“‘We, the inquisitors of heretical pravity, having, with the concurrence of the most illustriousN., lord archbishop of Lisbon, or of his deputy,M., called on the name of his Lord Jesus Christ, andof His glorious mother, the Virgin Mary, and sitting on our tribunal, and judging with the holy Gospels lying before us, that so our judgment might be in the sight of God, and our eyes might behold what is just in all matters between the magnific DoctorN., advocate-fiscal, on the one part, and you,N., now before us, on the other; we have ordained that in this place, and on this day, you should receive your definitive sentence. We do, therefore, by this our sentence, put in writing, define, pronounce, declare, and sentence thee,N., of the city of Lisbon, to be a convicted, confessing, affirmative, and professed heretic, and to be delivered by us as such to the secular arm; and we, by this sentence, do cast thee out of the ecclesiastical court, as a convicted, confessing, affirmative, and professed heretic, and we do leave and deliver thee to the secular arm, and to the power of the secular court, but at the same time domost earnestly beseech that court so to moderate its sentence as not to touch thy blood, or to put thy life in any danger.’
“Is there in all history,” asks Dr. Geddes, “an instance of so gross and confident a mockery of God and the world as this of the inquisitors, earnestly beseeching the civil magistrates not to put the heretic they have condemned and delivered to them to death? For were they in earnest when they make their solemn petition to the secular magistrates, why do they bring their prisoners out of the Inquisition, and deliver them to those magistrates, in coats painted over with flames? Why do they teach that all heretics, above all other malefactors,ought to be punished with death? And why do they never resent the secular magistrates having so little regard to their earnest and joint petition as never to fail to burn all the heretics which are delivered to them by the Inquisition, within an hour or two after they have them in their hands? And why, in Rome, where the supreme civil and ecclesiastical authority are lodged in the same person, is this petition of the Inquisition, which is made there as well as in other places, never granted? Certainly, not to take any notice of the old canon, which forbids the clergy to have any hand in the blood of any person whatsoever, would be a much less dishonour to the Inquisition, than to pretend to go on observing that canon, by making a petition which is known to be so contrary to their principles and desires.
“The prisoners are no sooner in the hands of the civil magistrate than they are loaded with chains, and before the eyes of the inquisitors; and, being first carried to the secular gaols, are within an hour or two brought thence before the lord chief-justice, who, without knowing any thing of their particular crimes, or of the evidence that was against them, asks them, one by one,in what religion do they intend to die?If they answer that they will die in the communion of the Roman church, they are condemned by him to becarried forth to the place of execution, and there to be first strangled, and then burnt to ashes. But if they say that they will die in the Protestant or any other faith that is contrary to the Roman, they are sentenced byhim to becarried to the place of execution, and there to be burnt alive. At the place of execution, which, at Lisbon, is in the Ribera, there are so many stakes set up as there are prisoners to be burnt, with a good quantity of dry furze about them. The stakes ofthe professed, as the inquisitors call them, may be about four yards high, and have a small board whereon the prisoner is to be seated, within half a yard of their top. The negative and relapsed being first strangled and burnt, the professed go up a ladder between the two Jesuits, who have attended them all day, and when they are come even with the fore-mentioned board, they turn about to the people, and the Jesuits do spend near a quarter of an hour in exhorting the professed to be reconciled to the church of Rome; which, if the professed refuse to be, the Jesuits come down, and the executioner ascends, and, having turned the professed off the ladder upon the seat, and chained their bodies close to the stake, he leaves them, and the Jesuits go up to them a second time, to renew their exhortation to them, and at parting tell them that they leave them to the devil, who is standing at their elbow to receive their souls, and carry them with him into the flames of hell-fire, so soon as they are out of their bodies. Upon this a great shout is raised, and as soon as the Jesuits are off the ladder, the cry is, ‘Let the dogs’ beards be made! Let the dogs’ beards be made!’ which is done by thrusting of flaming furzes, fastened to a long pole, against their faces; and this inhumanity is commonly continued until their faces are burned to acoal, and is always accompanied with such acclamations of joy as are not to be heard on any other occasion; a bull fight or a farce being but dull entertainments to the using of a professed heretic thus inhumanly.
“The beards of the professed having been thus made, as they call it in jollity, fire is set to the furze which is at the bottom of the stake, and above which the professed are chained so high that the top of the flame seldom reacheth higher than the seat they sit upon; and if there happen to be a wind, and to which that place is much exposed, it seldom reacheth so high as their knees; so that though there be a calm, the professed are commonly dead in half an hour after the furze is set on fire; yet, if it prove windy, they are not after that dead in an hour and a half, or two hours, and so are really roasted, and not burnt to death. But though out of hell there cannot be a more lamentable spectacle than this, being joined with the sufferers, so long as they are able to speak, crying out, ‘Misericordia, por amos de Dios’ (Mercy, for the love of God,) yet it is beheld by people of both sexes and of all ages with such transports of joy and satisfaction, as are not on any other occasion to be met with. And that the reader may not think that this inhuman joy may be the effect of a natural cruelty that is in those people’s disposition, and not of the spirit of their religion, he may rest assured that all public malefactors, besides heretics, have their violent deaths nowhere more tenderly lamented than among the same people, and even when there isnothing in the manner of their deaths that appears inhuman or cruel.
“Within a few days after the execution, the pictures of all that have been burnt, and which were taken off their breasts when they were brought to the stake, are hung up in St. Domingo’s church, whose west end, though very high, is all covered over with such trophies of the Inquisition, hung up there in honour to Dominic, who, to fulfil his mother’s dream, was the first inventor of that court. Dominic’s mother, when she was about to be delivered, having dreamed that she was delivered, not of a human creature, but of a fierce dog, with a burning torch in his mouth!”
Enormities of cruel bigotry so truly shocking might well require to be authenticated by the most unquestionable testimony. This has been given. That of the Rev. Mr. Wilcox, chaplain to the English factory of Lisbon in the reign of Queen Anne, and afterwards Bishop of Rochester, wrote in reply to the inquiry of Bishop Burnet, confirming the statements of Dr. Geddes, June 15, 1706. Part of his letter is as follows:—
“My Lord,—In obedience to your lordship’s commands of the 10th ultimo, I have here sent all that was printed concerning the lastauto da fé.I saw the whole process, which is agreeable to what is published by Limborch and others upon that subject. Of the five persons condemned, there were but four burnt; Antonio Tavances, by an unusual reprieve, being saved after the procession. Heytor Dias and Maria Pinteyra were burnt alive,and the other two first strangled. The execution was very cruel. The woman was alive in the flames half an hour, and the man above an hour. The present king and his brothers were seated at a window so near as to be addressed, for a considerable time, in very moving terms, by the man as he was burning. But though the favour he begged was only a few more faggots, yet he was not able to obtain it. Those who are burnt alive here are seated on a bench twelve feet high, fastened to a pole, and above six feet higher than the faggots. The wind being a little fresh, the man’s hinder parts were perfectly wasted; and as he turned himself, his ribs opened before he left speaking, the fire being recruited as it wasted, to keep him just in the same degree of heat. But all entreaties could not procure him a larger allowance of wood to shorten his misery and dispatch him!”
