THE SEVILLE GROUP
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.[1144]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.[1145]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,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.[1146]
THE VALLADOLID GROUP
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.[1147]This increased the suspicion and certain writings of Doctor Constantino were subjected to examination; they hadpassed 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,[1148]to which were added three of his to be seized but not burnt. 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.[1149]To convey them into Spainwas 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 theImajen 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.[1150]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,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 Belen 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 Agustin 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, Agustin 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, Agustin 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 thecosas arbitrarias.[1151]
THE VALLADOLID GROUP
It was inevitable that such a propaganda should be discovered, and the only source of surprise is that it should have been carriedon 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 notincomunicadohe 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.[1152]
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.[1153]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.[1154]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.[1155]
EXPLOITATION BY VALDES
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 wasin 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.[1156]
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.[1157]As we haveseen 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.[1158]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.
ALARM OF CHARLES V
Accordingly, on May 3d, 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 thereforebe 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.”[1159]
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.[1160]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.[1161]
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 IVa 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.[1162]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. III, 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.[1163]
VALLADOLID AUTO DE FE
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,like all the rest, excepting Baez. When the procession reached the plaza, Agustin 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.[1164]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.
AGUSTIN CAZALLA
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 torturein 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.[1165]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 Antoniode 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 apié de amigoencircling 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 thunder-stroke—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.[1166]
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 stephe 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 Cabezon and Francisco de Rueda, the notaries who recorded the delivery of the relaxed to the magistrates.[1167]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.[1168]
SECOND AUTO DE FE
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.[1169]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 wasdreadful to look upon him as on one who in a brief moment would be in hell with his comrade and master, Luther.[1170]
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 thecasa 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.[1171]
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.[1172]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 twocases 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.[1173]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, grand-daughter of Isabel de Castilla, wife of Carlos de Seso, a dispensation to hold honors and dignities, secular and spiritual.[1174]
SEVILLE AUTO DE FE
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,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.[1175]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.[1176]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.[1177]
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 PeroGarcía 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 theDoctrina Christianafor 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.[1178]
SEVILLE AUTOS DE FE
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 Baldie 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.[1179]Besides those executed there were eight Lutheransreconciled, 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.[1180]
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 abjurationsde vehementiand 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.[1181]
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