repentance under his own protection; and demanded their pardon and the restitution of their property, even though the time of grace should have expired.* No language can be more touching than his solemn appeal to the King and Queen, by the tender mercies of Jesus Christ, to show pity to such of their subjects as might have fallen into error. The Pope could not have done more than he did do. He had proceeded to the utmost lengths the circumstances of the case permitted, to prevail upon the Spanish monarchs to reduce the Inquisitorial system to the standard which had made it, in times of equal emergency, the glory of the Catholic Church. But his endeavours were foiled by the unbending firmness with which Ferdinand and Isabella adhered to their purpose. The Inquisition was eminently popular among the masses, as a means of crushing the higher nobility and clergy, who were more infected with Judaism than any other classes of society; and they knew that they could count upon the applause of the people for any measures, however rigorous, they might, even in defiance of Rome, choose to adopt. The relations between the Courts became at one period so unfriendly, that the ambassadors on both sides were imprisoned, all negotiations were suspended, and the King recalled those of his subjects who were dwelling in the Roman States. Balmes says, that, "if the Popes had not feared to excite divisions which would have been fatal, the measures would have been carried still further."§ The time did not permit Sixtus, either to lay an interdict on the kingdom, or to excommunicate the Spanish monarchs. The practical effect of such steps would have been to array

right the Pope reserved to himself of receiving appeals. The King maintained (vid. Llorente, l. c., t. ii., p. 471) that the recourse criminals might have to the Royal Minister of Justice was sufficient; but Balmes relates that, notwithstanding "the number of causes summoned from Spain to Rome was countless, during the first fifty years of the Inquisition, and Rome always inclined to the side of indulgence."

* Llorente, t. iv., p. 357. This disproves the erroneous statement of Prescott, that, "in 1483, we find the Pontiff quieting the scruples of Isabella, respecting the appropriation of the confiscated property." The Pope simply tells the Queen that he is willing to credit her assertion, that she does not persecute the Judaizers from financial motives.

Prescott lived to regret the extent to which he had re-echoed many unfounded charges against the Holy See; and, in a letter to the gifted and pious wife of a late Spanish diplomatist, acknowledged that, had he possessed more full information, he would have written differently. It is charitable to believe that, had he lived longer, he would have modified later editions of his history.

Ranke, Fürsten und Völker von Süd-Europa im sechzehnten und siebzehnten Jahrundert. Berlin, 1837. i. Bd. Thl. i. s. 245, 248. Hefele, § p. 209, o. c.

s. 279.

Hefele, s. 296.

the influence of the Pope on the side of the Judaisers, and thus to ally Christians with these hypocrites, in a warfare against Christianity. However culpable Ferdinand's great severity may have been, hostile measures on the part of Rome would only have aggravated the evil; and the probable consequence would have been the reconquest of the Spanish peninsula by the Mahommedans.

Ferdinand was too wise not to foresee the danger of disastrous distractions among his Christian subjects, that might result from an aggravation of his differences with the Holy Father, and, at length, felt compelled to have recourse to a dissimulated sacrifice of his obstinacy. He, therefore, proposed to the Pope the creation of the office of Grand Inquisitor, to be filled by an ecclesiastic nominated by himself, but to be confirmed by the Holy Father. He consented to invest this new dignitary with supreme control over all Ecclesiastical tribunals in the kingdom, and to relinquish to him the right to appoint all inferior Inquisitors. This plan, superficially regarded, seemed to take away from the Crown the odious right of filling the offices of the Inquisition with its own creatures; to vest the Holy See with a more immediate influence in its administration than it had yet possessed; and to establish a higher power in Spain, to which those who were unjustly sentenced might appeal. Unsuspicious of bad faith on the part of the king, and anxious to mitigate existing horrors, Sixtus IV. did not deem it an unacceptable compromise, and finally gave it his assent.*

A brief was accordingly issued, in the latter part of 1483, by which F. Thomas Torquemada, Prior of the Dominican Convent of the Holy Cross at Segovia, was appointed the first Grand Inquisitor of Castile; and a second brief, dated the 17th of October of the same year, added the Grand Inquisitorship of Arragon to his jurisdiction. †

Ferdinand, by his subtle diplomacy, had thus entrapped the Pope into approving all that he needed, to make the Holy Office a purely State Tribunal. The wily king had well calculated on the ease with which the Sovereign Pontiff could be blinded, with regard to the qualifications of the individual he might nominate to the office of Grand Inquisitor, and was sure that no Spanish subject would dare to appoint inferior officers over such a tribunal against the royal will. ‡ Torquemada's

*Hefele, s. 270. We learn from Llorente himself, that the object of Ferdinand, in proposing Torquemada to the Pope, of whose character Sixtus could, as yet, only know the better side, was to paralyze the effect of the mild Papal edict of the 2nd of August, 1483.-1. c., p. 172.-(Compare Hefele, s. 270-274.)

