In this curious assemblage of eccentric humanity, the most remarkable of

all was an Irishman named variously William Lamport or Guillen Lombardo

de Guzman. He had lain in prison since his arrest as far back as October

25, 1642, on a denunciation that he was plotting to sever Mexico from

Spain and make himself an independent sovereign, for he claimed to be

the son of Philip III by an Irish woman, and thus half-brother to Philip

IV. This was his real offence, but the Inquisition claimed jurisdiction

because he had consulted an Indian sorcerer and certain astrologers to

assure the success of his enterprise. The details of his scheme show

that it was suggested by the success with which, in June, 1642, Bishop

Palafox, acting under secret orders from Philip, had ousted from the

viceroyalty the Marquis of Escalona, who was suspected of treasonable

leanings towards João of Braganza and the revolted Portuguese. With the

aid of an Indian singularly skilled in forgery, Lamport had drawn up all

the necessary royal decrees which would enable him to seize control, on

the arrival of the expected new viceroy, the Count of Salvatierra. Yet

he was no common adventurer, but a man of wide and various learning,

thoroughly familiar with English, French, Spanish, Italian, Latin and

Greek, with the classical poets and philosophers, with the Scriptures

and the fathers and with theology and mathematics. This was proved by

the memorials which he drew up in prison, without the aid of books, yet

full of citations and extracts in all languages and of scripture texts.

These were scrutinized by the calificador who verified the citations and

found them all correct and who moreover certified that there were no

errors of faith.

In the account of his life, which all prisoners of the Inquisition were

required to give, he stated that he had been born in England, from which

he had fled in his twelfth year because of a pamphlet entitled _Defensio

Fidei_ which he had written against the king. After marvellous

adventures in many regions, in which he had rendered services to Spain,

Philip IV had summoned him to Madrid, where Olivares patronized him. He

was then sent to Flanders to aid the Cardinal Infante, to whose success

he largely contributed, especially at the battle of Nördlingen (1634).

After much other service, Philip gave him the title of Marquis of

Cropani and the viceroyalty of Mexico, from which he was to eject the

occupant--and for this he held forged royal cédulas. That there was some

residuum of truth at the bottom of his story would appear from his

familiarity with details of persons and events, and there is no doubt

that he was an object of interest in Madrid, for a royal cédula of May

13, 1643, ordered the case to be expedited and that after his punishment

all his papers should be given to the judge, Andrés Gomez de Mora. Why

the case should then have been protracted for seventeen years is

inexplicable, unless it was designed to keep him imprisoned for life,

but, however that may be, he continued to be a source of solicitude,

not unkindly, for the Suprema, under royal orders, wrote June 21, 1550,

that he should be given a cell-companion to alleviate his confinement if

he so desired and that every care should be taken of his life. Again, on

July 7, 1660, when the Suprema received the account of his relaxation,

it wrote to ask why this had been done against its express orders.

Altogether the case is a mystery to which the clue is lost.

Diego Pinto, the companion given to share his confinement, was soon won

over to join him in a plan of escape, which was executed December 26,

1650, with remarkable skill and perseverance. In place of flying to some

safe retreat Lamport spent the night in affixing in various prominent

places certain writings which he had prepared, and in persuading a

sentinel at the palace to convey one to the viceroy urging him to arrest

the inquisitors as traitors. Towards dawn he induced a householder to

take him in and awaited the result of his papers, besides writing

others, when the host became apprehensive and made him remove to another

house. No time was lost by the tribunal in issuing a proclamation,

describing his person and ordering his capture under severe penalties;

his host promptly reported him and he was carried back to the

Inquisition, when he was lodged in an exceptionally strong cell, his

feet in stocks and his hands in fetters. In January, 1654, he asked for

writing materials, with which he composed a tremendous attack on the

Inquisition, and during the winter he utilized the sheets of his bed to

write a book, which when transcribed proved to be a treatise in Latin

verse which filled 270 closely written pages. He had now lain twelve

years in prison without trial; his overwrought brain was giving way and

his insanity became more and more manifest. At last the time for the

auto approached and, on October 8, 1659, without further audience, the

accusation was presented; the trial proceeded swiftly and on November

6th sentence was pronounced, condemning him to relaxation for divination

and superstitious cures showing express or implicit pact with the

demon, besides which he had plotted rebellion and was a heretic sectary

of Calvin, Pelagius, Huss, Luther and other heresiarchs and an inventor

and dogmatizer of new heresies. As a special punishment for his

defamatory libels and forgery of royal decrees, he was to listen to his

sentence on the scaffold with a gag and hanging by his right arm

fastened to an iron ring. During the night before the auto he assailed

with opprobrious epithets the holy men who sought to save his soul; he

exclaimed that a hundred legions of devils had entered his cell with

them and finally he covered his head with the bed-clothes and refused to

speak. At the auto on the staging he was like a statue and at the stake

he escaped burning alive by throwing himself against the iron ring

encircling his throat with such force that it killed him.[469]

The last act of the tragedy was the burning of the effigy of Joseph

Bruñon de Vertiz, a priest whose offence was that he had been the dupe

of the imposture of the Romero sisters and had reduced to writing their

visions and revelations. Arrested September 9, 1649, he speedily

admitted that he had been deceived and cast himself on the mercy of the

inquisitors, vainly endeavoring to ascertain what was the nature of the

charge against him so that he could confess and retract whatever errors

were imputed to him. It was not, however, the _estilo_ of the

Inquisition to do more than to tell the accused to search his memory and

clear his conscience and after eighteen months of this suspense Bruñon’s

mind commenced to give way. He was left in his cell apparently

forgotten, except when he would seek an audience to ask for writing

materials with which, in 1652 and 1654, he drew up and presented attacks

upon the tribunal of a character to show that he was becoming insane

through despair. No notice was taken of these ebullitions and on April

30, 1656, he died without the sacraments, after six years and a half of

incarceration, during which he had never been informed of the charges

against him. His body was thrust into unconsecrated ground and the trial

was continued against his fame and memory as an alumbrado heretic, in

an accusation presented May 11, 1657. There was no defence possible by

his kindred; he was duly condemned and in this auto of November 19,

1659, his effigy was brought forward, clad in priestly garments, the

impressive ceremony of degradation was performed and it was cast into

the flames with his bones exhumed for the purpose.[470]

Cruel as all this performance may seem to us, it was in strict

conformity with the convictions of the age and, when Philip IV received

the report of the auto, he warmly congratulated the inquisitor-general

on the vigilance which preserved the purity of the faith by inflicting

merited chastisement.[471]

With this auto the murderous activity of the tribunal may be said

virtually to end. Until the end of the century its business consisted

almost exclusively in the commonplace routine of bigamists, blasphemers,

petty sorcerers, soliciting confessors, clerics administering the

sacraments without priest’s orders and the like. Thus in an auto

celebrated January 15, 1696, out of twenty-six penitents, there was but

one heretic with a sanbenito; there was a Greek schismatic reconciled

and the rest were sixteen bigamists, one Franciscan tertiary for

Illuminism, a woman for imposture and four men and two women for the

superstitious practices conveniently classed as sorcery with explicit or

implicit pact with the demon.[472] Yet during this half-century there

were a couple of cases showing that a nearly bloodless career was not

due to any surcease of fanatic zeal. In November, 1673, was arrested a

wandering hermit named Juan Bautista de Cardenas, charged with being

_iluso y alumbrado_, with grave suspicion of sacramentarian heresy.