Galileo—Dr. Orobio de Castro—Count of Olavides—A Beata—Joseph da Costa.
“Popery is unchangeable.” Such is the profession of its greatest advocates. They declare that “the Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Church” is everthe same in its divine foundation, its principles of faith, and its ecclesiastical order. But history, as we have seen, records a long series of changes in its doctrines and institutions, adapted to the varying policy of its hierarchy, which is antichristian; and the advancement of society in knowledge and religion has compelled the observance of far more respect than formerly to the dictates of humanity. Hence the abolition of the horrid custom of publicly burning men for their religious opinions. The spirit of intolerance and bigotry, however, is essential to Romanism, as a system of priestly claims; but even this spirit has been restrained, as will appear from the following examples of its modern victims.
1.Galileo tortured in the Inquisition.—Galileo Galilei, son of a Florentine nobleman, was bornA.D.1564. He became a famous mathematician and astronomer at Pisa and Padua, and by his newly invented telescope he made valuable discoveries, so that,A.D.1615, he taught that the sun, not the earth, is the centre of our system. This was considered by the Pope and cardinals a heresy, and he was seized by the Inquisition, and condemned as a heretic. He recanted, and was released under promise not to offend again; but being confident in the correctness of his science, he published,A.D.1632, his “Dialogues on the Ptolemaic and Copernican System of the World,” when he was again arrested and condemned by that court to imprisonment for life, while his books were burnt, as if science could injure religon. Torture in the prisoncompelled him to sign the following abjuration; and, lest his death should endanger the Inquisition, he was banished to Florence. “I, Galileus, son of the late Vincentius Galileus, a Florentine, agedseventy, being here personally upon my trial, and on my knees before you, the most eminent and reverend the lord cardinals, inquisitors-general of the universal Christian commonwealth against heretical pravity, having before my eyes the most Holy Gospels, which I touch with my proper hands, do swear that I always have believed, and do now believe, and by the help of God hereafter will believe all that which the holy Catholic and apostolic Roman church doth hold, preach, and teach. But because, after I had been juridically enjoined and commanded by this Holy Office, that I should wholly forsake that false opinion, which holds that the sun is the centre, and immoveable; and that I should not hold, defend, nor by any manner, neither by word or writing, teach the aforesaid false doctrine; and after it was notified to me that the aforesaid doctrine was contrary to the Holy Scripture, I have written and printed a book, in which I treat of the said doctrine already condemned, and produce reasons of great force in favour of it, without giving any answer to them, I am, therefore, judged by the Holy Office as vehemently suspected of heresy,viz., that I have held and believed that the sun is the centre of the world, and immoveable, and that the earth is not the centre, but moves.
“Being, therefore, willing to remove from the minds of your eminences, and of every CatholicChristian, this vehement suspicion legally conceived against me, I do, with a sincere heart and faith impressed, abjure, curse, and detest the abovesaid errors and heresies, and, in general, every other error and sect contrary to the aforesaid holy church; and I swear, that for the future I will never more say or assert, either by word or writing, anything to give occasion for the like suspicion; but that if I know any heretic, or person suspected of heresy, I will inform against him to this Holy Office, or to the inquisitor or ordinary of the place in which I shall be. Moreover, I swear and promise that I will fulfil and wholly observe all the penances which are, or shall be, enjoined me by this Holy Office. But if, what God forbid, it shall happen that I should act contrary, by any words of mine, to my promises, protestations, and oaths, I do subject myself to all the penalties and punishments which have been ordained and published against such offenders by the sacred canons and other constitutions general and particular. So help me God and His Holy Gospels, which I touch with my own proper hands.
“I, the abovesaid Galileus Galilei, have abjured, sworn, promised, and obliged myself as above; and in testimony of these things have subscribed, with my own proper hand, this present writing of my abjuration, and have repeated it word for word at Rome, in the convent of Minerva.
“I, Galileus Galilei, have abjured as above, with my own proper hand.” July 22nd, 1633.
Galileo, indignant against his oppressors for compelling him to swear to an error, as he rose fromhis knees, said, “It still moves!” His tortures left him afflicted, but he lived seven years, and died in January,A.D.1642.
2.Dr. Balthasar Orobio de Castro.—Limborch gives the following account “of the method of torturing, and the degree of tortures now used in the Spanish Inquisition,” as he received it from Dr. Orobio de Castro, a Jew, aboutA.D.1680. This eminent man was born at Seville, and became professor of metaphysics at Salamanca and at Seville, where he was accused to the Inquisition, as of the Jewish religion. This accusation was made by his servant, a Moor, who had before been convicted, and whipped by his order, for thieving; and afterwards, he was again accused before that tribunal by a certain enemy for another fact, which would have proved him to be a Jew. But Orobio obstinately denied his Jewish opinions, and he was, therefore, immured in the gaol of the Inquisition.
“I will here give the account of his torture,” says Limborch, “as I had it from his own mouth. After three whole years which he had been in gaol, and several examinations, and the discovery of his crimes to him of which he was accused, in order to his confession, and his constant denial of them, he was at length carried out of his gaol, and through several turnings brought to the place of torture, towards the evening. This was a large under-ground room, arched roof, and the walls covered with black hangings. The candlesticks were fastened to the wall, and the whole room enlightened with candles placed in them. At one end of itthere was an enclosed place like a closet, where the inquisitor and notary sat at a table, so that the place seemed to him as the very mansion of death, every thing appearing so terrible and awful. Here the inquisitor again admonished him to confess the truth, before his torments began. When he answered he had told the truth, the inquisitor gravely protested, that since he was so obstinate as to suffer the torture, the Holy Office would be innocent, if he should shed his blood, or even expire in his torments. When he had said this, they put a linen garment over his body, and drew it so very close on each side, as almost squeezed him to death. When he was almost dying, they slackened the sides of the garment, and after he began to breathe again, the sudden alteration put him to the most grievous anguish and pain. When he had overcome this torture, the same admonition was repeated, that he would confess the truth in order to prevent further torment. And as he persisted in his denial, they tied his thumbs so very tight with small cords, as made the extremities of them to swell, and caused the blood to spurt out from under his nails. After this, he was placed with his back against a wall, and fixed upon a bench. Into the wall were fastened little iron pulleys, through which there were ropes drawn, and tied round his body, in several places, and especially his arms and legs. The executioners, drawing these ropes with great violence, fastened his body with them to the wall, so that his hands and feet, and especially his fingers and toes, being bound so straitly with them, put him to the mostexquisite pain, and seemed to him just as though he had been dissolving in flames. In the midst of these torments the torturer, on a sudden, drew the bench from under him, so that the miserable wretch hung by the cords without anything to support him, and by the weight of his body drew the knots yet much closer. After this, a new kind of torture succeeded. There was one instrument like a small ladder, made of two upright pieces of wood, and five cross ones sharpened before. This the torturer placed over against him, and by a certain proper motion struck it with great violence against both his shins, so that he received upon each of them at once five violent strokes, which put him to such intolerable anguish that he fainted away. After he came to himself, they inflicted upon him the last torture. The torturer tied ropes about the wrists of Orobio, and then put the ropes about his own back, which was covered with leather to prevent his hurting himself. Then falling backwards, and putting his feet up against the wall, he drew them with all his might, till they cut through Orobio’s flesh, even to the very bones; and this torture was repeated thrice, the ropes being tied about the distance of two fingers’ breadth from the former wound, and drawn with the same violence. But it happened, that as the ropes were drawing the second time, they slid into the first wound, which caused so great an effusion of blood that he seemed to be dying. Upon this the physician and surgeon, who are always ready, were sent for out of a neighbouring apartment, to ask their advice, if the torture could be continued without danger of death, lest the ecclesiastical judges should be guilty of an irregularity if the criminal should die in his torments. They, who were far from being enemies to Orobio, answered, that he had strength enough to endure the rest of the torture; and hereby preserved him from having the tortures that he had already endured, repeated on him; because his sentence was, that he should suffer them all at one time, one after another, so that, if at any time they are forced to leave off through fear of death, all the tortures that have already been suffered must be successively inflicted, to satisfy the sentence of the inquisitors. Upon this decision of the physician, the torture was repeated the third time, and then ended. After this he was bound up in his own clothes, and carried back to his prison; and he was scarcely healed of his wounds in seventy days. And inasmuch as he made no confession under his torture, he was condemned, not as one convicted, but suspected of Judaism, to wear, for two whole years, the infamous habit calledSan-benito, and after that term to perpetual banishment from the kingdom of Seville. On regaining his liberty he settled at Amsterdam, professed himself a Jew, and was circumcised, taking the name of Isaac, and diedA.D.1687.”
