History of the Inquisition of Spain. Henry Charles Lea

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СКАЧАТЬ the brief commissioning Felipe Bertran as inquisitor-general, but the protest was merely formal; the appointing power remained undisturbed; it survived the Revolution and continued until the Inquisition was suppressed.[759]

      THE INQUISITOR-GENERALSHIP

      Of vastly greater importance was the power of selecting and virtually dismissing the inquisitor-general and this the crown never lost. In fact this was essential to its dignity, if not to its safety. Had the appointment rested with the pope, either the Inquisition would of necessity have been reduced to insignificance or the kingdom would have become a dependency of the curia. Had the Suprema possessed the power of presenting a nominee to the pope, the Inquisition would have become an independent body rivalling and perhaps in time superseding the monarchy. Yet, after the death of Ferdinand, Cardinal Adrian, when elected to the papacy, seemed to imagine that Ferdinand’s privilege of nomination had been merely personal and that it had reverted to him. February 19, 1522, he wrote to Charles that a successor must be provided; after much thought he had pitched on the Dominican General but had not determined to make the appointment without first learning Charles’s wishes. If the Dominican was not satisfactory, Charles could name some one else, for which purpose he suggested three other prelates. Charles replied from Brussels, March 29th, assuming the appointment to be in his hands, but ordered his representative Lachaulx to confer with Adrian. He was in no haste to reach a decision and it was not until July 13, 1523, that he instructed his ambassador, the Duke of Sessa, to ask the commission for Alfonso Manrique, Bishop of Córdova, on whom he had conferred the post of inquisitor-general and the archbishopric of Seville.[760]

The records afford no indication of any question subsequently arising as to the power of the crown to select the inquisitor-general. It was never, however, officially recognized by the popes, whose commissions to the successive nominees bore the form of a motu proprio—the spontaneous act of the Holy See—by which, without reference to any request from the sovereign, the recipient was created inquisitor-general of the Spanish dominions and was invested with all the faculties and powers requisite for the functions of his office.[761] No objection seems to have been taken to this until Carlos III exercised a jealous care over the assertion and maintenance of the regalías against the assumptions of the curia. The first appointment he had occasion to make was that of Felipe Bertran, Bishop of Salamanca, after the death of Inquisitor-general Bonifaz. December 27, 1774, was despatched the application to the papacy for the commission, carefully framed to avoid attributing to the latter any share in the selection or appointment and merely asking for a delegation of faculties, accompanied with instructions to the ambassador Floridablanca to procure for Bertran a dispensation from residence at his see during his term of office. Clement XIV had died, September 22, 1774, and the intrigues arising from the suppression of the Jesuits delayed the election of Pius VI until February 15, 1775, but on February 27th the commission and dispensation were signed. March 25th, Carlos sent the commission to the royal Camara for examination before its delivery to Bertran and the Camara reported, April 24th, that its fiscal pronounced it similar to that granted to Bonifaz in 1755, but that it did not express as it should the royal nomination and had the form of a motu proprio; he also objected to its granting the power of appointment and further that some of the faculties included infringed on the royal and episcopal jurisdictions, while the clauses on censorship conflicted with the royal decrees. Under these reserves the brief was ordered to be delivered to Bertran; whether or not a protest was made to the curia does not appear, but if it was it was ineffective for the same formula was used in the commission issued to Inquisitor-general Agustin Rubin de Cevallos, February 17, 1784.[762]