After giving the customary account of his life he took refuge in

absolute silence, which suggested that he was possessed by a demon, but

exorcism proved unavailing. Sharp torture was then tried, but it

elicited only the usual shrieks of pain. The conclusion drawn from this

was that he was a contumacious heretic and in July, 1675, he was

condemned to relaxation, when, on being notified of it, he only said

that if he was carried to the quemadero he would die for God. The

tribunal however did not dare to execute its own sentence and sent the

papers to the Suprema which, June 22, 1676, altered it to abjuration _de

levi_, deprivation of the habit he wore and exile from the cities of

Mexico and Puebla, adding that the torture had been abusive seeing that

he had not been formally testified against for heresy. The other case

was that of Fray Francisco Manuel de Cuadros, who had left his Order and

practised as a _curandero_, or curer of disease by charms. He was thrown

in prison, November 14, 1663, and during his trial, which was protracted

for nearly fifteen years, he confessed to being an agnostic, except as

to the existence of God, but he admitted that he was ignorant and

half-crazy. At the auto of March 20, 1679, he was condemned to

relaxation after degradation, but at the quemadero he showed signs of

repentance, in virtue of which he was admitted to the sacraments and was

strangled before burning.[473]

* * * * *

In the public autos there is no trace of one of the principal duties of

the Inquisition in the repression of the prevalent crime of the

seduction of women by their confessors, euphemistically known as

solicitation in the confessional. Even as bigamy had been brought under

inquisitorial jurisdiction by the somewhat forced assumption that it

implied erroneous belief in the sacrament of matrimony, so solicitation

was held to infer in the confessor error as to the sacrament of

penitence. At least this was the reason alleged when, recognizing that

the spiritual courts were useless to check the practice, Paul IV, in

1561 entrusted its suppression in the Spanish dominions to the

Inquisition, and Gregory XV, in 1622, extended this to other lands in

which the Holy Office existed. Priests, however, for the avoidance of

scandal, were never paraded in public autos, unless they were to be

deprived of their orders; their sentences were read in the

audience-chamber with closed doors and in the presence only of a

selected number of their brethren, to whom the fate of the culprit

should serve as a wholesome warning.[474] While, therefore, the

knowledge of this offence was sedulously kept from the public, it gave

the tribunal considerable occupation. The morals of the Colonial clergy,

for the most part, were notoriously loose and, in the solitary missions

and parishes among the natives, evil passions had free rein.[475] This

was enhanced by the almost assured prospect of immunity, for the women

seduced were the only possible accusers and it has always proved

exceedingly difficult to induce them to denounce their seducers.

Naturally therefore the Inquisition, on its establishment, was speedily

called upon to prosecute such culprits and, up to 1577, it already had

five cases.[476] It seems however not to have enforced its exclusive

jurisdiction over the offence if we may judge from the proceedings in

the case of Fray Juan de Saldaña, in 1583, for when it assumed the

prosecution he was undergoing six months’ imprisonment by his superiors

because at Tequitatlan he had violated an Indian girl and, when she

refused to continue the connection, he had her arrested and flogged,

after which she submitted. Though only 34 years of age he was a person

of consideration in his Franciscan Order, he had occupied various

positions of importance and at this time was guardian of the convent of

Suchipila, where he seduced three sisters, his penitents, the daughters

of Diego Flores, the _encomendero_ of Suchipila and a person of

distinction. There seems to have been little or no concealment about it;

he boasted openly of the women he had seduced, Spanish as well as

Indian, not only in Suchipila but in his visitations, and he evidently

had no idea that he was incurring risk of the Inquisition, for when

remonstrated with he asked what his prelates could do to him--it was

only a dozen strokes of the discipline and a year’s suspension from his

guardianship. When brought to trial he was frank in his admissions; two

years before he had been deprived of confessing Spanish women, but as

guardian he had licence to do so; he mentioned seven Indian women whom

he had seduced in confession besides a mestizo and several Spaniards. In

these cases, the accusation of the fiscal and the exordium of the

sentence are eloquently rhetorical as to the heinous guilt in one,

clothed with the awful power of the priesthood, using that power to lead

astray the souls seeking salvation through him, but when it came to

defining the penalty there is a tenderness which suggests that in

reality the offence was regarded as much less important than aberration

on some minute point of faith. When his sentence was read, May 5, 1584,

he was subjected to the discipline for the space of a _miserere_; he was

deprived of the faculty of confessing, was suspended from orders for six

years, was recluded for two years in a convent with the customary

disabilities and was banished for six years from the see of

Guadalajara.[477]

Such treatment was not adapted to strengthen the carnal-minded against

temptation so severe and the vice flourished accordingly. As the

inquisitors stated in a letter to the Suprema of May 22, 1619, it was a

very frequent offence in those parts and many confessors regarded it as

trivial,[478] and the list of cases of solicitation for the years 1622-4

contains fifty-six names, of which seven were from Manila, for the

Philippines were a dependency of the Mexican tribunal. That leniency

increased with time may be assumed from the case, in 1721, of Fray

Francisco Diego de Zarate, President of the Mission of Santa María de

los Angeles of Rio Blanca, a Franciscan entrusted with many important

positions. The summary in his trial states that the evidence collected

proved a hundred and twenty-six acts of solicitation with fifty-six

women and that it was his habit to solicit every one who came to him to

confess. It is impossible to conceive anything more brutal than some of

the details of the evidence; the offence in many cases was almost public

and might have continued indefinitely had he not banished from Rio

Blanco a woman and her family because she resisted him, whereupon she

talked and created a scandal that rendered action necessary. Of the

women, twenty-one were Indians, eight were Spaniards (one of them his

near relative), eight Mulattos, four Mestizos and fifteen whose race is

not specified. When the accusation, detailing all the cases, was read to

him, he admitted its correctness and indeed he had previously made a

written confession which contained a large number that had escaped the

investigations of the prosecution. Aggravated as was this case Fray

Francisco escaped with a second reading of his sentence in the

Franciscan convent, where a circular discipline was administered,

perpetual deprivation of confessing and of active and passive voice in

his Order, six months’ suspension from celebrating mass and two years’

reclusion in a convent, of which the first was to be passed in a cell

with fasting on bread and water on Fridays and Saturdays, and the last

place in choir and refectory.[479] Yet inadequate as was the habitual

treatment of the offence by the Inquisition, it was regarded as unduly

harsh by the clerical authorities. The inquisitors, in a letter of 1666

to the Suprema, by way of illustrating the prevalent laxity of the

Religious Orders, mention that after they had penanced four frailes for

solicitation, they were applied to to remove the restrictions which

prevented the culprits from being promoted to prelacies.[480]

Self-denunciation, as in Spain, was tolerably certain to win virtual

immunity. In 1712, Luis Marin, vicar of Nativitas, accused himself by

letter, to which the tribunal promptly responded by summoning him to

appear within thirty days, but that only a reprimand was intended is

evident from the summons being accompanied with a faculty to absolve him

from the excommunication incurred, sent to Padre Fernández de Córdova,

S. J., who was instructed to counsel him to abstain for the present from

confessing women.[481]

The very miscellaneous functions assumed by the Inquisition in extending

its jurisdiction over a variety of matters foreign to its original

purpose is illustrated by a fortuitous collection of 397 cases between

its commencement in 1572 and the year 1800. In these the offences

alleged are[482]--

Bigamy 76

Judaism 71

Offences against the Inquisition 49

Solicitation 44

Blasphemy 39

Sorcery and superstitions 29

Heresy 20

Propositions 13

Illuminism 12

False witness 10

Personating priesthood 7

Miscellaneous 27

The considerable proportion of offences against the Inquisition arose

from the perpetual troubles caused by what was known as its temporal

jurisdiction, apart from its spiritual sphere of action. Every one

connected with it in an official capacity, however insignificant, with

his family, servants and slaves, was entitled, in a greater or less

degree, to the _fuero_, or jurisdiction of the Holy Office, and to

exemption from pleading or prosecution in the secular court if a layman,

or the episcopal court if an ecclesiastic. As favoritism rendered this

privilege virtually an immunity for crime it was eagerly sought and, as

it was the source of influence and of profitable business, the tribunal

endeavored to extend its jurisdiction in every way, with little regard

to the limits imposed by law. This led to constant conflicts between the

rival jurisdictions, in which the tribunal used without scruple its

faculties of excommunication and of treating any opposition as an

attempt to impede its freedom of action, a crime to be prosecuted and

severely punished. In Spain these irreconcilable pretensions were the

cause of constant troubles, the settlement of which was through the

process known as _competencia_, carrying them up to the Supreme Council

of the Inquisition on the one hand and to the Council of Castile or of

Aragon on the other, with the monarch as the final arbiter. In the

Colonies, however, as we shall see, this system was practically eluded,

and the tribunals became even more arbitrarily lawless than those of the

home country, sometimes abusing their power after a fashion that

involved the whole land in confusion, for in matters of faith they had

no superior, short of the inquisitor-general, and it rested with

themselves to define what was, directly or indirectly, a matter of

faith.

There were two classes of officials whose claims to the _fuero_

were different. Those known as _titulados y asalariados_ were

directly employed in the tribunal, holding commissions from the

inquisitor-general, enjoying salaries and understood to devote

themselves exclusively to its service. For them and their families and

dependants the fuero was complete, in both civil and criminal matters,

and both active and passive--that is, whether as plaintiff or defendant.

