THE INQUISITOR-GENERALSHIP
Andrés Pacheco, who succeeded him in 1622, prudently resigned his see of Cuenca and, in spite of his audacious enforcement of inquisitorial claims, was allowed to hold the office until his death, April 7, 1626.[773]There was no haste in filling the vacancy, for it was not until August 6th that Olivares replied to the king’s order to report in writing the best persons to fill the office. Henamed four, covertly indicating his preference for Cardinal Zapata, who had resigned the archbishopric of Burgos in 1605 and at the time was governor of that of Toledo. Philip followed the suggestion by an endorsement on the paper, which was a singularly informal appointment, remarking at the same time that the choice should not be made public until his successor at Toledo was selected.[774]His resignation of the office, in 1632, is commonly attributed to a request from the king, but this is by no means certain. He was more than eighty years of age and for some time had been talking of resigning; already in 1630 the Suprema alludes in a consulta to the publicity of his intention of relieving himself of the charge. Possibly at the end some gentle pressure may have been used, but when, September 6, 1632, the commission of his successor arrived, his parting with the king was in terms of mutual respect and good feeling. His retirement was softened by continuing to him his full salary and perquisites, amounting to 1,353,625 mrs. (3620 ducats) which, as the Suprema never had enough revenue for its desires, was not cordially welcomed.[775]
His successor, the Dominican Fray Antonio de Sotomayor, was Archbishop of Damascusin partibusand confessor of the king. He was already in his seventy-seventh year and, when he had held his office for eleven years, his infirmities and incapacity became more evident to others than to himself. Early in 1643 the fall of Olivares deprived him of support, his opposition to the king in the matter of appointments still further weakened his position and in June he was requested to resign in view of his advanced age and to preserve his health. He was much disturbed and consulted friends, who advised him to obey, but he still held on, saying that they might await his death. Greater pressure was applied to which he yielded. June 20th he made a formal notarial attestation of his desire to be relieved on account of his great age and the next day he sent in an ungracious resignation, followed, on the 24th by one addressed to the pope. His successor, Diego de Arce y Reynoso, Bishop ofPlasencia, was already on the spot, exercising some of the functions, but Urban VIII hesitated to confirm the change and required explanations. It was not until September 18th that the commission of Arce y Reynoso was expedited and it only reached Madrid November 7th. Sotomayor was “jubilated” with half his salary of nine thousand ducats, which he enjoyed for five years longer.[776]
Arce y Reynoso, as we shall see, when embroiled with Rome in the prosecution of Villanueva, Marquis of Villalva, was obliged to resign his see of Plasencia, December 2, 1652, in order to retain his inquisitor-generalship. He continued in office until his death, June 20, 1665, followed by that of Philip, September 16th. During this interval, Philip gave the appointment to Pascual of Aragon, son of the Duke of Cardona and serving at the time as Viceroy of Naples. He promptly sailed for Spain and, though he is said to have resigned without acting, there are documents of October and November, 1665, which show that he performed the functions of the office.[777]He obtained the see of Toledo March 7, 1666, and desired to retain the inquisitor-generalship, but the Queen-regent, Maria Ana of Austria, compelled him to resign, in order to fill the place with her confessor and favorite the German Jesuit, Johann Everardt Nithard.[778]
THE INQUISITOR-GENERALSHIP
Nithard, in 1668, boasted that he had had charge of the queen’s conscience for twenty-four years, during which she had kept him constantly with her. He had thus moulded her character from youth and, as she was weak and obstinate, he had rendered himself indispensable. Her selection of him as inquisitor-general provoked lively opposition, which even reverence for royalty could not repress; protests were presented, leading to prolonged and heated discussion, but resistance was in vain.[779]He was appointed October 15, 1666, and speedily became the ruler of the kingdom which he misgoverned. The general dissatisfaction thus aroused was stimulated by the jealousy of thefrailes,who had been accustomed to see Dominicans as royal confessors and whose hatred of the Company of Jesus was exacerbated by his combination of that position with the inquisitor-generalship. He was accused of filling the Holy Office with Jesuitcalificadores, under whose advice he managed it, and with accumulating for himself pensions amounting to sixty thousand ducats a year. Spain at the time had a pinchbeck hero in the person of the second Don Juan of Austria, son of Philip IV by a woman known as la Calderona; he stood high in popular esteem, for he had the reputation of suppressing the Neapolitan revolt of 1648 and of ending the Catalan rebellion by the capture of Barcelona in 1652. Between him and Nithard there inevitably arose hostility which ripened into the bitterest hatred. To get him out of the country, he was given command of an expedition about to sail for Flanders; he went to Coruña but refused to sail; he was ordered to retire to Consuegra, whither a troop of horse was sent to arrest him, but he had fled to Catalonia, leaving a letter addressed to the queen in which he said that the execrable wickedness of Nithard had forced him to provide for his safety; his refusal to sail had been caused by his desire to remove from her side that wild beast, so unworthy of his sacred office; he did not propose to kill him for he did not wish to plunge into perdition a soul in such evil state, but he would devote himself to relieving the kingdom of this basilisk, confident that the queen would recognize the service thus rendered to the king.
