had embraced the truth. With this view, the greater part of the protestants were detained in prison for two, and some of them for three years, during which their bodily health was broken, or their spirit subdued, by the rigor of confinement and the severity of torture. The consequence of this treatment was, that the constancy of some of them was shaken, while others ended their days by a lingering and secret martyrdom.

Among those of the last class was Constantine Ponce de la Fuente. Exposed as he was to the hatred of those who envied his popularity, and the jealousy of those who looked upon him as the ablest supporter of the new opinions, ^f426 it is not to be supposed that this learned man could escape the storm that overwhelmed the reformed church in Spain. He was among the first who were apprehended, when the familiars were let loose on the protestants of Seville. ^f427 When information was conveyed to Charles V. in the monastery of St. Juste, that his favorite chaplain was thrown into prison, he exclaimed, “If Constantine be a heretic, he is a great one!” and when assured, at a subsequent period, by one of his inquisitors, that he had been found guilty, he replied with a sigh, “You cannot condemn a greater!” ^f428

The joy which the inquisitors felt at obtaining possession of the person of a man whom they had long eyed with jealousy, was in no small degree abated by the difficulties which they found in the way of procuring his conviction. Knowing the perilous circumstances in which he was placed, he had for some time back exercised the utmost circumspection over his words and actions. His confidential friends, as we have already stated, were always few and select. His penetration enabled him with a single glance to detect the traitor under his mask; and his knowledge of human nature kept him from committing himself to the weak though honest partisans of the reformed faith. The veneration and esteem in which he was held by his friends was so great, that they would have died sooner than compromise his safety by their confessions. When brought before his judges, he maintained his innocence, challenged the public prosecutor to show that he had done any thing criminal, and repelled the charges brought against him with such ability and success as threw his adversaries into the greatest perplexity. There was every probability that he would finally baffle their efforts to convict him of heresy, when an unforeseen occurrence obliged him to abandon the line of defence which he had hitherto pursued. Dona Isabella Martinia, a widow lady of respectability and opulence, had been thrown into prison as a suspected heretic, and her property confiscated. The inquisitors being informed, by the treachery of a servant in the family, that her son, Francisco Bertran, had contrived, before the inventory was taken, to secrete certain coffers containing valuable effects, sent their alguazil, Luis Sotelo, to demand them. As soon as the alguazil entered the house, Bertran, in great trepidation, told him he knew his errand, and would deliver up what he wanted, on condition that he screened him from the vengeance of the Inquisition. Conducting the alguazil to a retired part of the building, and breaking down a thin partition-wall, he disclosed a quantity of books which Constantine Ponce had deposited with his mother for the purpose of security, some time before his imprisonment. Sotelo signified that these were not exactly what he was in search of, but that he would take charge of them, along with the coffers which he was instructed to carry to the Holy Office. Dazzling as were the jewels of Isabella Martinia, the eyes of the inquisitors glistened still more at the sight of the books of Constantine. On examining them, they found, beside various heretical works, a volume of his own handwriting, in which the points of controversy between the church of Rome and the protestants were discussed at considerable length. In it the author treated of the true church according to the principles of Luther and Calvin, and, by an application of the different marks which the scriptures gave for discriminating it, showed that the papal church had no claim to the title. In a similar way he decided the questions respecting justification, the merit of good works, the sacraments, indulgences, and purgatory; calling this last the wolf’s head, and an invention of the monks to feed idle bellies. When the volume was shown to Constantine, he acknowledged at once that it was in his handwriting, and contained his sentiments. “It is unnecessary for you (added he) to produce further evidence: you have there a candid and full confession of my belief. I am in your hands; do with me as seemeth to you good.” ^f429

No arts or threatenings could prevail on him to give any information respecting his associates. With the view of inducing the other prisoners to plead guilty, the agents of the Holy Office circulated the report that he had informed against them when put to the question; and they even suborned witnesses to depone that they had heard his cries on the rack, though he never endured that inhuman mode of examination. By what motives the judges were restrained from subjecting him to it, is uncertain. I can only conjecture that it proceeded from respect to the feelings of the emperor; for, soon after his death, Constantine was removed from the apartment which he had hitherto occupied, and thrust into a low, damp, and noisome vault, where he endured more than his brethren did from the application of the engines of torture. Oppressed and worn out with a mode of living so different from what he had been used to, he was heard to exclaim, “O my God, were there no Scythians, or cannibals, or pagans still more savage, that thou hast permitted me to fall into the hands of these baptized fiends?”

He could not remain long in such a situation. Putrid air and unwholesome diet, together with grief for the ruin of the reformed cause in his native country, brought on a dysentery, which put an end to his days, after he had been nearly two years in confinement. ^f430

Not satisfied with wreaking their vengeance on him when alive, his adversaries circulated the report that he had put an end to his own life by opening a vein with a piece of broken glass; and ballads grounded on this fabricated story, and containing other slanders, were indecently hawked through the streets of Seville. Had there been the least foundation for this report, we may be sure the inquisitors would have taken care to verify it, by ordering an inquest to be held on the dead body. But the calumny was refuted by the testimony of a young monk of San Isidro, named Fernando, who being providentially confined in the same cell with Constantine, ministered to him during his sickness, and closed his eyes in peace. ^f431

The slanders which were at this time so industriously propagated against him, only serve to show the anxiety of the inquisitors to blast his fame, and the dread which they felt lest the reformed opinions should gain credit from the circumstance of their having been embraced by a person of so great eminence and popularity. ^f432 In this object, however, they did not succeed altogether to their wish. This appeared when his effigy and bones were brought out in the public auto-de-fe celebrated at Seville on the 22d of December 1560. The effigies of such heretics as had escaped from justice, by flight or by death, usually consisted of a shapeless piece of patch-work surmounted by a head; that of Constantine Ponce consisted of a regular human figure, complete in all its parts, dressed after the manner in which he appeared in public, and representing him in his most common attitude of preaching, with one arm resting on the pulpit and the other elevated. The production of this figure in the spectacle, when his sentence was about to be read, excited a lively recollection of a preacher so popular, and drew from the spectators an expression of feeling by no means pleasing to the inquisitors. In consequence of this they caused it to be withdrawn from the prominent situation which it occupied, and to be brought near to their own platform, where they commenced the reading of the articles of the libel on which Constantine had been condemned. The people, displeased at this step, and not hearing what was read, began to murmur; upon which Calderon, who, as mayor of the city, presided on the occasion, desired the acting secretary to go to the pulpit provided for that part of the ceremony. This intimation being disregarded, the murmurs were renewed, and the mayor, raising his voice, ordered the service to be suspended. The inquisitors were obliged to restore the effigy to its former place, and to recommence the reading of the sentence in the audience of the people; but the secretary was instructed, after naming a few of the errors into which the deceased had fallen, to conclude by saying, that he had vented others so horrible and impious that they could not be heard without pollution by vulgar ears. After this the effigy was sent to the house of the Inquisition, and another of ordinary construction was conveyed to the stake to be burnt along with the bones of Constantine. The inquisitors were not a little puzzled how to act respecting his works, which had already been printed by their approbation; but they at last agreed to prohibit them, “not because they had found any thing in them worthy of condemnation,” as their sentence runs, “but because it was not fit that any honorable memorial of a man doomed to infamy should be transmitted to posterity.” ^f433 But they had a still more delicate task to perform. The history of a voyage to Flanders by Philip II. when prince of Asturias, had been printed at Madrid by royal authority, in which his chaplain Constantine was described as “the greatest philosopher, the pro-foundest divine, and the most eloquent preacher, who has been in Spain for many ages.” Whether Philip himself gave information of this work, we know not; but there can be no doubt that he would have run the risk of excommunication by retaining it in his library, after it was stigmatized by the inquisitorial censors of the press. They ordered all the copies of the book to be delivered to them, that they might delete the obnoxious panegyric; “and on this passage,” says one who afterwards procured a copy of the History in Spain, “the expurgator of the book, which is in my hands, was so liberal of his ink, that I had much ado to read

_it.” ^f434

Constantine Ponce was not the only protestant who fell a sacrifice to the noxious vapors and ordure of the inquisitorial prisons. This was also the fate of Olmedo, a man distinguished for his learning and piety, who fell into the hands of the inquisitors of Seville, and was often heard to exclaim, that there was no species of torture which he would not endure in preference to the horrors of his present situation. ^f435 Considering the treatment which the prisoners received, it is wonderful that many of them were not driven to distraction. One individual only, a female, had recourse to the desperate remedy of shortening her days. Juana Sanchez, a beata, after having long kept in prison at Valladolid, was found guilty of heresy. Coming to the knowledge of her sentence before it was formally intimated to her, she cut her throat with a pair of scissors, and died of the wound in the course of a few days. During the interval every effort was employed by the friars to induce her, not to repent of her suicide, but to recant the errors which she had cherished. She repulsed them with indignation, as monsters equally devoid of humanity and religion. ^f436

I must again refer my readers to the common histories of the Inquisition, for information as to the modes of torture and other cruel devices used for procuring evidence to convict those who were imprisoned on a charge of heresy. One or two instances, however, are of such a character that it would be unpardonable to omit them in this place. Among the protestants seized at Seville was the widow of Fernando Nugnez, a native of the town of Lepe, with three of her daughters and a married sister. As there was no evidence against them, they were put to the torture, but refused to inform against one another. Upon this the presiding inquisitor called one of the young women into the audience-chamber, and after conversing with her for some time, professed an attachment to her person. Having repeated this at another interview, he told her, that he could be of no service to her unless she imparted to him the whole facts of her case; but if she intrusted him with these, he would manage the affair in such a way as that she and all her friends should be set at liberty. Falling into the snare, the unsuspecting girl confessed to him that she had at different times conversed with her mother, sisters, and aunt, on the Lutheran doctrines. The wretch immediately brought her into court, and obliged her to declare judicially what she had owned to him in private. Nor was this all: under the pretence that her confession was not sufficiently ample and ingenuous, she was put to the torture by the most excruciating engines, the pulley and the wooden horse; by which means evidence was extorted from her, which led, not only to the condemnation of herself and her relations, but also to the seizure and conviction of others who afterwards perished in the flames. ^f437 Another instance relates to a young countryman of our own. An English vessel, which had entered the port of St. Lucar, was visited by the familiars of the Inquisition, and several of her crew, who, with the frankness of British seamen, avowed themselves protestants, were seized before they came on shore. Along with them the familiars conveyed to prison a boy of twelve years of age, the son of a respectable merchant to whom the principal part of the cargo belonged. The pretext for his apprehension was, that an English psalm-book was found in his portmanteau; but there is reason to believe that the real ground was the hope of extorting from the father a rich ransom for his son’s liberation. Having been piously educated, the youth was observed to be regular in his devotions, and to relieve the irksomeness of his confinement by occasionally singing one of the psalms which he had committed to memory. Both of these were high offenses; for every piece of devotion not conducted under the direction of its ghostly agents, and even every mark of cheerfulness on the part of the prisoners, is strictly prohibited within the gloomy walls of the Holy Office. ^f438 On the report of the jailer, the boy’s confinement was rendered more severe; in consequence of which he lost the use of both his limbs, and it was found necessary, for the preservation of his life, to remove him to the public hospital. ^f439

So shameful were the measures taken for procuring the conviction of the prisoners at this time, that a legal investigation of the procedure in the inquisitorial tribunals was afterwards demanded by persons of great respectability in the church. In 1560, Senor Enriquez, an ecclesiastic of rank in the collegiate church of Valladolid, presented to Philip a remonstrance against the inquisition of that city, in which he charged it with tyranny and avarice. Among other things he asserted, that in the cause of Cazalla the officers had allowed the nuns, who like him were imprisoned for Lutheranism, to converse together, that, by confirming one another in their errors, the judged might have it in their power to condemn them, and thus to confiscate their property. Having accomplished the object which they had in view, they changed their measures, kept the prisoners apart, and, by examinations and visits, promises and threatenings, tried every method to induce them to recant and die in the bosom of the church. ^f440

Nearly two years having been spent in the previous steps, the time was considered as come, according to Spanish ideas of unity of action, for the exhibition of the last scene of the horrible tragedy. Orders were accordingly issued by the council of the Supreme for the celebration of public autos-de-fe, under the direction of the several tribunals of inquisition through the kingdom. Those which took place in Seville and Valladolid were the most noted for the pomp with which they were solemnized, and for the number and rank of their victims. Before describing these, it may be proper to give the reader a general idea of the nature of these exhibitions, and the order in which they were usually conducted.

An auto-de-fe, or act of faith, was either particular or general. In the particular auto, or autillo, as it is called, the offender appeared before the inquisitors in their hall, either alone or in the presence of a select number of witnesses, and had his sentence intimated to him. A general auto, in which a number of heretics were brought out, was performed with the most imposing solemnity, and formed an imitation of an ancient Roman triumph, combined with the last judgment. ^f441 It was always celebrated on a Sunday or holyday, in the largest church, but more frequently in the most spacious square, of the town in which it happened to be held. Intimation of it was publicly made beforehand in all the churches and religious houses in the neighbourhood. The attendance of the civil authorities as well as of the clergy, secular and regular, was required; and, with the view of attracting the multitude, an indulgence of forty days was proclaimed to all who should witness the ceremonies of the act.

On the evening preceding the auto, such of the prisoners as were penitent, and were to suffer a punishment milder than death, were assembled, the males in one apartment of the prison, and the females in another, when they had their respective sentences intimated to them. At midnight a confessor entered the cell of the prisoners who were sentenced to the stake, and intimated to them for the first time the fate which awaited them, accompanying the intimation with earnest exhortations to recant their errors, and die reconciled to the church; in which case they obtained the favor of being strangled before their bodies were committed to the flames. On such occasions the most heart-rending scenes sometimes took place.

