[411] The fate of the little band of Spanish Protestants has, not unnaturally, excited the earnest sympathy of modern students. Much has been written about them; their works have been gathered and reprinted with pious care, and the importance of the reformatory movement has been largely exaggerated. There never was the slightest real danger that Protestantism could make such permanent impression on the profound and unreasoning religious convictions of Spain in the sixteenth century, as to cause disturbance in the body politic; and the excitement created in Valladolid and Seville, in 1558 and 1559, was a mere passing episode leaving no trace in popular beliefs. Yet, coming when it did, it exercised an enduring influence on the fortunes of the Inquisition, and on the development of the nation. At the moment, the career of the Holy Office might almost seem to be drawing to a close, for it had nearly succeeded in extirpating Judaism from Spain, while the influx of Portuguese New Christians had not commenced, and its operations against the Moriscos of Valencia were suspended. The panic, skillfully excited at the appearance of Lutheranism, raised it to new life and importance and gave it a claim on the gratitude of the State, which enabled it to dominate the land during the seventeenth century, while its audacious action against Carranza showed that no one was so high-placed as to be beyond its reach. It gained moreover a firmer financial basis than it had previously enjoyed, while, at the same time, Inquisitor-general Valdés was saved from banishment and disgrace. Yet more important even than all this was the dread inspired of heresy, which served as a reason for isolating Spain from the rest of Europe, excluding all foreign ideas, arresting the development of culture and of science, and prolonging medievalism into modern times. This was the true significance of the little Protestant movement and its repression, and it is this which deserves the attention of the student rather than the ghastly dramas of the autos de fe.
 
Before the Lutheran revolt there was much liberty of thought [412] and speech allowed throughout Catholic Europe. Neither Erasmus nor popular writers and preachers had scruple in ridiculing and holding up to detestation the superstitions of the people, the vices, the greed and the corruptions of the clergy, and the venality and oppression of the Holy See. The Franciscan, Thomas Murner, who subsequently became the most virulent reviler of Luther, castigated the clergy, both regular and secular, with more vigor if with less skill than Erasmus. Erasmus himself, in his Enchiridion Militis Christiani, or Manual of the Christian Soldier, did not hesitate to stigmatise, as a new Judaism, the reliance reposed on external observances, which had supplanted true piety, causing the teachings of Christ to be neglected--and the Enchiridion had been approved by Adrian VI, at that time the head of the University of Louvain.
 
When, however, it became necessary, in order to cure these universally admitted evils, to strike at the dogmas of scholastic theology, of which these evils were the outcome; when Northern Europe was rising almost unanimously in Luther's support, and when the curia recognized that it had to deal, not with a mere scholastic debate between monks, but with a rapidly developing revolution, the necessity was soon felt of a rigid definition of orthodoxy, while the licence which had been good-naturedly tolerated, so long as it did not threaten the loss of power and wealth, became heresy, to be diligently inquired into and relentlessly punished. Men who esteemed themselves good Catholics, and had no thought of withdrawing from obedience to the Holy See, found themselves accused of heresy and liable to its penalties. Prior to the definitions of the Council of Trent, there was a certain amount of debatable ground, within which no authoritative decision had as yet rendered the speculations of the schoolmen articles of faith. Erasmus, for instance, had not been called to account for asserting that sacramental confession was not of divine law but, as the conflict grew more desperate, and the Church found defence of its outworks to be requisite, it became heretical to question the divine origin of confession, even before the Council had made it de fide. We shall then find the chief sufferers from inquisitorial action divided into two classes. Before the middle of the century they largely consist of unconscious heretics--of men who, prior to the condemnation of Luther, would have been reckoned as undoubtedly orthodox. After 1550, with some exceptions, like Carranza, they were those who had knowingly and [413] consciously embraced more or less of the doctrines of the Reformation. Outside of these another, and by no means the least numerous class, can be defined of those who incurred more or less vehement suspicion of heresy through mere carelessness, in the constantly increasing rigor of external observance. It is doubtless to the first of these classes that we may refer the earliest victim of so-called Lutheranism whom I have found recorded--Gonsalvo the Painter of Monte Alegre in Murcia, a resident in Majorca, relaxed, in 1523, by that tribunal as a Lutheran. It is inconceivable that Lutheran errors could have penetrated at that time to Majorca, or that the inquisitor could have had any clear conception of what they were and, as Gonsalvo is described as a negativo, he doubtless considered himself a good Catholic and perished because he would not admit himself to be otherwise. ⁽¹⁾
 
It was not until 1521 that the curia was aroused to the necessity of preventing the dissemination in Spain of the new doctrines in the writings of Luther. The Nuncio Aleander, writing from Worms, February 18th of that year, mentioned that in Flanders Spanish versions of Luther's books were in press, through the efforts of the Marrani, and that Charles V had given orders to suppress them. ⁽²⁾ Acting promptly on this, Leo X, on March 21st, addressed briefs to the Constable and Admiral of Castile--the governors in Charles's absence--exhorting them to prevent the introduction of such works, and Cardinal Adrian lost no time in ordering, April 7th, the tribunals to seize all the obnoxious volumes that they could find, an order which he repeated May 7, 1523, together with instructions to the corregidors to enforce the surrender of the books to the inquisitors. ⁽³⁾ Very earnest letters were also written, April 12 and 13, 1521, to Charles V, by an assembly of grandees, and by the President and Council of State, urging him to adopt strong measures to prevent the spread of Lutheranism, which had been introduced into Spain and threatened to develop. ⁽⁴⁾
 
[414] These may be regarded as measures rather precautionary than called for by existing exigencies. So far as the records of the Inquisition have been searched there is no trace, for some years as yet, of prosecutions for Lutheranism, save the solitary case above referred to. With the return of Charles to Spain, in 1522, the influence of Erasmus seemed to promise a perpetuation of the freedom and even licence of speech, of which he was the protagonist. The emperor was his admirer and he became the fashion among courtiers and churchmen pretending to culture. The Inquisitor-general Manrique openly defended him, and so did the primate, Alfonso Fonseca, Archbishop of Toledo. His immense reputation, the immunity conferred on him by the patronage of successive popes against the vindictiveness of the religious Orders, provoked by his merciless ridicule, and the futility of condemnations by scholastic faculties, seemed a guarantee for those who merely echoed the opinions to which he had given currency so wide. So it continued until, in 1527, a translation of his Enchiridion was issued by Alonso Fernández de Madrid, Archdeacon of Alcor. It was dedicated to Archbishop Manrique, who had it duly examined and authorized its publication; its success was immediate, and it was universally read. From the standpoint of scholastic theology, however, it was too vulnerable not to invite attack from the religious Orders. The pulpits, which they virtually monopolized, resounded with their denunciations until Manrique felt obliged to interfere. Many prominent frailes were summoned before the Suprema and sharply reproved for exciting the people against Erasmus, in defiance of repeated edicts; if they found errors in the book, they should denounce them to the Inquisition. The challenge was promptly accepted and, with the assistance of the English Ambassador, Edward Lee, subsequently Archbishop of York, a list of twenty-one articles was drawn up, ranging from Arianism to irreverence towards the Virgin and the denial of various essentials of sacerdotalism. These were submitted to an assembly of twenty theologians and nine frailes, who disputed for a month over the first two articles; the debate promised to be interminable, and Manrique suspended it, at the same time issuing an absolute prohibition to write against Erasmus. As we have seen, however, he fell into disgrace in 1529 and was relegated to his see of Seville; Charles left Spain the same year, carrying with him some of the most powerful protectors of the Erasmists, and the inquisitors, who were largely [415] frailes, were eager to detect the heresy latent in the latitude of speech which had become common among those who prided themselves on culture. ⁽⁵⁾
 
