Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition. Rafael Sabatini

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СКАЧАТЬ and she had St. Augustine’s word for it that it was merciful to be merciless in the attainment of that object. When viewed, as it were, from within, there is nothing illogical in the attitude of the Church towards heresy. What is illogical is the conception of God that is involved in the doctrine of exclusive salvation.

      Even if we survey the case of Galileo—one of the most illustrious prisoners ever arraigned before the tribunal of the Holy Office—we have no just cause to suppose that, in demanding his retraction of the theory of the earth’s movement round the sun, the inquisitors were inspired by any motives beyond the fear lest the spread of a notion—honestly deemed by them to be an illusion—should disturb man’s faith in the Biblical teaching with which it was in conflict.

CHAPTER IV

       ISABELLA THE CATHOLIC

       Table of Contents

      Llorente agrees with the earlier writers on the subject in considering the Spanish Inquisition as an institution distinct from that which had been established to deal with the Albigenses and their coevals in heresy. It is distinct only in that it represents a further development of the organization launched by Innocent III and perfected by Gregory IX.

      Before entering upon the consideration of this Modern Inquisition—as it is called—it will perhaps be well to take a survey of the Spain of the Catholic Sovereigns—Ferdinand and Isabella—in whose reign that tribunal was set up in Castile.

      For seven hundred years, with varying fortune and in varying degree, the Saracen had lorded it in the Peninsula.

      First had come Berber Tarik, in 711, to overthrow the Visigothic Kingdom of Roderic, to spread the Moslem dominion as far as the mountains in the north and east and west from sea to sea. When the Berber tribe, the Syrians, and the Arabs had fallen to wrangling among themselves, Abdurrahman the Omayyad crossed from Africa to found the independent amirate, which in the tenth century became the Caliphate of Cordova.

      Meanwhile the Christians had been consolidating their forces in the mountain fastnesses of the north to which they had been driven, and under Alfonso I they founded the Kingdom of Galicia. Thence, gradually but irresistibly, presenting a bold front to the Moorish conqueror, they forced their way down into the plains of Leon and Castile, so that by the following century they had driven the Saracens south of the Tagus. Following up their advantage, they continued to press them, intent upon driving them into the sea, and they might have succeeded but for the coming of Yusuf ben Techufin, who checked the Christian conquest, hurled them back across the Tagus, and, master of the country to the south of it, founded there the Empire of the Almoravides.

      After these came the Almohades—the followers of the Mahdi—and the land rang for half a century with the clash of battle between Cross and Crescent, Castile, Leon, Aragon, and the new-born Kingdom of Portugal striving side by side to crush the common foe at Navas de Tolosa.

      In 1236 Leon and Castile—now united into one kingdom—in alliance with Aragon, wrested Cordova from the Moors; in 1248 Seville was conquered, and in 1265 Diego of Aragon drove the Saracen from Murcia, and thereby reduced the Moslem occupation to Granada and a line of Mediterranean seaboard about Cadiz, in which they remained until Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, by virtue of their marriage, had united the two crowns on the death (in 1474) of Henry IV, Isabella’s brother.

      Ferdinand brought, with Aragon, Sicily, Sardinia, and Naples; Isabella brought, with Castile, Leon and the rest of the Spanish territory, saving Granada and that portion of the coast still in Moorish hands. And thus was founded, by the welding of these several principalities into one single state, that mighty Kingdom of Spain which Columbus was so soon to enrich by a new world.

      But though founded by this marriage, this kingdom still required consolidating and subjecting. Generations of misrule in Castile, culminating in the lax reigns of John II and Henry IV, had permitted the spread of a lawlessness so utter that its like was not to be found in any other state at that time. Anarchy was paramount mistress of the land, and Pulgar has left us a striking picture of the impossible conditions that prevailed.

      “In those days,” he writes, “justice suffered, and was not to be done upon the malefactors who plundered and tyrannized in townships and on the highways. None paid debts who did not want to do so; none was restrained from committing any crime, and none dreamed of obedience or subjection to a superior. What with present and past wars, people were so accustomed to turbulence that he who did not do violence to others was held to be a man of no account.

      Citizens, peasants, and men of peace were not masters of their own property, nor could they have recourse to any for redress of the wrongs they suffered at the hands of governors of fortresses and other thieves and robbers. Every man would gladly have engaged to give the half of his property if at that price he might have purchased security and peace for himself and his family. Often there was talk in towns and villages of forming brotherhoods to remedy all these evils. But a leader was wanting who should have at heart the justice and tranquillity of the Kingdom.”23

      The nobility, as may be conceived—and, indeed, as Pulgar clearly indicates—were not only tainted with the general lawlessness, but were themselves the chief offenders, each man a law unto himself, a tyrannical, extortionate ruler of his vassals, lord of life and death, unscrupulously abusing his power, little better than a highway robber, caring nothing for the monarchy so long as the monarchy left him undisturbed, ready to rebel against it should it attempt to curtail his brigandage.

      To crush these and other unruly elements in the state, to resolve into order the chaos that had invaded every quarter of the kingdom, was the task which at the outset the young Queen perceived awaiting her—a task that must have daunted any mind less virile, any spirit less vigorous.

      And there were other and more pressing matters demanding her instant attention if she were to retain her seat upon this almost bankrupt throne of Castile which she had inherited from her brother.

      Alfonso V of Portugal was in arms, invading her frontiers to dispute, on his niece Juana’s behalf, Isabella’s right.

      Henry IV had left no legitimate issue, but his wife Juana of Portugal had brought forth in wedlock a daughter of whom she pretended that he was the father, whilst the King of Portugal, to serve interests of his own, recognized the girl as his legitimate niece. Public opinion, however, hesitated so little to proclaim her bastardy that it had named her La Beltraneja, after Beltran de la Cueva who notoriously had been her mother’s lover. And what Beltran de la Cueva, himself, thought about it, may be inferred from the circumstance that in the ensuing struggle he was found fighting for the honour of Castile under the banner of Queen Isabella.

      The war demanded all the attention and resources of the Catholic Monarchs, and Isabella’s own share in these labours was conspicuous. They resulted in the rout of the Portuguese supporters of the pretender at Toro in 1476. By that victory Isabella was securely seated upon her throne and became joint ruler with Ferdinand of Castile and Aragon.

      She was twenty-five years of age at the time, a fair, shapely woman of middle height, with a clear complexion, eyes between green and blue, and a gracious, winsome countenance remarkable for its habitual serenity. Such, indeed, was her self-control, Pulgar tells us, that not only did she carefully conceal her anger when it was aroused, but even in childbirth she could “dissemble her feelings, betraying no sign or expression of the pain to which all women are subject.” He adds that she was very ceremonious in dress and equipage, that she was deliberate of gesture, quick-witted, and ready of tongue, and that in the midst of the labour of government—and very arduous labour, as shall be seen—she found time to learn СКАЧАТЬ