Early on the following morning the bells of all the churches began to toll, when the officials of the Inquisition repaired to the prison, and having assembled the prisoners, clothed them in the several dresses in which they were to make their appearance at the spectacle. Those who were found suspected of having erred in a slight degree were simply clothed in black. The other prisoners wore a sanbenito, or species of loose vest of yellow cloth, called zamarra in Spanish. On the sanbenito of those who were to be strangled were painted flames burning downwards, which the Spaniards call fuego revolto, to intimate that they had escaped the fire. The sanbenito of those who were doomed to be burnt alive was covered with figures of flames burning upwards, around which were painted devils carrying fagots, or fanning the fire. Similar marks of infamy appeared on the pasteboard cap, called coroza, which was put on their heads. After this ceremony was over, they were desired to partake of a sumptuous breakfast, which, on their refusal, was devoured by the menials of the office.

The persons who were to take part in the ceremony being all assembled in the court of the prison, the procession moved on, generally in the following order. Preceded by a band of soldiers to clear the way, came a certain number of priests in their surplices, attended by a company of young persons, such as the boys of the college of Doctrine in Seville, who chanted the liturgy in alternate choruses. They were followed by the prisoners, arranged in different classes according to the degrees of their supposed delinquencies, the most guilty being place last, having either extinguished torches or else crosses in their hands, and halters suspended from their necks. Every prisoner was guarded by two familiars, and, in addition to this, those who were condemned to die were attended each by two friars. After the prisoners came the local magistrates, the judges, and officers of state, accompanied by a train of nobility on horseback. They were succeeded by the secular and monastic clergy. At some distance from these were to be seen moving forward, in slow and solemn pomp, the members of the Holy Office, the persons who principally shared the triumph of the day, preceded by their fiscal, bearing the standard of the Inquisition, composed of red silk damask, on which the names and insignia of pope Sixtus IV. and Ferdinand the Catholic, the founders of the tribunal, were conspicuous, and surmounted by a crucifix of massive silver, overlaid with gold, which was held in the highest veneration by the populace. They were followed by the familiars on horseback, forming their body-guard, and including many of the principal gentry of the country as honorary members. The procession was closed by an immense concourse of the common people, who advanced without any regular order.

Having arrived at the place of the auto, the inquisitors ascended the platform erected for their reception, and the prisoners were conducted to another which was placed opposite to it. The service commenced with a sermon, usually preached by some distinguished prelate; after which the clerk of the tribunal read the sentences of the penitents, who, on their knees, and with hands laid on the missal, repeated their confessions. The presiding inquisitor then descended from the throne on which he sat, and advancing to the altar, absolved the penitents a culpa, leaving them under the obligation to bear the several punishments to which they had been adjudged, whether these consisted of penances, banishment, whipping, hard labour, or imprisonment. He then administered an oath to all who were present at the spectacle, binding them to live and die in the communion of the Roman church, and to uphold and defend, against all its adversaries, the tribunal of the Holy Inquisition; during which ceremony the people were to be seen all at once on their knees in the streets. The more tragical part of the scene now followed. The sentences of those who were doomed to die having been publicly read, such of them as were in holy orders were publicly degraded, by being stripped, piece by piece, of their priestly vestments; a ceremony which was performed with every circumstance calculated to expose them to ignominy and execration in the eyes of the superstitious beholders. After this they were formally delivered over to the secular judges, to suffer the punishment awarded to heretics by the civil law. It was on this occasion that the inquisitors performed that impious farce which has excited the indignation of all in whose breasts fanaticism, or some worse principle, has not extinguished every sentiment of common feeling. When they delivered the prisoner into the hands of the secular judges whom they had summoned to receive him, they besought them to treat him with clemency and compassion. ^f442 This they did to escape falling under the censure of irregularity, which the canons of the church had denounced against ecclesiastics who should be accessory to the inflicting of any bodily injury. Yet they not only knew what would be the consequence of their act, but had taken all the precautions necessary for securing it. Five days before the auto-de-fe, they acquainted the ordinary royal judge with the number of prisoners to be delivered over to him, in order that the proper quantity of stakes, wood, and every thing else requisite for the execution, might be in readiness. The prisoners once declared by the inquisitors to be impenitent or relapsed heretics, nothing was competent to the magistrate but to pronounce the sentence adjudging them to the flames; and had he presumed in any instance to change the sentence of death into perpetual imprisonment, though it were in one of the remotest forts of Asia, Africa, or America, he would soon have felt the vengeance of the Holy Office. ^f443 Besides, the statutes adjudging heretics to the fire had been confirmed by numerous bulls of popes, which commanded the inquisitors to watch over their exact observance. And in accordance with this, they, at every auto-de-fe, required the magistrates to swear that they would faithfully execute the sentences against the persons of heretics, without delay, “in the way and manner prescribed by the sacred canons, and the laws which treated on the subject. ^f444 Were it necessary to say more on this topic, we might add that the very appearance of the prisoners, when brought out in the public spectacle, proclaimed the unblushing hypocrisy of the inquisitors. ^f445 They implored the secular judge to treat with lenity and compassion persons whom they themselves had worn to skeletons by a cruel incarceration,—not to shed the blood of him from whose body they had often made the blood to spring, nor to break a bone of her whose tender limbs were already distorted and mangled by their hellish tortures! ^f446

The penitents having been remanded to their several prisons, the other prisoners were led away to execution. Some writers have spoken as if they were executed on the spot where their sentence was read, and in the presence of all who had witnessed the preceding parts of the spectacle. This however is a mistake. The stakes were erected without the walls of the town where the auto-de-fe was celebrated; but though the last act was deemed too horrid to be exhibited on the same stage with those which we have described, yet it was performed publicly, and was witnessed, not only by the mob, but by persons who from their rank and station might have been expected to turn with disgust from so revolting a spectacle.

Seville contained by far the greatest number of protestants under confinement; and the long period during which its prisons has been crowded gave it a claim to the benefit of the first jail-delivery. Valla-dolid, however, was preferred; for no other reason, apparently, than that it afforded the Inquisition the opportunity of exhibiting the greatest proportion of criminals of whom it could boast as converts from heresy.

The first public auto-de-fe of protestants was accordingly celebrated in Valladolid on the 21st of May 1559, being Trinity Sunday, in the presence of Don Carlos the heir apparent to the crown, and his aunt Juana, queen dowager of Portugal and governess of the kingdom during the absence of her brother Philip II.; attended by a great concourse of persons of all ranks. It was performed in the grand square between the church of St. Francis and the house of the Consistory. In the front of the town-house, and by the side of the platform occupied by the inquisitors, a box was erected, which the royal family could enter without interruption from the crowd, and in which they had a full view of the prisoners. The spectacle continued from six o’clock in the morning till two in the afternoon, during which the people exhibited no symptoms of impatience, nor did the queen retire until the whole was concluded. ^f447 The sermon was preached by the celebrated Melchior Cano, bishop of the Canaries; the bishop of Palencia, to whose diocese Valladolid at that time belonged, performed the ceremony of degrading such of the victims as were in holy orders. When the company were assembled and had taken their places, Francisco Baca, the presiding inquisitor, advancing to the bed of state on which the prince and his aunt were seated, administered to them the oath to support the Holy Office, and to reveal to it every thing contrary to the faith which might come to their knowledge, without respect of persons. This was the first time that such an oath had been exacted from any of the royal family; and Don Carlos, who was then only fourteen years of age, is said from that moment to have vowed an implacable hatred to the Inquisition.

The prisoners brought forth on this occasion amounted to thirty, of whom sixteen were reconciled, and fourteen were “relaxed,” or delivered over to the secular arm. Of the last class, two were thrown alive into the flames, while the remainder were previously strangled.

The greater part of the first class were persons distinguished by their rank and connections. Don Pedro Sarmiento de Roxas, ^f448 son of the first marquis de Poza, and of a daughter of the conde de Salinas y Ribadeo, was stripped of his ornaments as chevalier of St. James, deprived of his office as commander of Quintana, and condemned to wear a perpetual sanbenito, to be imprisoned for life, and to have his memory declared infamous. His wife Dona Mercia de Figueroa, dame of honor to the queen, ^f449 was sentenced to wear the coat of infamy, and to be confined during the remainder of her life. His nephew don Luis de Roxas, eldest son of the second marquis de Poza, and grandson of the marquis d’Alcagnizes, was exiled from the cities of Madrid, Valladolid, and Palencia, forbidden to leave the kingdom, and declared incapable of succeeding to the honors or estates of his father. Dona Ana Henriquez de Roxas, daughter of the marquis d’Alcagnizes, and wife of Don Juan Alonso de Fonseca Mexia, was a lady of great accomplishments, understood the Latin language perfectly, and though only twenty-four years of age, was familiar with the writings of the reformers, particularly those of Calvin. She appeared in the sanbenito, and was condemned to be separated from her husband and spend her days in a monastery. Her aunt Dona Maria de Roxas, a nun of St. Catherine in Valladolid, and forty years of age, received sentence of perpetual penance and imprisonment, from which, however, she was released by an influence which the inquisitors did not choose to resist. ^f450 Don Juan de Ulloa Pereira, brother to the marquis de la Mota, was subjected to the same punishment as the first-mentioned nobleman. This brave chevalier had distinguished himself in many engagements against the Turks both by sea and land, and performed so great feats of valor in the expeditions to Algiers, Bugia, and other parts of Africa, that Charles the Fifth had advanced him to the rank of first captain, and afterwards of general. Having appealed to Rome against the sentence of the inquisitors, and represented the services which he had done to Christendom, De Ulloa was eventually restored to his rank as commander of the order of St. John of Jerusalem. Juan de Vibero Cazalla, his wife Dona Silva de Ribera, his sister Dona Constanza, Dona Francisca Zunega de Baeza, Marina de Saavedra the widow of a hidalgo named Juan Cisneros de Soto, and Leanor de Cisneros, (whose husband Antonio Herezuelo was doomed to a severer punishment) with four others of inferior condition, were condemned to wear the sanbenito, and be imprisoned for life. The imprisonment of Anthony Wasor, an Englishman, and servant to Don Luis de Roxas, was restricted to one year’s confinement in a convent. Confiscation of property was an article in the sentence of all these

f451

persons.

Among those who were delivered over to the secular arm, one of the most celebrated was Doctor Augustin Cazalla. ^f452 His reputation, and the office he had held as chaplain to the late emperor, made him an object of particular attention to the inquisitors. During his confinement he underwent frequent examinations, with the view of establishing the charges against himself and his fellow-prisoners. Cazalla was deficient in the courage which was requisite for the situation into which he had brought himself. On the 4th of March 1559 he was conducted into the place of torture, when he shrunk from the trial, and promising to submit to his judges, made a declaration, in which he confessed that he had embraced the Lutheran doctrine, but denied that he had ever taught it, except to those who were of the same sentiments with himself. This answered all the wishes of the inquisitors, who were determined that he should expiate his offence by death, at the same time that they kept him in suspense as to his fate, with the view of procuring from him additional information. On the evening before the auto-de-fe, Antonio de Carrera, a monk of St. Jerome, being sent to acquaint him with his sentence, Cazalla begged earnestly to know, if he might entertain hopes of escaping capital punishment; to which Carrera replied, that the inquisitors could not rely on his declaration, but that, if he would confess all that the witnesses had deponed against him, mercy might perhaps be extended to him. This cautious reply convinced Cazalla that his doom was fixed. “Well, then,” said he, “I must prepare to die in the grace of God; for it is impossible for me to add to what I have said, without falsehood.” He confessed himself to Carrera that night, and next morning. On the scaffold, seeing his sister Constanza passing among those who were sentenced to perpetual imprisonment, he pointed to her, and said to the princess Juana, “I beseech your highness, have compassion on this unfortunate woman, who has thirteen orphan children!” At the place of execution, he addressed a few words to his fellow-prisoners in the character of a penitent, in virtue of which he obtained the poor favor of being strangled before his body was committed to the fire. His confessor was so pleased with his behavior as to say, he had no doubt Cazalla was in heaven. ^f453 His sister Dona Beatriz de Vibero, Doctor Alonso Perez, a priest of Palencia, Don Christobal de Ocampo, chevalier of the order of St. John of Jerusalem, and almoner to the grand prior of Castile, Don Christobal de Padilla, and seven others, shared the same fate as Cazalla. Among these were the husband of the woman who had informed against the protestant conventicle in Valladolid, and four females, one of whom, Dona Catalina de Ortega, was daughter-in-law to the fiscal of the royal council of Castile. ^f454 They were all protestants, except Gonzales Baez, a Portuguese, who was condemned as a relapsed Jew. ^f455

The two individuals who on this occasion had the honor to endure the flames were Francisco de Vibero Cazalla, ^f456 parish priest of Hormigos, and Antonio Herezuelo, an advocate of Toro. Some writers say that the former begged, when under the torture, to be admitted to reconciliation; but it is certain that he gave no sign of weakness or a wish to recant on the day of the auto-de-fe. Seeing his brother Augustin Cazalla, not at the stake, but on the adjoining scaffold among the penitents, and being prevented from speaking by the gag, he signified his sorrow by an expressive motion of his hands; after which he bore the fire without shrinking. Herezuelo conducted himself with surpassing intrepidity. From the moment of his apprehension to that of his death, he never exhibited the least symptom of a wish to save his life, or to mitigate his sufferings, by compromising his principles. His courage remained unshaken amidst the horrors of the torture, the ignominy of the public spectacle, and the terrors of the stake. The only thing that moved him, on the day of the auto-de-fe, was the sight of his wife in the garb of a penitent; and the look which he gave, (for he could not speak) as he passed her to go to the place of execution, seemed to say, “This is hard to bear!” He listened without emotion to the friars who teazed him with their importunate exhortations to repent, as they conducted him to the stake; but when, at their instigation, his former associate and instructor, Doctor Cazalla, began to address him in the same strain, he threw upon him a glance of disdain, which froze the words on his recreant lips. “The bachelor Herezuelo (says the popish author of the Pontifical History) suffered himself to be burnt alive with unparalleled hardihood. I stood so near him that I had a complete view of his person, and observed all his motions and gestures. He could not speak, for his mouth was gagged on account of the blasphemies which he had uttered; but his whole behaviour showed him to be a most resolute and hardened person, who, rather than yield to believe with his companions, was determined to die in the flames. Though I marked him narrowly, I could not observe the least symptom of fear, or expression of pain; only, there was a sadness in his countenance beyond any thing I had ever seen. It was frightful to look in his face, when one considered that in a moment he would be in hell with his associate and master, Luther.” ^f457 Enraged to see such courage in a heretic, one of the guards plunged his lance into the body of Herezuelo, whose blood was licked up by the flames with which he was already enveloped. ^f458