A typical case of this kind is that of Diego de Uceda, to which allusion has already been made on other accounts (supra, p. 68). He was an hidalgo of Córdova of unblemished Old Christian stock. Although a courtier, he was studious and deeply religious, even entertaining thoughts of entering the Geronimite Order. Greatly admiring Erasmus, the failure of the effort to condemn him by the Inquisition gave assurance that his works were approved, and Diego earned some reproof by constantly quoting his opinions and endeavoring to impress them on others. In February, 1528, he was journeying from Burgos to Córdova and, one evening at Corezo, he fell into discussion with a man named Rodrigo Duran who, with his servant, Juan de Avella, was on his way to Seville to embark for the West Indies. The talk fell upon confession and then upon images, in which Diego quoted the views of Erasmus; then upon miracles, when he expressed disbelief in a story of a Christian slave in Africa who prayed for deliverance to Our Lady of Guadalupe; his master overheard him, placed him in a chest, made his own bed on top and slept there, with the result that next morning the chest was in Guadalupe with the master inside and the Christian on top. Something also was said about Luther, whose name got mixed up with that of Erasmus. Duran, on reaching Toledo, denounced Diego to the tribunal, his serving-man furnishing the necessary conteste, and went on his way to the Indies. Diego was tracked to Córdova and was sent back as a prisoner to Toledo, where he vainly protested his orthodoxy and offered submission to the Church, although his frequent allusions to Erasmus probably did his case no good. He proved by witnesses that he habitually confessed four times a year, that he took all indulgences and that he was a man of blameless life and strong religious convictions, but it was all in vain. I have already shown how he was tortured, confessed and then revoked, and how he was condemned to a humiliating penance, July 22, 1529, ruining his career and leaving an indelible stain on a family that had boasted of its limpieza. ⁽⁶⁾
 
[416] The danger impending over Erasmists is still more forcibly illustrated by the case of one who was regarded as perhaps the foremost among them in Spain. No man stood higher for learning and culture than Doctor Juan de Vergara. He had been secretary of Ximenes as Archbishop of Toledo, and subsequently to Fonseca, who succeeded to the primatial dignity in 1524. Ximenes had made him professor of Philosophy at Alcalá, where he translated the Wisdom of Solomon for the Complutensian Polyglot, and the treatises de Anima, de Physica and de Metaphysica for the projected edition of Aristotle. He was an elegant Latin poet, and Menéndez y Pelayo tells us that he was the father of historical criticism. He was regarded with favor by Manrique and was a warm defender of Erasmus in the contest over the Enchiridion. ⁽⁷⁾We shall have occasion hereafter to treat of the adventures of the alumbrada Francisca Hernández and the men whom she entangled in her toils; among them was Bernardino de Tovar, also an Erasmist, half-brother of Vergara, who incurred her enmity by rescuing him from her clutches. To revenge herself, when on trial in 1530, she accused Vergara of holding all of Luther's doctrines, except as to confession, and of possessing some of Luther's works--the latter accusation being true, but when, in 1530, Manrique ordered the surrender of all such books, Vergara, after some delay, carried them to the tribunal. Another of Francisca's disciples, Fray Francisco Ortiz, when on trial, also accused Vergara of denying the efficacy of indulgences and abusing the University of Paris for condemning the writings of Erasmus, in which, he said, the Church had found no heretical errors. The tribunal collected some other evidence against Vergara and industriously searched for more, even as far as Flanders. In May, 1533, a willing witness was found in Diego Hernández, a buffoon of a priest, whom Maria Cazalla had employed as confessor until she dismissed him for seducing a nun and asserting that it was no sin. This worthy produced a list of seventy Lutheran heretics, qualified according to their degrees of guilt, among whom Vergara figured as fino lutherano endiosado (mystically abstracted). Whatever hesitation there may have been in arresting such a man, however, disappeared when it was found, in April, 1533, that he had been communicating with Tovar in prison, by bribing the officials. The fiscal presented his clamosa, May 17th, accusing [417] Vergara of being a fautor and defender of heretics, a defamer of the Inquisition and a corrupter of its officials, and his arrest and imprisonment followed on June 24th.
 
This occasioned general surprise. Archbishop Fonseca was deeply moved and endeavored to obtain his release under bail for fifty thousand ducats, or to have him confined in a house under guard, but the only result of his efforts was to lead the tribunal to shut up the windows of Vergara's cell, converting it into a dungeon and seriously affecting his health. The trial proceeded through the regular stages. He refused the services of an advocate and, on January 29, 1534, he presented his defence, denying nearly all the errors attributed to him and explaining the rest in a Catholic sense. After this a fresh accusation was presented based on his friendship for and correspondence with Erasmus, to whom he had induced Archbishop Fonseca to grant a pension. Fonseca had died, February 24th, so that his evidence was unattainable, but Vergara pronounced the story as to the pension to be false, though had it been true it would have been innocent. Everyone knew that Erasmus had neither income nor benefice, never having been willing to accept either, and that he was supported by the liberality of gentlemen who contributed to him from all parts. Fonseca had only offered him an income if he would come to reside at Alcalá, an offer which Ximenes had previously made. It was true that, when Erasmus dedicated to him his edition of St. Augustin, Fonseca sent him two hundred ducats, scarce enough, in the case of so large a work, to give the printers their customary pour-boire. Fonseca felt this, and, when he heard of the death of Archbishop Warham of Canterbury (d. 1532), who was accustomed to provide liberally for Erasmus, he said that he ought to pay for the printing of the book, whereupon Vergara wrote that he would send something, but it was not done. As for corresponding with Erasmus, popes and kings and the emperor himself were gratified to have letters from him and, in the printed collections of his epistles, were to be found his answers to Vergara, showing that the latter had urged him to write in confutation of Luther.
 
The day after this defence was presented, there came the most serious evidence as yet offered against him. This was from another distinguished Erasmist, then on trial, Alonso de Virués, who testified that, four years before, in a discussion whether the sacrament worked ex opere opéralo, Vergara ridiculed it as a fantastic opinion, [418] and further, that he did not hold as he should, certain pious and Catholic doctrines. It is true that the Council of Trent had not yet pronounced, as it did in 1547 (Sess. VII, De Sacramentis, can. viii) the self-operation of the sacrament to be de fide, but the doctrine was coeval with the development of the sacramental theory in the twelfth century and was indispensable in vindication of its validity in polluted hands against the Donatist heresy. To deny it, even in disputation, could not fail to prejudice Vergara's case, which dragged on, in spite of the efforts of his friends, and even of the empress, to expedite it. At length, on December 21, 1535, he was sentenced to appear as a penitent in an auto de fe, to abjure de vehementi, to be recluded in a monastery for a year irremissibly, and to pay a fine of fifteen hundred ducats. In three months, however, Manrique charitably transferred him to the cathedral cloister and, on February 27, 1537, his confinement came to an end. ⁽⁸⁾ He incurred no disabilities; his reputation seems not to have suffered, for he retained his Toledo canonry and, as we have seen, he incurred, in 1547, the displeasure of Archbishop Silicio by opposing the statute of limpieza.
 
Virués was a similar victim to the revulsion against Erasmus. He was Benedictine Abbot of San Zoilo, a learned orientalist and the favorite preacher of Charles V, who had carried him to Germany. Envy of his favor at court caused his denunciation; isolated passages in his sermons were cited against him, and he was thrown in prison in 1533. His incarceration lasted for four years, in spite of Charles's efforts for his liberation; it was in vain that he pleaded that, some fourteen years before, Erasmus had been regarded as orthodox, and that he adduced the arguments which he had used against Melanchthon in the Diet of Ratisbon. In 1537, he was declared to be suspect of Lutheranism, he was required to abjure and was recluded in a convent for two years, with suspension from preaching for two more. Charles was so much interested in him that, notwithstanding his strenuous objection to papal interference, he procured from Paul III a brief of May 29, 1538, by which the sentence was set aside and Virués was declared capable of any preferment, even episcopal. When [419] Juan de Sarvia, Bishop of Canaries, died in 1542, Virués was appointed his successor and died in 1545. ⁽⁹⁾
 
Contemporary with these cases was that of Pedro de Lerma, a member of one of the leading families of Burgos. He was a canon of the Cathedral and Abbot of Alcalá, renowned as a preacher and a man of the highest consideration. He had spent fifty years in the University of Paris, where the Sorbonne made him dean of its faculty. Happening to read some of the works of Erasmus, he was so impressed that they influenced his sermons. He was denounced to the Inquisition, which imprisoned him and, after a long trial he was required, in 1537, to recant eleven propositions publicly in all the towns where he had preached, confessing that he had taught them at the instigation of the devil to propagate error in the Church. He was so humiliated that he abandoned Spain for Paris, where he was warmly received as dean of the faculty, and where he died in 1541. The people of Burgos, we are told, who had regarded him with the greatest reverence, were so impressed by this that those who had sent their sons abroad to study at once recalled them. ⁽¹⁰⁾
 