3.Count D’Olavides.—Don Paul, Count d’Olavides, was an extraordinary person. He undertook the fertilising Sierra Morena, or the Black Mountain, on which he planted colonies of Germans. These being Protestants, he was apprehended as a heretic,A.D.1776. Limborch says,“The victim which marks this period was the celebrated Olavides, whose arrest suspended the progress of colonisation in the Sierra Morena. This incident was derived from the same causes which contributed to the removal of his protector (d’Aranda). With a similar spirit of free-thinking, which he imbibed from the fashionable philosophers of the day, he was equally offended by the obstacles which he experienced in his beneficial designs, from the prejudices and institutions of Spain. As most of the colonists were Protestants, he resisted all endeavours for their conversion, and opposed the attempt to enforce their attendance on the rites of the Catholic worship. Having established a law to permit no monks in the vicinity of the settlement, he obtained an order for the removal of a convent, and built his own house on the site. He frequently indulged himself in expressions of ridicule against the idleness and licentiousness of the monks, and spoke with too great freedom of the depopulation and other mischiefs occasioned by the celibacy of the clergy.
“Olavides’ imprudence awakened the jealousy of the Spanish church. His conduct was closely scrutinised; his works and actions were noted and exaggerated; and a formal accusation was preferred against him for heresy, before that tribunal which is considered as the bulwark of religion. The removal of his protector gave full scope to the machinations of his enemies. He was summoned to Madrid, under the pretence of rendering an account of the establishment under his care. Apprised of his danger, he made some ineffectual attempts to obtain theroyal protection, and to soothe the guardians of the faith; but after a residence of a twelvemonth in the capital, he was suddenly arrested, and conveyed to the prisons of the Inquisition; his papers were seized, and his effects sequestrated.” After two years of impenetrable seclusion, his process was closed, and his sentence was publicly announced. We give an account of this ceremony in the words of an eye-witness:—
“Theautos da féare still celebrated at the tribunal of the Inquisition, with more or less publicity, according to the impressions intended to be made. A great number of persons, of all ranks, civil, military, and ecclesiastical, were invited, I should rather say summoned, to attend at the Holy Office, at eight o’clock in the morning, on the 24th of the last month. They were all totally ignorant of the reason of their being called on. After waiting some time, in an apartment destined for their reception, they were admitted to the tribunal—a long, darkish room, with the windows near the ceiling, and furnished with a crucifix, under a black canopy; a table, with two chairs for the inquisitors; a stool for the prisoner; two chairs for his guards; and benches for the spectators. The familiars of the Inquisition, Abrantes, Mora, and others, grandees of Spain, attended as servants, without hats or swords.
“Olavides soon appeared, attended by his brothers in black, his looks quite cast down, his hands closed together, and holding a green taper. His dress was an olive-coloured coat, white canvasbreeches, and thread stockings, and his hair was combed back into a bag. He was seated on the stool prepared for him. The secretaries then read, during three hours, the accustomed accusations and proceedings against him. They consisted of above one hundred articles, such as his possession of free books, loose pictures, letters of recommendation from Voltaire, his having neglected some external duties of devotion, uttering hasty expressions, his inattention to images, together with every particular of his life, birth, and education, were all noted. It concluded with declaring him guilty of heresy. At that moment he fainted away, but was brought to the recovery of his senses, that he might hear the sentence pronounced against him. It was no less than this:—Deprivation of all his offices, incapacity of holding any hereafter, or of receiving any royal favour, confiscation of his property, banishment to thirty leagues from Madrid, from all places of royal residence, from Seville, the new colony, and Lima, the place of his birth; prohibition from riding on horseback, or wearing gold, silver, or silk; and eight years’ confinement and monastic discipline in a convent. From respect to St. Jago, his wearing the cross of that order was not mentioned, and he was excused from putting on theSan-benito.
“The sentence being read, he was led to the table, where, on his knees, he recanted his errors, and acknowledged his implicit belief in the articles of the Roman Catholic faith. Four priests in surplices, and with wands in their hands, thencame in. They repeatedly laid their wands across his shoulders while aMiserérewas sung. He then withdrew from the inquisition.
“However rigorous this punishment may appear, yet it is mild when compared with the severity with which the Inquisition formerly visited similar offences. Nothing less than the personal interference of the monarch himself, and the clemency of the grand-inquisitor, could probably have prevented a repetition of those dreadful scenes which have rendered this formidable tribunal an object of universal horror; for the confessor, and many of the subordinate members, insisted on the necessity of anauto da fé, in which Olavides would have been infallibly committed to the flames.”
Olavides made his escape from the convent in which he had been confined, and retired to France. There he wrote a book, entitled, “The Gospel Triumphant; or, the Converted Philosopher,” for which he obtained pardon and permission to return to Spain.
4.Sufferings of a Beata.—Beatas, orblessed females, are devotees in the Romish church. One of this class, a lady of extraordinary piety and courage, perished at the stake of the Inquisition in Seville, about the year 1780. She had adopted the principles of Michael de Molinos, a Romish priest, of a noble family in Spain, founder of theQuietists. They placed religion in spiritual feeling, in opposition to ceremonies, deducing his principles from the Scriptures. Molinos having published a book, entitled “Spiritual Guide,” at Rome,A.D.1675, hewas imprisoned in the Inquisition, condemned as a heretic, and died under torture.