Herezuelo and his wife, Leanor de Cisneros, were divided in their death, but it was in the time of it only, not the kind or manner; and their memory must not be divided in our pages. Leanor was only twenty-two years of age when she was thrown into the Inquisition; and when we consider that, during her imprisonment, she was precluded from all intercourse with her husband, kept in ignorance of his resolutions, and perhaps deceived into the belief that she would find him among the class of penitents in the auto, we need not wonder that one of her tender sex and age should have fainted in the day of trial, suffered herself to be overcome by the persuasions of the monks, or, yielding to the feelings of nature, consented to renounce with the hand that truth which she continued to believe with the heart. Such assaults have shaken, and threatened to throw to the ground, pillars in the church. But Leanor was not long in recovering from the shock. The parting look of her husband never departed from her eyes; ^f459 the reflection that she had inflicted a pang on his heart, during the arduous conflict which he had to maintain, fanned the flame of attachment to the reformed religion which secretly burned in her breast; and having resolved, in dependence on that strength which is made perfect in weakness, to emulate the example of constancy set by one in every respect so dear to her, she resolutely broke off the course of penance on which she had entered. The consequence of this was, that she was again thrown into the secret prisons. During eight years that she was kept in confinement, every effort was made in vain to induce her to renew her recantation. At last she was brought out in a public auto-de-fe celebrated at Valladolid; and we have the account of her behavior from the same pen which so graphically described that of her husband. “In the year 1568, on the 26th of September, justice was executed on Leanor de Cisneros, widow of the bachelor Herezuelo. She suffered herself to be burnt alive, notwithstanding the great and repeated exertions made to bring her to a conviction of her errors. Finally, she resisted, what was sufficient to melt a stone, an admirable sermon preached, at the auto of that day, by his excellency Don Juan Manuel, bishop of Zamora, a man no less learned and eloquent in the pulpit than illustrious in blood. But nothing could move the impenetrable heart of that obstinate woman.” ^f460

One part of the solemnities in the first auto at Valladolid, though not so shocking to the feelings as some others which have been related, was nevertheless a flagrant violation both of justice and humanity. Dona Leanor de Vibero, the mother of Doctor Cazalla and of four other children who appeared as criminals in this auto-de-fe, had died some years before, and was buried in a sepulchral chapel of which she was the proprietress. No suspicion of heresy attached to her at the time of her death; but, on the imprisonment of her children, the fiscal of the inquisition at Valladolid commenced a process against her; and certain witnesses under the torture having deponed that her house was used as a temple for the Lutherans, sentence was passed, declaring her to have died in a state of heresy, her memory to be infamous, and her property confiscated; and ordering her bones to be dug up, and, together with her effigy, publicly committed to the flames; her house to be razed, the ground on which it stood to be sown with salt, and a pillar, with an inscription stating the cause of its demolition, to be erected on the spot. All this was done, and the last-mentioned monument of fanaticism and ferocity against the dead was to be seen until the year 1809, when it was removed during the occupation of Spain by the French. ^f461

There were still a great number of protestant prisoners in Valladolid; but though the processes of most of them were terminated, they were kept in confinement, to afford a gratifying spectacle to the monarch on his arrival from the Low Countries. The second auto-de-fe in this city was celebrated on the 8th of October 1559. Philip II. appeared at it, attended by his son, his sister, the prince of Parma, three ambassadors from France, with a numerous assemblage of prelates, and nobility of both sexes. The inquisitor general Valdes administered the oath to the king; on which occasion Philip, rising from his seat, and drawing his sword in token of his readiness to use it in support of the Holy Office, swore and subscribed the oath, which was afterwards read aloud to the people by one of the officers of the Inquisition.

Twenty-nine prisoners appeared on the scaffold, of whom sixteen wore the garb of penitents, while the flames painted on the sanbenitos and corozas of the remainder marked them out for the stake. Among the former were Dona Isabella de Castilla, wife of Don Carlos de Seso, her niece Dona Catalina, and three nuns of St. Belen. ^f462 The first two were condemned to lose all their property, to wear the sanbenito, and be imprisoned during life. To the Lutherans subjected to penances were added two men, one of whom was convicted of having sworn falsely that a child had been circumcised, with the view of bringing the father to the stake; the other of having personated an alguazil of the Holy Office. The former was sentenced to receive two hundred lashes, to lose the half of his property, and to work in the galleys for five years; the latter to receive four hundred lashes, to lose the whole of his property, and to work in the galleys for life;—a striking specimen of the comparative estimate which the Inquisition forms of meditated murder, and an insult on its own prerogatives.

At the head of those devoted to death was Don Carlos de Seso, with whose name the reader is already acquainted. ^f463 Arrested at Logrono, he was thrown into the secret prisons of the inquisition of Valladolid; and, on the 28th of June 1558, answered the interrogatories of the fiscal. His conduct during the whole of his imprisonment, and in the formidable scene by which it terminated, was worthy of his character, and the active part he had taken in the cause of religious reform. In the examinations which he underwent, he never varied, nor sought to excuse himself by affixing blame to those whom he knew his judges were anxious to condemn. ^f464 When informed of his sentence on the night before his execution, he called for pen, ink, and paper, and having written a confession of his faith, gave it to the officer, saying, “This is the true faith of the gospel, as opposed to that of the church of Rome which has been corrupted for ages: in this faith I wish to die, and in the remembrance and lively belief of the passion of Jesus Christ, to offer to God my body now reduced so low.” “It would be difficult (says one who read this document in the archives of the Inquisition) to convey an idea of the uncommon vigor of sentiment with which he filled two sheets of paper, though he was then in the presence of death.” ^f465 The whole of that night and next morning was spent by the friars in ineffectual attempts to induce him to recant. He appeared in the procession with a gag in his mouth, which remained while he was in the auto-de-fe, and on the way to the place of execution. It was removed after he was bound to the stake, and the friars began again to exhort him to confess. He replied, in a loud voice, and with great firmness, “I could demonstrate to you that you ruin yourselves by not imitating my example; but there is no time. Executioners, light the pile which is to consume me.” They obeyed, and De Seso expired in the flames without a struggle or a groan. He died in the forty-third year of his age. ^f466

Pedro de Cazalla, parish priest of Pedrosa, when arrested on the 25th of April 1558, confessed that he had embraced the protestant doctrines. Having afterwards supplicated reconciliation, he could obtain only two votes of the court of Inquisition for a punishment milder than death, and the decision of the majority was confirmed by the council of the Supreme. He refused to make confession to the priest sent to intimate his sentence, and appeared in the auto with a gag; but after he was bound to the stake, having asked, or the attendant monks having represented him as asking a confessor, he was strangled and then cast into the fire. He was only in the thirty-fourth year of his age.

Domingo de Roxas, son of the marquis de Poza, two of whose children appeared in the former auto, was seized, in the garb of a laic, at Calahorra, where he had stopped, in his flight to the Low Countries, in order to have an interview with his friend De Seso. Subsequently to the 13th of May 1558, when he made his first appearance before the Inquisition, he underwent frequent examinations. The inquisitors having ordered the torture to be administered with a view of extorting from him certain facts which they were anxious to possess, he promised to tell all he knew, provided they would spare him the horrors of the question, which he dreaded more than death. Deluded by the prospect of a merciful sentence which was held out to him, he was induced to make certain professions of sorrow, and to throw out insinuations unfavorable to the cause of archbishop Carranza; but as soon as he was undeceived, he craved an audience of the inquisitors, at which he did ample justice to that prelate, without asking any mitigation of his own punishment. On the night before his execution he refused the services of the priest appointed to wait on him. When the ceremonies of the auto were finished, and the secular judge had pronounced sentence on the prisoners delivered over to him, De Roxas, in passing the royal box, made an appeal to the mercy of the king. “Canst thou, Sire, thus witness the torments of thy innocent subjects? Save us from so cruel a death.” “No,” replied Philip sternly; “I would myself carry wood to burn my own son, were he such a wretch as thou.” ^f467 De Roxas was about to say something in defence of himself and his fellow-sufferers, when, the unrelenting despot waving his hand, the officers instantly thrust the gag into the martyr’s mouth. It remained, contrary to the usual custom, after he was bound to the stake; so much were his judges irritated at his boldness, or afraid of the liberties he would use. Yet we are told, that when the fire was about to be applied to the pile, his courage failed, he begged a confessor, and having received absolution, was strangled. Such appears to be the account of his last moments inserted in the records of the Inquisition; ^f468 but private letters, written from Spain at the time, give a different representation: “They carried him from the scaffold accompanied with a number of monks, about a hundred, flocking about him, railing and making exclamations against him, and some of them urging him to recant; but he, notwithstanding, answered them with a bold spirit, that he would never renounce the doctrine of Christ.” ^f469

Juan Sanchez, at the commencement of the persecution of the protestants in Valladolid, had made his escape to the Low Countries, under the assumed name of Juan de Vibar. Thinking himself safe, he wrote letters, dated from Castrourdiales in the month of May 1558, and addressed to Dona Catalina Hortega, in whose family he had formerly resided. That lady having been seized as a suspected Lutheran, the letters fell into the hands of the inquisitors, who sent information to Philip, then at Brussels. Sanchez was apprehended at Turlingen, conveyed to Valladolid, and delivered over to the secular magistrate as a dogmatising and impenitent heretic. The gag was taken from his mouth at the place of execution, but as he did not ask for a confessor, the pile was kindled. When the fire had consumed the ropes by which he was bound, he darted from the stake and unconsciously leaped on the scaffold used for receiving the confessions of those who recanted in their last moments. The friars instantly collected to the spot, and urged him to retract his errors. Recovering from his momentary delirium, and looking around him, he saw on the one side some of his fellow-prisoners on their knees doing penance, and on the other Don Carlos de Seso standing unmoved in the midst of the flames, upon which he walked deliberately back to the stake, and calling for more fuel, said, “I will die like De Seso.” Incensed at what they considered as a proof of audacious impiety, the archers and executioners strove who should first comply with his request. He died in the thirty-third year of his age.

The case of Dona Marina Guevara, a nun of St. Belen, presents some singular features which are worthy of observation. When first denounced to the Inquisition, she owned that she had given entertainment to certain Lutheran opinions, but with hesitation, and in ignorance of their import and tendency. Her petition to be reconciled to the church was refused, because she would not acknowledge some things which the witnesses had deponed against her, and because she persisted in her assertion, that she had not yielded a cordial and complete assent to the heresies with which her mind had been tainted. When the depositions were communicated to her by order of the inquisitors, she replied, that it seemed as if they wished to instil into her mind errors of which she was ignorant, rather than induce her to abandon those to which she had incautiously given ear; and that the oath she had taken would not permit her to add to her confession, or to acknowledge crimes of which she was not conscious, and facts which she did not recollect. The whole of the proceedings, while they display the honorable feelings of Marina, and the firmness of her character, depict, in strong colors, the sternness with which the Holy Office adhered to its tyrannical principles. She was connected with persons of high rank, including Valdes the grand inquisitor, who used every means for her deliverance. But the ordinary judges lent a deaf ear to the applications made by their superior in her behalf, which they resisted as an interference with their jurisdiction, and a proof of partiality and weakness, unworthy of one whose office required him to be insensible to the calls of nature and friendship. Valdes was obliged to procure an order from the council of the Supreme, authorizing Don Tellez Giron de Montalban, the cousin of the prisoner, to have a final interview with her, in the presence of the leading members of the tribunal, with the view of inducing her to yield to their demands. But the attempt was unsuccessful. Dona Marina resisted all the entreaties of her noble relative, and refused to purchase her life by telling a falsehood. The inquisitors, inflexible to their former purpose, proceeded to pronounce sentence against her; and on the day of the auto she was delivered to the secular arm, and being strangled at the place of execution, her body was given to the flames. This act proclaimed, more decidedly than even the reply made by Philip to the son of the marquis de Poza, that there was no safety in Spain for any one who harbored a thought at variance with the Roman faith, or who was not prepared to yield the most implicit and absolute obedience to the dictates of the Inquisition. ^f470

The autos-de-fe celebrated at Seville were still more memorable than those at Valladolid, if not for the rank of the spectators, at least for the number of prisoners exhibited on the scaffold. The first of these was solemnized on the 24th of September 1559, in the square of St. Francis. It was attended by four bishops, the members of the royal court of justice, the chapter of the cathedral, and a great assemblage of nobility and gentry. Twenty-one persons were delivered over to the secular arm, and eighty were condemned to lesser punishments.