This atmosphere of all-pervading suspicion, and this exaggerated sensitiveness to possible error, exposed everyone to prosecution for the most innocently unguarded remark. Miguel Mezquita, a gentleman of Formiche (Teruel) appeared January 19, 1536, before the Valencia tribunal in obedience to a citation and, under the usual formula of being told to search his conscience, he intuitively recurred to Erasmus and related a talk which he had, some five or six years previous, with a Dominican, in which he had defended the Enchiridion on the ground that it had been subjected to examination without being condemned. This however proved not to be the cause of his summons, for Pedro Forrer, a priest of Teruel, had denounced him as having said that Luther preached the gospel and was therefore called an evangelist, while the followers of the pope were called papists, and that Luther was right in maintaining that Scripture did not say that Christ gave power to St. Peter, but to all the apostles. Mezquita explained that he had been several times to Italy and had been sent to [420] Flanders; the priest had asked him what was said about Luther, and he had merely gratified his curiosity by repeating what he had heard abroad in common talk. He earnestly implored to be released, for he had eight children, four of them studying in Salamanca and, when suddenly carried off from home, he had left but six sueldos in his house. Fortunately for him, the inquisitors were not unreasonable and, on January 29th, he was allowed to return to his family, but the case remained on the records to be brought up against him should any malevolent neighbor see fit to distort some careless utterance. ⁽¹¹⁾
 
Mysticism and illuminism, which, about this time, commenced their development in Spain, furnished another source of accusations of Lutheranism, due to their common tendency to cast aside the observances of sacerdotalism and to bring the sinner into direct relations with God, but this field of inquisitorial activity demands separate consideration. Meanwhile the above cases will probably suffice to indicate the way in which Catholics, who had no thought of wandering from the faith, fell under suspicion of partaking in the new heresies and were consequently subjected to persecution more or less distressing. It would scarce be worth while to follow in detail the long succession of those who had similar experience. The case of Carranza has already been discussed. Fray Juan de Regla, confessor of Charles V at San Yuste, and one of the witnesses against Carranza, was imprisoned by the Saragossa tribunal and was required to abjure eighteen propositions. Fray Francisco de Villalba, who preached the funeral sermon of Charles V, was denounced for Lutheranism and was saved only by the protection of Philip II. Miguel de Medina, one of the theologians of the Council of Trent, was so orthodox that, in his Disputatio de Indulgentiis, he ascribes to indulgences a virtue so great that without them Christianity would be a failure, yet this did not prevent his prosecution for defending certain propositions thought to savor of Lutheranism and, after four years' detention, he died in prison with his trial unfinished. ⁽¹²⁾
 
All these were cases of good Catholics, whose prosecution is [421] attributable to a hyperaesthesia of orthodoxy. As regards the real Protestantism, there was necessarily a double duty, one with respect to its literature and the other to its professors. The former will be discussed in the next chapter and it suffices here to point out that although there was as yet no organized censorship of the press, the possession or reading of any of Luther's books was forbidden, under pain of excommunication, in 1520, by Leo X, in the bull Exsurge Domine, and this was extended to the works of all his followers in the recension of the bull in Coena Domini by Adrian VI. ⁽¹³⁾ We have seen the flurry produced, in 1521, by the dread of the introduction of this literature into Spain, and it would appear that there was a demand for it, or that the German heretics were endeavoring to create one for, in 1524, we hear that a ship from Holland for Valencia, captured by the French and recaptured, was brought into San Sebastian, when two casks of Lutheran books were found in her cargo, which were publicly burnt. Some eight months later, three Venetian galeasses brought large quantities of similar books to a port in Granada, where the corregidor seized and burnt them and imprisoned the captains and crews. ⁽¹⁴⁾ As yet, however, there seems to have been no definite penalty, save the papal censures, for possessing this forbidden literature. We have seen Juan de Vergara simply surrendering what he had; in 1527 we chance to find a commission, issued by the Suprema, to absolve a fraile from the excommunication thus incurred and, in 1528, a similar one for the benefit of the Licenciado Fray Diego de Astudillo. ⁽¹⁵⁾
 
As regards heretics in person, the relations of Spain with the Netherlands and Germany, at this period, were too intimate for it to escape their intrusion. The earliest case I have met occurred in 1524, when a German named Blay Esteve was condemned by the tribunal of Valencia. ⁽¹⁶⁾ Again the same tribunal, in 1528, tried Cornelis, a painter of Ghent, for saying that Luther was not a heretic and for denying the existence of purgatory, the utility of masses, confession etc. He had not the spirit of martyrdom but pleaded intoxication and that he had abandoned in Spain the errors which he had entertained in Flanders; he was sentenced to reconciliation and perpetual prison and, in the papers of the [422] trial, there is an allusion to the prosecution of Jacob Torres, apparently another Lutheran. Valencia, in 1529, had another case in the person of Melchor de Württemberg, who came there by way of Naples. He preached in the streets, saying that he had searched the world in vain for a true follower of Christ, and he predicted that in three years the world would be drowned in blood. He was probably an Anabaptist and, when on trial, he admitted that he had visited Martin Luther to learn whether the Lutheran sect possessed the truth. The tribunal referred the case to the Suprema, which replied that, if he held any Lutheran errors, justice should be done; if not, the case was trifling and a hundred lashes would suffice. The papers are imperfect and we can only gather that he denied Lutheranism and escaped with the scourging. ⁽¹⁷⁾
 
Cases of this kind were doubtless occurring in the various tribunals, but it was some time as yet before systematic action was taken by the Inquisition. Clement VII addressed a brief, May 8, 1526, to the Observantine Franciscans, empowering them to receive all Lutherans desiring to return to the Church, who were to be reincorporated on accepting salutary penance, and to be absolved and relieved from all the penalties decreed by Leo X and by others. ⁽¹⁸⁾ This was evidently designed for temporary effect in Germany and, although sent to Spain, it was too subversive of the exclusive jurisdiction of the Inquisition to be observed there. The earliest action of the Suprema to protect Spain from the dissemination of the new heresies would seem to be a letter, in 1527, to the provisor of Lugo and to the Dominican provincial and Franciscan guardian there, about the heretics arriving at the Galician ports, and ordering them to enquire after Lutheran books, which they were required to seize. ⁽¹⁹⁾ Coruña was one of the chief ports of commerce with the northern seas, thus calling for special watchfulness, and, though a tribunal had recently been provided for Galicia, apparently on this account, it seems not to have been in working order. Still the heretics continued to come, and the Suprema issued, April 27, 1531, a carta acordada instructing the tribunals to publish special Edicts of Faith requiring the denunciation of persons suspected of holding Lutheran opinions. ⁽²⁰⁾ Apparently [423] the time had arrived when some definite position with regard to the growing danger had to be taken; there seems to have been doubt felt as to the authority of the Inquisition to deal with it, and as to the policy to be observed towards these heretics, for a brief was procured, July 15th of the same year, from Clement VII empowering Manrique and his deputies to proceed against the followers of Martin Luther, their fautors and defenders, and a clause to this effect continued subsequently to be included in the commissions of the inquisitor-general. The brief moreover extended Manrique's personal jurisdiction, for this heresy, over archbishops and bishops, although these were not to be arrested and imprisoned; impenitents were to be relaxed, in accordance with the canons, while those who sought reconciliation were to be admitted, with due punishment, and could even be dispensed for irregularity and be relieved of all disabilities and note of infamy. ⁽²¹⁾ There was evidently as yet a disposition to treat these new heretics with special tenderness.