In a “Letter to the Spanish Inquisition,” about 1810, the writer says of this lady:—“The confinement of the Beata lasted three or four years, during which time there was scarcely a graduate of any order, who did not, in turn, undertake the conversion of the heretic. The assessors to the inquisitors exhausted the syllogistic art, but hardened as she was, she would not yield to their powerful arguments and authorities. The poor wretch was not aware of her danger in not being convinced, and the cause was drawing towards a conclusion. This arrived, and she insisted in arguing. The tribunal declared her an obstinate heretic, and appointed a time for theauto da fé. Scarce an inhabitant of Seville but went to see this solemn act. It lasted from the early part of the morning until night. The criminal was conducted, gagged, and mounted on an ass, in the midst of divines, who endeavoured to subdue her obstinacy by new arguments, and vie with the multitude in stunning her with repeated shouts ofViva la fé(long live the faith). Her cause was read from the pulpit, in the principal church of the Dominicans, intermixed with obscenities expressed in the grossest terms. Nothing now remained but to deliver her up to the secular judge, that she might be punished with death. A retraction, previous to this act, might have saved her life, but the unfortunate fanatic persisted in not making it, and was delivered up. The approaching punishment, and depression of spirits, occasioned by thefatigues of the day, made her desist from her obstinacy when it was too late. She was converted, to the satisfaction of the monks who were present; but the punishment could not even be deferred. She alone obtained as a favour to be burnt after death; and wasstrangledin the evening, amidst the tears of all devout souls, who admired the pious artifice by which this opportunity was taken of sending her to heaven, to prevent her falling again into heresy.”
“You will have no difficulty,” says the writer, “in persuading yourself, that this happened onlythirty yearsago. But remember, that the same laws now exist in all their force, and that it is scarce a year since the famousQuemadero, [the pile on which criminals are burnt,] where this scene was represented, was destroyed at Seville, because it stood in the way of the fortifications which were erecting against the French. AQuemadero, on which many thousands have perished, and which, doubtless owing to the frequent call for it, was constructed of solid materials, unlike other scaffolds, which are erected merely as occasion requires. Imagine to yourself that the greater part of the people are still disposed to look quietly on the repetition of such scenes; and tell me then, whether the Inquisition can be viewed in the light in which you place it?
“The time has gone by, it is true, when these scenes were exhibited daily; when the victims groaned in subterraneous dungeons, and made the hall of the tribunal resound at night with the crieswhich torture wrung from them; the time has passed, though not long since. It has passed, though it depends on the will of three men to restore it. It has passed:—then why all this declamation? Leave this question to those, who, forced by the circumstances of the times to conceal their inclinations and their opinions, clothe themselves in sheep-skins, anxiously awaiting the day when they may wreak their vengeance on those who have constrained them to show a mildness and forbearance. You strangers, who have lately visited Spain, have no means of forming a correct idea of the slow and endless oppression which this tribunal occasions, even in its actual state of slumber.”
5.Joseph da Costa, Pereira Furtado de Mendonia.—Da Costa was a native ofColonia da Sacramenta, on the river La Plata; but he suffered from the Inquisition in Portugal. In his “Narrative,” he says, “Three or four days had elapsed, after my arrival at Lisbon from England, in July, 1802, when a magistrate abruptly entered my apartments, and telling me who he was, informed me that he had orders to seize all my papers, and to conduct me to prison, where I was to be rigorously kept aloof from all communication. I doubted whether he were the person he represented himself to be, not only on account of his unpolished manners, but also because he had neither his official staff, nor any other sign of power; and though I knew that this was an error of essential consequence in a magistrate, that it justified me in impugning his authority, and considering him as a mere intruderupon the sacred asylum of my abode, I invited him civilly to sit down, and entreated that he would show me the order he pretended to possess, or tell me by whose authority it had been issued. He then showed me a letter from the intendant-general of police, which directed my imprisonment, the seizure of my papers, and that endeavours should be made to find, upon or about me, some masonical decorations. The motive of this proceeding, as stated in theorder, was, that I had been to England without a previous passport.
“When I had read this fatal note, all the sorrowful consequences of an imprisonment rushed upon my mind, sensible that the fury of my persecutor would know no limits. I had sufficient coolness, however, to represent to this myrmidon of justice, that the harsh treatment of the intendant-general, without having any previous information of my case, was not a little surprising, since, so far from having gone to England without a passport, I had previously procured one from his Royal Highness the Prince Regard, which leave I had solicited, in consequence of being employed in the royal service as one of the literary directors of the royal printing-office, and my not deeming it proper to leave the kingdom without my sovereign’s permission; that I had not only obtained leave of absence, in writing, from the secretary of state’s office, and procured a formal passport from the minister of foreign affairs, but that the minister of finance had charged me, by the sovereign’s command, to transact some business relative to the royal service in London;and that, in proof of this, I could show him the official letters, some of which were directed to me in Lisbon, before my departure, and others were forwarded to London after my arrival in that city. I pleaded, therefore, my right to expect that the intendant-general of police should have been informed of all this, before he proceeded against me with such severity, or alleged, as a cause of his proceedings against me, that I had gone to England without a passport.
“The corregidor, willing to show me that there had been no precipitation in his way of proceeding, accused me of rashness for thinking that so excellent a magistrate as the intendant-general, whose probity was equal to his knowledge and learning, would have proceeded in a case of such importance without mature deliberation; and he showed me another letter. In this he was ordered by the intendant of police to take care of every thing that I might have brought from England belonging to the royal service, such as a collection of books I had purchased for the public library of Lisbon, some instruments directed to be made in England, and some books and other things belonging to the royal printing-office.
“The reading of this second letter produced in me sentiments at variance with those which I had entertained of the first; for, if the idea of the misfortunes I was about to suffer had impressed my mind with a natural dejection, I now reflected on the meanness of the souls that could prescribe orders so manifestly contradictory. This reflectioninspired me with such a contempt for the orders, and for those who had sanctioned and were to carry them into execution, that the recollection of it proved no small consolation to me during my troubles.
“Enclosed, then, in a solitary cell, in the prison called Limoeiro, without any other company than that of sorrowful thoughts, labouring under uncertainty as to my fate, and sustaining every possible inconvenience attendant on such prisons, I remained for eight days; until one night the gaoler came to my dungeon, and told me that he had orders to take me before the corregidor, my judge, who wished to proceed in the necessary interrogatories, preparatory to my trial. I appeared before the judge, in a small room of the gaol; when I requested him to order that I should be released from my solitary confinement. He stated, that the intendant-general of police was in the habit of detaining his prisoners in solitary confinement for days, months, and years—indeed, so long as he thought convenient; and that the magistrates were left to their own discretion, with unlimited powers to investigate crimes, and to bring the culprits to punishment.
“Six months had I passed in solitary confinement, when one night the gaoler came to the cell, accompanied by four or six men. This mysterious and absurd way of proceeding rendered it apparent to me that I was going to the prison of the Inquisition; an event which I had long anticipated. I was taken in chains to a carriage, where I found a silent companion; and being surrounded by constables, officers of the Inquisition, who walked by the side of the carriage, I was conveyed to St. Anton Gate. There, to prevent any person from guessing my destination, I was ordered to alight, and led through an alley, to the gate of the palace of the Inquisition, which communicates with the prison. I was then conveyed to a room, where they entered my name in the books, made an inventory of the few clothes I had, and asked me if I had any knife, razor, or scissors, or any other instrument; also, if I had any gold, silver, or jewels; and, on their saying that they would rely on my word in this respect, I produced some pieces of gold coin, most stupidly relying on their assertion; but as soon as they obtained this, and found that I had nothing else to produce, they began the most scrupulous search over every part of my body.