This letter and a similar one of November 13th were widely circulated and inflamed the popular detestation of Nithard. Don Juan stood forward as the champion of the people against the hated foreigner and continued to issue inflammatory addresses. Letters came pouring into the court, from the cities represented in the Córtes, praying the queen to accede to his demands but, though her councillors wavered, she stood firm. December 3d she wrote to him to return to Consuegra or to come near to Madrid, where negotiations could be carried on. While taking advantage of this he avoided the trap by writing that, as his life was endangered, her envoy, the Duke of Osuna, had furnished him with a guard of three companies of horse—about 250 men in all. With this escort he started from Barcelona by way of Saragossa. It was in vain that orders were sent fromthe court to insult him on the road. Everywhere his journey was like a royal progress. Nobles and peoples gathered to applaud him and, in Saragossa even the tribunal of the Inquisition bore a part, while the students carried around the effigy of a Jesuit and burnt it before the Jesuit house, forcing the rector to witness it from the window.
As he drew near to Madrid with his handful of men, Nithard called on the nobles of his party to assemble with their armed retainers, but the Council of Regency prohibited this. Don Juan was in no haste; on February 9th he reached Junquera, some ten leagues from Madrid and, on the 22d, he was at Torrejon de Ardoz, about five leagues distant. Imminent danger was felt that if he advanced the populace would rise and murder the ministers to whom they attributed their sufferings, and all idea of resistance was abandoned. Nithard induced the papal nuncio to see Don Juan, February 24th, and ask further time for negotiation but at 9P.M.the nuncio returned with word that Nithard must leave Spain at once. The Royal Council sat until 10P.M.and reached the same conclusion. The next day the city was in an uproar; people carried their valuables to the convents for safe keeping and a mob assembled around the palace, where the Junto de Gobierno drew up a decree that Nithard must depart within three hours. It bore that he had supplicated permission to leave and in granting it the queen, to express her satisfaction with his services, appointed him ambassador to Germany or to Rome as he might elect, with retention of all his offices and salaries. The queen signed this and the Archbishop of Toledo and the Count of Peñaranda were deputed to carry it to Nithard, who received it without a trace of emotion and placed himself at their disposal. It was arranged that they should call for him at 6P.M.The archbishop and the Duke of Maqueda came with two coaches and Nithard entered, carrying with him nothing but his breviary. Thrice, in the streets, the howling mob threatened an attack, but were deterred by the sight of a cross with which the archbishop had prudently provided himself. They drove him to Fuencarral, about two leagues from the city and left him at the house of the cura. The next day he went to San Agustin, about ten leagues distant, where he lingered for awhile in the vain hope of recall.