For some time as yet the labors of the Inquisition, in the suppression of Lutheranism, were confined to foreigners, the most conspicuous of whom was Hugo de Celso, a learned Burgundian doctor of both laws and author of a serviceable Repertorio de las Leyes, which saw the light at Valladolid in 1538 and again at Alcalá in 1540. In 1532 he seems to have been prosecuted without conviction at Toledo, but fell again under suspicion and was finally burnt in 1551. ⁽²²⁾ It is true that Queen Mary of Hungary, sister of Charles V, did not escape suspicion, ⁽²³⁾ but the earliest undoubted heretic recorded of Spanish blood would seem to be Francisco de San Roman of Burgos. Engaged, while still a young man, in business in the Netherlands, his affairs took him to Bremen, where he was converted and became so ardent a proselyte that, after various adventures, he undertook to convert Charles V at Ratisbon. Persisting in the attempt, he was sent in chains to Spain and, as he refused to recant, there was nothing to do with him save to give him the fiery death that he courted-- the first of the few Spanish martyrs to Protestantism. Carranza attended him at the stake and urged him to submit to the Church, but the ferocious crowd pierced him with their swords--a not [424] infrequent occurrence at the autos de fe. We have no dates, but an allusion to Charles's expedition to Tunis would seem to place his career about 1540. ⁽²⁴⁾
 
Nearly at the same time there appeared another, who was classed as a Lutheran, although he seems to have worked out his heresies independently. All that we know of Rodrigo de Valero rests on the unreliable testimony of González de Montes, who describes him as a wealthy youth of Lebrija, near Seville, suddenly converted from the vanities of the world to an assiduous study of Scripture and the conviction that he was a new apostle of Christ. His special heresies are not recorded, but they led to his trial by the Seville tribunal, which confiscated his property and discharged him as insane. He continued his apostolate and, on a second trial, he was condemned to perpetual prison and sanbenito. Here, in the obligatory Sunday attendance at mass, he contradicted the priest until, to silence him, he was recluded in a convent at San Lucar de Barrameda, where he lay until his death. ⁽²⁵⁾
 
Valero was not without importance, for he was the perverter of Juan Gil, or Doctor Egidio, the founder of the little Protestant community of Seville which came, as we shall see, to an untimely end. Egidio was magistral canon of the cathedral and a man of the highest consideration for learning and eloquence; indeed, he was nominated by Charles V to the see of Tortosa, which was vacant from 1548 to 1553. On his post-mortem trial, in 1559, evidence showed that, as early as 1542, he had preached to the nuns of Santa Clara on the uselessness of external works, denying the suffrages of the saints, and stigmatizing image-worship as idolatry. ⁽²⁶⁾ A letter of Charles to Valdés, from Brussels, January 25, 1550, shows that Egidio was then on trial in Seville; Charles ordered Valdés to investigate the case personally in Seville and [425] consult him before concluding it, all of which must be done speedily for that church (Tortosa) must be provided with a prelate. ⁽²⁷⁾
 
Charles's solicitude shows that the matter was regarded as important. Egidio, in fact, was the centre of a little band of Lutherans whom the Inquisition was eagerly tracking. The Suprema wrote, July 30, 1550, to Valdés at Seville, urging him to expedite the case, and adding that it had written to Charles about the arrest of those in Paris and Flanders implicated with Dr. Egidio, and about Dr. Zapata who had delivered Lutheran books to Antonio de Guzman. ⁽²⁸⁾ Yet when Egidio's trial ended, August 21, 1552, he was treated with singular moderation. He was obliged publicly to abjure as heretical ten propositions which he admitted to have uttered, subjecting himself to the penalty of relapse for reincidence. Eight more propositions he recanted as false and erroneous, and seven he explained in a Catholic sense--all of these being more or less Lutheran. He was sentenced to a year's confinement in the castle of Triana and never to leave Spain; for a year after release he was not to celebrate mass and for ten years he was suspended from preaching, confessing and partaking in disputations. ⁽²⁹⁾ Death in 1556 saved him from a harsher fate, although, as we shall see, his bones were exhumed and burnt in 1560.
 
The mildness of the Inquisition shows that thus far there was no alarm to stimulate severity, nor was there any cause for it. We hear a good deal of the missionary efforts of the German or other heretics, but up to this time there is slender trace of such work. The only indication--and that a very dubious one--that I have met of such attempts, is the case of Gabriel de Narbonne, before the Valencia tribunal in 1537. He was a Frenchman, who had learned heresy during four years spent in Germany and Switzerland. As a wandering mendicant in Spain, he spoke freely of hjs beliefs to all whom he met. When arrested, he confessed fully to all the leading tenets of Lutheranism and begged mercy; after a year's confinement, under threat of torture, he stated that he had been sent by the Swiss heretics to Spain as a missionary; there were three others, one named Beltran, who was [426] likewise in Spain, one was destined to Venice and the other to Savoy. He had wandered, he said, on foot for two years through the whole Peninsula, from Catalonia and Navarre to Lisbon, disseminating his heresies wherever he could find a listener, especially among the clergy. Had the tribunal believed his story, he would have been sharply tortured to discover his converts; as it was, he was merely reconciled with irremissible prison, while his nephew, another Gabriel de Narbonne, who spontaneously denounced himself as having been perverted by his uncle, was reconciled with spiritual penance and forbidden to leave the kingdom. ⁽³⁰⁾
 
It would seem as though the Holy See were desirous to arouse the Spanish Inquisition to a sense of its inertness in combating these dangerous innovations for, in 1551, Julius III sent to Inquisitor-general Valdés a brief empowering him to punish Lutheranism irrespective of the station of the offender--a wholly superfluous grant, for he already possessed by his commission all requisite faculties, except as regards bishops, and the case of Carranza shows that they were not included in the brief. ⁽³¹⁾ If the object was to stimulate, it failed, for the cases of Lutheranism continued for some time to be few and mostly of foreigners. The year 1558 may be taken as a turning-point in the history of Spanish Protestantism and up to that time the industrious researches of Dr. Ernst Schäfer, into the records of all the tribunals, have only resulted in finding an aggregate of a hundred and five cases, of which thirty-nine are of natives and sixty-six of foreigners. ⁽³²⁾ Of course, in the chaos of archives, no such statistics can be regarded as complete, but, on the other hand, the tribunals were in the habit of classing as "Lutheranism" any deviation, even in a minor degree, from dogma or observance, or any careless speech, such as those of which we have had examples above. As a whole,[427] the figures are significant of the slender impression thus far made on Spanish thought by the intense religious excitement beyond the Pyrenees. A few individuals--mostly those who had been abroad--are all that can be regarded as really infected with the new doctrines. Thus far there had been nothing of organization, of little associations or conventicles, in which those of common faith assembled for worship, for mutual encouragement or for planning measures to disseminate their belief, but something of the kind was beginning to develop in Seville, where the teachings of Rodrigo de Valero and Dr. Egidio gradually spread through a widening circle. After Egidio's death, in 1556, the leading figure was Doctor Constantino Ponce de la Fuente, who was elected by the chapter to the vacant magistral canonry, and who was a man of the highest consideration, having served Charles V in Flanders as confessor and chaplain. Another important personage was Maestro García Arias, known as Doctor Blanco, prior of the Geronimite house of San Isidro, all the brethren of which became converts, as well as some of the inmates of the Geronimite nunnery of Santa Paula. An influential beneficiary of the church of San Vicente named Francisco de Zafra also joined the group which, although largely composed of clerics, secular and regular, contained many laymen. We hear of two rag-pickers, Francisco and Antonio de Cardenas, while there was also a noble of the highest rank, Don Juan Ponce de Leon, of the great house of the Dukes of Arcos. Every class of society was represented in the little band, which numbered altogether over a hundred and twenty, besides Doctor Juan Pérez de Pineda and Julian Hernández, who had sought safety in flight, probably about the time of the arrest of Dr. Egidio. ⁽³³⁾
 
In 1557, from some cause, suspicion was aroused and the tribunal commenced a secret investigation, which seems to have reached the ears of some of the inculpated, and eleven of the Geronimites of San Isidro sought safety in flight, among whom were two who became noteworthy--Cipriano de Valera and Cassiodoro de Reina. ⁽³⁴⁾ This increased the suspicion and certain writings of Doctor Constantino were subjected to examination; they had[428] passed current without animadversion for ten years, but, in 1557, a carta acordada addressed to all the tribunals called attention to them, followed, January 2, 1558, by a list of books to be burnt, to which were added three of his to be seized but not burnt. ⁽³⁵⁾Finally the tribunal was able to obtain positive evidence against individuals. Juan Pérez, in the refuge of Geneva, had been busy in preparing propagandist works. ⁽³⁶⁾ To convey them into Spain [429] was a perilous task, but it was undertaken by Julian Hernández, who had spent some years in Paris, had then wandered to Scotland and Germany, and had become a deacon in the Walloon church of Frankfort. The story that he reached Seville with two large casks of Pérez's Testament, Psalms and Catechism is probably an exaggeration, but he brought a supply of them, reaching Seville in July, 1557. The books were deposited outside the walls and were smuggled in at night, or were brought in by Don Juan Ponce de Leon in his saddlebags. Julian made a fatal blunder with a letter and a copy of the Imajen del Antichristo, addressed to a priest, which he delivered to one of the same name who was a good Catholic. When the latter saw as the frontispiece the pope kneeling to Satan, and read that good works were useless, he hastened with the dangerous matter to the Inquisition which made good use of the clue thus furnished. Don Juan promptly fled to Ecija and Julian to the Sierra Morena, but they were tracked and brought back on October 7th. Other arrests speedily followed and the prisons began to fill. ⁽³⁷⁾ With its customary unwearied patience, the tribunal traced out all the ramifications of the heretical conventicle, arresting one after another as denunciations of accomplices were obtained from prisoners. Dr. Constantino and his friend Dr. Blanco were not seized until August, 1558, and the first auto de fe was not celebrated until September 24, 1559. 
 