“The gaoler, who for greater dignity has the name ofalcaide, that is, keeper of the castle, addressed to me almost a little sermon, recommending me to behave in this respectable house with great propriety; stating also, that I must not make any noise in my room, nor speak loud, lest the other prisoners might happen to be in the neighbouring cells and hear me, with other similar instructions. He then took me to my cell, a small room, 12 feet by 8, with a door to the passage: in this door were two iron grates, far from each other, and occupying the thickness of the wall, which was three feet, and outside of these grates there was, besides, a wooden door; in the upper part of thiswas an aperture that let into the cell a borrowed light from the passage, which passage received its light from the windows fronting a narrow yard, but having opposite, at a very short distance, very high walls. In this small room were a kind of wood frame without feet, whereon lay a straw mattress, which was to be my bed; a small water-pot; and another utensil for various purposes, which was emptied only once every eight days, when I went to mass in the prisoners’ private chapel. This was the only opportunity I had of taking fresh air during such a period; and they contrived seven divisions in the chapel in such a manner that the prisoners could never see each other, or know how many were granted the favour of going to mass. The cell was arched above, and the floor was brick, the wall being formed of stone, and very thick. The place was consequently very cold in winter, and so damp, that very frequently the grates were covered with drops of water like dew; and my clothes, during the winter, were in a state of perpetual moisture. Such was my abode for the period of nearly three years!
“The day following my entrance into these prisons, the gaoler came at nine o’clock, with another turnkey, and said that I must accompany him to the hearing of my case by the lord-inquisitor, appointed by the holy tribunal to be my judge, and what they call reporter of the cause, who happened to be the first inquisitor and president of the small board, Manoel Stanislao Fragoso. The affability with which this priest treated me, when I firstspoke to him, knew no abatement during the time of my imprisonment, except in one or two instances, when his temper was ruffled.
“I must acknowledge, as a warning to others, that my childish credulity, in entertaining the hope of finding in the Holy Office meekness, clemency, or despatch in my trial, had no other ground, except the popular rumour in every corner of Portugal, that the Holy Office is very much altered, and does not now practise those cruelties which it before committed. The inquisitor was in the audience room, with another priest, who acted as clerk, or, as they call it, notary, and he commenced the interrogatories, first, by inquiring my name, parentage, and place of birth; next, if the familiar, who brought me to the prisons of the Holy Office, had done me any violence; or if I knew the cause that had subjected me to the notice of the Inquisition. He then observed to me, that I was before the most just and merciful tribunal on earth; but to obtain its mercy and pardon for my crimes, it was necessary that I should, of my own free will and accord, confess all crimes of which I had been guilty, without concealing my accomplices, frauds, or any other circumstances, and that this confession must be immediate; because the present time was the most favourable moment a prisoner in the Inquisition could have—for, should I confess afterwards what I might deny in the beginning, the lenity of the tribunal would be very different.
“I replied to the inquisitor, that having been first imprisoned by the police, on the ground ofhaving gone to England without passports, although I was not interrogated about this subject, but only with respect to my having entered into the order of freemasonry, I was led to conjecture that my being a freemason was the cause of my trial by the Inquisition. If, indeed, this was the crime of which I was accused, I was disposed to confess it, not only because it was true that I was a freemason, but with a view that I might obtain the mercy he, the inquisitor, had promised me; but if I was mistaken in my conjecture, and the crime I was accused of was different, I begged that its nature might be disclosed to me, and I would reply to the accusation as should be necessary. The inquisitor replied, that he could do no otherwise than praise my laudable resolution to confess my crimes; but it was his duty again to admonish me (and he said this with a great deal of apparent charity), that I ought to examine my conscience thoroughly, and not leave anything untold of all that I had done in any period of my life; that I had committed crimes whose cognisance belonged to that holy tribunal, and that I was accused of them, and informed against on that account; that I should remember his recommendation, that to confess my crimes was highly important to the clearing of my conscience; to the salvation of my soul, and to the successful issue of my cause; and that he, to do me favour, would send me back to my solitary prison, that I might have time to examine my conscience. I told him, that the greatest possible favour he could confer upon me was that of accelerating my cause; forhaving been more than six months in prison without being allowed to communicate with any one, my health was so seriously injured, that all I wished was to have a sentence, in order to get free from my painful situation and suspense; and, however rigorous that sentence might be, it would always be preferable, in my estimation, to being in a solitary prison, under circumstances that could only lead to an inevitable ruin, which was the more to be feared, as I was literally dying by inches in slow torments.
“I was then immediately remanded to my prison; and the gaoler came to inform me that the goodness of the lords inquisitors extended so far as to order that I should have, besides the ordinary allowance, some coffee for breakfast, and, in consideration of the state of my health, a daily allowance of wine. The ordinary allowance he spake of was half a pound of boiled meat—the bones enter into the weight of this half pound, and, on some days, this allowance is very scanty—a few spoonfuls of rice, a cup of gravy, and some bread. The only persons who are allowed to have any access to the prisoner, or who can see and speak to him, are the gaoler, and four guards, called the ‘faithful of the prisoner,’ who convey the prisoner backwards and forwards to the audiences, and are at the same time the executioners who administer the tortures. These guards also wait upon the prisoners, and bring them what they want,—such as food, water, &c. But it is necessary to observe here, that these guards are, properly speaking, spies set upon the prisoner, toobserve everything in the prisons, and to relate it to the inquisitors, not only what they can gain by listening to the conversation of the prisoners, but also what they can see through small holes they make in the ceiling, just at the corners of the cells.”
Da Costa was kept thus in prison for three years, during which period he was tormented by repeated examinations, without sentence being passed upon him. Finding his health decline, he formed the desperate resolution of attempting his escape from prison; and, happily, he succeeded, and at length reached England. The relation of his sufferings in the Inquisition occasioned his friends to request his giving an account of them to the public; and, therefore, he published in London the “Narrative of his Persecutions,” in 1811.
William Lithgow—Elizabeth Vasconellos—John Coustos—Mr. Bower.
Spanish and Portuguese bigotry could not be satisfied with the sacrifice of native subjects. The vengeance of the Inquisition had been wreaked on the helpless of other nations, whom Providence,from time to time, brought within its grasp. To prevent their sufferings had not always been in the power of foreign governments; and even British subjects have been sufferers by this horrid court. The terror of the name of Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector of England, compelled the inquisitors to liberate and to honour the English consul, Thomas Maynard. (See Chapter XI.) But how many have been tortured and murdered in the concealment of the Inquisition cannot be ascertained by us before the day of judgment. A few cases of such sufferers may, however, be given, still further to illustrate the intolerance and cruelty of the papacy.