The most distinguished individual, in point of rank, who suffered death on the present occasion, was Don Juan Ponce de Leon, ^f471 son of the count de Baylen, and a near relation of the duchess de Bejar, who was present at the spectacle. None had given more decided proofs of attachment to the reformed cause, and none had more diligently prepared himself for suffering martyrdom for it than this nobleman. For years he had avoided giving countenance to the superstitions of the country, and had made it a practice to visit the spot where the confessors of the truth suffered, with the view of habituating his mind to its horrors, and abating the terror which it was calculated to inspire. But the stoutest heart will sometimes faint in the hour of trial. The rank of Don Juan inspired the inquisitors with a strong desire to triumph over his constancy. After extorting from him, by means of the rack, a confession of some of the articles laid to his charge, they employed their secret emissaries to persuade him that he would consult his own safety, and that of his brethren, by confessing the whole. He had scarcely given his consent to this when he repented. On the night before his execution he complained bitterly of the deceit which had been practised towards him, and having made an undisguised profession of his faith, rejected the services of the priest appointed to wait upon him. De Montes asserts that he preserved his constancy to the last, and, in support of this statement, appeals to the official account of the auto, and to his sanbenito which was hung up in one of the churches, with the inscription “Juan Ponce de Leon, burnt as an obstinate Lutheran heretic.” But Llorente says, that this epithet was applied to all who were sentenced to capital punishment, and that Don Juan, after he was bound to the stake and saw the fire about to be kindled, confessed himself to one of the attendant priests, and was strangled. His doom entailed infamy, and the forfeiture of every civil right, on his posterity; but the issue of his elder brother failing, Don Pedro, his son, after great opposition, obtained a decision from the royal chancery of Granada in favor of his claims, and was restored by letters from Philip III., to the earldom of Baylen. ^f472

No such doubt hangs over the constancy of the persons to be named. Doctor Juan Gonzalez was descended of Moorish ancestors, and at twelve years of age had been imprisoned on suspicion of Mahometanism. He afterwards became one of the most celebrated preachers in Andalusia, and a protestant. In the midst of the torture, which he bore with unshrinking fortitude, he told the inquisitors, that his sentiments, though opposite to those of the church of Rome, rested on plain and express declarations of the word of God, and that nothing would induce him to inform against his brethren. When brought out on the morning of the auto, he appeared with a cheerful and undaunted air, though he had left his mother and two brothers behind him in prison, and was accompanied by two sisters, who, like himself, were doomed to the flames. At the door of the Triana he began to sing the hundred and ninth psalm; and on the scaffold he addressed a few words of consolation to one of his sisters, who seemed to him to wear a look of dejection; upon which the gag was instantly thrust into his mouth. With unaltered mien he listened to the sentence adjudging him to the flames, and submitted to the humiliating ceremonies by which he was degraded from the priesthood. When they were brought to the place of execution, the friars urged the females, in repeating the creed, to insert the word Roman in the clause relating to the catholic church. Wishing to procure liberty to him to bear his dying testimony, they said they would do as their brother did. The gag being removed, Juan Gonzalez exhorted them to add nothing to the good confession which they had already made. Instantly the executioners were ordered to strangle them, and one of the friars, turning to the crowd, exclaimed that they had died in the Roman faith; a falsehood which the inquisitors did not choose to repeat in their narrative of the proceedings.

The same constancy was evinced by four monks of the convent of San Isidro. Among these was the celebrated Garcia de Arias. ^f473 whose character had undergone a complete revolution. From the moment of his imprisonment he renounced that system of cautiousness and tergiversation on which he had formerly acted. He made an explicit profession of his faith, agreeing, in every point, with the sentiments of the reformers; expressed his sorrow that he had concealed it so long; and offered to prove that the opposite opinions were grossly erroneous and superstitious. On his trial he mocked the inquisitors, as persons who presumed to give judgment on matters of which they were utterly ignorant, and reminded them of instances in which they, as well as the qualificators whom they called to their assistance, were forced to confess their incapacity to interpret the scriptures. The priests, as a necessary point of form, visited his cell, but none of them durst enter the lists in argument with him. Being advanced in years, he ascended the scaffold, on the day of the auto, leaning on his staff, but went to the stake with a countenance expressive of joy and readiness to meet the flames.

Christobal d’Arellano, a member of the same convent, was distinguished by his learning, the inquisitors themselves being judges. Among the articles in his process, read in the auto, he was charged with having said, “that the mother of God was no more a virgin than he was.” At hearing this, D’Arellano, rising from his seat, exclaimed, “It is a falsehood; I never advanced such a blasphemy; I have always maintained the contrary, and at this moment am ready to prove, with the gospel in my hand, the virginity of Mary.” The inquisitors were so confounded at this public contradiction, and the tone in which it was uttered, that they did not even order him to be gagged. On arriving at the stake, he was thrown into some degree of perturbation at seeing one of the monks of his convent who had come there to insult over his fate; but he soon recovered his former serenity of mind, and expired amidst the flames, encouraging Juan Chrisostomo, who had been his pupil, and was now his fellow-sufferer.

The fate of Juan de Leon was peculiarly hard. He had resided for some time as an artisan at Mexico, and on his return to Spain was led, under the influence of a superstitious feeling general among his countrymen, to take the vow in the convent of San Isidro, near Seville. This happened about the time that the knowledge of the truth began to be introduced into that monastery. Having imbibed the protestant doctrine, Juan lost his relish for the monastic life, and quitted the convent on the pretext of bad health; but the regret which he felt at losing the religious instructions of the good fathers determined him to rejoin their society. On his return to San Isidro he found it deserted by its principal inhabitants, whom he followed to Geneva. During his residence in this city, intelligence came that Elizabeth had succeeded to the throne of England; and Juan de Leon, with some of his countrymen resolved to accompany the English exiles who were preparing to return home. The Spanish court, in concert with the Inquisition, had planted spies on the road from Milan to Geneva, and at Frankfort, Cologne, and Antwerp, to waylay such Italians or Spaniards as left their native country for the sake of religion. Aware of this fact, Juan de Leon and another Spaniard took a different road, but at Strasburg they were betrayed to a spy, who pursued their route to a port in Zealand, and having procured a warrant, seized them as they were stepping on board a vessel for England. As soon as the officers presented themselves, Juan, aware of their intentions, turned to his companion, and said, “Let us go; God will be with us.” After being severely tortured to make them discover their fellow-exiles, they were sent to Spain. During the voyage and the journey by land, they were not only heavily chained like felons, but each of them had his head and face covered with a species of helmet, made of iron, having a piece of the same metal, shapen like a tongue, which was inserted into his mouth, to prevent him from speaking. While his companion was sent to Valladolid, ^f474 Juan was delivered to the inquisitors at Seville. The sufferings which he endured, from torture and imprisonment, had brought on a consumption; and his appearance, on the day of the auto, was such as would have melted the heart of any human being but an inquisitor. He was attended at the stake by a monk who had passed his noviciate along with him, and who disturbed his last moments, by reminding him of those things of which he was now ashamed. His mouth being relieved from the gag, he, with much composure and graveness, made a declaration of his faith in few but emphatic words, and then welcomed the flames which were to put an end to his sufferings, and to convey him to the spirits of just men made perfect. ^f475

Fernando de San Juan, master of the college of Doctrine, and Doctor Christobal Losada, pastor to the protestant church in Seville, suffered with the same fortitude and constancy. The latter, after he had reached the place of burning, was engaged in a theological dispute by the importunity of the friars, who flattered themselves with being able to convince him of his errors; but perceiving that the people listened eagerly to what was said, they began to speak in Latin, and were followed by Losada, who continued for a considerable time to carry on the conversation with propriety and elegance in a foreign tongue, at the foot of that stake which was about to consume him to ashes. ^f476

This auto-de-fe furnished examples of Christian heroism, equally noble, in those of the tender sex, several of whom “were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.” Among these were Dona Isabel de Baena, Maria de Virves, Maria de Cornel, and Maria de Bohorques. The first was a rich matron of Seville, who had permitted the protestants to meet for worship in her house, which on that account was laid under the same sentence of execration as that of Leanor de Vibero at Valladolid. ^f477 The rest were young ladies, and connected with the most distinguished families in Spain. The story of Maria de Bohorques became celebrated, both from its interesting circumstances, and from its having been made the foundation of an historical novel by a Spanish writer. ^f478 She was a natural daughter of Don Pedro Garcia de Xeres y Bohorques, a Spanish grandee of the first class, and had not completed her twenty-first year when she fell into the hands of the Inquisition. Great care had been bestowed on her education, and being able to read the Bible, and expositions of it, in the Latin tongue, she acquired a knowledge of the scriptures which was possessed by few men, or even clergymen, in her native country. Egidio, whose pupil she was, used to say he always felt himself wiser from an interview with Maria de Bohorques. When brought before the inquisitors she avowed her faith; defended it as the ancient truth, which Luther and his associates had recovered from the rubbish by which it had been hid for ages; and told her judges, that it was their duty to embrace it, instead of punishing her and others for maintaining it. She was severely tortured, in consequence of her refusal to answer certain questions calculated to implicate her friends. From deference to the intercession of her relations, or from the desire of making a convert of one so accomplished, the inquisitors, contrary to their usual custom, sent first two Jesuits, and afterwards two Dominicans, to her cell, to persuade her to relinquish her heretical opinions. They returned full of chagrin at their ill success, but of admiration at the dexterity with which she repelled their arguments. On the night before the auto at which she was to suffer, they repeated their visit, in company with two other priests. She received them with great politeness, but at the same time told them very plainly, that they might have saved themselves the trouble which they had taken, for she felt more concern about her salvation than they could possibly feel; she would have renounced her sentiments if she had entertained any doubt of their truth, but was more confirmed in them than she was when first thrown into prison, inasmuch as the popish divines, after many attempts, had opposed nothing to them but what she had anticipated, and to which she was able to return an easy and satisfactory answer. On the morning of the auto-de-fe she made her appearance with a cheerful countenance. During the time that the line of the procession was forming, she comforted her female companions, and engaged them to join with her in singing a psalm suitable to the occasion, upon which a gag was put into her mouth. It was taken out after her sentence was read, and she was asked, if she would now confess those errors to which she had hitherto adhered with such obstinacy. She replied with a distinct and audible voice, “I neither can nor will recant.” When the prisoners arrived at the place of execution, Don Juan Ponce, who began to waver at the sight of the preparations for the fiery trial, admonished her not to be too confident in the new doctrines, but to weigh the arguments of those who attended to give them advice. Dona Maria upbraided him for his irresolution and cowardice; adding that it was not a time for reasoning, but that all of them ought to employ their few remaining moments in meditating on the death of that Redeemer for whom they were about to suffer. Her constancy was yet put to a further trial. After she was bound to the stake, the attending priests, having prevailed on the presiding magistrate to delay the lighting of the pile, and professing to feel for her youth and talents, requested her merely to repeat the creed. This she did not refuse, but immediately began to explain some of its articles in the Lutheran sense. She was not permitted to finish her commentary; and the executioner having received orders to strangle her, she was consumed in the fire. ^f479

The effigy of the licentiate Zafra, whose providential escape has been mentioned, was burnt at this auto-de-fe. ^f480 Among the penitents who appeared on the present occasion, one deserves to be mentioned as a specimen of the lenity with which the inquisitors punished a crime which, in Spain, ought to have been visited with the most exemplary vengeance. The servant of a gentleman in Puerto de Santa Maria having fastened a rope to a crucifix, concealed it, along with a whip, in the bottom of a chest, and going to the Triana, informed the holy fathers that his master was in the habit of scourging the image every day. The crucifix was found in the place and situation described by the informer, and the gentleman was thrown into the secret prisons. Happily for him, he recollected a quarrel which he had had with his servant, and succeeded in proving that the accusation had its origin in personal revenge. According to the regulations of the Holy Office the servant ought to have suffered death; but he was merely sentenced to receive four hundred strokes with the whip, and to be confined six years in the galleys. The execution appears to have been confined to the first part of the sentence, which, upon a principle of retaliation worthy of the ingenuity of the Inquisition, was considered as expiatory of the supposed indignity done the crucifix. ^f481

The second grand auto-de-fe in Seville took place on the 22d of December 1560, after it had been delayed in the hopes of the arrival of the monarch. It was on this occasion that the effigies of the deceased doctors Egidius and Constantine, together with that of Juan Perez, ^f482 who had fled, were produced and burnt. Fourteen persons were delivered to the secular arm, and thirty-four were sentenced to inferior punishments. ^f483

Julian ^f484 Hernandez was in the first class, and the closing scene of his life did not disgrace his former daring and fortitude. When brought out to the court of the Triana on the morning of the auto, he said to his fellow-prisoners, “Courage, comrades! This is the hour in which we must show ourselves valiant soldiers of Jesus Christ. Let us now bear faithful testimony to his truth before men, and within a few hours we shall receive the testimony of his approbation before angels, and triumph with him in heaven.” He was silenced by the gag, but continued to encourage his companions by his gestures, during the whole of the spectacle. On arriving at the stake he knelt down and kissed the stone on which it was erected; then rising he thrust his naked head once and again among the faggots, in token of his welcoming that death which was so dreadful to others. Being bound to the stake, he composed himself to prayer, when Doctor Fernando Rodriguez, one of the attending priests, interpreting his attitude as a mark of abated courage, prevailed with the judge to remove the gag from his mouth. Having delivered a succinct confession of his belief, Julian began to accuse Rodriguez, with whom he had been formerly acquainted, of hypocrisy in concealing his real sentiments through fear of man. The galled priest exclaimed, “Shall Spain, the conqueror and mistress of nations, have her peace disturbed by a dwarf? Executioner, do your office.” The pile was instantly kindled; and the guards, envying the unshaken firmness of the martyr, terminated his sufferings by plunging their lances into his body. ^f485

No fewer than eight females, of irreproachable character, and some of them distinguished by their rank and education, suffered the most cruel of deaths at this auto-de-fe. Among these was Maria Gomez, who, having recovered from the mental disorder by which she was overtaken had been received back into the protestant fellowship, and fell into the hands of the Inquisition. ^f486 She appeared on the scaffold along with her three daughters and a sister. After the reading of the sentence which doomed them to the flames, one of the young women went up to her aunt, from whom she had imbibed the protestant doctrine, and, on her knees, thanked her for all the religious instructions she had received from her, implored her forgiveness for any offence she might have given her, and begged her dying blessing. Raising her up, and assuring her that she had never given her a moment’s uneasiness, the old woman proceeded to encourage her dutiful niece, by reminding her of that support which their divine Redeemer had promised them in the hour of trial, and of those joys which awaited them at the termination of their momentary sufferings. The five friends then took leave of one another with tender embraces and words of mutual comfort. The interview between these devoted females was beheld by the members of the Holy Tribunal with a rigid composure of countenance, undisturbed even by a glance of displeasure; and so completely had superstition and habit subdued the strongest emotions of the human breast, that not a single expression of sympathy escaped from the multitude at witnessing a scene which, in other circumstances, would have harrowed up the feelings of the spectators, and driven them into mutiny. ^f487