Meanwhile, almost simultaneously, a similar association of Protestants had been discovered at Valladolid, then the residence of the court. An Italian gentleman, Don Carlos de Seso, said to be the son of the Bishop of Piacenza, had been converted about 1550, apparently by the writings of Juan de Valdés. He came to Spain, bringing with him heretical books and ardently desiring to spread the reformed faith. He settled first in Logroño, where he made some converts, and then, through the influence of his wife, Isabel de Castilla, of royal blood and highly esteemed, he was appointed corregidor of Toro, about 1554. There he converted the Bachiller Antonio de Herrezuelo and his wife, Leonor de Cisneros, Doña Ana Enríquez, daughter of Elvira, Marchioness of Alcañizes, Juan de Ulloa Pereira, Comendador of San Juan, and others of more or less distinction, while, in Pedrosa, a town lying between Toro and Valladolid, Pedro de Cazalla, the parish priest, also fell under his influence and became a missionary in his turn. Among his converts was his sacristan, Juan Sánchez, [430] whose imprudent zeal greatly alarmed Cazalla; in 1557, Sánchez left Pedroso for Valladolid, where he entered the service of Doña Catalina de Hortega, whom he soon converted, and with her Doña Beatriz de Vivero, a sister of Cazalla. Through them, seven nuns of the Cistercian house of Nuestra Señora de Belén were brought to the new faith, but the greatest conquest, about May, 1557, was made when Beatriz de Vivero and Pedro Cazalla won their brother, Doctor Agustín de Cazalla. No ecclesiastic was of higher repute or greater influence with all classes; he was the favorite preacher of Charles V, who had carried him to Germany in 1543, where possibly his debates with heretics may have unconsciously undermined his faith. Next to him among the converts might be ranked the Dominican Fray Domingo de Rojas, whose reputation for learning and eloquence was of the highest. He had been a fellow student of Pedro de Cazalla; he had accompanied Carranza to Trent, in 1552, where he had encountered heretics, and since then some of his utterances had led his brother Dominicans to entertain suspicions, but, when Beatriz de Vivero first sought to convert him, he was firm and even thought of denouncing her. In the autumn of 1557, however, Augustin Cazalla and Carlos de Seso won him over to heresy and he, in his turn, brought in his brother, Don Pedro Sarmiento and his nephew Don Luis de Rojas, heir to the marquisate of Pozo. As in Seville, the reformers thus included men of the highest consideration, socially and ecclesiastically, as well as those of the lower classes. Still, their numbers were few; the wild estimates of five hundred or six thousand are baseless, for they did not exceed fifty-five or sixty, wholly without organization, being scattered from Logroño to Zamora, though the house of Doña Leonor de Vivero, the widowed mother of the Cazallas, served occasionally as a meeting-place. Of her ten children, four sons, Agustín and Pedro Cazalla, Francisco and Juan de Vivero, and two daughters, Beatriz and Costanza, were involved; the rest seem to have escaped. She herself, after the prosecutions commenced, was only confined to her house; she speedily died and received Christian burial, but her bones were subsequently exhumed and burnt. Notwithstanding, this, one of the sons, Gonzalo Pérez de Cazalla, obtained, May 12, 1560, a dispensation from the cosas arbitrarias. ⁽³⁸⁾
 
It was inevitable that such a propaganda should be discovered, and the only source of surprise is that it should have been carried [431] on for two or three years without betrayal, but this came at last almost simultaneously from several sources. In Zamora, Christóbal de Padilla, steward of the Marchioness of Alcañizes, was unguarded in his talk; towards Easter of 1558 the publication of the Edict of Faith led to two denunciations, on which he was arrested by the bishop and thrown into the public prison. As he was not incomunicado he was able to send word to his accomplices and Herrezuelo promptly advised Pedro de Cazalla, with warning that no reliance could be placed on Padilla's reticence. Even more threatening than this was the inconsiderate zeal of Francisco de Vivero and his sister Beatriz, in seeking to convert two friends, Doña Antonia de Branches and Doña Juana de Fonseca. Their confessors refused absolution and Easter communion unless they would obtain full information; this they did and the tribunal was speedily in possession of the names of nearly all the converts, and made arrangements to seize them all. Despite its profound secrecy, Dr. Cazalla chanced to hear it said that there were heretics in Valladolid who had been denounced by Juana de Fonseca. The purport of this was unmistakable and wild confusion reigned among the little band. Desperate plans of escape were projected, but the time was too short. Some sought mercy by surrendering themselves and denouncing their accomplices; others silently awaited arrest. Only three attempted flight. Fray Domingo de Rojas, disguised in secular apparel, hastened to Logroño to Carlos de Seso and the two tried to escape through Navarre; at Pampeluna they secured a pass from the viceroy, but the agents of the Inquisition were in hot pursuit; they were recognized and conducted back under guard of twelve familiars and some mounted officials, which was rather for their protection than to prevent escape for, wherever they passed, crowds assembled with demonstrations of burning them. Fray Domingo was in mortal fear lest his kinsmen should slay him on the road, and it was deemed necessary to enter Valladolid at night to avoid lapidation by the mob. Of all concerned, the only one who succeeded in leaving Spain was Juan Sánchez, who found at Castro de Urdiales a vessel bound for Flanders and he, as we have seen, was caught a year later and shared the fate of his associates. ⁽³⁹⁾
 
[432] Inquisitor-general Valdés, whose disgrace was imminent, promptly took advantage of the situation to save himself. It is easy for us now to recognize the absurdity of the fear that a couple of hundred more or less zealous Protestants, in Seville and Valladolid, could constitute any real danger to the faith so firmly intrenched and so powerfully organized in Spain, but, at the moment, no man could know how far the infection had spread. There was reasonable cause for alarm at the simultaneous discovery, in places so far apart, of heresy numbering among its disciples those of high rank in the world and of distinguished position in the Church. This alarm it was the business of Valdés to intensify, in order to render himself indispensable, and the most exaggerated rumors were industriously spread. Abbot Illescas, who was an eye-witness, treats it as a most terrible conspiracy which, if the discovery had been postponed for two or three months, would have set all Spain aflame, resulting in the gravest misfortune that had ever befallen the land. That hideous stories were circulated is shown by his assertion that matters too horrible to mention were proved; in the Cazalla house nocturnal conventicles were held, abominable and Satanic gatherings, in which Lutheran doctrines were preached. ⁽⁴⁰⁾ The legend was industriously maintained. The Venetian envoy, Leonardo Donato, referring to the matter, in 1573, says that if it had not been remedied with speedy punishment, every one believes that the evil weed would have grown apace and would have infected all Spain, and this, perhaps, was not one of the least causes that induced Philip II to make peace with France and return home. ⁽⁴¹⁾ So Inquisitor Páramo, towards the close of the century, tells us that no one doubts but that a great conflagration would have resulted had it not been for the vigilance of the Holy Office and that, in the nocturnal conventicles held in the Cazalla house, the heretics polluted themselves with horrid wickedness. ⁽⁴²⁾
 