1.William Lithgow.—William Lithgow was a gentleman of Scotland, and while travelling on foot over Europe he came to Malaga, in Spain, in the year 1620, when he was apprehended as a spy connected with the English fleet then in that port. His cruel treatment by the governor and his sufferings in the Inquisition will best appear from his own words, as follows:—
“Upon the knowledge that I was secretly to be incarcerate in the governor’s palace, entered the Mr. Sergeant and begged my money, and license to search it; and liberty granted, he found in my pockets eleven phillipoes or ducatoons; and then unclothing me before their eyes, even to my shirt, and searching my breeches, he found in my doublet-neck, fast shut between two canvasses, a hundred and thirty-seven double pieces of gold. Whereat the corregidor arose, and counting my gold, being five hundred and forty-eight ducats, he said to thesergeant, ‘Clothe him again, and enclose him there in the cabinet till after supper.’ Meanwhile, the sergeant got the eleven ducatoons of silver; and my gold, which was to take me to Ethiopia, the governor seized upon; giving afterwards two hundred crowns of it to supply the new foundation of a Capuchin monastery there, reserving the rest, being three hundred and forty-eight ducats, for his own avaricious ends.
“This done, and midnight come, the sergeant and two Turkish slaves, releasing me from the inferior room, brought me through certain ascending passages to a chamber right above his summer kitchen; where, and then, the sergeants and the two slaves thrust on every ancle a heavy bolt, my legs being put to a full stride, by a strong gad of iron, far above a yard long; upon the ends of which the two bolts depended that were fastened about my legs; insomuch that I could never sit up, nor walk, nor stand, nor turn me, but lay continually on my back, the two irons being thrice heavier than my body. They left me with solacious words, and straight returned with victuals, being a pound of boiled mutton, a wheat bread, and a small pint of wine, which was the first, the best, and the last of this kind that ever I got in that woeful mansion. The sergeant leaving me, never seeing him more till a more unwelcome sight, he directed the slaves that after I had contented my discontented appetite, they should lock the door and carry the keys to Areta, a Spaniard, and keeper of the silver plate. The day following, the governor entered my prisonalone, entreating me to confess that I was a spy, and he would be my friend, and procure my pardon; neither in the meantime should I lack any needful thing. But I still attesting my innocence, he wrathfully swore that I should see his face no more till grievous torments should make me do it; and leaving me in a rage he observed too well his condition.
“But withal, in my hearing, he commanded Areta that none should come near me, except the slave, nor any food be given me but three ounces of musted brown bread every second day, and a fuleto, or English pint of water, neither any bed, pillow, or coverlet to be allowed me. ‘And close up,’ said he, ‘this window in his room, with lime and stone; stop the holes of the doors with double mats, hanging another lock on it; and to withdraw visible and sensible comfort from him, let no tongue nor feet be heard near him till I have my designs accomplished. And thou, Hazier, I charge thee, at thy incomings to have no conference with him, nor at thy outgoings abroad to discover him to the English factors, as thou wilt answer upon thy life, and the highest tortures that can be devised.’ These directions delivered, and, alas! too accessory to me in the performance, my room was made a dark drawn dungeon, my body the anatomy of merciless hunger, my comfortless hearing the receptacle of sounding bells, my eye wanting light, a loathsome languishing in despair, and my ground-lying body the woeful mirror of misfortunes, every hour wishing another’s coming, every day the night, and every night the morning. My body grew weak and infirm, insomuchthat the governor, after his answers received from Madrid, made haste to put in execution his bloody and merciless purpose before Christmas holyday; lest, ere the expiring of the twelfth day, I should be utterly famished, and unable to undergo my trial without present perishing. By God’s permission, the forty-seventh day after my first imprisonment, and five days before Christmas, about two o’clock in the morning, I heard the noise of a coach in the street; within a while I heard the locks of my prison door opening; whereupon, bequeathing my soul to God, I humbly implored his gracious mercy and pardon for my sins; for neither in the former night, nor in this, could I get any sleep, such was the force of my gnawing hunger, and the portending heaviness of my presaging soul.
“Meanwhile, nine sergeants, accompanied with the scrivan, entered the room without speaking, and carrying me thence, they laid me on my back in the coach, where two of them sat beside me. Baptista, the coachman, an Indian negro, arriving, I was brought westward, almost a league from the town, to a vine-press house, standing alone, where they enclosed me in the room till daylight; for hither the rack had been brought the night before. All this secrecy was used, that neither English, French, or Flemings, should see or get any knowledge of my trial, my grievous tortures, and dreadful despatch. At the break of day the governor, Don Francisco, and the alcaide came, and I, invited to their presence, pleaded for an interpreter, the which they absolutely refused; neither would they suffer or grant me anappellation to Madrid. After new examinations from morning till dark night, finding my first and second confessions run into one, the governor swore, ‘Is it possible he can, in such distress, and so long a time, observe, so strictly, in every manner, the points of his first confession?’
“The governor’s interrogation and my confession being mutually subscribed, he and Don Francisco besought me earnestly to confess my guiltiness in time, saying, ‘Thou art as yet in my power, and I may spare or pardon thee, providing thou wilt confess thyself a spy, and a traitor against our nation.’ But finding me stand fast to the mark of my spotless innocency, he, invective and malicious he, after many tremendous threatenings, commanded the scrivan to draw up a warrant for the chief-justice; which being done, he set his hand to it, and, taking me by the hand, delivered me and the warrant into the alcaide-major’s hands, to be tortured, broken, and cruelly tormented. Whence being carried along to the end of a stone gallery, where the rack was placed, the encarnador, or tormentor, began to disburden me of my irons, which he could not unloose for a long time, whereat the chief-justice being offended, the malicious villain struck away above an inch of my heel with the bolt; whereupon I grievously groaning, being exceeding faint, and without my three ounces of bread and a little water for three days together, the alcaide said, ‘O, traitor, all this is nothing, but the earnest of a greater bargain you have in hand!’
“After this, the alcaide and scrivan, being bothchair-set, the one to examine, the other to write down my confession and tortures, I was stripped to the skin, brought to the rack, and mounted to the top of it; where, soon after, I was hung by the bare shoulders, with two small cords, which went under my arms, running on two rings of iron that were fixed to the wall above my head. Then being hoisted to the appointed height, the tormentor descended below, and, drawing my legs through the two sides of the three-planked rack, he tied a cord about each of my ancles; and then ascending upon the rack, he drew the cord upward, and bending forward with main force my two knees against the two planks, the sinews of my two hams burst asunder, and the lids of my knees being crushed, and the cords made fast, I hung so for a large hour. At last, the encarnador informing the governor that I had the mark of Jerusalem on my right arm, joined with the name and crown of King James, and done upon the holy grave, the corregidor gave direction to tear asunder the name and crown, as he said, of that heretic king, and arch enemy of the holy Catholic church. Then the tormentor, laying the right arm above the left, and the crown upmost, did cast a cord over both arms, seven distinct times; and then lying down upon his back, and setting both his feet upon my hollow pinched belly, he charged and drew violently with his hands, making my womb support the force of his feet, till the several cords combined in one place of my arm; and cutting the crown, sinews, and flesh to the bare bones, did pull in my fingers closeto the palm of my hands; the left hand of which is lame so still, and will be for ever.