They were comparatively few in number, their position was unchallenged

and, whatever may have been the injustice and oppression thence arising,

there was little occasion for dispute. Beyond these were the unsalaried

officials--commissioners and their notaries and alguazils, stationed at

all important centres, consultors, _calificadores_ or censors and, above

all, familiars numerously scattered throughout the land. All these

pursued their regular avocations and only acted when called on for

special service; they received no salary, but the positions were eagerly

sought, chiefly on account of the privileges and immunities which they

conferred. Of these the familiars were by far the most numerous and

troublesome. In Spain the definition of their privileges had been the

subject of numerous settlements known as Concordias and, when Philip II

established the colonial tribunals, he endeavored to forestall trouble

by extending to them the Castilian Concordia of 1553, which was much

less favorable to the familiars than those of the kingdoms of Aragon

and, at the same time, he sought to limit the number of appointees.

Among the documents issued in 1570 is a cédula addressed to the colonial

authorities, in which Philip conveys to them the regulations adopted by

the inquisitor-general. In the city of Mexico there are allowed twelve

familiars, in the cathedral towns four, in other towns one. Lists of

these and of all changes are to be furnished to the local magistracy, so

that they may see that the number is not exceeded and, in case of

improper appointments, they are to report to the tribunal or, if

necessary, to the inquisitor-general. In civil suits the familiars are

not entitled to the fuero, whether as plaintiffs or defendants. In

criminal matters not as plaintiffs while, as defendants, they are to

enjoy it except in cases of treason, unnatural crime, raising popular

commotions, forging letters of safe-conduct, resistance to royal

commands, abduction or violation of women, highway robbery, house or

church breaking, arson of houses or harvests and “other crimes greater

than these” and also in resistance or disrespect to the royal judges.

Excepted also is official malfeasance in those holding public office.

Arrest by secular judges is permitted, in cases entitled to the fuero,

provided the culprit is handed over to the Inquisition, together with

the evidence, which is to be at his expense. If the offence is committed

outside of the city of Mexico, the offender cannot return to his place

of residence without exhibiting a copy of the inquisitorial sentence,

with evidence of its fulfilment. By a cédula of May 13, 1572, moreover,

offences committed against Indians were added to the excepted

cases.[483]

This all appears definite enough, but it was easily evaded. At first

there seems to have been a disposition to conform to its intent. In

1575 a familiar named Rodrigo de Yepes, who had given the lie to, and

repeatedly struck in the face, the alcalde of Valladola, was arrested by

the civil magistrate and claimed by the tribunal but, after a

competencia, or discussion of the case by the civil and inquisitorial

authorities, the latter admitted that it was excepted and surrendered

him. On the other hand, in 1615, Diego de Carmona Jamariz, a familiar of

Puebla, was arrested for the murder of his enemy, Joan de Olivárez, and

was surrendered to the Inquisition without a competencia, although

murder would seem to be a greater crime than highway robbery or

burglary. The widow prosecuted him before the tribunal, but it was

useless and the case was dropped. In Spain, the Inquisition had devised

the ingenious argument that, until a crime was proved, it could not be

classed as excepted and therefore the affair was under its jurisdiction

until conviction, which enabled it to protect its familiars, and this

plea was used, in 1616, in the case of Gonzalo Antúnez Yáñez, a

familiar, prosecuted by order of the viceroy.[484]

It was not only the familiars who gave trouble, but the numerous other

unsalaried officials. The commissioners with their notaries and

alguazils formed little groups in the provincial towns, of which the

members supported each other and set the magistrates and courts at

defiance. In the original instructions issued to the inquisitors they

were admonished to be careful in the selection of commissioners, who

were not to interfere with the constituted authorities or to provoke

quarrels, but were merely to execute the mandates of the tribunal and to

report on such matters as should present themselves.[485] Distance and

the difficulty of communication, however, rendered them prone to abuse

their position, and in this they were emboldened by the unwavering

support of the tribunal. Throughout all the Spanish Colonies the

commissioner was an object of dread and the subject of perpetual

complaint on the part of the secular and ecclesiastical powers. The

general sentiment is expressed, as late as 1777, by Santiago Joseph,

Bishop of Cuba, in a letter to Inquisitor-general Bertran. All the

commissioners whom he had known, he said, had been ignorant persons,

with the exception of one whose term of service was brief. There was no

salary to attract competent men and the place was taken only to serve as

an excuse for neglecting all clerical functions and duties. The commerce

of Havana brought numerous heretics who scattered their poison and he

dared not interpose for fear of the consequences of invading

inquisitorial jurisdiction. The existing incumbent paid no attention to

this and, when not absent, was wholly occupied in stirring up quarrels

with the civil authorities.[486]

The commissioners of Mexico fully justified this characterization by the

good bishop. In the great majority of cases the hopelessness of

resistance to their arbitrary acts caused submission, but occasionally

one emerges to light which illustrates the spirit animating the

Inquisition and its officials. In 1699, Father Pistoya, S. J., the

ecclesiastical judge of Sinaloa, prosecuted Martin de Verastegui for

incestuous adultery with Maria García. Thereupon his intimate friend,

Pérez de Ribera, the commissioner, to protect him, promptly appointed

him notary, an act for which he had no authority. Pistoya sent the

evidence in the case to the royal court of Guadalajara (Jalisco), which

ordered the Governor of Sinaloa, Don Jacinto de Fuensaldaña, to arrest

the guilty pair, embargo their property and send them to the royal

prison of Guadalajara. Ribera claimed him as an official of the

Inquisition and, on refusal, excommunicated the governor and the

military officers who had executed his orders and posted them as such on

the tablillas of the church. The tribunal sustained its commissioner;

the governor was obliged to appear before it and beg for absolution; the

commissioner was empowered to take testimony in the case and report it

to the tribunal, which naturally found the parties innocent and

Verastegui was rewarded with a genuine notary’s commission in lieu of

the fictitious one which had protected him from justice. It is no wonder

that, in replying to their report of another outrageous case in 1695,

the Suprema had sharply rebuked the inquisitors, ordering them to act

with justice and moderation and prevent the complaints of their

proceedings, which came daily to the king from the Council of Indies,

but the case of Verastegui shows how little respect they paid to the

admonition.[487]

Yet, with all this, there were comparatively few of the bitter

struggles, so frequent in Spain during this period, between the royal

and inquisitorial jurisdictions. It was not that the inquisitors were

less arbitrary and audacious than at home, for their distance from the

court rendered them even more independent, but that the secular

magistracy felt its weakness and offered less resolute resistance. Spain

was far off and the viceroy, though representing the royal autocracy,

was under strict orders to show every favor to the Inquisition. There

was kept in the royal chancellery the formula of a letter to all

viceroys, emphasizing the great services of the Inquisition to religion

and to the king and ordering it to be favored and guarded in all its

privileges, exemptions and liberties, including those of its officials

and familiars. Adherence to this would be regarded as most acceptable

service and the contrary would not be permitted.[488] This portentous

document was sent to the Viceroys of Mexico and Peru in 1603 and was

doubtless repeated to them whenever necessary, as it was to other royal

representatives at subsequent periods. As a rule however the viceroys

and the tribunal were at odds and their quarrels were not conducive to

popular tranquillity or edification. More than once we find viceroys

like Mancera, Cerralbo and Gelvez threatening the inquisitors with

banishment.[489]

As a matter of course, under such auspices, colonial inquisitors could

never be restrained within the limit of their rightful prerogatives,

great as these were. A royal cédula of January 20, 1587, scolds those of

Lima for illegal protection of their familiars and for vexing the local

magistrates by summoning them from long distances before the tribunal.

Another of March 8, 1589, rebukes them for creating too many familiars

and other officials. Another of August 23, 1595, reprimands those of

Mexico for supporting a familiar in refusing to render an account to the

royal chancery of his functions as custom-house officer at Vera

Cruz.[490] These complaints were of almost daily occurrence until at

length Philip III sought to cut them off at the root by forming a junta

of two members from each of the Councils of the Inquisition and of

Indies to advise him. After mature deliberation they did so and the

result is what is known as the Concordia of 1610. The prohibitions

embodied in this are eloquent of the audacity of the inquisitors in

exceeding their functions, abusing their authority in matters wholly

outside of their jurisdiction and exercising an insufferably vexatious

petty tyranny, the exasperating effect of which was intensified by the

immunity enjoyed by the servants and slaves of the officials. These were

justiciable only by the tribunal, which invariably protected them, so

that the community was exposed without redress to the insolence of a

class peculiarly apt to abuse its privileges.