THE INQUISITOR-GENERALSHIP
Don Juan fell back to Guadalajara, where terms were agreed upon, the principal articles being that Nithard should immediately resign all his offices and never return to Spain and thatDiego de Valladares, Don Juan’s special enemy, should have nothing to do in any matter affecting him. Nithard accordingly went to Rome, but he had no commission to show and no instructions. He reported this to the Council of State, which told him to urge the definition by the Holy See of the Immaculate Conception. The queen endeavored by a subterfuge to obtain for him a cardinal’s hat, which had been promised to Spain, but failed. He still hoped for a return to his honors, stimulated by the correspondence of his confidential agent, the Jesuit Salinas, but a letter warning him not to resign the inquisitor-generalship, for things were tending towards his return, with a lodging in the queen’s palace, chanced to fall into the hands of the nuncio, who placed it where it would do the most good. The result was a peremptory order for him to resign in favor of Valladares, who had been nominated as his successor. When this was handed to him by San Roman, the Spanish ambassador, he is said to have fainted and not to have recovered his senses for an hour. The coveted cardinal’s hat was bestowed on Portocarrero, Dean of Toledo, and when the news of this reached the queen it threw her into a tertian fever. The Jesuit General Oliva, seeing Nithard thus stripped of his offices and offended at his arrogance, ordered him to leave Rome and he retired to a convent, but he was amply provided with funds and, for some years at least, he was carried on the books of the Suprema and received his salary regularly. Moreover, in 1672, the queen procured from Clement X what Clement IX had persistently refused and Nithard was created Archbishop of Edessa and cardinal.[780]
Valladares had received his appointment September 15, 1669. It was not until 1677 that he resigned his see of Plasencia and he held the inquisitor-generalship until his death, January 29, 1695. He was succeeded by Juan Thomás de Rocaberti, Archbishop of Valencia, for whom Innocent XII, at the request of Carlos II, granted a dispensation from residence, conditioned on his making proper provision for the spiritual and temporal care of his see.[781]He died June 13, 1699, and his successor, AlfonsoFernández de Aguilar, Cardinal of Córdova, followed him September 19th, the very day that his commission arrived, after a brief illness and not without grave suspicions of poison.[782]The choice then fell on Balthasar de Mendoza y Sandoval, Bishop of Segovia, who became involved, as we shall see, in a deadly quarrel with his colleagues of the Suprema over the case of Fray Froilan Díaz. In the confusion of the concluding months of the disastrous reign of Carlos II, who died November 1, 1700, Mendoza made the mistake of embracing the Austrian side; his arbitrary action, in the case of Froilan Díaz, served as a sufficient excuse for his removal and Philip V, apparently in 1703, ordered him to return to his see. He is generally said to have resigned in 1705 but, in the papal commission, March 24, 1705, for his successor Vidal Marin, Clement XI states that he has seen fit to relieve Mendoza of the office because his presence is necessary at Segovia.[783]Vidal Marin served till his death in 1709 and so did his successor Riva-Herrera, Archbishop of Saragossa, who, however, enjoyed his dignity for little more than a year.
THE INQUISITOR-GENERALSHIP
Philip V had brought to Spain the Gallicanism and the principles of high royal prerogative which were incompatible with the pretensions of the curia and the quasi-independence of the Inquisition. With the Bourbons there opens a new era in the relations between the crown and the Holy Office. Yet in his first open trial of strength, Philip’s fatal vacillation, under the varying influences of his counsellors, confessors and wives, left him with a dubious victory. In 1711 he selected as inquisitor-general Cardinal Giudice, Archbishop of Monreal in Sicily, a Neapolitan of much ambition and little scruple. The recognition of the Archduke Charles as King of Spain by Clement XI, in 1709, had caused relations to be broken off between Madrid and Rome. Philip dismissed the nuncio, closed the tribunal of the nunciatura and forbade the transmission of money to Rome. There was talk in the curia of reviving the medieval methods of reducing disobedient monarchs to submission and Philip, to prepare for the struggle, ordered, December 12, 1713, the Council of Castile to draw up a statement of the regalías which would justify resistance to the demands of the curia and to the jurisdiction exercised by nuncios. It was a quarrel which had beenin progress for a century and a half, now breaking out fiercely and then smothered, but none the less bitter. The Council entrusted the task to its fiscal, Melchor Rafael de Macanaz, a hard-headed lawyer, fully imbued with convictions of royal prerogative, whose report was, in general and in detail, thoroughly subversive of Ultramontanism and consequently most distasteful to the curia.[784]When it was presented to the council, December 19th, Don Luis Curiel and some others prevented a vote and asked for copies that they might consider the matter maturely. Copies were given to each member, consideration was postponed and on February 14, 1714, Molines, the ambassador at Rome, reported that copies had been sent there by Curiel, Giudice and Belluga, Bishop of Murcia. Although it was a secret state paper, the curia issued a decree condemning it and, coupled with it, an old work, Barclay’s reply to Bellarmine and a French defence of the royal prerogative by Le Vayer, attributed to President Denis Talon. Such a decree could not be published in Spain without previous submission to the Royal Council, but Giudice was relied upon to evade this. He was nothing loath, for he had an old quarrel with Macanaz, who had prevented his obtaining the archbishopric of Toledo, his enmity being so marked that at one time Philip, to separate them, had sent Macanaz to France with the title of ambassador extraordinary, but without functions. At the moment Giudice was ambassador to France and the decree was sent to him; he declined to act unless assured of the protection of the courts of Rome and Vienna and, on receiving pledges of this, he signed it, July 30th as inquisitor-general and sent it to the Suprema for publication. Four of the members promptly signed it and had it published at high mass in the churches on August 15th. This created an immense sensation and exaggerated accounts were circulated of the errors and heresies contained in the unknown legal argument which Macanaz had prepared in the strict line of his duty.