Now mine eyes began to startle, my mouth to foam and froth, and my teeth to chatter like to the doubling of drumsticks. O strange inhumanity of monster men-manglers! surpassing the limits of their national law; threescore tortures being the trial of treason, which I had, and was to endure; yet thus to inflict a sevenfold surplusage of more intolerable cruelties; and, notwithstanding of my shivering lips in this fiery passion, my vehement groaning, and blood springing forth from my arms, broke sinews, hams, and knees, yea, and my depending weight on flesh-cutting cords, yet they struck me on the face with cudgels, to abate and cease the thundering noise of my wrestling voice. At last, being loosed from these pinnacles of pain, I was, handfast, set on the floor, with this their imploration, ‘Confess, confess, confess in time, for thine inevitable ensue;’ when, finding nothing from me but still innocent, ‘O, I am innocent; O Jesus! the Lamb of God, have mercy upon me, and strengthen me with patience to undergo this barbarous murder.’
“Then, by command of the justice, was my trembling body laid above and long, upon the face of the rack, with my head downward, inclosed within a circled hole, my belly upward toward the top of the rack; my legs and arms being drawn asunder, were fastened with pins and cords to both sides of the outward planks, for now was I to receive my greatest torments.
Now, the alcaide giving commission, the executioner laid fast a cord over the calf of my leg, then another in the middle of my thigh; and the third cord over the great part of my arm, which was severally done on both sides of my body, receiving the ends of the cords from the six several places, through the holes made in the outward planks, which were fastened to pins, and the pins made fast with a device: for he was to charge on the outside of the planks with as many pins as there were holes and cords, the cords being first laid next to my skin; and on every one of these six parts of my body I was to receive seven several tortures, each torture consisting of three winding throws of every pin, which amounted to twenty-one throws in every one of those six parts. Then the tormentor, carrying a pot full of water, in the bottom whereof was a hole, stopped by his thumb till it came to my mouth, he did pour it into my belly; the measure being an English pottle. The first and second services I gladly received, such was the scorching drought of my tormenting pain, and I had drunk none for three days before. But at the third charge, perceiving these measures of water to be inflicted upon me as tortures, I closed my mouth; whereat, the alcaide, enraged, set my teeth asunder with a pair of iron cadges, whereupon my hunger-charged belly waxing great, grew drum-like; for it being a suffocating pain, in regard of my head hanging downward, and the water re-ingorging itself in my throat with a struggling force, it strangled and swallowed up my breath from yowling and groaning.
“Between each one of these seven circular charges I was always re-examined half an hour; each half hour a hell of infernal pain; and between each torment a long distance of life-quelling time. Thus lay I six hours upon the rack, between four o’clock in the afternoon and ten o’clock at night, having had inflicted upon me threescore and seven torments. Nevertheless, they continued me a large half hour, after all my torture, at the full bending, my body being all begored with blood, and cut through, in every part, to the crushed and bruised bones; I pitifully roaring, howling, foaming, and gnashing my teeth, with insupportable cries, before the pains were undone and my body loosed. True it is, it passeth the capacity of man either sensibly to conceive, or I patiently to express, the intolerable anxiety of mind and affliction of body, in that dreadful time I sustained. At last, my head being by their arms advanced, and my body taken from the rack, the water regushed abundantly from my mouth; then they, reclothing my broken, bloody, cold, and trembling body, being all this time stark naked, I fell twice in a sounding trance; which they again refreshed with a little wine, and two warm eggs—not done out of charity, but that I should be reserved for further punishment; and if it were not well known that these sufferings are true, it would almost seem incredible to many, that a man, being brought so low with starving hunger and extreme cruelties, could have subsisted any longer, reserving life.
“And now, at last, they charged my broken legswith my former eye-frighting irons, and carried me to the coach, being after brought secretly to my former dungeon, without any knowledge of the town, save to my lawless and merciless tormentors. I was laid, with my head and heels alike high, on my former stones. The latter end of this woeful night, poor mourning Hazier, the Turk, was sent to keep me; and on the morrow the governor entered my room, threatening me with still more tortures, to confess; and so he caused every morning, to make me believe I was going to be racked again, to make me confess an untruth; and thus they continued every day of five days to Christmas.
“Upon Christmas-day, Marina, the ladies’ gentlewoman, got permission to visit me, and with her licence she brought abundance of tears, presenting me also with a dish of honey, sugar, some confections, and raisins in great plenty, to my no small comfort, besides using many sweet speeches, for consolation’s sake. The twelfth day of Christmas expired, they began to threaten me on still with more tortures, even till Candlemas. In all which comfortless time I was miserably afflicted with the beastly plague of gnawing vermin, which lay crawling in lumps, within, without, and about my body; yea, hanging in clusters about my beard, my lips, my nostrils, and my eye-brows, almost inclosing my sight. And for my greater satisfaction to their merciless minds, the governor called Areta, his silver-plate keeper, to gather and sweep the vermin upon me twice in eight days, which tormented me almost to death, being a perpetualpunishment; yet the poor infidel, some few times, and when opportunity served, would steal the keys from Areta, and about midnight would enter my room, with sticks and burning oil, and sweeping them together in heaps, would burn the greatest part, to my great release; or, doubtless, I had been miserably eaten up and devoured by them.”
Cruelty more diabolical it appears difficult to imagine, than that exercised upon this unhappy Scotchman. Yet he was preserved for still greater suffering. For being now in the power of the inquisitors, they pretended to be anxious for his soul’s salvation; and therefore they implored him to be converted to the Roman Catholic faith, that he might escape condemnation to the flames as a heretic. When the inquisitor interrogated him as to his difficulties, errors, and misbelief, Lithgow replied, like a North Briton taught by the Bible, that “he was confident in the promises of our Saviour, believing the revealed doctrines of the Gospel, professed by the reformed Catholic church; that these being confirmed by grace, he possessed an infallible assurance in his own soul of the true word of Christ.” “To these words,” as Lithgow observes, “he answered, ‘Thou art no Christian, but an absurd heretic, and, without conversion, a member of perdition.’ Whereupon I replied, ‘Reverend Sir, the nature of charity and religion does not consist in opprobrious speeches: wherefore, if you would convert me, as you say, convince me by argument; if not, all your threatenings of fire, death, or torments, shall not make me shrink fromthe truth of God’s word in Sacred Scriptures,’ Whereupon the mad inquisitor clapt me on the face with his foot, abusing me with many railings; and if the Jesuits had not intercepted him, he had stabbed me with a knife; where, when dismissed, I never saw him more.”
Lithgow was as little affected by another interview with an inquisitor; he made no confession, and he was sentenced to be again tortured. He says, therefore, “I was condemned to receive that night eleven strangling torments in my dungeon; and then, after Easter holidays, I should be transported privately to Granada, and there, about midnight, to be burnt, body and bones, into ashes, and my ashes to be flung into the air. Well, that same night, the scrivan, sergeants, and the young English priest entered my melancholy prison, where the priest, in the English tongue, urging me all he could, though little it was he could do, and not prevailing, I was disburdened of mine irons, unclothed to my skin, set on my knees, and held up fast with their hands; where, instantly setting my teeth asunder with iron cadges, they filled my belly full of water, even gorging to my throat; then with a garter they bound fast my throat, till the white of mine eye turned upward; and being laid on my side, I was tumbled by two sergeants to and fro seven times through the room, till I was almost strangled. This done, they fastened a small cord about each of my great toes, and hoisting me therewith to the roof of a high loft (for the cords ran in two rings fastened above), they cut the garter, and there Ihung, with my head downward, in my tormented weight, till all the gushing water dissolved. This done, I was let down from the loft, quite senseless, lying a long time cold dead among their hands; whereof the governor being informed, came running up stairs, crying, ‘Is he dead? O fie, villains, go fetch me wine!’ which they poured in my mouth, regaining thereby a slender spark of breath.