Under pain of forfeiture of office the inquisitors were forbidden,

directly or indirectly, by themselves or their kindred, to farm the

public revenues or to prevent their being farmed to the highest bidder.

Neither they nor the salaried officials were to engage in any kind of

trade, under the same penalty. They were not to claim the right of

seizing articles at an appraised price, except under urgent necessity

for the support of the prisoners or buildings of the Inquisition. Their

negroes were not to carry arms except when accompanying their masters.

They were not to defend commissioners or familiars in frauds on the

revenue nor in refusing to render an account of deposits made with them

by order of court. They were not to detain the couriers and messengers

who served as a rudimentary post-office and were to remove the

prohibition against vessels leaving port or passengers departing without

their licence. They were not to arrest the royal alguazils except for

grave and notorious excess against the Inquisition. They were to be

allowed one alguazil in Vera Cruz and were to dismiss all those

appointed elsewhere.[491] They were not to protect familiars, who held

public office, when prosecuted for official malfeasance, nor

commissioners who held benefices for offences committed in their

character of incumbents. They were not to order universities to grant

degrees in contravention of their statutes, nor were they to interfere

in matters of government apart from their functions. They were not to

excommunicate a viceroy in cases of competencia, nor was the viceroy to

evoke to himself a case that might lead to a competencia. A provision

was also made for the settlement of competencias without the tedious

resort to the councils in Spain. If the senior judge and senior

inquisitor could not agree in their conference, the inquisitors were to

name three ecclesiastical dignitaries to the viceroy, who was to select

one; he was to be adjoined to the judge and inquisitor and the majority

was to decide or, if there were three discordant opinions, the viceroy

was to choose between them.[492]

This project for the settlement of competencias was ineffective. A

cédula of February 7, 1569, had extended to the colonies the system in

force at home, and under it there had been in Mexico, during the

remainder of the century, seven cases; there was one in 1601 and another

in 1602, after which they ceased.[493] Solorzano tells us that they were

not revived by the new regulations, which omitted to specify the place

where the conferences were to be held, and the judges and inquisitors

each summoned the others to come to them. The judges had old custom and

royal cédulas on their side, but the inquisitors refused compliance

because the orders had not been transmitted to them through the Suprema

which they claimed was requisite to their validity, and thus important

cases, both civil and criminal, remained undecided, to the great injury

of individuals and the public. Moved by the complaints thus occasioned,

Philip III, in a cédula of November 19, 1618, ordered that the

conferences be held in the vice-regal palace, where the senior judge was

to have precedence over the inquisitor, and this was repeated in a

cédula to the court of Lima, May 28, 1621, but again the inquisitors of

both Mexico and Peru refused obedience on the same pretext as before.

Thus cases continued undecided until the urgency of the Council of

Indies led Philip IV to consult both councils and, in 1636, he ordered

that the judge and inquisitor should meet before the viceroy, the one

who was senior in office taking the right hand.[494] This compromise did

not suit the pretensions of the Holy Office for precedence and it gained

the victory in a cédula of May 30, 1640, which recites that, after many

conferences, it was determined that the senior judge must go to the

Inquisition, where the senior inquisitor was to have precedence, when

the competencia was to be settled under the provisions of the Concordia

of 1610.[495] Apparently this assumption of their inferiority was

insufferable to the judges, for no formal competencia occurred between

1602 and 1711. Matters in dispute were occasionally referred to the

councils in Spain, but this was of little benefit for it was usually

the last heard of the case.[496] To appreciate fully the cruelty of all

this, we must reflect that perhaps some accused person or unlucky

alguazil, arrested for executing the orders of his superiors, might be

languishing in gaol for a life-time, awaiting the settlement of a

conflict of jurisdiction which could never be settled.

Whether or not the other prescriptions of the Concordia of 1610 were

better observed than those concerning competencias it would be difficult

to determine, but the presumption is adverse. At all events,

inquisitorial ingenuity was constantly devising new methods of

aggression and further complaints led Philip IV to assemble a junta of

two members of each council, whose conferences resulted in the enactment

of another Concordia, published April 11, 1633. Many of its clauses

relate to the ever-present question of precedence, which need not detain

us here, except the suggestive one that, at bull-fights in the plaza,

the first courses are to be performed before the secular authorities,

unless the latter, of their own accord, desire that honor to be paid to

the inquisitors. Equally suggestive in another way are the prescriptions

that commissioners shall treat the public courteously and that

inquisitors shall treat the judges with respect and shall cease

molesting the officers of the royal courts with censures and summoning

and detaining them. They are again forbidden to engage in trade and are

told not to interfere with the elections of secular officials nor, in

times of scarcity, are they to persecute with excommunications the

guards in charge of boats bringing grain, but are to apply to the

viceroy, who will promptly supply their wants. The prohibition of

detaining ships is repeated, but they are allowed to grant licences for

sailing and for individuals to depart, which practically amounted to the

same thing. The inquisitors seem to have gained their point as to the

right of seizing goods and materials at a “just price,” for this is

allowed, subject to some limitations. The inviolability of the domicile

of inquisitors is admitted in the provision that it is not to be abused

by secreting goods to the prejudice of third parties; and, in the case

of salaried officials, it is limited by a clause that when it is

necessary for officers of justice to enter the house of such official,

or of the widow of one during her widowhood, notice shall first be given

to the tribunal, which shall appoint one of its ministers to be present,

with an appointee of the viceroy or court and, if such an appointment is

not made within two or three hours, the entry can be made without longer

waiting. One of the petty privileges which gave rise to constant

exacerbation is indicated in the provision that, of the cattle

slaughtered in the public shambles, there shall be given weekly the

chine and chitterlings of ten oxen--two to each of the inquisitors, one

to the alguazil and secretaries, one to the receiver and notary of

sequestrations, and the rest to the poor prisoners; this is said to be

all that the tribunal is entitled to and anything more must be paid for,

nor shall its servants take the chitterlings and sell them.[497]

Concordias were only attempts to restrain existing abuses and they could

not provide for the perpetual new aggressions suggested by the facile

weapon of excommunication through which the Inquisition could overcome

the resistance of the secular authorities. The distribution of

quicksilver, for instance, to the miners was a matter jealously reserved

to the viceroy and the junta of the treasury but, when the Inquisition

wanted it for some mines belonging to it in Zacatecas, it forced, by

threats of excommunication, the royal officials to supply its demands.

Viceroy Mancera, in a letter of December 8, 1666, complains of this and

of a case in which the royal treasurer of Guadalajara owed a personal

debt to the tribunal of 980 pesos and the commissioner there, by order

of the acting inquisitor and visitador, Medina Rico, forced the auditor

of the treasury to pay it out of the royal funds, by threats of

excommunication and of a fine of 500 pesos. Mancera endeavored by

courteous remonstrance to obtain restitution but, after the inquisitors

had insulted him, he only succeeded in getting 600 pesos returned. In

reporting these matters to the king, the Council of Indies pointed out

forcibly how incompatible with subordination and good government were

these arbitrary extensions of inquisitorial jurisdiction over matters

wholly foreign to the objects of its institution.[498]

Indeed, the existence of so uncontrollable and disturbing an element

goes far to explain the ill-success of Spanish colonial administration.