↑ Llorente, 1. c. t. i., p. 172, n. i. and ii.

accession to power commences a new epoch, therefore, in the history of the Spanish Inquisition. During the years which succeeded his elevation, he gave it a complete organization throughout the entire kingdoms of Castile and Arragon, composed a code of regulations for its government,* and established it on the basis it ever after retained, in Spain, of a royal court, under royal control, officered by royal functionaries, and subservient to the aggrandizement of royal power.

Four tribunals were erected-in Seville, Cordova, Jaen, and Villa Real, the latter subsequently transferred to Toledo-to each of which the king assigned a Board of Councillors, to be presided over by the Grand Inquisitor, as a deliberative assembly in spiritual matters; but which in civil and judicial issues, by a majority of votes, controlled all decisions. These councillors could be chosen by the king from among laymen as well as priests, without any ecclesiastical confirmation whatever, not even that of the Grand Inquisitor; so that their plenary power, on all other than religious questions, removed the last vestige of submission or deference to Catholic authority. †

The State had, indeed, gone too far to recede. Judaizers and Jews had become so exasperated by the measures employed to curb them, that no reasonable hope could be entertained of their ever becoming peaceable citizens; and they were far too powerful and rebellious to permit the monarchs to relax the vigilance of their hostility. The inflexible rigor of the Inquisition, at Seville, during the years 1481-1483, had appalled the Jews in the province of Andalusia; but, in other parts of Spain, their opposition to Christianity and their proselytizing zeal were undiminished; and the desperate struggle in which Ferdinand and Isabella were engaged against the Moors, made them fear that the alliance of internal foes with these enemies, might, in case of any reverse to their arms, still prove fatal to the stability of the monarchy. The strife of the two Sovereigns was, certainly, with uncompromising and deadly enemies, and it would be unjust to condemn their general policy, before weighing the circumstances under which it was adopted. It was "under a government," as Prescott admits, which had paid uniform regard to the rights of its subjects, and pursued a generous policy in reference to their intellectual culture."

*This code is to be found in the "Collection of Instructions on Spanish Inquisitors," by Spittler. Prescott, 1. c. t. i., p. 263.

4

and vi

+ Llorente, t. i., p. 189, et seq.

Blancas, Commentarii rerum Arragonensium, p. 264.

Balmes, 1. c. p. 207.-Prescott, t. ii., pp. 9, 10.-Prescott leads his readers to suppose that the whole people were opposed to the introduction of the Inquisition into Arragon; yet his narrative coincides with the above, and the proofs of ill-will he produces, were confined, exclusively, to the higher classes, which, as he acknowledges, were infected with Judaism. The people in Arragon, as everywhere else in Spain, were not only friendly to the Inquisition, but regarded it as their bulwark of safety against Mahommedanism,

lates that, in 1485, the Pope issued instructions to the Inquisitors, that they should secretly give absolution to such heretics as were penitent, in order that no further legal pretext might remain for proceeding against them.* Innocent VIII. adopted the same expedient; and, on the very day on which he confirmed the decrees of his predecessor, commanded that fifty heretics should be secretly absolved. Three months later, he ordered the pardon of fifty more; again of fifty on the 30th of June; of the same number on the 30th of July, and, according to Llorente, repeatedly issued edicts of a like merciful nature.†

Most of these bold endeavours, however, to save criminals were, alas! unsuccessful, and, as Llorente states, were wholly ignored by the Spanish Government.‡

While Rome was thus making unavailing attempts to mitigate the severity of the Holy Office, Ferdinand and Isabella were intent upon giving its jurisdiction a still more extended range. Immediately after the conquest of Granada, in 1492, a royal edict of banishment was issued against all Jews of Castile and Arragon who would not consent to embrace Christianity.§

The Inquisitors, without much, if any, exaggeration, incessantly represented to the Spanish monarchs that KryptoJudaism could not be extirpated as long as the Jews, by their proselytizing influence, could cause the Marranos,|| as baptized converts from their belief were called, to apostatize; and they instanced the encouragement given to Spaniards to marry into opulent Hebrew families, by which the faith of great numbers of Christians had been successfully undermined, as a proof that the Judaizing party still nourished the hope of being able, at no distant day, to establish their superstition as the national religion of the Spanish peninsula. Such complaints were the more readily listened to by Spanish statesmen, that they could not endure to see the most lucrative occupations, the best trades, the commerce of the nation, and a great portion

*Raynald, ad ann. 1485, n. 21.- -Llorente, t. iv., p. 363., seq. + Llorente, 1. c., t. i., pp. 241, 242, n. v.-vii.

Ib.-Hefele, s. 299. § Prescott, t. ii., ch. xvii., pp. 135-154. Hefele derives the word Marranos from Maranatha, "The Lord comes" (1 Cor. xvi. 22); but Balmes thinks, with more probability, that it was a title of ignominy. "The converted Jews," he says, were contemptuously called Marranos, impure men, pigs, &c."-p. 207.

For a full notice of the proselytizing endeavours of the Jews, during the time of Ferdinand the Catholic, see D. Jose Clemente Carnicero, "La Inquisicion justamente restablecida, o impugnacion de la obra D. Juan Antonio Llorente: etc." Madrid: 1816, p. ; pp. 61, 101, etc.