The horrid procedure of the Inquisition is never calculated to make converts—the punishments inflicted by it encourage hypocrisy—it frequently condemns the innocent—the Inquisitors proved to be actuated by avarice in their condemnation of prisoners—other offences besides heresy taken cognizance of by the Holy Office—its flagrant injustice—its barbarous proceedings against the dead.

Having given a historical sketch of the "Holy Office," falsely so called, more particularly as it exists in Spain, we shall now select several instances, in addition to those which have been already noticed, of the sufferings of individuals, who have unhappily fallen into the hands of the Inquisitors, those declared enemies of humanity.

Notwithstanding all the efforts of the Inquisitors to force their prisoners to accuse themselves, in order to escape a cruel and ignominious death, multitudes have continued steadfast in the truth, and submitted to be "tortured, not accepting deliverance," nay "gave their bodies to be burned," rather than, by a cowardly confession, to accuse themselves unjustly, and wound their own consciences. In proof of this we select the following interesting cases.

In the auto-da-fÉ which was celebrated at Valladolid in 1559, Don Carlos de Sessa, a nobleman of Verona, was among the number of those who were burnt for having espoused the doctrines of the Reformation. He was arrested at Logrogna, and confined in the secret prisons of the Inquisition at Valladolid. After undergoing the usual examinations, his sentence was read to him on the 7th of October, by which he was informed that he was to suffer death on the following day. Unmoved by the tidings, De Sessa requested pen and ink, and wrote his confession, which was not a recantation of his faith, but a firm adherence to the reformed principles. In these principles,—the very reverse of those which are taught by the apostate Church of Rome,—he declared that he was determined, to die, and would give himself to God through the merits of his Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ. His persecutors vehemently exhorted him during the night, and on the following morning, to retract; but without success. He was accordingly gagged, that he might be prevented from stating his principles to the people. When he was fastened to the stake, the gag was taken from his mouth, and he was again exhorted to return to the Romish faith, in which case the Inquisitors would have extended their mercy so far, as to have strangled him first before he was burnt. But with a loud voice, and great firmness, De Sessa replied, "If I had sufficient time, I would convince you, that you are lost, by not following my example. Hasten to light the wood, which is to consume me." Fire was then set to the pile, and, after great suffering, his body was consumed to ashes.

Dr. Juan Gonzalez, who suffered at Seville in 1559, 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 109th 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 case of Isaac Orobio, who was accused of Judaism before the Inquisition at Seville, gives another striking example of firmness amidst tortures the most excruciating. It would be exceedingly painful to recur to this diabolical practice—the anguish which Orobio endured during the torture by the rack, the pulley, and several other engines of cruelty equally horrid, being such as is sufficient to freeze the very blood in the veins. It is enough to state, that one torment after another, all of them the most agonizing, were inflicted on him, with a view to make him confess: but all to no purpose. He was accordingly carried back to his dungeon, where he was attended by the physician of the Inquisition, and nearly three months elapsed before he was able to walk about his cell. Having made no confession while undergoing the torture, he was condemned, not as being convicted, but as being suspected of Judaism, to wear the infamous sanbenito for two years, and afterwards to perpetual banishment.

On the other hand, many examples might be produced in order to prove, that even although the terrors of torture and of death may lead a prisoner to confess—the Inquisition, far from effecting any change of sentiment, is suited only to encourage hypocrisy. One of these was exhibited in the case of Benanat, a clergyman, in Catalonia, about the year 1334. Having been condemned to the flames for holding sentiments different from those of the Romish creed, he was placed on the pile, and the faggots kindled. But when one of his sides was scorched, and the pain had become so great that he could not endure it, he cried out to be removed, for he was ready to abjure. He was accordingly taken down, and on abjuring, was reconciled to the Church; but fourteen years afterwards it was discovered that he had continued to adhere to his former opinions. Imprisoned a second time, and placed on the burning pile, he died persisting in his heresy, as most probably he would have done at his former condemnation, if the first sentence, like the second, had been irrevocable.