In 1615, Fray Isidro Ordoñez, commissioner in San Francisco del Nuevo

Mexico, under pretext of a fictitious order from the tribunal, gathered

a band of soldiers and citizens, to whom inquisitorial orders were

supreme, and seized Don Pedro de Peralta, Governor of New Mexico, and

held him in irons for nine months. Peralta managed to complain to the

tribunal, which summoned Ordoñez to the capital and assigned to him his

convent for a prison, but Peralta obtained no satisfaction beyond a

declaration that there had been no cause for his arrest, while Ordoñez,

in place of the severe punishment which he merited, was permitted to

attend the general chapter of his Order in Rome, as procurator of the

province of Mexico.[499] Another Governor of New Mexico, Diego de

Peñalosa, fared even worse when, for indiscreet words about priests and

inquisitors and expressions verging on blasphemy, he was exposed to the

humiliation of appearing as a penitent in the auto de fe of February 3,

1668--thus virtually incapacitating him for further service.[500] It was

not without grounds that the Council of Indies, in 1696, addressed a

formal remonstrance to Carlos II, recapitulating a long array of abuses

and violences, showing the impossibility of enforcing observance of the

Concordias or obedience to the royal commands. Prelates and governors

were alike sufferers from the irrepressible audacity which admitted no

responsibility to any one, so long as it was upheld and justified by the

Suprema at home, and the council supplicated the king, if not for the

total extinction of the tribunal, at least for the dismissal of the

officials. Without some thorough change the retention of the colonies

could scarce be hoped for, as all the population was inspired with a

common hatred arising from its violence.[501]

As the council says, prelates were as liable as royal officials to be

subjected to the lawless action of the tribunal. There never were

lacking pretexts for quarrel. In 1617 Archbishop Pedro de Villareal

fared badly in a rupture caused by his inserting in an edict some

matters which the tribunal claimed to belong to its jurisdiction. In

1623 Bishop Bohorques of Oaxaca had the same experience because he

styled himself Inquisidor Ordinario. The episcopate of Archbishop Matheo

Sagade Bugueiro, from 1655 to 1662, was a succession of bitter

dissensions, during which Bernardino de Amezaga, chief notary of the

court of testaments, was arrested by the tribunal, deprived of his

office and banished, while Francisco de Bermeo, contador of the Santa

Cruzada, was kept long in prison, fined 200 pesos and a negro slave of

his was sold to defray it. In 1658 the archbishop made a demand that all

edicts read in his cathedral must first be shown to him in order to

satisfy him that they contained nothing that invaded his jurisdiction,

and his action in enforcing this claim led the tribunal to publish a

manifesto declaring that, under the bull _Si de protegendis_, he had

incurred degradation and relaxation to the secular arm.[502]

There was one case, however, in which the tribunal and the Archbishop of

Mexico combined for the persecution of a bishop, for Juan de Mañozca,

the archbishop from 1643 to 1653, was cousin of the inquisitor of the

same name. The saintly Bishop Juan de Palafox of Puebla, in his capacity

of visitador and protector of the Indians, incurred the enmity of the

archbishop and of the Viceroy Salvatierra, and an occasion of gratifying

it occurred when he undertook to guard his episcopal jurisdiction

against the encroachments of the Jesuits. They appointed _jueces

conservadores_ to protect their interests and the tribunal rushed

eagerly into the fray, with which it had absolutely no right to

intervene.[503] It ordered the suppression of the writings and edicts of

Palafox and forbade any interference with those of the conservators; it

sent a commissioner to Puebla who terrorized the community by arresting

prominent priests and citizens of the bishop’s party, parading them

through the streets in chains and sending them to Mexico, where they

were thrown into the secret prison, thus inflicting indelible disgrace

on them and their posterity. In spite of the exemption of Indians from

inquisitorial jurisdiction, he flogged nearly to death, with four

hundred lashes, an unfortunate Indian who, at the command of a citizen,

had taken down one of the conservators’ edicts. Palafox was advised that

he too would be arrested and fled to the mountains, where he lay

concealed for several months.[504] When, in 1647, he appealed to the

Suprema, powers were sent to the Bishop of Oaxaca to investigate and

report, but Archbishop Mañozca threw every impediment in his way and, in

his capacity of visitador of the Inquisition, assumed to annul his

commission. He appealed to the Bishop of Yucatan, then Governor of New

Spain, and to the Audiencia for support, but the archbishop threatened

to excommunicate them all and they prudently declined the conflict.

Palafox represents to the Suprema that his life was in danger and he

begs to be allowed to return to Spain.[505] The combination of the

archbishopric and Inquisition, under the two Mañozcas, evidently held

the whole land in its grasp, and no one was hardy enough to oppose it.

Palafox was obliged to abandon Mexico, but he eventually secured a

decision in his favor on an appeal to Rome.

An episode of this case is worth recounting in some detail, not only as

illustrating inquisitorial methods but as a rare instance of a victim

obtaining a measure of satisfaction. Doctor Juan de la Camara, a canon

of the cathedral, was a man of noble birth, proud of his unblemished

_limpieza_, and his appointment as visitador of the see of Guadalajara

indicates the estimation in which he was held by his superiors.

Unfortunately he was a friend and correspondent of Palafox. When, in

1646, a bitter libel was circulated against the latter, one of the

judges of the Audiencia, Alonso González de Villalba, was included in

it. Palafox endured the attack in silence and endeavored to make

Villalba follow his example, but the latter was so incensed that he

wrote a reply in which he handled roughly the inquisitor Mañozca. He

showed it to his neighbor Camara, who returned it without comment and

said nothing about it except to Don Antonio Urrutía de Vergara, to whom

he mentioned it in order that he might tell the archbishop, and to a

Doña Catalina de Diosdado, to whom he merely said that he had seen two

scandalous papers and that, if the author confessed to him, he would not

absolve him.

There was a chance that among his papers something might be found to

compromise Palafox, so an order of arrest with sequestration of property

was made out, February 7, 1647. At eight o’clock in the morning Camara

was roused from his bed and taken in his own carriage to the secret

prison, where he was confined in a cell of which the window had been

blocked up, so that the single candle to which he was restricted was his

only light by day and night. Here he was kept _incomunicado_ for twenty

days. After the tenth day, however, on which he was examined, the

obstructions were removed from the window and, after the twentieth, his

brother, Fray Diego, and some other friends were permitted to see him on

obtaining a special licence for each visit. Meanwhile his papers had

been carried off to the tribunal, without being inventoried as required

by the Instructions; on the day after his arrest his household effects

were inventoried and placed in the hands of the receiver, Juan González

de Castro, as depository, but they were not removed from the house and

no care was taken to ensure their safety.

At nightfall of March 15th he was taken back to his house and told that

it was henceforth to be his prison, under pain of excommunication and a

thousand ducats. On April 1st his prison was enlarged to the city, under

the same penalties, and he was enabled to resume his duties at the

cathedral. Of course the immurement in the secret prison, with

sequestration of property, of so prominent an ecclesiastic, caused a

general sensation; it was at the height of the prosecution of the

Judaizers and the inevitable conclusion was that they had implicated

him, so that a stain was cast upon his honor which no subsequent

exculpation could wholly efface. His papers were withheld from him; his

house had been richly furnished, with abundance of silver plate and

linen, much of which had disappeared, and he seems to have deplored

especially the loss of eighteen ounces of amber. His trial remained

unconcluded and his repeated applications for a decision and for the

restoration of missing property were filed away without action. His only

hope of escape from prolonged and intolerable suspense lay in appealing

to the Suprema. The inquisitors had already sought to prejudice it

against him for, in a letter of May 20th, they spoke of the incredible

efforts and diabolical means employed to intimidate them from the

performance of their duty in the matter of Palafox; Camara was an

accomplice of Villalba in publishing the libel; he had perjured himself

in his confessions and might be assumed to be the author of the worst

passages in it. In spite of this the Suprema, by a decree of September

28, 1647, ordered his release, on the security of his oath, and the

sequestration of his property to be removed.

Camara succeeded in secretly obtaining from the king an order, November

16, 1647, permitting him to go to Spain, but he was impoverished and

sent his brother, Fray Diego, to act for him. The mission occupied Diego

for several years, but he finally procured from the Suprema a commission

to the Inquisitor Higuera to try the case promptly for, during all this

time, it had been held suspended over Camara’s head. This was presented,

February 15, 1650, and, on the following July 12th, Higuera, who was at

odds with Mañozca, rendered a sentence acquitting him and restoring him

to his previous good fame, so that his arrest should work no prejudice

to him or to his kindred and their descendants; also that the chapter

should pay him all the accrued fruits of his prebend and that his papers

and property should be returned to him. From this Camara appealed to the

Suprema, which confirmed it, July 7, 1651; then the fiscal of the

Suprema appealed and it was again confirmed, July 31st. The whole

prosecution was thus stamped as being malicious and groundless, but

nevertheless Camara in vain endeavored to regain possession of his

papers and of his missing effects.

Archbishop Mañozca died in 1653; the affair of Palafox had created no

little scandal in Spain and, in 1654, a new visitador, Pedro de Medina

Rico, was sent out with instructions especially to investigate it.

