History of the Inquisition of Spain. Henry Charles Lea

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СКАЧАТЬ his will. This aroused a storm and the leading officials of Church and State interposed so effectually with the inquisitors that Prat was allowed to remain in the secret prison of the Aljafería. The quarrel was now assuming serious proportions; not only was the kingdom aflame with this attempted violation of its privileges but it was universally believed that Charles had granted all the demands of the Córtes in return for the servicio and his interference with the papal confirmation was bitterly resented. The Diputados summoned the inquisitors to obey the Concordia of 1512, as confirmed by the bull of August 1, 1516, while awaiting confirmation of the new Concordia and at the same time they called the barons and magnates of the realm to a conference at Fuentes, whence, on May 9th, they sent to Charles a remonstrance more emphatic than respectful, with an intimation that the servicio would not be collected until Prat should be released, the pretext being that the papers relating to it were in his office.

      To this Charles responded loftily, May 17th, that for no personal interest would he neglect his soul and conscience nor, to preserve his kingdom, would he allow anything against the honor of God and to the detriment of the Holy Office. Under threat of excommunication and other severe penalties he ordered the Diputados not to convoke the Estates of the realm or to send envoys to him; he would comply with the Concordia and had already asked its confirmation of the pope—the fact being that he had on May 7th written to Rome—and this he repeated May 29th—to impede the confirmation of the official Concordia and to urge that of his own version. There was a rumor that the Estates on May 14th had resolved to take Prat from the Aljafería by force and to meet this, on May 17th, he sent the Comendador García de Loaisa to Saragossa with instructions to arm the Cofradia of San Pedro Martir—an association connected with the Inquisition—to raise the people and to meet force with force. The authorities were to be bullied and told that the king would assert his sovereign authority and that nothing should prevent the extradition of Prat. In the hands of his ghostly advisers he was prepared to risk civil war in defence of the abuses of the Inquisition. There was fear that the inquisitors might be intimidated into releasing Prat and Cardinal Adrian took the unprecedented step of writing directly to the gaoler of the Aljafería instructing him to disobey any such orders.

      STRUGGLE IN SARAGOSSA

      In spite of this assertion of absolutism, Charles’s orders were treated with contempt. The Córtes met at Azuaga, refused to obey his angry commands to disperse and sent to him Don Sancho de la Caballería with the unpleasant message that the servicio would be withheld until he should grant justice to the kingdom. His finances, in the hands of his Flemish favorites, were in complete disorder. The Emperor Maximilian had died January 22d and the contest for the succession, against the gold of Francis I, was expensive. Moreover, in expectation of the servicio, Chièvres had obtained advances at usurious interest so that the expected funds were already nearly exhausted and, as soon as the electoral struggle ended in Charles’s nomination, June 28th, there came fresh demands for funds to prepare for his voyage to assume his new dignity. Chièvres therefore eagerly sought for some compromise to relieve the dead-lock, but the Aragonese on the one hand and Cardinal Adrian on the other were intractable. The high-handed arrest of Prat had fatally complicated the situation.

      Charles yielded in so far as to order that Prat should not be removed from the kingdom and several tentative propositions were made as to the trial of Prat which only show how little he and his advisers realized the true condition of affairs. With wonted Aragonese tenacity the Diputados adhered to the position that the accuracy of the record should not be called in question and that the only point to be determined was whether the Inquisition rightfully had any jurisdiction in the matter. At the same time, to show that they were not seeking to elude payment of the servicio they agreed on September 7th to levy it, at the same time begging Charles to release Prat.

      They were probably led to make this concession by a victory which they had gained in Rome. Both sides had been vigorously at work there, but the Aragonese had the advantage that Leo X at the moment was incensed against the Spanish Inquisition because of the insolent insubordination of the Toledo tribunal in the case of Bernardino Díaz, of which more hereafter. His own experience showed him of what it was capable and the request of the Córtes for the confirmation of the Concordia was to a great extent granted by three briefs, received August 1st, addressed respectively to the king, to Cardinal Adrian and to the inquisitors of Saragossa, reducing the Inquisition to the rules of the common law. Charles did not allow the briefs to be published and, when the Diputados presented to the inquisitors the one addressed to them, they refused to obey it without instructions from Adrian, whereupon, on August 8th, the Diputados applied to Rome for some further remedy.

      Although the briefs were thus dormant they became the central point of the contest. On September 24th, Charles despatched to Rome Lope Hurtado de Mendoza as a special envoy with long and detailed instructions. He had been advised, he said that the pope intended to issue a bull revoking all inquisitorial commissions, save that of Cardinal Adrian; that in future the bishops with their chapters in each see were to nominate two persons of whom the inquisitor-general was to select the fittest and present him to the pope for confirmation; the acts of these inquisitors were to be judicially investigated every two years, and their procedure was to conform to the common law and to the canons. The elaborate arguments which Charles urged against each feature of this revolutionary plan show that it was not a figment but was seriously proposed with likelihood of its adoption. Moreover he said that influences were at work to secure the removal of the sanbenitos of convicts from the churches, against which he earnestly protested; Ferdinand had refused three hundred thousand ducats offered to him to procure this concession. In conclusion Charles declared that no importunity should shake his determination to make no change in the Inquisition and he significantly expressed his desire to preserve the friendship of his Holiness.

      What secret influences were at work to effect a complete reversal of papal policy it would be vain to guess, but Mendoza had scarce time to reach Rome when he procured a brief of October 12th, addressed to Cardinal Adrian. In this Sadoleto’s choicest Latinity was employed to cover up the humiliation of conscious wrong-doing, in its effort to shift the responsibility to the shoulders of others. Charles’s letters and Mendoza’s message had enlightened him as to the intentions of the king with regard to the preservation of the faith and the reform of the Inquisition. He promised that he would change nothing and would publish nothing without the assent of the king and the information of the inquisitor-general, but he dwelt on the complaints that reached him from all quarters of the avarice and iniquity of the inquisitors; he warned Adrian that the infamy of the wickedness of his sub-delegates redounded to the dishonor of the nation and affected both him and the king; he was responsible and must seek to preserve his own honor and that of the king by seeing that they desist from the insolence with which they disregarded the papal mandates and rebelled against the Holy See.

      STRUGGLE IN SARAGOSSA

      While thus the three briefs were not revoked they were practically annulled. The indignation of the Aragonese at finding themselves thus juggled was warm and found expression, January 30, 1520, in discontinuing the collection of the servicio. Charles was now at Coruña, preparing for his voyage to Flanders and thither, on February 3d, the Diputados sent Azor Zapata and Iñigo de Mendoza to procure the liberation of Prat and to urge Charles to obtain the confirmation of the Concordia. To liberate Prat without a trial was tacitly to admit the correctness of his record, yet, on April 21st, Cardinal Adrian issued an order for the fiscal to discontinue the prosecution and for the inquisitors to “relax” Prat. This order was presented May 1st to the inquisitors, but the word “relaxation” was that used in the delivery of convicts to the secular arm for burning; Prat stoutly refused to accept it and remained in prison.

      Charles embarked May 21st and the rest of the year 1520 was spent in endeavors by each side to obtain the confirmation of their respective formulas of the Concordia and in fruitless attempts by Charles to have the three briefs revoked. Though unpublished and virtually annulled they were the source of great anxiety to the Inquisition. The correspondence between Charles and his Roman agents shows perpetual insistance on his part and perpetual promises and evasions by the pope, sometimes СКАЧАТЬ