The author of the History of the Inquisition at Goa, the Sieur Dellon, gives us two other examples which occurred about the middle of the seventeenth century; the first in the case of a very rich new Christian, that is, a converted Jew, named Lewis Pezoa, who, with his whole family, had, by some of his enemies, been accused of secret Judaism. Himself, his wife, two sons, and one daughter, together with several other relatives who resided with him, were accordingly apprehended and confined in the secret prisons of the Inquisition at Coimbra. Pezoa, however, not only denied, but completely refuted the crime of which he was accused; and demanded that the names of his accusers might be given him, that he might convict them of falsehood. Yet all this availed him nothing. He was condemned to be delivered over to the secular power; and intimation of this sentence was delivered to him fifteen days before it was pronounced. The Duke de Cadoval, who was very intimate with the Inquisitor-general, having ascertained the situation in which Pezoa was placed, and understanding that, unless he confessed previous to his appearing at the auto-da-fÉ, he could not escape the fire—remonstrated in so urgent a manner with the Inquisitor, that he at length obtained the promise that the sentence of death passed upon Pezoa should be commuted, provided he confessed either before or at the place of execution. The Duke in vain exerted all his ingenuity to prevail on Pezoa to confess. On the day appointed for the auto-da-fÉ, accordingly, Pezoa came forth, wearing the sanbenito and coroza, and proceeded with the other individuals who were condemned to the place of execution. His friends, now more anxious for his deliverance than ever, besought him with tears, in the name of the Duke de Cadoval, and by all that was dear to him, to preserve his life; intimating, that if he would confess, the Duke had obtained his pardon from the Inquisitor-general, and would make up for him the property which had been confiscated. All, however, still proved fruitless. Pezoa continued to protest his innocence, and constantly affirmed that the crime laid to his charge was a falsehood, invented by his enemies, who were anxious for his destruction. At the conclusion of the procession, the sentences of those who were condemned to perform certain penances were first read; but previous to the ceremony of delivering the relapsed to the secular power, the friends of Pezoa again entreated him with so much importunity and earnestness, that his constancy was at length overcome; when, rising up, he exclaimed, "Come then, let us go and confess the crimes I am falsely accused of, and thereby gratify the desires of my friends." His confession having been received, he was remanded to prison. After two years further confinement, he was compelled again to appear at a public auto-da-fÉ, and sentenced to five years additional imprisonment, to banishment to the galleys for another five years, and confiscation of his property. While at the galleys, he learned for the first time that his wife and daughter had died in prison shortly after their confinement; and that his two sons, less firm than himself, had made a timely confession, and were sentenced to banishment for ten years.

The other case noticed by the same writer, is that of the major of a regiment, who was accused of Judaism, by persons who seemed to have no other means of saving their own lives than that of confessing themselves to be guilty of the same crime, and naming many innocent persons as their accomplices, in order to discover the witnesses who had deposed against them. On his apprehension, the poor officer was thrown into the secret prisons of the holy office, and often examined for the purpose of drawing from his own lips an avowal of the cause of his imprisonment. Not being able, however, to declare what he was ignorant of, he was informed, at the end of two years, that he was accused and convicted in due form of being an apostate Jew. This he positively declared to be false, solemnly protesting that he had never deviated from the Christian faith. Every effort was now made by the Inquisitors to lead him to confess. Not only his life, but the restoration of his property, was promised; but all to no purpose. It was then attempted to intimidate him, by threatening him with a cruel death. Nothing, however, could shake his resolution; and he boldly told the judges that he would rather die innocent, than save his life by a meanness which would bring on him everlasting infamy. The Duke d'Aveira, who was then Inquisitor-general, was very desirous of saving the major's life. He accordingly one day privately paid him a visit, and urgently entreated him to seize the opportunity which he enjoyed of avoiding punishment, by making confession. The major, however, displayed a determined resolution not to wound his conscience, or injure his reputation, by acknowledging crimes which he never committed. Irritated at his constancy, the Inquisitor-general passionately addressed him in language to the following import:—"We will rather cause you to be burnt as guilty, than allow it to be supposed that we have imprisoned you without cause!" At the approach of the auto-da-fÉ, the major was apprised of his sentence, which was to be burnt alive, and a confessor was sent to his dungeon in order to prepare him for his execution. Overcome by the fear of a death so horrid, the major at length resolved to play the hypocrite; and, on the evening previous to the bloody ceremony, he acknowledged every thing, however false, that had been laid to his charge. He was accordingly led out in the procession with a robe on which the flames were reversed, to intimate that by his confession, though late, he had escaped death, to which he had been condemned by the holy tribunal. All the other promises of the Inquisitor-general were forgotten. His property was confiscated, and himself sentenced to the galleys for five years.

It has been clearly shown, that the Inquisitors not unfrequently condemn the innocent to the flames, under the pretence of Judaism or heresy, while the chief motive of these unjust judges evidently is, to obtain possession of their property. This will still further appear from the proceedings which were instituted against Melchior Hernandez, a rich merchant of Murcia, who was imprisoned in the Inquisition of that place in 1564. At his first audience, he was accused of having frequented a clandestine synagogue in Murcia, and of having acted and discoursed in a manner that proved his apostasy from the Christian faith. [22] There were nine witnesses produced against him; but Melchior not only denied all their averments, but showed that their evidence was contradictory, and that several of them were his avowed enemies.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The following case, related by the same writer, will show still further the flagrant injustice of Inquisitorial tribunals. "There was, at Seville, a certain poor man," says that author, in his own homely style, "who daily maintained himself and his family by the sweat of his brow. A certain parson detained his wife from him by violence, neither the Inquisition nor any other tribunal punishing this heinous injury. As the poor man was one day talking about purgatory with some other persons of his own circumstances, he happened to say, rather out of rustic simplicity than any certain design, that he truly had enough of purgatory already, by the rascally parson's violently detaining from him his wife. This speech was reported to the good parson, and gave him a handle to double the poor man's injury, by accusing him to the Inquisitors as having a false opinion concerning purgatory; and this the holy tribunal thought more worthy of punishment than the parson's wickedness. The poor wretch was taken up for this trifling speech, kept in the prisons of the Inquisition for two years, and at length compelled to walk in procession at an auto-da-fÉ, wearing the infamous sanbenito. After suffering another three years' imprisonment, he was dismissed. Neither did they spare the poor creature any thing of his little substance, though they did his wife to the parson, but adjudged all the remains of what he had after his long imprisonment, to the exchequer of the Inquisition."