That the government should feel keen anxiety at the unknown proportions of the portentous discovery was natural. Charles V was nearing his end in the retirement of Yuste, and Philip was [433] in Flanders, engrossed in the war with France. His sister, the Infanta Juana, the temporary ruler, was a woman of very moderate capacity and she and her advisers, in view of the religious disquiet in France and Germany, might reasonably view with dread the prospect of civil dissension which in that age was the usual result of dissidence in faith. The outbreak in Seville had not excited much attention, but now this one at the court, involving such personages, portended unknown evils and came just in time to save Valdés from disgrace, as we have seen above (Vol. II, p. 47). On March 23, 1558 the Princess Juana had written to her father that when he had ordered the body of his mother Juana to be transferred to Granada, she had commanded Valdés to accompany it and then to visit his diocese of Seville; he had endeavored to excuse himself at the moment but promised to arrange so as to obey shortly. Then, when urged to do so some days later he raised further difficulties; it made no difference whether the body was buried then or in September; everybody was endeavoring to drive him away; troubles with his chapter required his presence at the court or in Rome; besides, he was occupied with some heresies which had arisen in Seville and in Murcia, and was busy in endeavoring to get a subsidy from the Moriscos of Granada. Evidently he was belittling the Seville heresies, lest they should serve as an excuse for sending him thither and, when Juana referred his letter to the Council of State, it insisted that he could be properly obliged to reside in his diocese. ⁽⁴³⁾
 
It can therefore be easily conceived how eagerly he grasped the opportune explosion in Valladolid and how it was magnified so as to produce on the court a vastly greater impression than the more dangerous one in Seville. In a letter of May 12th to Philip, the Suprema briefly announced the discovery; the heretics were so numerous and the time had been so short that it could give no details, but it suggestively insisted on the necessity of the presence of Valdés to urge the matter forward and it hoped that, with the royal favor, action would be taken for the salvation of the delinquents and the example and restraint of others. ⁽⁴⁴⁾ As we have [434] seen this produced immediate effect, for Philip, who had written June 5th that he must be relegated to his see, on the 14th countermanded the order. Charles had already been induced to take the same position. As early as April 27th, Juan Vázquez reported to him the arrest of Dr. Cazalla and the alarming outlook, adding that the remedy should be speedy and that the inquisitor-general and Suprema were actively at work. ⁽⁴⁵⁾ Charles was thoroughly aroused. He had spent his strength and his life in combating heresy; it had baffled his policies and frustrated his ambitions; it had been a thorn in the flesh, rankling and crippling him at every turn. It had fairly worn him out and driven him to abdication, and now its spectre broke in upon the repose for which his wearied soul and exhausted body had longed. He was appalled by the prospect of a renewal of the struggle, in the only land as yet preserved from its influence, and his religious zeal was enkindled with the conviction that only by the enforcement of unity of faith could public order and even the monarchy itself be maintained.
 
Accordingly, on May 3^d, he wrote to Juana asking her most earnestly to order that Valdés should not leave the court, where his presence was so necessary. She must give him and the Suprema all the support requisite to enable them to suppress so great an evil by the rigorous punishment of the guilty. Had he the bodily strength, he would himself come and share the labor. Juana sent for Valdés and showed him the letter, which assured him that he had regained his position, and the work went on of arresting the heretics, reports of which were duly sent to Charles. The more he pondered over the situation, the more excited he grew. On May 25th, in a long letter to Juana, he magnified the danger and the urgency of stern measures. "I do not know," he said,'' that in these cases it will suffice to follow the common law that the guilty of a first offence can secure pardon by begging mercy and professing conversion for, when at liberty, they will be free to repeat the offence. . . . The admission to mercy was not provided for cases like these for, in addition to their enormity, from what you write to me, it appears that in another year, if unchecked, they would have dared to preach in public, thus inferring their dangerous designs, for it is clear that they could not do so without organization and armed leaders. It must therefore [435] be seen whether they can be prosecuted for sedition and disturbance of the republic, thus incurring the penalty of rebellion without mercy." He goes on to instance his own cruel edicts in the Netherlands, under which the pertinacious were burnt alive and the repentant were beheaded, a policy which he urged Philip to continue and which the latter practised in England, as though he were its natural king, leading to so many and such pitiless executions, even of bishops. "There must" he concluded "be no competencias of jurisdiction over this, for believe me, my daughter, if this evil be not suppressed at the beginning, I cannot promise that there will be a king hereafter to do it. So I entreat you, as earnestly as I can, to do everything possible, for the nature of the case demands it and, that the necessary action be taken in my name, I order Luis Quijada to go to you and to talk to such persons as you may direct." ⁽⁴⁶⁾
 
Not satisfied with this, Charles, on the same day, sent to Philip a copy of this letter and begged him to give orders for the unsparing punishment of the guilty, for the service of God and the preservation of the kingdom were at stake. Philip's marginal note on this was to thank him for what he had done, to ask him to press the matter, and to assure him that the same would be done from Flanders. ⁽⁴⁷⁾ We shall see that Charles's cruel desire was fulfilled, though it was done ecclesiastically and not by distorting the secular law.
 
There followed a brisk correspondence between Valladolid and San Yuste, Charles burning with impatience and urging speedy action, and Valdés assuring him that all possible effort was making by the Inquisition in its crippled condition for want of funds. Philip was kept advised and wrote to Juana, from his camp near Dourlens, September 6th, expressing his satisfaction with what had been done; they were not to delay by communicating with him, who was busy with the war, but were to take orders from the emperor to whom he had written, asking him to take charge of the affair. ⁽⁴⁸⁾
 
Valdés was now master of the situation, both in this and the affair of Carranza, which hinged upon it to a large extent. To exploit it to the utmost he addressed, September 9th, to Paul IV [436] a letter in which he gave a brief account of the development of Lutheranism in Valladolid and Seville; he dwelt upon the dangers impending, the labors of the Inquisition and the poverty which crippled its efforts. Adopting the argument of Charles V, he pointed out that this Lutheranism was a kind of sedition or tumult, occurring as it did among persons of importance by birth, religion and wealth, so that there was peril of greater evils if they were treated with the same benignity as the converts from Islam and Judaism, who were mostly of low estate and not to be feared. Lutheranism promised relief from Church burdens, which bore hardly on the people who would welcome liberation, while tribunals might scruple to relax persons of quality who would not patiently endure penance and imprisonment and, from their rank and the influence of their kindred, great evils might arise, both to religion and the peace of the kingdom. A papal brief would be highly desirable, therefore, under which the tribunals, without scruple or fear of irregularity, could and should relax the guilty from whom danger to the republic might be feared, no matter what their dignity in Church or State, giving to the inquisitors full power to employ the rigor required by the situation, even if it went beyond the limits of the law. ⁽⁴⁹⁾ We have seen (Vol. II p. 426) how successful was this appeal in establishing on a firm basis the finances of the Inquisition, nor was it less so in obtaining the cruel power for which Charles V aspired, and also a faculty which enabled Valdés to destroy Carranza. Allusion has already been made (Vol. II, p. 61; Vol. Ill, p. 201) to the briefs of January 4 and 7, 1559 by which Paul IV granted a limited jurisdiction over the episcopal order and authorized the relaxation of penitents who begged for mercy, when it was believed that their conversion was not sincere. In both these directions, as was customary with the Inquisition, the limitation was disregarded and the grant of power was freely exercised. ⁽⁵⁰⁾
 
[437] Having obtained authority to set aside the law, the Inquisition was prepared to impress the people with a sense of the danger of wandering from the faith. Nothing was spared to enhance the effect of the auto de fe of Trinity Sunday, May 21, 1559, in which the first portion of the Valladolid prisoners were to suffer. It was solemnly proclaimed fifteen days in advance, during which the buildings of the Inquisition were incessantly patrolled, day and night, by a hundred armed men, and guards were stationed at the stagings in the Plaza Mayor, for there were rumors that the prison was to be blown up and that the stagings were to be fired. Along the line of the procession, palings were set in the middle of the street, forming an unobstructed path for three to march abreast, intrusion on which was forbidden under heavy penalties, but this and the numerous guards were powerless to keep it clear. Every house-front along the line and around the plaza had its stagings; people flocked in from thirty and forty leagues around and encamped in the fields; except the familiars, no one was allowed to ride on horseback or to bear arms, under pain of death and confiscation.
 