When Philip was informed the next day of this audacious proceeding he called into consultation his confessor Robinet and three other theologians, who submitted on the 17th an opinion in writing that the Suprema should be required to suspend the edict and that Giudice should be dismissed and banished. The Suprema obeyed, excusing itself on the pretextthat it had supposed, as a matter of course, that Giudice had submitted the edict to the king. He was not satisfied with this and dismissed three of them, but they refused to surrender their places. Then he summoned a meeting of the Council of Castile, pointing out that, if such things were permitted, the kingdom would be reduced to vassalage under the Dataria and other tribunals of the curia; the Council was not to separate until every member had recorded his opinion as to the measures to be taken. Seven of them voted for dismissing and banishing Giudice, while four showed themselves favorable to the Inquisition. Meanwhile, on the 17th, Philip had despatched a courier to Paris summoning Giudice to return and informing Louis XIV of the affair. The latter, recognizing that the decree was an assault on the French as well as the Spanish regalías, refused to Giudice a farewell audience and sent his confessor Le Tellier to tell him that, were he not certain that Philip would punish him condignly, he would do so himself. When Giudice reached Bayonne he was met by an order not to enter Spain until the edict should be revoked. He replied submissively, enclosing his resignation, whereupon Philip commanded him to return to his archbishopric—a command which he did not obey. Felipe Antonio Gil de Taboada was appointed inquisitor-general and, on February 28, 1715, his commission was despatched from Rome; probably the Suprema interposed difficulties for he never served; he obtained the post of Governor of the Council of Castile, to be rewarded subsequently with the archbishopric of Seville.[785]
THE INQUISITOR-GENERALSHIP
Meanwhile there was a court revolution. María Luisa of Savoy,Philip’s wife, died February 11, 1714. The Princesse des Ursins, who had accompanied her to Spain and had become the most considerable personage in the kingdom, desired to find a new bride whom she could control. Giulio Alberoni, an adroit Italian adventurer, was then serving as the envoy of the Duke of Parma and persuaded her that Elisabeth Farnese, the daughter of his patron, would be subservient to her, and the match was arranged. December 11, 1714, Elisabeth reached Pampeluna and found Alberoni there ready to instruct her as to her course and his teaching bore speedy fruit. Des Ursins had also hastened to meet the new queen and was at Idiaguez, not far distant, where she received from the imperious young woman an order to quit Spain. Alberoni, who was in league with Giudice and hated Macanaz, painted him to Elisabeth in the darkest colors and his ruin was resolved upon.
He had been pursuing his duty as Fiscal-general of the Council of Castile; in July, 1714, he had occasion to make another report on the notorious evils of the Religious Orders, pointing out the necessity of their reform and asserting that the pope is not the master of ecclesiastical property and spiritual profits. Some months later he was called upon to draw up a complete reform of the Inquisition, suggested doubtless by the pending conflict, for which an occasion was found in an insolent invasion of the royal rights by the tribunal of Lima. The Council of Indies complained that the latter had removed from the administration of certain properties indebted to the royal treasury the person appointed by the Chamber of Accounts, on the plea that the owner was also a debtor to the Inquisition. Philip V thereupon ordered Macanaz, in conjunction with D. Martin de Miraval, fiscal of the Council of Indies, to make a report covering all the points on which the Holy Office should be reformed. The two fiscals presented their report November 14, 1714, exhaustively reviewing the invasions of the royal jurisdiction which, as we shall see hereafter, were constant and audacious, and their recommendations were framed with a view of rendering the Inquisition an instrument for executing the royal will, to the subversion of the jealously-guarded principle that laymen should be wholly excluded from spiritual jurisdiction.[786]