Camara promptly set forth his grievances, in September, in a complaint

against Estrada and Higuera--for apparently Mañozca, as the subject of

the libel, had not sat in the trial. On December 1st he made his formal

charges in a criminal action against them, laying his damages at 12,000

pesos, which he claimed to be the amount which the affair had cost him

in losses and expenses. It was a bold undertaking and probably

unexampled, and he found it impossible to secure the necessary legal

assistance for, on January 20, 1655, he represented that none of the

procurators of the Audiencia would serve him, wherefore he prayed for an

order on Juan de Escobar to appear for him. It was granted and enforced

with a penalty of fifty pesos, under pressure of which Escobar took

charge of the case. In the same way his witnesses refused to appear

until he procured orders on them, with censures for disobedience. The

action went slowly on through its various stages; the inquisitors made

no effort to justify what they had done and confined their defence to

alleging that the affair was a _cosa juzgada_, which could not be

reopened, and to interjecting appeals to the Suprema at every adverse

interlocutory decree. It was not until May 31, 1656, that Medina Rico

pronounced sentence to the effect that Camara had proved his case

completely and that Estrada and Higuera had alleged nothing to palliate

their grave offence, the punishment of which he reserved for future

decision. As to what affected the interest of the plaintiff, he

condemned them jointly and severally to pay him two thousand pesos. The

receiver, or depository, was ordered to restore to him everything shown

in the inventory and, if it appeared that articles were not deposited

with him, the inquisitors must make them good under penalty of a

thousand pesos. From this the inquisitors appealed and, after protracted

argument, Rico suspended the order to pay the two thousand pesos until

the Suprema should decide the appeal, but that the rest of the sentence

should be executed without awaiting its action. Then followed a long and

confused litigation with the executor of the receiver de Castro, who had

been dead for many years and his estate distributed. The documents

preserved end with November 14, 1657, at which time they were made up

for transmission to the Suprema and what was its final decision cannot

be told.[506] It is evident that Camara obtained little compensation for

his sufferings, but at least he had the satisfaction of seeing his

persecutors punished, although inadequately, for official offenders were

always treated tenderly by the Inquisition. Medina Rico, as the result

of his visitation, formulated hundreds of charges against them,

collectively and individually, and rendered sentence, May 17, 1662, in

the audience-chamber, where all the officials were assembled. Estrada

was condemned to severe reprimand, to a fine of 1500 pesos and to four

years’ suspension, though, as he had died October 26, 1661, the penalty

fell only on his heirs. Higuera was sentenced to a fine of a hundred

pesos and two years’ suspension, which he endured until May 16, 1664.

Mañozca was visited more heavily with a fine of 1300 pesos and nine

years of suspension.[507] This he could afford to disregard for, in the

autumn of 1661, he had been provided with the bishopric of Santiago de

Cuba whence, in 1666, he was transferred to that of Guatemala and

finally, in 1675, he obtained the wealthy see of Puebla, from which he

had driven Palafox. Retributive justice, however, at last overtook him,

for he died before he could take possession.[508] Such were the men who

largely filled the tribunals and episcopates of the Colonies.

* * * * *

Among the privileges claimed by the Inquisition was exemption from

military service. This was strictly limited by the Concordia of 1633.

Officials holding commissions from the inquisitor-general were exempted

from appearing in the general musters, but familiars were not, unless

actually on duty for the tribunal and, if the enemy was in sight, all

were liable to service, save those necessary to guard the papers and

records of the tribunal, to whom certificates were to be given. As might

be expected, however, little respect was paid to these provisions. In

1685, the alcalde of Puebla called a muster of the citizens to march to

the succor of Campeachy. Hipolito del Castillo, alguazil and familiar,

claimed exemption, to which he was clearly not entitled. The alcalde

threatened to send him on a mule to Campeachy and in effect threw him

into prison, placed his head in the pillory and made him pay a fine of

120 pesos. The commissioner at Puebla defended Castillo and, on appeal

to the Inquisition, it ordered the money to be returned. Again, in 1718,

when eight companies of merchants were formed in Puebla, by order of the

viceroy, to make the rounds of the city and drive out malefactors,

Martínez de Castro, a familiar and trader, was enrolled; he protested

and appealed to the Inquisition, which ordered his discharge, in which

the authorities immediately acquiesced.[509]

* * * * *

The inquisitorial function of censorship was by no means neglected. Even

before the establishment of the tribunal, it was felt necessary to guard

the faithful from the infection of heretical books and, in 1561,

Inquisitor-general Valdés sent to Archbishop Montufar a commission

empowering him to examine the book-shops for that purpose.[510] This

conveyed no censorial power, but Páramo proudly asserts that, almost at

the inception of the Holy Office, calificadores were appointed who

exercised a most vigilant supervision over all books introduced into the

colony, even over those which had passed the examination of the Suprema

itself, and who occasionally had the satisfaction of showing that books

widely circulated in Spain required expurgation. In fact, a letter of

the Suprema respecting the Index then in preparation shows that, as

early as 1573, censures of books were received from Mexico. The position

of calificador, like that of inquisitor, seems to have been a

stepping-stone to the bishop’s chair, for the first one was Domingo de

Salazar, promoted, in 1581, to the archiepiscopate of the Philippines;

the second was Bartolomé de Ledesma, who in 1581 became Bishop of

Oaxaca, and the third was Pedro de Ribera, who in 1594 was elected

Bishop of Panama, but died on the road to take possession.[511]

Apparently the office was one not always easy to fill. In a letter of

September 1, 1655, the tribunal informed the Suprema that it was in need

of correctors of books and calificadores and it sent the genealogy of

Padre Juan Hortiz, Rector of the Jesuit College, as a fit person, though

he had not studied theology; the tribunal of Logroño thereupon reported

favorably as to his _limpieza_ and, on November 11, 1659, after four

years of delay, the commission for him was sent.[512] It will be seen

from all this that the Mexican Inquisition exercised an independent

function of censorship; the earliest printing-press in the New World was

established in the city of Mexico and its products were supervised by

the tribunal, which condemned them, when necessary, without awaiting a

reference to distant Spain. Prohibitory edicts, moreover, emanating from

the home censorship, were duly published from every parish pulpit

between the Caribbean and the Pacific.[513]

As was the case in Spain, censorship was not confined to literature but

extended to works of art which might offend sensitiveness either of

modesty or of veneration. The degree to which this might interfere with

affairs of daily life depended upon the discretion of the tribunal, as

was instanced by an edict of March 2, 1600. This prohibited all crosses,

heads of Christ, the Virgin and the saints and scenes from sacred

history carved or engraved or painted or embroidered on furniture,

bed-clothing, napery, utensils of all kinds, or other places where these

sacred symbols might be exposed to disrespect, and everything of the

kind was to be surrendered for the erasure of the images. As Spanish

piety had luxuriated in the use of such emblems wherever possible, this

raised a cloud of questions, which Fray Diego Múñoz, commissioner at

Mechoacan, endeavored to settle in instructions issued to his delegate

at Querétaro. Thus branding-irons for cattle and horses, that had a

cross on them, were to be surrendered; as for beasts already so branded,

the marks were to be erased where possible. Men tattooed with crosses or

the name of Jesus were to efface them within fifteen days. Thimbles so

adorned, if of gold or silver, were to be returned after filing off the

symbols. Moulds for pastry with sacred heads were allowable, because the

pastry was eaten and not treated with indecency, and it was the same

with tapestries and wall-hangings. That the opportunities afforded by

this decree were not neglected is indicated in a complaint to the

tribunal from Juan Rodríguez of Querétaro, who relates that Fray

Francisco de Parra, Guardian of the Franciscan convent, under orders

from Múñoz, had seized and carried off to the convent a bedstead of gilt

wood, costing 500 pesos, because it had some carved heads, which were

not of Christ or angels; also counterpanes, pillows, curtains, towels,

etc., because they had crosses or the word Jesus embroidered on them,

and finger-rings with five stones set as a cross. Others had suffered in

the same way, and Rodríguez prayed for the restoration of the

articles.[514]