The procession was headed by the effigy of Leonor de Vivero, who had died during trial, clad in widow's weeds and bearing a mitre with flames and appropriate inscription, and followed by a coffin containing her remains to be duly burnt. Those who were to be relaxed in person numbered fourteen, of whom one, Gonzalo Baez, was a Portuguese convicted of Judaism. Those admitted to reconciliation, with penance more or less severe, were sixteen in number, including an Englishman variously styled Anthony Graso or Bagor--probably Baker--punished for Protestantism, [438] like all the rest, excepting Baez. When the procession reached the plaza, Agustín Cazalla was placed in the highest seat, as the conspicuous chief of the heresy, and next to him his brother, Francisco de Vivero. Melchor Cano at once commenced the sermon, which occupied an hour, and then Valdés and the bishops approached the Princess Juana and Prince Carlos, who were present, and administered to them the oath to protect and aid the Inquisition, to which the multitude responded in a mighty roar, "To the death!" Cazalla, his brother and Alonso Pérez, who were in orders, were duly degraded from the priesthood, the sentences were read, those admitted to reconciliation made the necessary abjurations and those condemned to relaxation were handed over to the secular arm. Mounted on asses, they were carried to the Plaza de la Puerta del Campo, where the requisite stakes had been erected, and there they met their end. ⁽⁵¹⁾ With one exception they were not martyrs in any true sense of the word, for all but one had recanted, had professed repentance, had begged for mercy, and had given full information as to their friends and associates. Under the law, with perhaps two or three exceptions, who might be regarded as dogmatizers, they would have been entitled to reconciliation, but the brief of January 4th had placed them at the mercy of the Inquisition and an example was desired.
 
Of these there were only two or three who merit special consideration. Cazalla, on his trial, had at first equivocated and denied that he had dogmatized, asserting that he had only spoken of these matters to those already converted. As a rule, all the prisoners eagerly denounced their associates; he may have been more reticent at first, for he was sentenced to torture in caput alienum, but when stripped he promised to inform against them fully, which he did, including Carranza among those who had misled him as to purgatory. ⁽⁵²⁾ He recanted, professed conversion and eagerly sought reconciliation. The tribunal insisted on regarding him as chief of the conventicle and, on the afternoon preceding the auto, it sent to his cell the prior of the Geronimite convent of Nuestra Señora de Prado, with one of his monks, Fray Antonio [439] de la Carrera, to endeavor to extract further information. As officially reported by Fray Antonio, they found him in a dark cell, loaded with chains and with a pié de amigo encircling his head. He greeted them warmly but, when informed of their object, protested that he had nothing to add to his confessions without bearing false witness against himself or others. For two hours they labored with him in vain and then told him that he was condemned to die. In the seclusion of his prison he knew nothing of the papal brief; he had fully expected to be admitted to reconciliation, and the announcement came like a thunderstroke--one version of the interview states that he fainted and lay insensible for an hour, another, that he was incredulous, asking whether it could be possible and whether there was no escape. He was told that he might be saved if he would make a more complete confession, but he repeated that he had already told the whole truth. Then he confessed sacramentally and received absolution, after which he spent the time until morning in begging mercy of God and thanking God for sending him this affliction for his salvation; he blessed and praised the Holy Office and all its ministers, saying that it had been founded, not by the hand of man but by that of God; he willingly accepted the sentence, which was just and merited; he did not wish for life and would not accept it for, as he had misused it in the past, so would it be in the future. All this was repeated when the usual confessors were admitted to his cell and, when morning came and the sanbenito was brought, he kissed it, saying that he put it on with more pleasure than any garment he had ever worn. He declared that, when opportunity offered in the auto, he would curse and detest Lutheranism and persuade everyone to do the same, with which purpose he took his place in the procession. ⁽⁵³⁾
 
So great was his emotional exaltation that he fulfilled this promise with such exuberance during the auto that he had to be checked. After the sentences were read and those who were to be relaxed were brought down, when he reached the lowest step [440] he met his sister, who was condemned to perpetual prison; they embraced, weeping bitterly and, when he was dragged away, she fell senseless. On the way to the brasero he continued to exhort the people and directed his efforts especially to the heroic Herrezuelo, who had stedfastly refused to abandon his faith and was to be burnt alive. We might possibly feel some suspicion of the accuracy of all this, especially as the Inquisition took the unusual step of having an official report of his behavior drawn up and a briefer one attested, June 5th, by Simon de Cabezón and Francisco de Rueda, the notaries who recorded the delivery of the relaxed to the magistrates. ⁽⁵⁴⁾ We have, however, the independent testimony of an eye-witness, the Abbot Illescas, who tells us that, after the degradation, Cazalla, with mitre on head and halter around his neck, shed tears so copiously and loudly expressed his repentance with such unexampled fervor that all present were satisfied that, through divine mercy, he was saved. He said and did so many things that everyone was moved to commiseration. Most of his comrades in death showed resignation and all retracted publicly, though it was understood that with some this was rather to escape burning alive than with any good purpose. ⁽⁵⁵⁾
 
It was otherwise with Herrezuelo, the only martyr in the group. He avowed his faith and resolutely adhered to it, in spite of all effort to convert him and of the dreadful fate in store for him. On their way to the brasero, Cazalla wasted on him all his eloquence. He was gagged and could not reply, but his stoical endurance showed his unyielding pertinacity. When chained to the stake, a stone thrown at him struck him in the forehead, covering his face with blood but, as we are told, it did him no good. Then he was thrust through the belly by a pious halberdier, but this moved him not and, when the fire was set, he bore his agony without flinching and, to the general surprise, he thus ended diabolically. ⁽⁵⁶⁾ Illescas, who stood so near that he could watch every expression, reports that he seemed as impassive as flint but, though he uttered no complaint and manifested no regret, yet he died with the strangest sadness in his face, so that it was [441] dreadful to look upon him as on one who in a brief moment would be in hell with his comrade and master, Luther. ⁽⁵⁷⁾
 
Perhaps the most pitiful case of all was that of his young wife, Leonor de Cisneros. But twenty-three years old, with life opening before her, she had yielded so promptly to the methods of the Inquisition that she escaped with perpetual prison. In the weary years of the casa de la penitencia, the burden on her soul grew more and more unendurable and the example of her martyred husband stood before her in stronger light. At last she could bear the secret torture no longer; with clear knowledge of her fate, she confessed her heresy and, in 1567, she was put on trial again. As a relapsed there could be no mercy for her, but recantation might at least preserve her from death by fire, and earnest efforts were made to save her soul. They were unavailing; she declared that the Holy Spirit had enlightened her and that she would die as her husband had died, for Christ. Nothing could overcome her resolution and, on September 28, 1568, she atoned for her weakness of ten years before and was burnt alive as an obstinate impenitent. ⁽⁵⁸⁾
 
The remainder of the Valladolid reformers were reserved for another celebration, October 8th, honored with the presence of Philip II, who obediently took the customary oath, with bared head and ungloved hand. It was, if possible, an occasion of greater solemnity than the previous one. A Flemish official, who was present, estimates the number of spectators at two hundred thousand and, though he must have been hardened to such scenes at home, he cannot repress an expression of sympathy with the sufferers. ⁽⁵⁹⁾ Besides a Morisco who was relaxed, a Judaizer reconciled and two penitents for other offences, there were twenty-six Protestants. The lesson was the same as in the previous auto, that few had the ardor of martyrdom. Thirteen had made their peace in time to secure reconciliation or penance. Even Juana Sánchez, who had managed to bring with her a pair of scissors and had cut her throat, recanted before death, but her confession was considered imperfect and she was burnt in effigy. Of the twelve relaxed in person, five manifested persistence, but only in two [442] cases did this withstand the test of fire. Carlos de Seso was unyielding to the end and, when we are told that he had to be supported by two familiars to enable him to stand when hearing his sentence, we can guess the severity of torture endured by him. Juan Sánchez was likewise pertinacious; when the fire was set it burnt the cord fastening him to the stake; he leaped down and ran in flames; it was thought that he wanted to confess but, when a confessor was brought, he refused to listen to him; one account says that the guards thrust him back into the flames, another, that he looked up and saw Carlos de Seso calmly burning and himself leaped back into the blazing pile. Fray Domingo de Rojas presented a brave front and, after his degradation, addressed the king, asserting his heresies until dragged away and gagged, but when brought to the stake his heart failed him; he declared that he wished to die in the faith of Rome and was garroted. It was the same with Pedro de Cazalla and Pedro de Sotelo, who were gagged as unrepentant, but were converted at the brasero. Those who had merited mercy by prompt confession and denunciation of accomplices were, as a rule, not severely penanced and, in many cases, their punishment was abbreviated. ⁽⁶⁰⁾ There would appear to have been some especially severe disabilities inflicted on the descendants of Carlos de Seso, extending to the female line, removable only by the Holy See for, in 1630, Urban VIII, at the special request of Philip IV, granted to Caterina de Castilla, granddaughter of Isabel de Castilla, wife of Carlos de Seso, a dispensation to hold honors and dignities, secular and spiritual. ⁽⁶¹⁾
 