In the reaction wrought by Elisabeth and Alberoni, Macanaz was necessarily sacrificed. Philip, notoriously uxorious, speedily fell under the domination of his strong-minded bride and Alberoni became the all-powerful minister. Giudice, who had been loitering on the borders, was recalled and, on March 28, 1715, Philip abased himself by signing a most humiliating paper, evidently drawn up by Giudice, reinstating the latter and apologizing for his acts on the ground of having been misled by evil counsel.[787]Alberoni and Giudice, however, were too ambitious and too unprincipled to remain friends. Their intrigues clashed in Rome, the one to obtain a cardinal’s hat, the other to advance his nephew. Alberoni had the ear of the queen and speedily undermined his rival. Giudice was also tutor of the young prince Luis; on July 15, 1716, he was deprived of the post and ordered to leave the palace and, on the 25th, he was forbidden to enter it. He fell into complete disfavor and shortly left Spain for Rome, where he placed the imperial arms over his door. His resignation must have followed speedily for, on January 23, 1717, the tribunal of Barcelona acknowledges receipt of an announcement from the Suprema that the pope has at last acceded to the reiterated requests of Cardinal Giudice to be allowed to resign and has appointed in his place D. Joseph de Molines, as published in a royal decree of January 9th.[788]Alberoni obtained the coveted cardinalate but his triumph was transient. He replaced the king’s confessor, Father Robinet with another Jesuit, Father Daubenton, who soon intrigued against him so successfully and so secretly that the first intimation of his fall was a royal order, December 5, 1719, to leave Madrid within eight days and Spain in three weeks. He vainly sought an audience of Philip and was forced to obey.[789]
THE INQUISITOR-GENERALSHIP
Although the episode of Giudice is thus closed, the fate of Macanaz is too illustrative of inquisitorial methods and of royal weakness to be passed over without brief mention. He had incurred the undying hatred of the Inquisition simply in dischargeof his duty as an adviser of the crown, with perhaps an excess of zeal for his master and an intemperate patriotism that strove to restore its lost glories to Spain. It was impossible to continue him in his high function while recalling Giudice and, as a decent cover for banishment, he was allowed, in March, 1715, to seek the waters of Bagnères for his health, when he departed on an exile that lasted for thirty-three years to be followed by an imprisonment of twelve. Giudice promptly commenced a prosecution for heresy, sufficient proof of which, according to the standards of the Holy Office, was afforded by his official papers. As he dared not return, his trialin absentiaresulted, as such trials were wont to do, in conviction, and he seems to have been sentenced to perpetual exile with confiscation of all his property, including even five hundred doubloons which the king was sending to him at Pau through a banker of Saragossa. All his papers and correspondence in the hands of his friends were seized and his brother, a Dominican fraile, whom the king had placed in the Suprema, was arrested in the hope of obtaining incriminating evidence.[790]
Thenceforth he led a life of wandering exile, so peculiar that it is explicable only by the character of Philip. He was in constant correspondence with high state officials and was frequently entrusted with important negotiations. Sometimes he was under salary, but it was irregularly paid and for the most part he had to struggle with poverty. When the Infanta María Ana Vitoria was sent back to Spain from France, in 1725, he was commissioned to attend her to the border and from there he went as plenipotentiary to the Congress of Cambray, with the comforting assurance that the king was endeavoring to put an end to the affair of the Inquisition—an effort apparently frustrated by the influence of Père Daubenton.[791]It was possibly with a view to overcome this fatal enmity that he occupied his leisure, between 1734 and 1736, in composing a defence of the Inquisition from the attacks of Dr. Dellon and the Abbé Du Bos. In this he had nothing but praise for its kindliness towards its prisoners, its scrupulous care to avoid injustice, the rectitude of its procedure and the benignity of its punishments. Beyondthese assertions, the defence reduces itself to showing that, from the time when the Church acquired the power to persecute, it has persecuted heretics to the death and that the heretics in their turn have been persecutors—propositions readily proved from his wide and various stores of learning and sufficient to satisfy a believer in thesemper et ubique et ab omnibus.[792]Ten years later, when Fernando VI ascended the throne in 1746, Macanaz addressed him a memorial on the measures requisite to relieve the misery of Spain and in this he superfluously urged the maintenance of the Inquisition in all its lustre and authority.[793]In spite of all this it was unrelenting and his entreaties to be allowed to return were fruitless.