Three foreigners, two of whom were Englishmen, perished in this auto. Nicolas Burton, a merchant of London, having visited Spain with a vessel laden with goods, fell into the hands of the Inquisition, and refusing to abjure the protestant faith, was burnt alive. ^f488 The remarks of Llorente on this transaction are extremely just. “Let it be granted, if you will have it so, that Burton was guilty of an imprudence, by posting up his religious sentiments at San Lucar de Barrameda, and at Seville, in contempt of the faith of the Spaniards; it is no less true that both charity and justice required, that in the case of a stranger who had not fixed his abode in Spain, they should have contented themselves with warning him to abstain from all marks of disrespect to the religion and laws of the country, and threatening him with punishment if he repeated the offence. The Holy Office had nothing to do with his private sentiments; having been established, not for strangers, but solely for the people of Spain. ^f489 That the charge against Burton was a mere pretext, if not a fabrication, is evident from the fact that William Burke, a mariner of Southampton, and a Frenchman of Bayonne, named Fabianne, who had come to Spain in the course of trade, were burnt at the same stake with him, although not accused of any insult on the religion of the country. ^f490

Part of the goods in Burton’s ship, which was confiscated by the inquisitors, belonged to a merchant in London, who sent John Frampton of Bristol to Seville, with a power of attorney, to reclaim his property. The Holy Office had recourse to every obstacle in opposing his claim, and after fruitless labor during four months he found it necessary to repair to England to obtain ampler powers. Upon his landing the second time in Spain, he was seized by two familiars, and conveyed in chains to Seville, where he was thrown into the secret prisons of the Triana. The only pretext for his apprehension was, that a book of Cato in English was found in his portmanteau. Being unable to substantiate a charge on this ground, the inquisitors interrogated him on his religious opinions, and insisted that he should clear himself of the suspicion of heresy by repeating the Ave Maria. In doing this, he omitted the words, “Mother of God, pray for us;” upon which he was put to the torture. After enduring three shocks of the pulley, and while he “lay flat on the ground, half-dead and half-alive,” he agreed to confess whatever his tormentors chose to dictate. In consequence of this, he was found violently suspected of Lutheranism, and the property which he had come to recover was confiscated. He appeared among the penitents at the auto at which Burton suffered, and after being kept in prison for more than two years was set at liberty. ^f491

Among those who appeared as penitents were several ladies of family and monks of different orders. Others were severely punished on the most trivial grounds. Diego de Virves, a member of the municipality of Seville, was fined in a hundred ducats for having said, on occasion of the preparations for Maunday-Thursday, “Would it not be more acceptable to God to expend the money lavished on this ceremony in relieving poor families?” Bartolomé Fuentes having received an injury from a certain priest, exclaimed, “I cannot believe that God will descend from heaven into the hands of such a worthless person;” for which offence he appeared on the scaffold with a gag in his mouth. Two young students were punished for “Lutheran acts,” in having copied into their album some anonymous verses, which contained either a eulogium or a satire on Luther, according to the manner in which they were read. ^f492

Gaspar de Benavides, alcayde, or head jailer, of the inquisition at Seville, was convicted of a course of malversation in his office. There was no species of oppression which this miscreant had not committed in his treatment of the prisoners, before a riot excited by his insufferable cruelties led to a discovery of his guilt. He was merely declared “to have failed in zeal and attention to his charge,” and condemned to lose his situation, to appear in the auto with a torch in his hand, and be banished from Seville. Compare this sentence with the punishments inflicted on those who were the means of bringing his knavery to light. For conspiring against him, and inflicting a wound on one of his assistants which proved mortal, Melchior del Salto was burnt alive. A mulatto of fourteen years of age, named Luis, suspected of being an accomplice in the riot, received two hundred lashes, and was condemned to hard labor in the galleys for life; while Maria Gonzalez and Pedro Herrera, servants of the alcayde, were sentenced to the same number of lashes, and confinement in the galleys for ten years, merely because they had treated the prisoners with kindness, and permitted such of them as were relations to see one another occasionally for a few minutes. ^f493

The treatment of one individual, who was pronounced innocent in this auto-de-fe, affords more damning evidence against the inquisitors than that of any whom they devoted quick to the flames. Dona Juana de Bohorques was a daughter of Don Pedro Garcia de Xeres y Bohorques, and the wife of Don Francisco de Vargas, baron of Higuera. She had been apprehended in consequence of a confession extorted by the rack from her sister Maria de Bohorques, who owned that she had conversed with her on the Lutheran tenets without exciting any marks of disapprobation. Being six months gone in pregnancy, Dona Juana was permitted to occupy one of the public prisons until the time of her delivery; but eight days after that event the child was taken from her, and she was thrust into a secret cell. A young female, who was afterwards brought to the stake as a Lutheran, was confined along with her, and did every thing in her power to promote her recovery. Dona Juana had soon an opportunity of repaying the kind attentions of her fellow-prisoner, who, having been called before the inquisitors, was brought back into her dungeon faint and mangled. Scarcely had the latter acquired sufficient strength to rise from her bed of flags, when Dona Juana was conducted in her turn to the place of torture. Refusing to confess, she was put into the engine del burro, which was applied with such violence, that the cords penetrated to the bone of her arms and legs; and some of the internal vessels being burst, the blood flowed in streams from her mouth and nostrils. She was conveyed to her cell in a state of insensibility, and expired in the course of a few days. The inquisitors would fain have concealed the cause of her death, but it was impossible; and they thought to expiate the crime of this execrable murder, in the eyes of men at least, by pronouncing Juana de Bohorques innocent on the day of the auto-de-fe, vindicating her reputation, and restoring her property to her heirs. “Under what an overwhelming responsibility (exclaims one of their countrymen) must these cannibals appear one day before the tribunal of the Deity!” But may we not hesitate in deciding the question, Whose was the greatest responsibility? that of the cannibals, or of those who permitted them thus to gorge themselves with human blood? Surely the spirit of chivalry had fled from the breasts of the Spanish nobility, else they never would have suffered their wives and daughters to be abused in this manner by an ignoble junto of priests and friars, supported by a monarch equally base and unprincipled. ^f494

Having discharged the painful task of describing the four great autos in Valladolid and Seville, it may be proper, before proceeding with the narrative of the extermination of the protestants, to advert to the severe measures adopted against certain dignified ecclesiastics who fell under the suspicion of favoring heresy.

We have had occasion repeatedly to mention the name, and allude to the trial of Bartolomé de Carranza y Miranda, archbishop of Toledo. After sitting in the council of Trent, and accompanying Philip II. to England, where he took an active part in the examination of the protestants who were led to the stake, this learned man was rewarded in 1558 with the primacy; but he had not been many months in his diocese when he was denounced to the Inquisition and thrown into prison at Valladolid. Some historians have ascribed this prosecution entirely to the envy and personal hatred of his brethren, particularly Melchior Cano, bishop of the Canaries, and the inquisitor general Valdes. ^f495 It is unquestionable that the proceedings were exasperated by such base motives; but there were grounds of jealousy, distinct from these, which operated against the primate. Several of the leading persons among the Spanish protestants had received their education under Carranza, who continued to maintain a friendly correspondence with them, and, though he signified his disapprobation of their sentiments in private, did not give information against them to the Holy Office. His theological ideas were more enlarged than those of his brethren, and he appears to have agreed with the reformers on justification and several collateral points of doctrine. In these respects his mode of thinking resembled that of Marco Antonio Flaminio, cardinals Pole and Morone, and other learned Italians. ^f496 Indeed his intimacy with these distinguished individuals formed part of the evidence against him. ^f497 His Catechism, which was made the primary article of charge against him, besides its presumed leaning on some points to Lutheranism, was offensive to the Inquisition, because it was published in the vulgar tongue, and inculcated the doctrines of the Bible more than the traditions of the church. At the end of seven years, the cause was transferred to Rome, whither the primate was conveyed; and after various intrigues and delays, pope Gregory XIII. pronounced a definitive sentence on the 14th of April 1576, finding Carranza violently suspected of heresy, confirming the prohibition of his Catechism, and ordaining him to abjure sixteen Lutheran propositions, and to be suspended for five years from the exercise of his archiepiscopal functions. The sentence had scarcely passed when the primate sickened and died, having been eighteen years under process and in a state of confinement. ^f498

The prosecution of the primate gave rise to others. Eight bishops, the most of whom had assisted at the council of Trent, and twenty-five doctors of theology, including the men of greatest learning in Spain, were denounced to the Holy Office; and few of them escaped without making some humiliating acknowledgment or retractation. ^f499 Mancio de Corpus Christi, professor of theology at Alcala, had given a favorable opinion of the Catechism of Carranza, to which he had procured the subscriptions of the divines of his university; but hearing that a prosecution was commenced against him, he saved himself from being thrown into the secret prisons by transmitting to the inquisitors another opinion, in which he condemned three hundred and thirty-one propositions in the works of that prelate, whom he had a little before pronounced most orthodox. ^f500 Luis de la Cruz, a favorite disciple of Carranza, was thrown into the secret prisons, in consequence of certain papers of his master being found in his possession, and the intercourse which he had held with Doctor Cazalla and other reformers. Confinement and anxiety produced a tendency of blood to his head, accompanied with fits of delirium, which rendered it necessary, for the preservation of his life, to remove him to the episcopal prison. Notwithstanding this and the failure of the proof brought against him, La Cruz was kept in confinement for five years, in the hopes that he would purchase his liberty by blasting the reputation and betraying the life of his patron. ^f501 Before Carranza was formally accused, the inquisitors had extracted a number of propositions from his Catechism, and without naming the author, submitted them to the judgment of Juan de Pegna, professor at Salamanca, who pronounced them all catholic, or at least susceptible of a good sense. De Pegna became alarmed, and sent an apology to the Holy Office, in which he acknowledged himself guilty of concealing the favorable opinion which Carranza had entertained of Don Carlos de Seso. This did not pacify the holy fathers, who condemned him to undergo different penances for his faults, among which they reckoned the following: that he did not censure the proposition, “that we cannot say that a person falls from a state of grace by committing a mortal sin;” and that he had given it as his private opinion, “that even although the primate was a heretic, the Holy Office should wink at the fact, lest the Lutherans of Germany should canonize him as a martyr, as they had done others who had been punished.” ^f502

In the mean time the persecution against the Lutherans in Valladolid and Seville had not relaxed. Every means was used to excite the popular odium against them. The abominable calumnies propagated by the pagans of Rome against the primitive Christians were revived; and it was believed by the credulous vulgar, that the protestants, in their nightly assemblies, extinguished the candles and abandoned themselves to the grossest vices. ^f503 On the feast of St. Matthew, in the year 1561, a destructive fire broke out at Valladolid, which consumed upwards of four hundred houses, including some of the richest manufactories and stores in the city. This was ascribed to a conspiracy of the Lutherans; and every year afterwards, on the day of St. Matthew, the inhabitants observed a solemn procession, accompanied with prayers to our Lord, through the intervention of his holy apostle, to preserve them from this plague and calamity. ^f504 In the course of the same year, the pope sent Spain a bull, authorizing a jubilee, with plenary indulgences. Among other things, it gave authority to confessors to absolve those who had involved themselves in the Lutheran heresy, upon their professing sorrow for their errors. Though the object of the court of Rome was to amass money, this measure tended to mitigate the persecution which had raged for some years; but the inquisitors, determined that their prey should not escape them, prohibited the bull from being published within the kingdom. ^f505

The four autos-de-fe which we have already described, although the most celebrated, were not the only spectacles at which the protestants suffered in Valladolid and Seville. It required many years to empty their prisons, from which adherents to the reformed faith continued, at short intervals, to be brought out to the scaffold and the stake. On the 10th of July 1563, a public auto was celebrated in Seville, at which six persons were committed to the flames as Lutherans. Domingo de Guzman ^f506 appeared among the penitents on this occasion. The hope of an archbishopric had been held out to induce him to recant; and his brother, the duke of Medina Sidonia, exerted himself to procure his release, upon undergoing such a slight penance as would not interfere with his future prospects. But the inquisitors were resolved to prevent the advancement of one who had embraced the reformed tenets; and after causing his books, which exceeded a thousand volumes, to be burnt before his eyes, they condemned him to perpetual imprisonment. ^f507

An occurrence which took place at Seville in 1564 diverted for a little the attention of the public, and even of the inquisitors, from the adherents of the reformed doctrine. In consequence of complaints that the confessional was abused to lewd purposes, edicts were repeatedly procured from Rome to correct the evil. Several scandalous discoveries having been made by private investigation, and the public clamor increasing, the inquisition of Seville came to a resolution, of which they had reason to repent, that an edict of denunciation should be published in all the churches of the province, requiring, under a severe penalty, those who had been solicited by priests in the confessional to criminal intercourse, or who knew of this having been done, to give information to the Holy Office within thirty days. In consequence of this intimation, such numbers flocked to the Triana, that the inquisitors were forced once and again to prolong the period of denunciation, until it extended to a hundred and twenty days. Among the informers were women of illustrious birth and excellent character, who repaired to the inquisitors with their veils, and under disguise, for fear of being met and recognized by their husbands. The priests were thrown into the greatest alarm; ^f508 the peace of families was broken; and the whole city rang with scandal. At last, the council of the Supreme, perceiving the odium which it brought on the church, and its tendency to prejudice the people against auricular confession, interposed their authority, by quashing the investigation, and prohibiting the edict of denunciation from being repeated. ^f509