Large promises of pardon and favour are usually held out by the Inquisitors to all who voluntarily accuse themselves of crimes which are hidden from the eye of man. But whoever thus puts himself in their power, finds to his sad experience, that the promises of Inquisitors are no more than wind, and intended only for a snare to catch the unwary. Of this we shall select only one example, from many which might be given. In 1644, Antonius de Vega, allured by the professions of sympathy and kindness which the Inquisitors pretended to show to all who voluntarily made confession of their crimes before the holy tribunal, accused himself of having, at a former period of his life, entertained the opinion that a man might be saved by the law of Moses. This error, however, he had long since renounced, and he therefore begged the promised absolution from the judges of the holy office. But, alas! what must have been his astonishment and horror, to hear the mild and merciful lords of the Inquisition order him to be confined in the dungeons appropriated for heretics! After three years' imprisonment, the miserable confessor was condemned to appear at an auto da-fÉ, wearing the sanbenito, his property was confiscated, and himself banished. [23]

Even the death of a prisoner is no barrier against the fury of the Inquisition, or the grave an asylum against its persecutions. His bones, in the event of being buried, are dug out of the grave and burnt, his memory is declared infamous, and his children are disinherited. Many are the instances of this barbarous practice on record, the chief motives of the holy tribunal in thus waging war with the dead, being to gain possession of their property. In proof of this, we shall notice the two following examples only.

In the first auto-da-fÉ at Valladolid in 1559, Donna Leonora de Vibero, the mother of five children, who appeared as criminals on this occasion, had died some years before, and was buried in a sepulchral chapel of which she was the proprietress. No suspicion of heresy was 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.

The other case referred to is of a later date. In the beginning of the seventeenth century, Marc Antonio de Dominis, archbishop of Spalatro, was considered one of the most learned men of his age, particularly in divinity and history, both sacred and profane. His learning made him inquisitive, and it was at length discovered that he had embraced the doctrines of the Reformation. Having written a large work on the Christian Church, he was exceedingly desirous of having it published during his lifetime; but this he was aware could not be accomplished in Italy. Sir Henry Wotton, who was at that time the English ambassador at Venice, gave Dominis a letter from James I. King of Britain, inviting him to come to England. This invitation was accepted by Dominis, and enjoying the patronage of James, who settled a pension on him suitable to his dignity, he published the work which he had so much at heart. Happy would it have been for him had he remained in England; but the pope, the Inquisition, and the Spanish ambassador, made such vast offers both of pardon and remuneration, as first shook his resolution, and finally induced him to accept of them. The unhappy prelate forgot, on this occasion, what he had often repeated in his works, namely, that the court of Rome never forgets or forgives an affront.

He accordingly set out for Rome, in spite of all the arguments of his friends in England to the contrary, who represented to him the danger to which he exposed himself, and how difficult, if not impossible, it would be for him to escape. The result was such as might have been expected; for no sooner did he arrive in Italy, than he was arrested and confined in the prisons of the Inquisition at Rome. His trial went on very slowly, and he at length died in prison, according to some authors, "through the effects of poison administered to him by his own relations, in order to spare him and themselves the shame of his being brought out in an auto-da-fÉ."

Disappointed in their expectation of putting Dominis to death by the hand of the executioner, the Inquisitors determined to inflict the punishment proposed on his dead body. On the 21st of December, 1624, accordingly, in the church of St. Mary, and amidst a large concourse of spectators, his sentence was read as follows:—"That Marc Antonio de Dominis, having been convicted of heresy, was found to have incurred all the censures and penalties appointed to heretics by the sacred canons and papal constitutions; they accordingly declared him to be deprived of honours, prerogatives, and ecclesiastical dignities, condemned his memory, excommunicated him from the ecclesiastical court, and delivered over his dead body and effigy into the power of the governor of the city, that he might inflict on it the punishment due, according to the rule and practice of the Church. And finally, they commanded his impious and heretical writings to be publicly burnt, and declared all his effects to be forfeited to the exchequer of the Holy Inquisition." This sentence was carried into effect the same day, amidst a vast concourse of spectators, with all the mock solemnity which characterizes the proceedings of that infamous tribunal.