In 1747 he was sent to the Congress of Breda where he mismanaged the negotiations, deceived, it is said, by Lord Sandwich. Relieved and ordered, in 1748, to present himself to the Viceroy of Navarre at Pampeluna, after some delay he was carried to Coruña and immuredincomunicadoin a casemate of the castle of San Antonio, a prison known as a place of rigorous confinement. Even the authorities there compassionated him and, at their intercession, he was removed to an easier prison and permitted the use of books and writing materials. Here, during a further captivity of twelve years, the indomitable old man occupied himself with voluminous commentaries on theTeatro críticoof Padre Feyjoo and theEspaña sagradaof Florez, with many other writings and memorials to the king. It was not until the death of the latter, in 1760, that Elisabeth of Parma, the regent and the cause of his misfortunes, liberated him with orders to proceed directly to Murcia. At Leganes he was greeted by his wife and daughter, with whom he went to Hellin, his birth-place, where he died on the following November 2d, in his ninety-first year.[794]
THE INQUISITOR-GENERALSHIP
There is no record of any further exercise of royal control over inquisitors-general until, in 1761, Clement XIII saw fit to condemn the Catechism of Mesengui for its alleged Jansenism in denying the authority of popes over kings. The debate over itin Rome had attracted the attention of all Europe and the prohibition of the book was regarded as a general challenge to monarchs. Carlos III had watched the discussion with much interest, especially as the work was used in the instruction of his son. He expressed his intention of not permitting the publication of the prohibition but, by a juggle between the nuncio and the inquisitor-general, Manuel Quintano Bonifaz, an edict of condemnation was hastily drawn up of which copies were given to the royal confessor on the night of August 7th. They did not reach the king at San Ildefonso until the morning of the 8th, who at once despatched a messenger to Bonifaz ordering him to suspend the edict and recall any copies that might have been sent out. Bonifaz replied that copies had already been delivered to all the churches in Madrid and forwarded to nearly all the tribunals; to suppress it would cause great scandal, injurious to the Holy Office, wherefore he deeply deplored that he could not have the pleasure of obeying the royal mandate. Carlos was incensed but contented himself with ordering Bonifaz to absent himself from the court; he obeyed and, in about three weeks, made an humble apology, protesting that he would forfeit his life rather than fail in the respect due to the king. Carlos then permitted him to return and resume his functions and, when the Suprema expressed its gratitude, he significantly warned it to remember the lesson.[795]He took warning himself and, on January 18, 1762, he issued a pragmática systematizing the examination of all papal letters before issuing the royal exequatur which permitted their publication.[796]
Carlos III had no further occasion to exercise his prerogatives but it was otherwise with Carlos IV. His first appointee, Manuel Abad y la Sierra, Bishop of Astorga, who assumed office May 11, 1793, had but a short term, for he was requested to resign in the following year. His successor, Francisco Antonio de Lorenzana, Archbishop of Toledo, who accepted the post September 12, 1794, was not much more fortunate, although his enforced resignation, in 1797, was decently concealed under a mission to convey to Pius VI the offer of a refuge in Majorca. He was followed by Ramon José de Arce y Reynoso, Archbishop of Saragossa, who resigned March 22, 1808, four days after theabdication of Carlos IV in the “tumult of lackeys” at Aranjuez, probably to escape his share of the popular odium directed against the favorite Godoy.[797]During the short-lived revival of the Inquisition under the Restoration, its dependence on the royal power was too great for differences to arise that would provoke assertions of the prerogative.
THE SUPREMA
The relations of the crown with the Suprema were originally the same as with the other royal councils. The king appointed and removed at will although, as the members came to exercise judicial functions, it was necessary for the inquisitor-general to delegate to them the papal faculties which alone conferred on them jurisdiction over heresy. Ferdinand exercised the power of appointment and removal and, as his orders were requisite for the receivers of confiscations to pay their salaries, it is scarce likely that anyone had the hardihood to raise a question.[798]We have seen how he forced the members to accept as a colleague Aguirre though he was a layman, how Ximenes when governor of Castile removed him and Adrian reinstated him. The earliest formula of commission that I have met is of the date of 1546; it bears that it is granted by the inquisitor-general, who constitutes the appointee a member and invests him with the necessary faculties, and it is moreover countersigned by the other members.[799]In this there is no allusion to any nomination by the king, although the appointment lay in his hands. In 1573 the Venitian envoy Leonardo Donato so states, adding that the popes felt very bitterly the fact that they had no participation in it; they had repeatedly tried to secure the membership of some one dependent upon them, such as the nuncio, but Philip would not permit it; the council did nothing without his consent, tacit or expressed.[800]At some period, not definitely ascertainable, the custom arose of the inquisitor-general presenting three names from among which the king made selection. At first the number of members was uncertain, but it came to be fixed at five, in addition to the inquisitor-general. To these Philip II added two from the Council of Castile; as these were sometimes laymen,he finally had scruples of conscience and, in his instructions to Manrique de Lara, in 1595, he tells him that when there are fitting ecclesiastics in the Council of Castile they are to be proposed to him for selection; if there are not, it is to be considered whether a papal brief should be procured to enable them to act in matters of faith.[801]These adventitious members came to be known asconsejeros de la tarde, as they attended only twice a week and in the afternoon sessions of the body, where its secular business was disposed of, and thus they took no share in matters of faith. Their salary was one-third that of the others.