“These strangling torments closed, and I reclothed and fast bolted again, they left me lying on the cold floor, praising my God, and singing of a psalm. The next morning, the pitiful Turk visiting me with bread and water, brought me also secretly, in his shirt sleeve, two handfuls of raisins and figs, laying them on the floor, amongst the crawling vermin; for having no use of arms, I was constrained by hunger and impotency of time to lick one up with another with my tongue. This charity of figs the slave did once every week or fortnight, or else I had long or then famished.”
Mr. Lithgow’s case became known, by some means, to the English factors at Malaga; and they, therefore, at once united with the consul in an application to the king and council of Spain. Their petition was granted, and the release of the wretched prisoner was ordered, in a warrant to the governor. His generous friends received the injured confessor, treated him with kindness, and procured for him a passage to England in a ship-of-war, in 1621. His case being made known at court, he was visited by many of the nobility, and by King James I., who commanded him to be sentto the Spanish ambassador, then in London. That grandee promised that restitution should be made to him of the money and valuables that had been taken from him at Malaga, and compensation for the injuries that he had sustained in prison. These assurances were not, however, honoured; and Mr. Lithgow, reproaching the ambassador with having deceived him, and, as some say, striking him, under the provocation, he was imprisoned for some months in the Marshalsea, London.
2.Elizabeth Vasconellos.—This lady, having been released from the Inquisition at Lisbon, made the following deposition, in December, 1706:—
“Elizabeth Vasconellos, now in the city of Lisbon, doth on the 10th day of December, Anno 1706, in the presence of John Milner Esq., her majesty’s consul-general of Portugal, and Joseph Willcocks, minister of the English factory at Lisbon, declare and testify,
“That she was born at Arlington, in the county of Devon, and a daughter of John Chester, Esq., bred up in the church of England; and in the eleventh year of her age, her uncle, David Morgan, of Cork, intending to go and settle in Jamaica, as a physician, by her father’s consent, he having several children, took her with him to provide for her.
“In 1685, they went in an English ship, and near the island they were attacked by two Turkish ships; in the fight her uncle was killed, but the ship got clear into Madeira, and she, though left destitute, was entertained by Mr. Bedford, a merchant, with whom, and other English, she lived as a servant till 1696. In that year she was married, by the chaplain of an English man-of-war, to Cordoza Vasconellos, a physician of that island, and lived with him eight years, and never in the least conformed to the Romish church.
“In 1704, her husband being gone on a voyage to Brazil, she fell dangerously ill, and, being light-headed, a priest gave her the sacrament, as she was told afterwards, for she remembered nothing of it. It pleased God she recovered, and then they told her she had changed her religion, and must conform to the Romish church, which she denied, and refused to conform; and thereupon, by the bishop of that island, she was imprisoned nine months, and then sent prisoner to the Inquisition at Lisbon, where she arrived the 19th of December, 1705. The secretary of the house took her effects, in all above £500 sterling; she was then sworn that that was all she was worth, and then put into a strait dark room, about five feet square, and there kept nine months and fifteen days.
“That the first nine days she had only bread and water, and a wet straw bed to lie on. On the ninth day, being examined, she owned herself a Protestant, and would so continue; she was told she had conformed to the Romish church, and must persist in it or burn; she was then remanded to her room, and after a month’s time brought out again, and persisting in her answer as to her religion, they bound her hands behind her, stripped her back naked, and lashed her with a whip of knotted cordsa considerable time, and told her afterwards that she must kneel down to the court, and give thanks for their merciful usage of her, which she positively refused to do.
“After fifteen days she was again brought forth and examined, and a crucifix being set before her, she was commanded to bow down to it and worship it, which she refusing to do, they told her that she must expect to be condemned to the flames and to be burnt with the Jews, at the nextauto da fé, which was nigh at hand; upon this she was remanded to her prison again for thirty days, and being brought out, a red-hot iron was got ready, and brought to her in a chafing-dish of burning coals, and her breast being laid open, the executioner, with one end of the red-hot iron, which was about the bigness of a large seal, burnt her to the bone in three several places on the right side, one hard by the other, and then sent her to her prison, without any plaister, or other application, to heal the sores, which were very painful to her.
“A month after this, she had another severe whipping as before; and, in the beginning of August, she was brought before the table, a great number of inquisitors being present, and was questioned, whether she would profess the Romish religion or burn. She replied, she had always been a Protestant, and was a subject of the queen [Anne] of England, who was able to protect her, and she doubted not would do it, were her condition known to the English residing in Lisbon; but as she knew nothing of that, her resolution was to continue aProtestant, though she were burnt for it. To this they answered, that her being the queen of England’s subject signified nothing in the dominions of the king of Portugal; that the English residing in Lisbon were heretics, and would certainly be damned; and that it was the mercy of that tribunal to endeavour to rescue her out of the flames of hell; but if her resolution were to burn, rather than profess the Romish religion, they would give her a trial of it beforehand. Accordingly, the officers were ordered to seat her in a fixed chair, and to bind her arms and her legs, that she could make no resistance nor motion; and the physician being placed by her, to direct the court how far they might torture her without hazard of life, her left foot was made bare, and an iron slipper red-hot being immediately brought in, her foot was fastened into it, which continued on burning her to the bone, till such time as, by extremity of pain, she fainted away, and the physician declaring her life was in danger, they took it off, and ordered her again to her prison.
“On the 19th of August she was again brought out, and whipped after a cruel manner, and her back was all over torn; and being threatened with more and greater tortures, and on the other hand being promised to be set at liberty, if she would subscribe such a paper as they should give her, though she could have undergone death, yet not being able to endure a life of so much misery, she consented to subscribe as they would have her, and accordingly, as she was directed, wrote at the bottomof a large paper, which contained she knew not what; after which they advised her to avoid the company of all English heretics, and not restoring to her anything of all the plate, goods, or money, she brought in with her, and engaging her by oath to keep secret all that had been done to her, turned her out of doors, destitute of all relief, but what she received from the help and compassion of charitable Christians.
“The abovesaid Elizabeth Vasconellos did solemnly affirm and declare the above-written deposition to be true, the day and year above written.
“John Milner,“Joseph Willcocks.
“Lisbon, January 8, 1707, N. S.”
3.John Coustos.—Mr. Coustos having escaped from the Inquisition, published the narrative of his sufferings, shortly after his return to England in 1744. From his account the following is abridged:—
“I am a native of Berne in Switzerland, and a lapidary. In 1716, my father came and settled in London; and after living twenty-two years in that city, I went to Paris, to work in the galleries of the Louvre. Five years after I removed to Lisbon, in hopes of going to Brazil, to make my fortune; but the king of Portugal being informed of the skill I might have in diamonds, refused my petition, as improper for a foreign lapidary to be allowed in a country abounding with immense treasures.