Thus was exterminated the nascent Protestantism of Valladolid. Meanwhile the Seville tribunal had been struggling with the mass of work thrown upon it by the capture of Julian Hernández and Don Juan Ponce de Leon. So numerous were the arrests that the rule had to be broken which forbade the confinement of accomplices together and, as the circle widened, arrests had to be postponed in expectation of an auto de fe that should empty the cells until, on June 6, 1559, the tribunal asked for power to requisition houses to serve as prisons. To hasten the work, early in 1559, Bishop Munebrega of Tarazona, an old inquisitor, was sent to Seville to aid the tribunal, but he was excessively severe, [443] desiring to burn everyone; he soon became involved in bickering and recrimination with the inquisitors Carpio and Gasca, of whom he complained bitterly; votes in discordia were frequent, appeals to the Suprema were constant and the work was delayed. ⁽⁶²⁾ It was not until September 24, 1559, that an auto could be celebrated. If all Old Castile had poured into Valladolid, so all Andalusia manifested its religious zeal by crowding into Seville. Three days in advance the people began to assemble, until the city could hold no more and they were obliged to sleep in the fields. The stagings and scaffoldings were on the most extensive scale and a place was specially provided for the Duchess of Bejar and her friends, who apparently desired the pleasure of seeing her kinsman, Juan Ponce de Leon relaxed. ⁽⁶³⁾ As was so often the case, the solemnities were somewhat marred by an unseemly contest for precedence, between the civil and ecclesiastical authorities, which was renewed at the auto of 1560 and was not settled for several years. ⁽⁶⁴⁾
 

The services of thirty-eight frailes and Jesuits were required to prepare for their doom those who were to be relaxed. The most prominent of the victims was Don Juan Ponce de Leon, who had remained hardened, during his two years of confinement, in the belief that a man of his rank would not be burnt. He was an ardent Protestant; he had founded in his lands a sort of church, where worship was conducted in secret; he had gone to the brasero where, raising his hands to heaven, he had wished to God that he could be burnt there to ashes, with his wife and children, in defence of his faith, and he had said that if he had an income of twenty thousand ducats he would spend it all in evangelizing Spain but, when he learned his fate that night, he professed conversion; on the staging, he busied himself in urging his fellow-convicts to abandon their errors, and he made an exemplary end with tears and repentance. The next most conspicuous sufferer was the Licenciado Juan González, a famous preacher. He was of Moorish descent and, when only twelve years old, had been penanced at Córdova for Moorish errors. Throughout his trial he had steadily refused to incriminate others and, during the night, he answered the padres' exhortations with the psalms of David. On the staging he talked heresy with his two sisters until he was gagged and all three were burnt. The most interesting victim was María de Bohorques, aged 26, natural daughter of Pero [444] García de Xeres, a prominent citizen of Seville. She was a disciple of Cassiodoro de Reina, highly educated and thoroughly conversant with scripture, in both its literal and spiritual senses. When the confessors entered her cell that night, she received them pleasantly and expressed no surprise at their fateful message. It was in vain that relays of frailes sought her conversion--Dominicans following Jesuits and Franciscans succeeding to Carmelites. She met all their arguments with biblical texts, and was the only one of the condemned who defended her faith. Thus she passed the night until summoned to the procession. On the staging Ponce de Leon sought to convert her but she silenced him, saying that it was a time for meditation on the Savior. She treated the frailes who surrounded her as troublesome intermeddlers but, at three o'clock, she yielded to their entreaties, relapsing soon afterwards, however, to her errors, and she was burnt. Another prominent culprit was Hernando de San Juan, master of the Doctrina Christiana for children in Seville. He was an obstinate heretic, who resisted all efforts at conversion. After his sentence was read, the inquisitors asked whether he persisted in his errors, when he emphatically answered in the affirmative. Thereupon he was gagged, which he endured as though thanking God that it was given him to suffer for His sake. At length, however, he was persuaded by the frailes to escape burning alive by conversion, but his salvation, we are told, was uncertain as he had been impenitent until then. ⁽⁶⁵⁾
 
Altogether, at this auto, there were relaxed in person eighteen Lutherans, besides the effigy of the fugitive Francisco de Zafra. Two of these were foreigners--Carlos de Brujas, a Fleming and Antonio Bal die a Frenchman, master of the ship Unicornio. Evidently full use was made of the power to execute repentant converts, but whether any persisted to the end and were burnt alive cannot be gathered with certainty from any of the relations. The only guide we have is the general assertion of Illescas that, in this and subsequent autos in Seville, there were forty or fifty Lutherans executed, of whom four or five suffered themselves to be burnt alive. ⁽⁶⁶⁾ Besides those executed there were eight Lutherans [445] reconciled, three abjured for vehement suspicion and ten for light suspicion, making forty in all. Two houses were ordered to be torn down and sowed with salt--those of Luis de Abrego and Isabel de Baena--which had been used for meetings. There were also thirty-four culprits for other offences--fourteen Moriscos of whom three were relaxed, one Judaizer reconciled, four bigamists, two blasphemers, twelve for holding fornication not to be a sin, and one false-witness, making a total of seventy-four and giving the crowd ample entertainment. ⁽⁶⁷⁾
 
The work went on with unrelaxing vigor, but it was not until December 22, 1560, that another gaol-delivery could be arranged. Of this auto we have the dry official report, which shows that there were fourteen relaxations in person and three in effigy, the latter being the deceased Doctor Egidio and Doctor Constantino, and the fugitive Juan Pérez de Pineda. There were fifteen reconciled and imprisoned, five abjurations de vehementi and three de levi, and there was one acquittal, making forty-one in all, but soon afterwards there were sixteen Spaniards and twenty-six foreigners discharged as innocent, showing how reckless and indiscriminating had been the arrests. Whether any of the relaxed persisted to the end and were burnt alive is not recorded, for the only remark accompanying the report is that there were no offensive speeches, because those likely to utter them were duly gagged in advance. ⁽⁶⁸⁾
 
Of these there were two or three deserving special notice. At the head of the list of sufferers stood Julian Hernández, who had left his safe retreat in Frankfort on the desperate errand of evangelizing Spain. He had lain three years in prison and, if González de Montes is to be believed, he bore unshrinkingly repeated torture without betraying his associates and, when carried back to his cell, would inspirit his fellow-prisoners by chanting along the corridors

The complaint of cruelty was justified. In the rebuke which the Suprema administered to the tribunal of Barcelona, in 1568, as the result of de Soto Salazar's visitation, allusion is made to a case, in 1565, of a Frenchman named Antoine Aymeric, arrested without evidence; his first audience was held at his own request February 23d, the second on July 27th, when, without more ado, he was tortured and sentenced to reconciliation and confiscation. In another case of a Frenchman, Armand Jacobat, he was tortured without confession, but subsequently admitted some Lutheran errors, begged for mercy and desired to be converted, in spite of which he was relaxed and burnt, for which the Suprema held the tribunal to be gravely in fault. ⁽¹⁰⁷⁾ What became of those not burnt is seen in a report of December, 1566, to Charles IX, by his ambassador M. de Fourquevaux, that seventy poor Frenchmen, prisoners of the Barcelona tribunal, had been condemned to the galleys and had been delivered, in November, to Don Alvar de Bazan, who had taken the fleet to winter near Cádiz. In February, 1567, he writes that, on complaint to the Duke of Alva, the latter had assured him on his honor that they were all dogmatizing Huguenots; that Frenchmen were never arrested for Protestantism if they had not said or done something scandalous. This was as mendacious as the repeated promises to release the galley-slaves, which were always evaded until Fourquevaux recommended the seizure as a hostage, at Narbonne, of Andrea Doria, the naval commander-in-chief. At last, on December 20th, he reported the sending of royal letters to Doria to release them, but it is fairly questionable whether the order was obeyed. Again, in a list of complaints made by Charles IX to Philip, there was one concerning five of his subjects arrested in Havana and sent t