The royal authority was emphatically asserted when, in 1614, Philip III ordered that a supernumerary place should be made for his confessor Fray Aliaga, with precedence over his colleagues and a salary of fifteen hundred ducats; also that when the royal confessor was a Dominican he should always have this place and, when he was not, that it should be given to a Dominican. The Suprema accepted Aliaga but demurred to the rest, when Lerma peremptorily ordered it to be entered on the records; there were murmurings followed by submission. After the accession of Philip IV, he ordered the Council to make out a commission for his confessor, the Dominican Sotomayor, to which there was ineffectual opposition.[802]The rule held good. Soon after the Inquisition was reorganized under the Restoration, Fernando VII, July 10, 1815, appointed his confessor, Cristóbal de Bencomo, a member to serve without salary for the time but with the reversion of the first vacancy and all the honors due to his predecessors; he had the seat next to the dean and when the latter died, February 16, 1816, he took his position and salary.[803]Philip V ordered that a seat should always be occupied by a Jesuit; this of course lapsed with the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767, after which Carlos III, in 1778, provided that the Religious Orders should have a representative by turns.[804]
THE SUPREMA
The royal power of appointment was not uncontested and gave rise to frequent debates. Philip IV sometimes yielded andsometimes persisted; occasionally the question was complicated and papal intervention was hinted at.[805]A decisive struggle came in 1640, in which the Suprema chose its ground discreetly. It suited Olivares to appoint Antonio de Aragon, a youthful cleric and the second son of the Duke of Cardona. Anticipating resistance, Philip announced the nomination imperiously; Don Antonio must be admitted the next day as he was about to start for Barcelona and any representations against it could be made subsequently. The Suprema replied that the inquisitor-general could not make the appointment and if he did so it would be invalid; Don Antonio was less than thirty years old; the canons require an inquisitor to be forty, although Paul III had reduced for Spain, the age to thirty; members of the Suprema were inquisitors and it was only as such that they sat in judgement without appeal in cases of faith. To this Philip rejoined that Olivares would report the efforts he had made to quiet his conscience in view of the great public good to result from the appointment, wherefore he expected that possession would be given to Don Antonio without delay. Matters went so far that the Duchess of Cardona wrote to her son to abandon the effort but the royal command prevailed; he obtained the position and in the following year he was made a member of the Council of State; he was already a member of the Council of Military Orders and the whole affair gives us a glimpse of how Olivares governed Spain.[806]Having thus asserted his prerogative, Philip, in 1642 and the early months of 1643, made four appointments without consultation. The remonstrances of the Suprema must have been energetic for Philip yielded and, in a decree of June 26 (or July 2), 1643, he agreed that the old custom of submitting three names should be renewed, with the innovation that the Suprema should unite in making the recommendations. Against this the inquisitor-general protested, but in vain. It was probably to make an offset to these royal nominees that, November 10, 1643, the inquisitor-general and Suprema asked that their fiscal shouldhave a vote, which Philip refused.[807]The rule continued of submitting three names for selection, but the participation of the Suprema in this seems to have been dropped. The royal control, moreover asserted itself in the case of Froilan Díaz when, by decree of November 3, 1704, Philip V reinstated three members, Antonio Zambrana, Juan Bautista Arzeamendi and Juan Miguélez, who had been arbitrarily ejected and jubilado by Inquisitor-general Mendoza, ordering moreover that they should receive all arrears of salary.[808]
While thus the crown continued to exercise the right of selecting the heads of the Inquisition, its practical control was greatly weakened by one or two changes which established themselves. Of these perhaps the most important was the claim of the Suprema to interpose itself between the king and the tribunals, so that no royal commands to them should be obeyed unless they should pass through it, thus rendering the inquisitors subject to itself alone and not to the sovereign. In a government theoretically absolute this was substituting bureaucracy for autocracy and, when the example was followed, though at a considerable distance, by some of the other royal councils, it at times produced deadlocks which threatened to paralyze all governmental action.