Valladolid and Seville were not the only cities whose prisons were crowded with friends to the reformed doctrine. From 1560 to 1570, one public auto-de-fe at least was celebrated annually in all the twelve cities in which provincial tribunals of the Inquisition were then established; and at each of these, adherents to the new faith made their appearance. On the 8th of September 1560, the inquisition of Murcia solemnized an auto, at which five persons were sentenced to different punishments for embracing Lutheranism; and three years after, eleven appeared as penitents in that city on the same charge. ^f510 It was in the last-mentioned auto, that a son of the emperor of Morocco, who had submitted to baptism in his youth, was brought on the scaffold for relapsing to Mahometanism, and was condemned to confinement for three years, and to banishment from the kingdoms of Valencia, Aragon, Murcia, and Granada. On the 25th of February 1560, the inquisition of Toledo prepared a grand auto-de-fe for the entertainment of their young queen, Elizabeth de Valois, the daughter of Henry II. of France. To render it the more solemn, a general assembly of the cortes of the kingdom was held there at the same time, to take the oath of fidelity to Don Carlos, the heir apparent to the throne. Several Lutherans appeared among those who were condemned to the flames and to other punishments. On this occasion the duke of Brunswick delivered up one of his retinue to the flames, to testify his hatred of the reformed cause, and to strike terror into the minds of the Germans, Flemings, and French, who were present, and were greatly suspected of heresy. ^f511 At the same place in the subsequent year, four priests, Spanish and French, were burnt alive for Lutheranism, and nineteen persons of the same persuasion were reconciled. Among the latter was one of the royal pages, whose release was granted by Philip and Valdes, at the intercession of the queen. In 1565, the same inquisition celebrated another auto, at which a number or protestants were condemned to the fire and to penances, under the several designations of Lutherans, faithful, and huguenaos, or hugonots. The metropolitan city of Spain was so eager to signalize its zeal against heresy, that in 1571, not to mention other examples, an auto was held in it, at which two persons were burnt alive, and one in effigy, while no fewer than thirty-one were sentenced to different punishments, as Lutherans. One of the two who perished in the flames was Doctor Sigismond Archel, a native of Cagliari in Sardinia. He had been arrested at Madrid in 1562, and after suffering for many years in the prisons of Toledo, had contrived to make his escape; but his portrait having been sent to the principal passes of the frontier, he was seized before he got out of the kingdom, and delivered again into the hands of his judges. When the depositions of the witnesses were communicated to him, Sigismond acknowledged all that was laid to his charge, but pleaded, that so far from being a heretic he was a better catholic than the papists; in proof of which he read, to the great mortification of the court, a long apology which he had composed in prison. He derided the ignorance of the priests who were sent to convert him, in consequence of which he was condemned to wear the gag on the scaffold and at the stake; and the guards, envying him the glory of a protracted martyrdom, pierced his body with their lances, while the executioners were kindling the pile, so that he perished at the same time by fire and sword. ^f512 Though the greater part of the prisoners exhibited in the autos-de-fe of Granada and Valencia were Jews or Mohametans, yet protestants suffered along with them from time to time; among whom our attention is particularly fixed upon Don Miguel de Vera y Santangel, a Carthusian monk of Portaceli, as belonging to the convent in which the first translation of the Bible into the Spanish language was composed. ^f513

None of the provincial tribunals was so much occupied in suppressing the Reformation as those of Logrono, Saragossa, and Barcelona. In the numerous autos celebrated in these cities, a great part of those who appeared on the scaffolds were protestants. But the chief employment of the inquisitors in the eastern provinces consisted in searching for and seizing heretical books, which were introduced from the frontiers of France or by sea. In 1568 the council of the Supreme addressed letters to them, communicating alarming information received from England and France. Don Diego de Guzman, the Spanish ambassador at London, had written that the English were boasting of the converts which their doctrine was making in Spain, and particularly at Navarre. At the same time advertisement was given by the ambassador at Vienne, that the Calvinists of France were felicitating themselves on the signing of the treaty of peace between the French and Spanish monarchs, and entertained hopes that their religion would make as great progress in Spain as it had done in Flanders, England and other countries, because the Spaniards, who had already embraced it secretly, would now have an easy communication through Aragon with the protestants of Bearn. From Castres and from Paris the inquisitor general had received certain information that large quantities of books, in the Castilian tongue, were destined for Spain. These were in some instances put into casks of Champagne and Burgundy wine, with such address that they passed through the hands of the custom-house officers without detection. In this way many copies of the Spanish Bible, published by Cassiodoro de Reyna at Basle in 1569, made their way into Spain, notwithstanding the severest denunciations of the Holy Office, and the utmost vigilance of the familiars. ^f514

But the Inquisition was not satisfied with preventing heretical men and books from coming into Spain; it exerted itself with equal zeal in preventing orthodox horses from being exported out of the kingdom. Incredible or ludicrous as this may appear to the reader, nothing can be more unquestionable than the fact, and nothing demonstrates more decidedly the unprincipled character of the inquisitors, as well of those who had recourse to its agency to promote their political schemes. As early as the fourteenth century it had been declared illegal to transport horses from Spain to France. This prohibition originated entirely in the views of political economy, and it was the business of the officers of the customs to prevent the contraband trade. But on occasion of the wars which arose between the papists and hugonots of France, and the increase of the latter on the Spanish borders, it occurred to Philip, as an excellent expedient for putting down the prohibited commerce, to commit the task to the Inquisition, whose services would be more effective than those of a hundred thousand frontier guards. With this view he procured a bull from the pope, which, with a special reference to the hugonots of France, and the inhabitants of Bearn in particular, declared all to be suspected of heresy who should furnish arms, munitions, or other instruments of war to heretics. In consequence of this, the council of the Supreme in 1569 added to the annual edict of denunciations a clause obliging all, under the pain of excommunication, to inform against any who had bought or transported horses for the use of the French protestants; which was afterwards extended to all who sent them across the Pyrenees. For this offence numbers were fined, whipped, and condemned to the galleys, by the inquisitorial tribunals on the frontiers. Always bent on extending their jurisdiction, the inquisitors sought to bring under their cognizance all questions respecting the contraband trade in saltpetre, sulphur, and powder. ^f515 Philip, however, diverted their attention from this encroachment on the civil administration, by engaging them in the pursuit of royal game. Ferdinand the catholic, availing himself of favorable circumstances, had added the greater part of the kingdom of Navarre to his dominions; and Charles V., in a fit of devotion, had, by his testament, enjoined his son to examine the claim which the Spanish monarchy had to these territories, and, if it should be found invalid, to restore them to the original proprietor. ^f516 So far from doing this act of justice, Philip intended to annex the whole of that kingdom to his crown. At his instigation pope Pius IV. in 1563 issued a bull, excommunicating Jeanne d’Albret, the hereditary queen of Navarre, and offering her dominions to the first catholic prince who should undertake to clear them of heresy. With characteristic duplicity Philip professed to the French court his disapprobation of the step taken by his Holiness, while, in concert with the inquisitor general Espinosa and the house of Guise, he was concerting measures to seize the person of the queen of Navarre, and of her son, afterwards Henry IV. of France, with the view of carrying them by force into Spain, and delivering them to the Inquisition. This disgraceful conspiracy, formed in 1565, was defeated only by the sudden illness of the officer in whom its execution had been intrusted. ^f517

The public is not unacquainted with the cruelties perpetrated by the inquisition of Goa, within the settlements of the Portuguese in the East Indies. ^f518 Similar atrocities were committed by the Spaniards in the New World, in which the tribunal of the Inquisition was erected at Mexico, Lima, and Carthagena. At Mexico, in the year 1574, an Englishman and a Frenchman were burnt alive as impenitent Lutherans, while others were subjected to penances for embracing the opinions of Luther and Calvin. ^f519 In the close of the seventeenth century, Louis Ramé, French protestant, was detained as a prisoner for four years by the inquisitors of Mexico; and several natives of England and its colonies were forced to abjure their religion, and submit to rebaptization. ^f520 A splendid auto-de-fe was celebrated at the same place in 1659, at which William Lamport, an Irishman, was condemned to the flames, “for being infected with the errors of Luther, Calvin, Pelagius, Wicliff, and John Huss; in a word, because he was guilty of all imaginable heresies.” He was the author of two writings, in one of which, to use the language of the indictment, “things were said against the Holy Office, its erection, style, mode of process, &c. in such a manner, that in the whole of it not a word was to be found that was not deserving of reprenhension, not only as being injurious, but also insulting to our holy catholic faith.” Of the other writing the procurator fiscal says, “that it contained detestable bitterness of language, and contumelies so filled with poison, as to manifest the heretical spirit of the author, and his bitter hatred against the Holy Office.” On the day of execution, being desirous of testifying the readiness with which he met death, he was no sooner seated at the foot of the stake, and his neck placed in the ring, than he let himself fall and broke his neck. According to the official report of the auto-de-fe, Lamport trusted “that the devil, his familiar, would relieve him,” and as he walked through the streets to the place of execution, continued looking up to the clouds to see if the superior power he expected was coming; but finding all his hopes in vain, he strangled himself. ^f521

The year 1570 may be fixed upon as the period of the suppression of the reformed religion in Spain. After that date, protestants were still discovered at intervals by the Inquisition, and brought out in the autos-defe; but they were “as the gleaning grapes when the vintage is done.” Several of these were foreigners, and especially Englishmen. The punishment of Burton and others produced remonstrances from foreign powers, which were long disregarded by the Spanish government. All that Mann, the English ambassador at the court of Madrid, could obtain, was a personal protection on the head of religion, while those of his retinue were compelled to go to mass; ^f522 and having caused the English service to be performed in his house, he was for some time excluded from the court, and obliged to quit Madrid. The circumstances in which Elizabeth was then placed, obliged her to act cautiously; but she wrote to Mann, desiring him to remonstrate with his catholic majesty against treatment so dishonorable to her crown, and so opposite to that which the Spanish ambassador received at London; and intimating that she would recall him, unless the privilege of private worship, according to the rites of their country, were granted to his servants. ^f523 At a subsequent period, the injury done to commerce by persecution obliged the government to issue orders, that strangers visiting Spain for the purpose of trade should not be molested on account of their religion. The inquisitors, however, made no scruple of transgressing the ordinances of the court on this point, by proceeding from time to time against foreigners, under the pretext that they propagated heresy by books or conversation. Among many others, William Lithgow, the well-known traveller, was in 1620 imprisoned and put to the torture at Malaga; ^f524 and in 1714 Isaac Martin was subjected to the same treatment at Granada. ^f525

Of fifty-seven persons, whose sentences were read at an auto held in Cuenca in 1654, one only was charged with Lutheranism. ^f526 In 1680, an auto-de-fe was celebrated at Madrid, in honor of the marriage of the Spanish monarch, Don Carlos II., to Marie Louise de Bourbon, the niece of Louis XIV. of France; and as a proof of the taste of the nation, a minute account of the whole procedure on that occasion was published to the world, with the approbation of all the authorities, civil and ecclesiastical. Among a hundred and eighteen victims produced on the scaffold, we meet with the name of only one protestant, whose effigy and bones were given to the flames. This was Marcos de Segura, a native of Villa de Ubrique, in Granada, whose sentence bears, that he had formerly been ‘reconciled’ by the inquisition of Llerena, as a heretic who denied purgatory, but who, having relapsed into this and other errors, was again thrown into prison, where he died in a state of impenitence and contumacy. ^f527

Although upwards of sixteen hundred victims were burnt alive in the course of the eighteenth century, we do not perceive that any of them were protestants. ^f528 But the reformed faith can number among its confessors a Spaniard who suffered in the nineteenth century. Don Miguel Juan Antonio Solano, a native of Verdun in Aragon, was vicar of Esco in the diocese of Jaca. He was educated according to the Aristotelian system of philosophy and scholastic divinity; but the natural strength of his mind enabled him to throw off his early prejudices, and he made great proficiency in mathematics and mechanics. His benevolence led him to employ his inventive powers for the benefit of his parishioners, by improving their implements of husbandry, and fertilizing their soil. A long and severe illness, which made him a cripple for life, withdrew the good vicar of Esco from active pursuits, and induced him to apply himself to theological studies more closely than he had hitherto done. His small library happened to contain a Bible; and by perusing this with impartiality and attention, he gradually formed for himself a system of doctrine, which agreed in the main with the leading doctrines of the protestant churches. The candid and honorable mind of Solano would not permit him either to conceal his sentiments, or to disseminate them covertly among his people. Having drawn up a statement of his new views, he laid it before the bishop of the diocese for his judgment, and receiving no answer from him, submitted it to the theological faculty of the university of Saragossa. The consequence was, that he was seized and thrown into the prison of the holy tribunal at Saragossa, which, in the infirm state of his health, was the same as sending him to the grave. He contrived, however, by the assistance of some kind friends, to make his escape, and to reach Oleron, the nearest French town; but after seriously deliberating on the course which he should pursue, he came to the resolution of asserting the truth in the very face of death, and actually returned of his own accord to the inquisitorial prison. On appearing before the tribunal, he acknowledged the opinions laid to his charge, but pleaded in his defence, that after long meditation, with the utmost desire to discover the truth, and without any other help than the Bible, he had come to these conclusions. He avowed his conviction, that all saving truth was contained in the holy scriptures; that whatever the church of Rome had decreed to the contrary, by departing from the proper and literal sense of the sacred text, was false; that the idea of a purgatory and limbus patrum was a mere human invention; that it was a sin to receive money for saying mass; that tithes were fraudulently introduced into the Christian church by the priests; that the exaction of them was as dishonorable on their part, as it was impolitic and injurious to the cultivators of the soil; and that the ministers of religion should be paid by the state for their labors, in the same manner as judges were. The tribunal, after going through the ordinary forms, decided that Solano should be delivered over to the secular arm. The inquisitor general at that time was Arce, archbishop of Saragossa, the intimate friend of the Prince of Peace, and suspected of secret infidelity. Averse to the idea of an execution by fire during his administration, he prevailed on the council of the Supreme to order a fresh examination of the witnesses. This was carried into execution, and the inquisitors renewed their former sentence. Arce next ordered an inquiry into the mental sanity of the prisoner. A physician was found to give an opinion favorable to the known wishes of the grand inquisitor; but the sole ground on which it rested was, that the prisoner had vented opinions different from those of his brethren. The only thing that remained was, to endeavor to persuade Solano to retract those opinions which had been condemned by so many popes and general councils. But this attempt was altogether fruitless. To all the arguments drawn from such topics, he replied, that money was the god worshipped at Rome, and that, in all the councils which had been held of late, the papal influence had decided theological questions, and rendered useless the good intentions of some respectable men. In the mean time, his confinement brought on a fever, during which the inquisitors redoubled their efforts for his conversion. He expressed himself thankful for their attention, but told them, that he could not retract his sentiments without offending God and betraying the truth. On the twentieth day of his sickness, the physician informed him of his danger, and exhorted him to avail himself of the few moments which remained. “I am in the hands of God,” said Solano, “and have nothing more to do.” Thus died, in 1805, the vicar of Esco. He was refused ecclesiastical sepulture, and his body was privately interred within the enclosure of the Inquisition, near the back gate, towards the Ebro. His death was reported to the council of the Supreme, who stopped further proceedings, to avoid the necessity of burning him in effigy. ^f529