Incident to the censorship was the _visita de navíos_, or search of all

vessels on their arrival, regarded as an indispensable duty to prevent

the importation of forbidden books and the immigration of suspected

heretics and Judaizers, as well as to ascertain whether, during the

voyage, any one on board had committed acts subjecting him to

inquisitorial jurisdiction. As in Spain, this performance inevitably led

to friction with the secular authorities of the sea-ports. As early as

1584 there is a prosecution of Hernando de Moxica, alcalde mayor, and of

Diego de Yepes, regidor of Vera Cruz, for impeding the commissioner in

this work and speaking disrespectfully of it, resulting in a fine of

five hundred pieces each, with excommunication until they should

withdraw their opposition.[515] Of course it was difficult to control

the officials of the tribunal in the matter of fees and to keep the

peace between them and the royal representatives as to questions of

precedence, points which the Concordia of 1633 endeavored to regulate by

fixing the fee at four pesos, of which two accrued to the commissioner

and one each to the alguazil and notary, an amount never to be exceeded,

no matter how many assistants might be employed, while existing orders

were to be strictly observed as to their concurrence with the royal

officials.[516] Of course it was not easy for the Inquisition to

maintain supervision over so extended a coast. In a consulta of February

15, 1620, the Suprema informed Philip III that there had recently been

printed in Holland large numbers of Spanish Bibles to be sent to the

colonies and, as the Inquisition was unable to prevent their

introduction unaided, the king was asked to instruct the royal officials

to exercise greater vigilance. To this he assented and the request was

renewed, June 28, 1629. It was probably to meet this that, in 1633, an

agreement between the Suprema and the Council of Indies permitted the

appointment of an alguazil in Yucatan to aid in searching the ships

arriving at the ports.[517]

* * * * *

With the advent of the Bourbon dynasty, there occurs, in Mexico as in

Spain, a disposition on the part of the secular authorities to restrain

the overbearing petulance and audacity of the Holy Office. It is true

that the tribunal obtained a victory in 1712, in a quarrel with the

Royal Audiencia which had prosecuted its notary, and it was so overjoyed

that it hastened to communicate the fact to the tribunal of Lima so that

it might serve as a precedent. It related how the royal cédula of 1640,

repeated in 1667 and 1701, had been strictly observed, when the senior

judge came to the competencia and occupied the lowest seat and the

decision was that the notary was entitled to the _fuero_ of the Holy

Office.[518] Though competencias thus commenced to reappear they did not

always end so satisfactorily. In 1722, Joseph Freire de Somorostro,

commissioner in Zacatapan, was fined 500 pesos and suspended for six

years from his functions as an advocate by the royal court, for an

offence against its authority. He appealed to the tribunal which, in its

customary threatening methods, demanded that the papers in the case be

delivered to it within fifteen days, but they were withheld. It

succeeded better in the case of Alonso Diaz de la Vega, alguazil of

Goamantla who, in 1723, was concerned with his son in a quarrel, in

which a man was killed. They were arrested and prosecuted, but the

tribunal interfered vigorously, obtained possession of both father and

son, gave notice that prosecutors must present themselves within eight

days and, as none appeared, discharged the accused--thus affording

convincing proof of the advantage of the fuero to criminals. It showed,

however, a juster sense of the limitations of its jurisdiction in

another case of the same year which illustrates the tendency of its

officials to obstruct the secular authorities. The Castellan of Vera

Cruz complained to the viceroy of the commissioner, Gregorio de Salinas,

who had assisted the mutineers of the fleet in demanding their pay and

had defended the asylum of the convent of San Francisco, in which they

had taken refuge. The viceroy forwarded the statement to the tribunal,

which forthwith ordered the commissioner to desist; the Inquisition had

nothing to do with the matter; if he had assembled the officials of the

Inquisition with their badges and had taken them to the convent to

defend its right of asylum, he had done very wrong and must instruct

each of them, before a notary, to keep aloof and he must, in the same

way, withdraw the delegated power given to the superior of the convent.

It does not appear however that the peccant commissioner was punished in

any way for this inexcusable prostitution of the authority of the Holy

Office. Another case, in the same year, illustrates the multifarious

ways in which these petty local officials abused the mysterious

attributes with which they were invested. Valdés la Vandera,

commissioner of Valle de Santa Barbara, claimed fees for all interments

to which he was invited, even when he did not wear surplice and cap as

ordered by the Constitucion Sinodal and, not content with this, charged

double fees; he also demanded that, in the assemblies of Corpus, San

Pedro and other feasts of obligation, he should have the highest place,

in virtue of being commissioner. The clergy complained to the tribunal,

which condemned his pretensions and ordered him to desist.[519]

The enlightened despotism of Carlos III brought increased tendency to

curtail the privileges of the Inquisition and to curb its audacity. A

cédula of February 29, 1760, declares that the titular and salaried

officials shall enjoy the fuero only as defendants, in both civil and

criminal matters, and wholly withdraws that of the familiars. Also that

in clear and notorious cases there shall be no competencia, but that the

viceroy, as the personal representative of the sovereign, shall decide

what is fitting to prevent invasion of the royal jurisdiction.[520] The

transitory liberalism of the period greatly diminished the traditional

awe inspired by the Inquisition. About the year 1767, it had a serious

conflict with the Audiencia, over the case of a Doctor Bechi, in which

the royal fiscal, during his argument, treated it with scant respect,

reciting how Charles V had been obliged to limit its jurisdiction in

Sicily, how the reigning monarch had exiled from court the

Inquisitor-general Quintano Bonifaz, and hinting not obscurely that, if

it was abolished, substitutes for it could be found--all of which was

made the subject of bitter, and apparently fruitless, remonstrance to

the king by the Suprema, in a consulta of February 29, 1768. This

unprecedented freedom of speech reveals the existence of a belief in

some impending change, and this was stimulated by the startling

expulsion of the Jesuits, skilfully managed by the viceroy, the Marquis

de Croix, June 25, 1767. The foundations of the ecclesiastical structure

seemed to be crumbling and there arose a universally accredited rumor

that the Inquisition would be the next to suffer. So definite did this

become that the day was fixed for September 3d and the precaution taken

by the viceroy, in anticipation of disturbance, by keeping troops under

arms all that night, especially in the quarter where the Inquisition was

situated, only strengthened the delusion. So firmly rooted was this

that, when the night passed away without the expected event, the

archbishop called upon the viceroy to learn for himself the truth of the

belief that the suppression had only been postponed until certain

pending trials should be completed.[521]

* * * * *

During this period of decadence the functions of the tribunal, in its

proper sphere of action, amounted to little more than punishing a few

bigamists, so-called sorcerers and soliciting confessors. In 1702 it

reported only four cases pending--three for bigamy and a Jesuit, Padre

Francisco de Figueroa, for what was known as flagellation, or stripping

female penitents and using the discipline on them, an offence akin to

solicitation.[522] Yet in an auto of 1704 it exhibited eight bigamists

and two sorcerers and, in one of 1708, it had thirteen penitents of whom

five were bigamists. There was an exception in 1712 when it had the

fortune to present a Judaizer who had denounced himself and begged for

mercy, notwithstanding which he was condemned to appear in an auto with

a gag and to irremissible prison and sanbenito for life. In 1712-13

there were eleven convictions for solicitation and in 1722 an auto with

twelve penitents, of whom nine were bigamists, followed soon afterwards

with five cases of solicitation. So it went on, gradually diminishing

and affording less and less justification for the existence of the

tribunal with its large revenues, though when it had an opportunity it

demonstrated that it retained its capacity for evil, as in the case of a

naval lieutenant, Manuel Germa de Bahamonde, arrested February 24, 1735,

for heretical propositions and, after nine years of incarceration,

pronounced insane in 1744, when he was sent to the castle of San Juan de

Ulua pending transmission to Spain.[523]

After 1750 there was some increase in business, arising from the

prevalence of blasphemy and irreligion in the army, especially in the

regiments of foreigners, and cases became more numerous among foreign

residents accused of heresy and free-thinking. It was doubtless owing to

this that Fernando VI, in a decree of December 31, 1756, imposed the

death penalty on recruits who pretended Catholicism in order to

enlistment--a severity modified in 1765 by Carlos III to expulsion from

the kingdom.[524] In spite of these measures, the tribunal, in a letter

of April 28, 1766, complained of the number of foreigners sent to Mexico

among the troops--their disseminating the heresies of Luther and Calvin

and of total irreligion, and their justification of England, thus

diminishing the horror and detestation felt by the natives for the

English, which it was so desirable to maintain. The Suprema represented

this to Carlos, who thereupon ordered that no soldiers should be sent to

the Indies who were not assuredly Catholics.[525]