We have seen that, towards the end of Ferdinand’s reign, his letters to the tribunals were sometimes countersigned by members of the Suprema, but that this was not essential to their validity and, when there was an attempt to establish such a claim, he was prompt to vindicate his authority. A royal cédula of October 25, 1512, gave certain instructions as to the manumission of baptized children of slaves whose owners had suffered confiscation. There was no question of faith involved, but when, in 1514, Pedro de Trigueros applied to the inquisitors of Seville to be set free under it, they refused on the ground that it had not been signed by the Suprema. He appealed to Ferdinand who promptly ordered the inquisitors to obey it; if they find Pedro’s story to be true they are to give him a certificate of freedom and meanwhile are to protect him from his master, whowas seeking to send him to the Canaries for sale.[809]The claim which Ferdinand thus peremptorily rejected was persistently maintained during the period of confusion which followed his death. Whether it received positive assent from Charles is more than doubtful, although the Suprema so asserts in a letter of July 27 1528, ordering inquisitors to examine whether a certain royal cédula had been signed by its members, for the kings had ordered that none should be executed in matters connected with the Inquisition unless thus authenticated—thus basing the claim on the royal will and not on any inherent right of the Holy Office.[810]So complete was the autonomy thus established for the organization that acarta acordadaor circular of instructions May 12, 1562, tells the tribunals that, if an inquiry from the king comes to them through any other council, they are to reply that if the king desires the information it will be furnished to him through the inquisitor-general or the Suprema.[811]
THE SUPREMA
The far-reaching importance of this principle can scarce be exaggerated. One of its results will be seen when we come to consider the complaints and demands of the Córtes and find thatfuerosdirected against inquisitorial aggressions, in purely civil matters, when agreed to by the king were invalid without confirmation by the inquisitor-general. A single instance here will suffice to show the working of this. In 1599 various demands of the Córtes of Barcelona were conceded by Philip III. One regulated the number of familiars, which Philip promised that he would induce the inquisitor-general to put into effect, within two months if possible. Another provided that all officials, save inquisitors, should be Catalans; he agreed to charge the inquisitor-general and Suprema to observe this and he would get it confirmed by the pope. Another was that, in the secular business of the tribunal, the opinion of the Catalan assessor should govern, because he would be familiar with the local law; this he accepted and promised, in so far as it concerned the inquisitor-general and Suprema, to charge them to give such orders to the tribunal. Another was that commissioners and familiars should not be “religious,” to which his reply was the same. Another required the inquisitor-general to appoint a resident of Barcelona to hear appeals in civil cases below fivehundred libras; this he said was just and he would charge the inquisitor-general to do so. After this, in fulfilment of his plighted word, he addressed the inquisitor-general in terms almost supplicatory “I charge you greatly that for your part you condescend and facilitate that what they have supplicated may be put in execution, in conformity with what I have conceded and decreed in each of these articles, which will give me particular contentment.” Not the slightest attention was paid to this request and, on May 6, 1603, Philip repeated it “As until now it is understood that not a single thing contained in it has been put in execution and, as I desire that it be enforced, I ask and charge you to condescend to it and help and facilitate it with the earnestness that I confidently look for.”[812]This second appeal was as fruitless as the first and the Catalans gained nothing. It is true that, in 1632, the Barcelona tribunal, in a memorial to Philip IV, asserted that Philip III had only assented to these articles to get rid of the Catalans and that he wrote privately to the pope asking him not to confirm them.[813]
This case may have been mere jugglery and collusion, but in general it by no means followed that royal decrees sent to the Suprema for transmission were forwarded. If it objected, it would respond by a consulta arguing their impropriety or illegality, and this would, if necessary, be repeated three or four times at long intervals until, perhaps, the matter was forgotten or dropped or some compromise was reached. The privilege that all instructions must be transmitted through the Suprema was therefore one of no little importance and it was insisted upon tenaciously. There was a convenient phrase invented which we shall often meet—obedecer y no cumplir—to obey but not to execute, which was very serviceable on these occasions. In 1610 the Suprema argued away a cédula of Philip III as invalid because it had been despatched through the Council of State and the king was repeatedly told to his face that the laws required his cédulas to be countersigned by the Suprema in order to secure their execution. This was done to Philip IV, in 1634, when he intervened in a quarrel and, in 1681 to Carlos II when there were difficulties threatened with foreign nationsarising from abuses committed in examining importations in search of forbidden books.[814]As the questions calling for royal interposition as a rule affected only the wide secular and not the spiritual jurisdiction of the Inquisition, this created conditions unendurable in any well-organized government.
Another change which conduced greatly to the independence of the Inquisition was the control which it acquired over its finances. We have seen that, under Ferdinand, the confiscations and pecuniary penances belonged to the crown and that the salaries and expenses were paid by his orders. The finances of the Inquisition will be discussed hereafter and meanwhile it suffices to say that, after his death and the exuberant liberality of Charles to his Flemish favorites during his first residence in Spain, the diminishing receipts from these sources caused them to be virtually assigned to defraying the expenses of the Inquisition and they were no longer regarded as a source of supply to the royal treasury. Still, the money belonged to the crown and the Inquisition enjoyed it only under the authority and by virtue of the bounty of the sovereign.