      THE INQUISITOR-GENERALSHIP

      It may be assumed as a matter of course that the king had no power to dismiss an inquisitor-general who held his commission at the pleasure of the pope, but the sovereign had usually abundant means of enforcing a resignation. Whether that of Alfonso Suárez de Fuentelsaz, in 1504, was voluntary or coerced is not known, but the case of Cardinal Manrique, the successor of Adrian, shows that if an inquisitor-general was not forced to resign he could be virtually shelved. Manrique, as Bishop of Badajoz, after Isabella’s death, had so actively supported the claims of Philip I that Ferdinand ordered his arrest; he fled to Flanders, where he entered Charles’s service and returned with him to Spain, obtaining the see of Córdova and ultimately the archbishopric of Seville.[763] Perhaps he incurred the ill-will of the Empress Isabella soon after his appointment, for we find him complaining, January 23, 1524, to Charles that when in Valencia she had ordered the disarmament of the familiars and the arrest of Micer Artes, a salaried official of the Inquisition, violations of its privileges for which he asked a remedy.[764] In 1529, he gave more serious cause of offence. When Charles sailed, July 28th, to Italy for his coronation, he placed under charge of the empress Doña Luisa de Acuña, heiress of the Count of Valencia, until her marriage should be determined. There were three suitors—Manrique’s cousin the Count of Treviño, heir apparent of the Duke of Najera, the Marquis of Astorga and the Marquis of Mayorga. The empress placed her ward in the convent of San Domingo el Real of Toledo, where Manrique abused his authority by introducing his cousin; an altar had been prepared in advance and the marriage was celebrated on the spot. The empress, justly incensed, ordered him from the court to his see until the emperor should return and turned a deaf ear to the representations by the Suprema, December 12th, of the interference with the holy work of the Inquisition and the discredit cast upon it. It was probably to this that may be referred the delay in his elevation to the cardinalate, announced March 22, 1531, after being kept in petto since December 19, 1529. On Charles’s return, in 1533, he was allowed to take his place again, but he fell into disgrace once more in 1534, when he was sent back to his see where he died at an advanced age in 1538. Still, this was not equivalent to dismissal; he continued to exercise his functions and his signature is appended to documents of the Inquisition at least until 1537.[765] Yet while thus dealing with the inquisitor-general the crown could exercise no control over the tribunals. The empress was interested in the case of Fray Francisco Ortiz, arrested April 6, 1529, by the tribunal of Toledo, and she twice requested the expediting of his trial for which, October 27, 1530, she alleged reasons of state, but the tribunal was deaf to her wishes as well as to those of Clement VII who interposed July 1, 1531, and the sentence was not rendered until April 17, 1532.[766]

      There was no occasion for royal interference with Inquisitors-general Tavera, Loaysa or Valdés. If the latter was forced to resign, in 1566, it was not by order of Philip II but of Pius V for his part, as we shall see hereafter, in the prosecution of Carranza, Archbishop of Toledo. So if Espinosa, in 1572, died in consequence of a reproof from Philip II, it was not for official misconduct and merely shows the depth of servility attainable by the courtiers of the period. The reign of the feeble Philip III however afforded several instances that the royal will sufficed to create a vacancy. He had scarce mounted on the throne as a youth of twenty, on the death of Philip II, September 13, 1598, before he sought to get rid of Inquisitor-general Portocarrero, who had, it is said, spoken lightly of him, or had incurred the ill-will of the favorite, the Duke of Lerma. To effect this, a bull was procured from Clement VIII requiring episcopal residence; Portocarrero was Bishop of Cuenca, a see reputed to be worth forty thousand ducats a year, but he preferred to abandon this and made fruitless efforts at Rome to be permitted to do so. He left Madrid in September, 1599, for Cuenca and died of grief within a twelve-month, refusing to make a will because, as he said, he had nothing to leave but debts that would take two years’ revenue of his see to pay.[767] His successor, Cardinal Fernando Niño de Guevara fared no better. He was in Rome at the time of his appointment and did not take possession of his office until December 23, 1599, but already in May, 1600, there were rumors that he was to be superseded by Sandoval y Rojas, Archbishop of Toledo. Yet, in 1601, he was made Archbishop of Seville and he sought to purchase Philip’s favor by a gift of forty thousand ducats and nearly all his plate. This was unavailing and, in January, 1602, he was ordered to reside in his see, when he dutifully handed in his resignation.[768] Juan de Zuñiga, who succeeded, had a clause in his commission permitting him to resign the administration of his see in the hands of the pope, but the precaution was superfluous for he died, December 20, 1602, after only six weeks’ enjoyment of the office, for which he had sacrificed thirty thousand ducats a year from his see. He was old and feeble and his death was attributed СКАЧАТЬ