Such are the details of the unsuccessful, but interesting, attempt to reform religion in Spain during the sixteenth century. Melancholy as the results were, they present nothing which reflects discredit on the cause, or on those by whom it was espoused. It did not miscarry through the imprudence or the infidelity of its leading friends. On the contrary, we have met with examples of the power of religion, of enlightened and pure love to truth, and of invincible fortitude, combined with meekness, scarcely inferior to any which are to be found in the annals of Christianity. To fall by such weapons as we have described, can be disgraceful to no cause. The fate of the Reformation in Spain, as well as in Italy, teaches us not to form hasty and rash conclusions respecting the course of proceedings on which Providence, for inscrutable reasons, may sometimes be pleased to frown. ^f530 The common maxim, that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church,” was remarkably verified in the primitive ages of Christianity; but we must distinguish what is effected by the special interposition and extraordinary blessing of heaven, from what will happen according to the ordinary course of events. In the nature of things, it cannot but operate as a great, and with multitudes as an insuperable, obstacle to the reception of the truth, that, in following the dictates of their conscience, they must expose themselves to every species of worldly evil; and persecution may be carried to such a pitch as will, without a miracle, crush the best of causes; for, though it cannot eradicate the truth from the minds of those by whom it has been cordially embraced, it may cut off all the ordinary means of communication by which it is propagated. Accordingly history shows that true religion has been not only excluded, but banished for ages from extensive regions of the globe, by oppressive laws and a tyrannical administration.

But we are not on this account to conclude that the Spanish martyrs threw away their lives, and spilt their blood in vain. They offered to God a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savour. Their blood is precious in his sight; he has avenged it, and may yet more signally avenge it. They left their testimony for truth in a country where it had been eminently opposed and outraged. That testimony has not altogether perished. Who knows what effects the record of what they dared and suffered may yet, through the divine blessing, produce upon that unhappy nation, which counted them as the filth and offscouring of all things, but was not worthy of them? Though hitherto lost on Spain, it has not been without all fruit elsewhere. The knowledge of the exertions made by Spaniards, and of the barbarous measures adopted to put them down, provoked many in other countries to throw off the Roman yoke, and to secure themselves against similar cruelties. In particular, it inspired their fellow-subjects in the Low Countries with a determination not to permit their soil to be polluted by the odious tribunal of the Inquisition, and consolidated that resistance which terminated in the establishment of civil liberty, in connection with the reformed religion, in the United Provinces. While we bow with reverence to those providential arrangements which permitted the standard of truth to fall in one part of the world, we cannot but reflect with gratitude on the signal success vouchsafed to it in others. It was during the years 1559 and 1569 that the death-blow was given to the reformed religion in Spain; and during the same period the religious liberties of the protestants of Germany were finally secured, the reformed church was regularly organized in the kingdom of France, England was freed from popery by the accession of Elizabeth, and the cause of the Reformation, after struggling long for existence, attained to a happy and permanent establishment in Scotland.

CHAPTER 8

PROTESTANT EXILES FROM SPAIN.

THOSE who have taken an interest in the preceding narrative will feel a desire to know something of the fate of those Spaniards who escaped the horrors of the dungeon and the stake by abandoning their native country.

From the time that violent measures were first adopted to put down the new opinions, individuals who had incurred the suspicions of the clergy, or whose attachment to their country yielded to their fears or to their passion for religious liberty, began to quit the Peninsula. As the persecution grew hotter, the emigration increased; nor had it altogether ceased at the close of the sixteenth century. Some of the emigrants crossed the Pyrenees, after which they sought out abodes in France and Switzerland; others, escaping by sea, took refuge in the Low Countries and in England.

Antwerp was the first place in which the refugees were formed into a church. The reformed opinions had been early introduced into this great mart of Europe, in consequence of the multitude of strangers who continually resorted to it, and the superior freedom which is enjoyed wherever commerce flourishes. It was to the merchants of Antwerp that the Spaniards were first indebted for the means of their illumination; ^f531 and they continued long to promote the good work which they had begun, by encouraging translations of the scriptures and other books into the Spanish language. ^f532 Antonio de Corran, or Corranus, a learned native of Seville, was pastor of the Spanish church in Antwerp before the year 1568, when that city fell into the hands of the duke of Alva, of sanguinary memory. ^f533 After it recovered its liberty, the exiles returned to their former asylum, and enjoyed the pastoral labours of another native of Seville, Cassiodoro de Reyna, the translator of the Bible, who appears to have continued with them until 1585, when the city was again brought under the Spanish yoke, after a memorable siege by the duke of Parma. During his residence there, he drew up, for the use of his hearers, the Antwerp Catechism, which he published both in Spanish and French. ^f534

Previously to his settling at Antwerp, De Reyna had resided at Strasburg, Frankfort, and other imperial cities, where he found a number of his countrymen, whom he would willingly have served as a preacher. But the German divines received him coldly, on account of his leaning to the sentiments of Calvin and the Swiss churches, on the subject of the eucharist. ^f535 On this account, he retired to Basle, and meeting with a kind reception in that seat of literature, he finished his translation of the Bible, which had been his chief employment for several years. ^f536

The Palatinate, and the dominions of the landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, opened a more hospitable retreat to the refugees than any other part of Germany. It was in Heidelberg that De Montes published that work which first laid open to the eyes of Europe the mysteries of the Spanish inquisition, and the sufferings which his protestant countrymen had endured from that inhuman tribunal; ^f537 while a confession of faith in the name of the exiles from Spain, along with an account of their persecution, came from the press of Cassel. ^f538

France was happily in such a state as to offer a refuge to the Spanish protestants, when driven from their native country. Many of them repaired to the city of Lyons, where means of religious instruction had been provided for them, as well as for their brethren who had fled from Italy. ^f539 The French protestants showed themselves uniformly disposed to sympathize with the Spanish refugees, contributed to their support, shared with them that degree of religious liberty which they happened at the time to enjoy, and admitted several of them to be pastors of their churches. ^f540 It is gratifying to find the French synods also receiving into their communion Moors, who had escaped, along with the protestants, from the inquisition of Spain, and now abjured Mahometanism under circumstances which rendered their change of religion less obnoxious to suspicion. ^f541

But it was in Geneva and England that the greater part of Spanish refugees found a safe harbour and permanent abode. As they were intimately connected with the Italian refugees who settled in these places, we shall, according to a former promise, ^f542 combine the affairs of both in the following narrative.

As early as 1542, there was formed at Geneva a congregation of Italian refugees, which had the chapel of the cardinal d’Ostie assigned to it by the council, and was under the pastoral inspection of Bernardino de Sesvaz. ^f543 Its meetings were, however, discontinued after a short time, probably by the removal of some of its principal members; and they were not resumed until the year 1551.

The person to whom its revival was chiefly owing was Galeazzo Carraccioli, whose life presents incidents which would excite deep interest in a romance. ^f544 He was the eldest son of Nicol-Antonio Carraccioli, marquis of Vico, one of the grandees of Naples. His mother was of the noble family of the Caraffi, and sister to the cardinal of that name who was raised to the pontifical chair. At the age of twenty, he married Vittoria, daughter to the duke of Nuceria, who brought him a large fortune, and bore him six children. The emperor Charles V., who was under obligations to the marquis, conferred on his son the office of gentleman-sewer; and the personal accomplishments of Galeazzo, the uniform correctness of his manners, his affability, and the talents which he discovered for public business, led all who knew him to anticipate his gradual and certain advancement in worldly honors. Serious impressions, accompanied with a conviction of the errors of the church of Rome, were made on his mind by Valdes and Martyr, at the time that the protestant tenets were secretly embraced by many individuals in Naples; and his religious dispositions were cherished by the advices of that pious and elegant scholar, Marc-Antonio Flaminio. ^f545 Having accompanied the emperor to Germany, his acquaintance with the reformed doctrine was enlarged by conversation with some of the leading protestants, and the perusal of their writings; and his attachment to it was confirmed by an interview which, on his way home, he had at Strasburg with Martyr, who had lately forsaken his native country for the sake of religion. After his return to Naples, he endeavored to prevail on such of his countrymen as held the same views with himself to meet together in private for their mutual edification; but he found that the severe measures lately resorted to had struck terror into their minds, and that they were resolved, not only to conceal their sentiments, but also to practice occasional conformation to the rites of the popish worship. He now entered into serious deliberation with himself on one of the most delicate and painful questions which can be forced on a person in his circumstances.

What was he to do? Was he to spend his whole life in the midst of idolatry, in the way of concealing that faith which was dearer to his heart than life, and incurring the threatening, “Him that confesseth me not before men, I will not confess before my Father and his angels?” Or, was it his duty to leave father, and wife, and children, and houses, and lands, for Christ’s sake and the gospel’s? The sacrifice of his secular dignities and possessions did not cost him a sigh; but as often as he reflected on the distress which his departure would inflict on his aged father, who, with parental pride, regarded him as the heir of his titles, and the stay of his family,— on his wife whom he loved and by whom he was loved tenderly,— and on the dear pledges of their union, he was thrown into a state of unutterable anguish, and started back with horror from the resolution to which conscience had brought him. At length, by an heroic effort of zeal, which few can imitate, and many will condemn, he came to the determination of bursting the tenderest ties which perhaps ever bound man to country and kindred. His nearest relations, so far from being reconcilable to the idea of his abandoning the church of Rome, had signified their displeasure at the pious life which he had led for some years, and at his evident disrelish for the gaieties of the court. Having no hope of procuring their consent, he concealed his design from them, and, availing himself of the pretext of business which he had to transact with the emperor, set out for Augsburg, whence he speedily repaired to Geneva. ^f546 The intelligence of his arrival at that place, and his abjuration of the Roman religion, while it filled the imperial court with astonishment, plunged his family into the deepest distress. One of his cousins, who had been his intimate friend, was despatched from Naples to represent the grief which his conduct had caused, and urge him to return. As soon as his refusal was known, sentence was passed against him, and he was deprived of all the property which he inherited from his mother. At the risk of his life, he went to Italy and met his father at Verona, where he remained until the marquis went to the emperor, and obtained, as a special favor, that the sentence pronounced against his son should not extent to his grandson. During his father’s absence, Galeazzo was waited upon by the celebrated Fracastoro, who used his great eloquence to persuade him to comply with the wishes of his friends. In the following year he met his father a second time at Mantua, when an offer was made to him, in the name of his uncle, now pope Paul IV., that he should have a protection against the Inquisition, provided he would take up his residence within the Venetian states; a proposal to which neither his safety nor the dictates of his conscience would permit him to accede. All this time he had been refused the privilege of seeing his family; and it was not until the end of the year 1557 that he received a letter from his wife Vittoria, earnestly requesting an interview with him, and fixing the place of meeting. Having obtained a safe-conduct from the government of the Grisons, he immediately set out for Lesina, an island on the coast of Dalmatia, over against his paternal castle of Vico; but, on his arrival at the appointed place, Vittoria, instead of making her appearance, sent two of her sons to meet their father. He had scarcely returned to Geneva from this fatiguing and dangerous journey, when he received another packet from his wife, apologizing for her breach of engagement, and begging him to come without delay to the same place, where she would not fail to meet him, along with his father and children. On his reaching Lesina the second time, none of the family had arrived; and unable to brook further delay, he crossed the Gulf of Venice, and presented himself at his father’s gate. He was received with every demonstration of joy, and for some days the castle was thronged with friends who came to welcome him. But it behoved the parties to come at last to an explanation. Taking Vittoria aside, Galeazzo apologized for not having imparted to her the secret of his departure, gave a full account of the reasons of his conduct, and begged her to accompany him to Geneva; promising that no constraint should be laid on her conscience, and that she should be at liberty to practice her religion under his roof. After many protestations of affection, she finally replied, that she could not reside out of Italy, nor in a place where any other religion than that of the church of Rome was professed; and further, that she could not live with him as her husband, so long as he was infected with heresy. Her confessor had inculcated upon her that it was a damnable sin to cohabit with a heretic, and dreading the influence which her husband might exert over her mind, had prevented her from keeping her first appointment. The day fixed for his departure being come, Galeazzo went to take leave of his father, who, laying aside the affection with which he had hitherto treated him, and giving way to his passion, loaded him with reproaches and curses. On quitting his father’s apartment, he had to undergo a still severer trial of his sensibility. He found his wife and children, with a number of his friends, waiting for him in the hall. Bursting into tears, and embracing her husband, Vittoria besought him not to leave her a widow, and her babes fatherless. The children joined in the entreaties of their mother; and the eldest daughter, a fine girl of thirteen, grasping his knees, refused to part with him. How he disengaged himself, he knew not; for the first thing which brought him to recollection was the noise made by the sailors on reaching the opposite shore of the Gulf. He used often to relate to his intimate friends, that the parting scene continued long to haunt his mind; and that, not only in dreams, but also in reveries into which he fell during the day, he thought he heard the angry voice of his father, saw Vittoria in tears, and felt his daughter dragging at his heels. His return gave great joy to his friends at Geneva, who, in proportion to the confidence which they reposed in his constancy, were alarmed for the safety of his person.