The increasing discredit into which the tribunal had fallen and the

widely spread rumors, as we have seen, of its approaching suppression,

seem to have stimulated it to a recrudescence of activity in an effort

to assert its continued existence. It celebrated an auto, September 6,

1767, with four culprits--one of them, María Josefa Pineda Morales, for

bigamy, who had been arrested as long before as in 1760. Then on March

13, 1768, it held another with seventeen penitents. Cases of

solicitation also became more frequent as the century drew to its

close.[526] A new field of activity, moreover, was opened to it by the

outbreak of the French Revolution, when the propaganda of the rights of

man increased the importance of the Inquisition as an agency of

repression. Already, in 1770, an edict ordered the denunciation within

six days of confessors who should use the confessional to encourage

ideas contrary to the submission due to the sovereign. The accession of

the reactionary Carlos IV and the dread of revolutionary principles

began to afford a harvest of cases in which politics had more to do than

religion. There were many Frenchmen in Mexico following their trades;

they were naturally partizans of the new order of things; their

influence was dreaded for they spread their opinions among the people

and the organization and methods of the Inquisition rendered it the most

efficient instrument for the detection and punishment of

liberalism.[527]

A typical example was that of two Frenchmen, the Capitan Jean Marie

Murgier and Doctor Joseph François Morel, accused of a conspiracy to

cause a revolution and arrested in 1794. Murgier feigned sickness and,

when visited by Dr. José Francisco Rada, he asked the gaoler for a glass

of water and during his absence blocked the door with his trunk. Then he

seized Rada’s sword and declared that he would kill both him and

himself unless the tribunal would liberate him with a full acquittal and

furnish him with a pair of loaded pistols. The confusion of the tribunal

was great; parleying went on from 10.15 A.M. to 4.30 P.M., when it was

decided to break down the door. Guards with hatchets attacked it and

Murgier ran himself through with the sword. His comrade Morel cut his

throat with a pair of snuffers February 11, 1795. They were prosecuted

after death and furnished occasion for the last public auto, August 9th

of that year, where their effigies and bones were burnt as those of

heretics, deists and materialists. At the same auto there figured the

first Judaizer for many years--Rafael Gil Rodríguez, a cleric in the

lower orders, who had been arrested October 9, 1788. He proved

exceedingly obstinate and was sentenced to relaxation on February 9,

1792, after which he was held awaiting an auto. His resolution failed on

the morning of the fatal day, he professed repentance, was reconciled,

and thus saved the Inquisition the shame of burning a fellow-creature

alive at the close of the eighteenth century. The other penitents were

Jean Langouran of Bordeaux, who was reconciled for Lutheranism and

atheism, and Jean Lausel of Montpellier who abjured de levi for

suspicion of Free-Masonry.[528]

It was not however Frenchmen alone who suffered for their political

opinions. José Antonio Rojas was denounced by two ladies, in

correspondence with whom he had expressed his liberalism too freely. In

September, 1804, he was condemned, as a formal heretic and materialist,

to reclusion in the College of the Propaganda Fide at Pachuca, but he

escaped to the United States where he relieved his feelings in a

tremendous pamphlet against the Holy Office, which was duly prohibited

in an edict of March 6, 1807. The distinguished publicists, Juan

Wenceslao Bosquera and José Joaquin Fernández de Lizardi, known as _El

Pensador Mexicano_, were also prosecuted for writings that evinced too

ardent a spirit of patriotism. It was also doubtless for offences of

the same nature that Fray Juan Antonio de Olabarrieta was reconciled for

atheism in 1803, and his sanbenito was suspended in the cathedral, for

the charge of atheism or any kindred form of speculation was, as we have

seen, a convenient one to bring political liberalism under inquisitorial

jurisdiction.[529]

Under the pressure of the time the censorship was sharpened with special

rigor and severity. A curious instance of the strictness with which the

laws against prohibited books were enforced is afforded by an episode,

in 1806, of the Louisiana Purchase. As this rendered necessary a

delimitation of the boundary between Mexico and the United States,

Carlos IV ordered an investigation and report from the viceroy, who

employed Fray Melchor de Talamantes to make it. He found it necessary to

consult the works of Robertson and Raynal, but these were in the Index

and he applied to the Inquisition, through the viceroy, for the

requisite licence, saying that, although the books were detestable, the

information they contained, and especially their maps, were important

for the public service. The request was refused and, as a compromise, a

formal commission was given to two _calificadores_, Fray José Paredo and

Fray José Pichardo, to examine the dangerous books and report to

Talamantes such information on the subject as they might find.[530] When

Spanish diplomacy was thus hampered by such scruples it is no cause of

surprise that the eminent historian of Mexico, Lucas Alaman, was

prosecuted for reading prohibited books and even the episcopal dignity

of Manuel Abad y Queipo, Bishop-elect of Valladolid (Mechoacan) did not

save him from trouble for the same offence.[531]

Yet this reactionary tendency was accompanied with an increasing

disposition to enforce the subordination of the Inquisition and to

render it an instrument of the Government. A royal cédula of December

12, 1807, takes additional precautions to prevent illegal increase in

the number of familiars and officials and to give the secular authority

a closer supervision over them. When secular assistance, moreover, was

called for, it could no longer be commanded as a right, except in

matters of faith; if the temporal jurisdiction was concerned, the

Inquisition was put on a level with other ecclesiastical courts, and the

magistrate was instructed to examine the merits of the case and to give

or withhold his aid accordingly.[532] As agitation in Mexico increased

with the news of the abdication of Carlos IV and the Napoleonic

usurpation, foreshadowing the Revolution, the political importance of

the Inquisition, as an agency of repression, became greater and its

so-called sacred functions were more and more subordinated. Successive

edicts of August 27, 1808, and April 28, June 16 and September 28, 1809,

were directed against all proclamations and emissaries seeking to

pervert the loyalty of the colonists in favor of the ambitious schemes

of the French, and the doctrine of popular sovereignty was denounced as

manifest heresy[533]--a doctrinal definition which was effectively used

during the debate on the suppression of the Holy Office, in the Córtes

of Cádiz, which had affirmed that sovereignty. Even in a matter so

foreign to politics as solicitation in the confessional, it is

suggestive to observe that, in the trial for that offence of Dr. Pedro

Mendizabal, cura of the parish of Santa Ana (1809-1819) his correct

political conduct is urged upon the inquisitors as a matter for their

favorable consideration--which may possibly have conduced to his escape

in the face of convincing evidence.[534]

The political functions assumed by the Inquisition become especially

manifest in its trials of the two chief martyrs of the war of

independence--Hidalgo and Morelos. The former of these, Miguel Hidalgo y

Castilla, the parish priest of los Dolores, who first raised the

standard of revolt, in conjunction with Allende, Aldama and Abasolo, and

who was elected generalissimo of the insurgent army, was a singularly

interesting character.[535] Born in 1753, he received his education at

the royal university of San Nicolás at Mechoacan, where he became rector

and theological professor. In the formal accusation during his trial it

is asserted that he was known while there as _el zorro_, or the fox, on

account of his cunning, and that he was finally expelled because of a

scandalous adventure, in the course of which he was obliged to escape at

night through a window of the chapel. Taking orders, he finally settled

as _cura_ at los Dolores where, in spite of a large revenue, he

encumbered himself with debts. He loved music and dancing and gaming and

his relations with women were of a character common enough with the

clergy of the period. His abounding energy led him to establish

potteries and to introduce silk-culture, which may doubtless account for

his indebtedness. He was regarded as a prodigy of learning and kept up

his intellectual pursuits, translating tragedies of Racine and comedies

of Molière, the latter of which he caused to be acted in his house, his

favorite being Tartufe. The priest, García de Carrasqueda, who enjoyed

his intimacy for twelve or thirteen years, when on trial by the

Inquisition, deposed that they used to read together Cicero, Serri,

Fleury’s Ecclesiastical History, Rollings Ancient History and an Italian

work on commerce by Genovesi and that he praised highly the orations of

Æschines and Demosthenes, Bossuet, Buffon’s Natural History, Pitavak’s

Causes Célèbres and various historical works. He was fond of debating

questionable points in theology, emitting opinions not wholly orthodox

on such subjects as the stigmata of St. Francis, the House of Loreto,

the Veronica, whether St. Didymas or Gestas was the penitent thief, the

inheritance of original sin, the identity of the three kings and the

like, while his high reputation for learning caused him to be regarded

as an authority. Altogether he presents himself to us as a man of

unusual physical and intellectual energy, not over nice as to the

employment of those energies, of wide culture, of vigorous and enquiring

mind and of small reverence for formulas or for authority.