Painful as this visit had been to his feelings, it contributed to restore his peace of mind, by convincing him that he could entertain no hope of enjoying the society of his family except on the condition of renouncing his religion. After he had remained nine years in exile, he consulted Calvin on the propriety of contracting a second marriage. That reformer, who took a deep interest in the character of his noble friend, felt great scruples as to the expediency of this step, but ultimately gave his approbation to it, after he had consulted the divines of Switzerland and the Grisons. Accordingly, the courts of Geneva having legally pronounced a sentence of divorce against Vittoria, on the ground of her obstinate refusal to live with her husband, he married Anne Fremejere, the widow of a French refugee from Rouen, with whom he continued to live happily in a state of dignified frugality. On being informed of this part of his conduct, we feel as if it detracted from the high unsullied virtue which Galeazzo had hitherto displayed. His second nuptials, though contracted according to the rules of the canon law, gave occasion of reproach to the keen adversaries of the Reformation; but they did not lower him in the estimation of his acquaintance of either religious persuasion. By the citizens of Geneva he was all along held in the highest respect; the freedom of the city had been conferred on him soon after his arrival among them; a house was allotted to him by the public; and he was admitted a member both of the great and small council. Princes, ambassadors, and learned men, popish as well as protestant, who visited the city, regularly paid their respects to the marquis; a title which was always given him, though he refused to assume it even after the death of his father. Nothing gave greater offence to the papal court, and the government of Naples, than his choosing the see of heresy for his residence. It was probably with the view of removing this prejudice, and thereby procuring remittances from his patrimonial estate, that he consented, in the spring of 1572, to a proposal made by Admiral Coligni to take up his abode with him; ^f547 but providentially he was prevented from removing to France so soon as he had intended, and thus escaped the massacre of St. Bartholomew, which took place in August that year. After residing five years at Nion and Lausanne for the sake of economy in his living, he returned to Geneva, which he did not again leave until his death, which happened in 1586, in the sixty-eighth year of his

f548

age.

The first thing which engaged the attention of Caraccioli, after his settlement in Geneva, was the re-organizing of the Italian congregation.

Lattantio Ragnoni, a gentleman of Sienna, whom he had known at Naples, having arrived a few days after him, and given proofs of his orthodoxy and qualifications for public teaching, was persuaded by him to undertake the office of pastor to his countrymen. ^f549 They accordingly recommenced their public exercises in the Magdalene church, which was assigned to them by the council. ^f550 Caraccioli himself became one of their elders, and by the respectability of his character, and the wisdom of his counsels, contributed more than any other individual to the permanent prosperity of that church. In the close of the year 1553, they obtained a preacher of greater abilities in Celso Massimiliano, usually called Martinengo, because he was the son of a count of that name, in the territories of Brescia. He had entered into the order of canons regular, and having imbibed the reformed doctrine from Peter Martyr, preached it for some time with great boldness and eloquence; but understanding that snares were laid for his life, he fled to the Valteline, whence he came to Basle, with the intention of proceeding to England. By the importunities of Caraccioli he was induced to abandon his intended journey, and to undertake the pastoral charge of the Italian church at Geneva. ^f551 On his death in 1557, Calvin exerted himself to procure for them the services of Martyr and Zanchi, who excused themselves on account of their engagements; and the church appears to have remained under the sole inspection of Ragnoni ^f552 until 1559, when they procured Nicola Balbani, who continued to serve them with much approbation nearly to the close of the sixteenth century. ^f553 It would seem that this situation was also held by Jean Baptiste Rotan, a learned man, who, on removing to France, incurred the suspicion of seeking to betray the reformed church by reconciling it to Rome. ^f554

The peace of the Italian church was for some time disturbed by the antitrinitarian controversy. Alciati, a military officer from Milan, and Blandrata, a physician from Piedmont, in the visits which they made to Geneva, privately disseminated their sentiments, which were adopted by Valentinus Gentilis, a native of Cosenza in Calabria, who had joined the Italian congregation. The celebrated lawyer Gribaldo, after differing with Calvin, had taken up his residence at Fargias, a villa which he purchased in the neighbouring district of Gex, within the jurisdiction of Bern, from which he kept up an intercourse with the secret agitators in Geneva. They had caused great uneasiness to Martinengo, who, in recommending his church to the care of Calvin, when he was on his death-bed, adjured that reformer to guard them against the arts of these restless spirits. ^f555 In concert with Ragnoni, their surviving pastor, Calvin exerted himself in allaying these dissensions, and, in 1558, drew up a confession of faith for the use of the Italian congregation. This was subscribed by Gentilis, under the pain of perjury if he should afterwards contradict it; but, encouraged by Gribaldo, he began again to spread the opinions which he had renounced, upon which a process was commenced against him, which issued in his expulsion from the city. ^f556

The internal peace of the Italian church being restored, it continued to flourish, and gained fresh accessions every year by the arrival of persons from the different parts of Italy. All classes in Geneva, the magistrates, the ministers, and the citizens, vied with each other in their kind attention to the exiles from Italy, who were admitted to privileges, and advanced to offices, in common with the native inhabitants of the city. Nor had the republic any reason to repent of this liberal policy. The adopted strangers transferred their loyalty and affections to Geneva; and among those who have served her most honorably in the senate, the academy, and the field, from that time to the present, we recognize with pleasure Italian refugees and their descendants. It is sufficient here to mention the names of Diodati, Turretini, Calandrini, Burlamaqui, Micheli, Minutoli, Butini, and Offredi.

Individual Spaniards, who found it necessary to fly from the Inquisition, had taken refuge in Geneva from the time that Egidio was thrown into prison at Seville. ^f557 In 1557, additions were made to their number; ^f558 and the persecution increasing during the two subsequent years, emigrants poured in from all parts of the Peninsula. ^f559 The council extended to them the privileges which had been already granted to the emigrants from Italy. It was Juan Perez, to whom his countrymen were otherwise so much indebted, ^f560 who first formed a Spanish church in Geneva. ^f561 After his departure to France, they enjoyed the pastoral labors of De Reyna and others of their learned countrymen; but, as many of their members removed to England and other places, and as the most of them understood Italian, they adjoined themselves, before the close of the century, to the church which was placed under the charge of Balbani. ^f562 One of the most distinguished of their number, both in point of learning and piety, was Pedro Gales. While he taught Greek and jurisprudence in Italy, he had fallen under the suspicion of heresy, and being put to the torture at Rome, lost one of his eyes. Escaping from prison, he came to Geneva about the year 1580, and was appointed joint professor of philosophy with Julio Paci, an Italian lawyer. ^f563 During an interruption of the academical exercises caused by the attempts of the duke of Savoy on Geneva, Gales was persuaded to accept the rectorship of the college of Guienne at Bordeaux. But finding his situation unpleasant, in consequence of the civil wars which then raged in France, and the envy of one of his colleagues, he left it, with the intention of repairing to the Netherlands. On his journey he was seized by some of the partisans of the League, and delivered first to his countrymen, and afterwards to the Spanish Inquisition, by whose sentence he was committed to the flames, after making an undaunted profession of his faith. ^f564 He had made a large collection of ancient manuscripts, with annotations of his own, part of which was preserved, and has been highly prized by the learned. ^f565

England had the honor of opening a harbour to protestants of every country who fled from persecution at the beginning of the Reformation. The first congregation of strangers formed in London was the Dutch or German, which met in the church of Austin Friars, under the superintendence of the learned Polish nobleman John a Lasco. It was followed by the erection of French and Italian congregations. As early as 1551 there was an Italian church in London, of which Michael Angelo Florio was pastor. ^f566 On its restoration after the death of queen Mary, Florio returned; but, owing to some irregularity of conduct, he was not admitted to his former place, which was conferred on Jeronimo Jerlito. ^f567 the most distinguished of its members were Jacomo Contio, better known as an author by the name of Acontius, who was suspended for some time from communion, on suspicion of his being infected with Arian and Pelagian tenets; ^f568 his friend Battista Castiglioni, who had a place at court, and taught Italian to queen Elizabeth; ^f569 Julio Borgarusci, physician to the earl of Leicester; ^f570 Camillo Cardoini, a Neapolitan nobleman, whose son was afterwards made governor of Calabria, as a reward for abjuring the protestant religion, ^f571 and Albericus Gentilis, who became professor of civil law at Oxford. ^f572 The foreign Italian congregation appears to have been united to the French in the course of the sixteenth century; but in 1618 the noted Antonio de Dominis, archbishop of Spalatro, preached in Italian at London, and had one of the family of Calandrini appointed as his colleague. ^f573

There had been Spaniards in England from the time of Henry VIII., whose first queen belonged to that nation. Her daughter Mary entertained them about her person, and their number greatly increased after her marriage to Philip II. of Spain. As several of them were converted to protestantism, some writers are of opinion that they must have heard the gospel preached in their native tongue during the reign of Edward VI. ^f574 But it does not appear that the Spanish protestants were formed into a congregation until the accession of Elizabeth. During the year 1559 they met for worship in a private house in London, and had one Cassiodorio for their preacher. In the course of the following year they presented a petition to secretary Cecil and Grindal bishop of London, for liberty to meet in public. They had hitherto refrained, they said, from taking this step, by the advice of persons whom they greatly respected, and from fear of giving offence; but they were convinced that their continuing to do so was no less discreditable to the religion which they professed, than it was incommodious to themselves. Their adversaries took occasion to say, that they must surely harbour some monstrous tenets, detested even by Lutherans, when they were not permitted, or did not venture, to assemble publicly in a city where protestants from every country were allowed this privilege. Some of their countrymen had withdrawn from their assembly, and others had declined to join it, lest they should suffer in the trade which they carried on with Spain, from their attendance on a private and unauthorized conventicle. They added, that if the king of Spain complained of the liberty granted to them, they would desist from the exercise of it, and quit the kingdom rather than involve it in a quarrel with foreign states. ^f575 The government was favourable to their application, and it would seem that they met soon after in one of the city churches, whose ministers, as stated in their petition, were willing to accommodate them. London was not the only place which furnished them with an asylum; but in other towns both they and the Italians generally assembled for worship along with the French emigrants. ^f576 With the view of countering the invidious and unfounded reports circulated against their orthodoxy, the Spanish protestants in England drew up and published a confession of their faith, which was adopted by their brethren scattered in other countries. ^f577 This document proves that the Spanish exiles, while they held the doctrines common to all protestants, were favourable to the views which the reformed churches maintained in their controversy with the Lutherans respecting the eucharist. ^f578

The countenance granted by the government of England to protestant exiles, and particularly to Spaniards, gave great offense to the pope and to the king of Spain. It was specified as one of the charges against Elizabeth, in the bull of Pius V. excommunicating that princess. This drew from bishop Jewel the following triumphant reply. Having mentioned that they had either lost or left behind them their all, goods, lands, and houses, he goes on to say: “Not for adultery, or theft, or treason, but for the profession of the gospel. It pleased God here to cast them on land. The queen, of her gracious pity, granted them harbour. Is it become a heinous thing to show mercy? God willed the children of Israel to love the stranger, because they were strangers in the land of Egypt. He that showeth mercy shall find mercy. But what was the number of such who came to us? Three or four thousand. Thanks be to God, this realm is able to receive them, if the number be greater. And why may not queen Elizabeth receive a few afflicted members of Christ, which are compelled to carry his cross? Whom, when he thought good to bring safely by the dangers of the sea, and to set in at our havens, should we cruelly have driven them back again, or drowned them, or hanged them, or starved them? Would the vicar of Christ give this counsel? Or, if a king receive such, and give them succor, must he therefore be deprived? They are our brethren; they live not idly. If they take houses of us, they pay rent for them; they hold not our grounds, but by making due recompense. They beg not in our streets, nor crave any thing at our hands, but to breathe our air, and to see our sun. They labour truly, they live sparefully; they are good examples of virtue, travail, faith, and patience. The towns in which they abide are happy, for God doth follow them with his blessings.” Referring to the Spaniards who came to England in the reign of queen Mary, the bishop thus contrasts them with their protestant countrymen. “These are few, those were many; these are poor and miserable, those were lofty and proud; these are naked, those were armed; these are spoiled by others, those came to spoil us; these are driven from their country, those came to drive us from our country; these came to save their lives, those came to have our lives. If we were content to bear those then, let us not grieve now to bear these.” ^f579

The Spanish monarch was not less indignant than his Holiness at the asylum granted to his protestant subjects. Not contented with persecuting them at home, he hunted them in every country to which they were driven. Large sums of money were appropriated to the maintaining of spies, and defraying other expenses incurred by that disgraceful traffic. In France and Germany, individuals were from time to time carried off, and delivered over to the Inquisition. Not daring to make such attempts on the free soil of England, the emissaries of Spain had recourse to methods equally infamous. They required the English government to deliver up the refugees as traitors and criminals who had fled from justice. Francisco Farias and Nicolas Molino, two respectable members of the Spanish congregation, who had resided eight years in this country, were denounced by one of their countrymen who acted as a spy in London. In consequence of this, the Spanish ambassador received instructions from his court to demand of Elizabeth, that they should be sent home to be tried for crimes which were laid to their charge; and to induce her to comply with the request, their names were coupled with that of a notorious malefactor who had lately escaped from Flanders. If these innocent men had not had friends at court who knew from experience to sympathize with the exile, they might have been delivered up to a cruel death. ^f580 To enable it to meet any future demand of this kind, the English government adopted measures to obtain an exact account of all the members of the foreign congregations who had come from any part of the king of Spain’s dominions. ^f581

In the year 1568, Corranus came from Antwerp, and undertook the pastoral charge of the Spanish congregation in London. Having been involved in a quarrel with Jerlito and Cousin, the ministers of the Italian and French congregations, who accused him of error and defamation, the parties appealed to Beza, who referred the controversy to bishop Grindal. The commissioners named by the bishop to try the cause suspended Corranus from preaching. ^f582 He appears to have been a man of a hot temper; ^f583