IT is not surprising that the Inquisition should persecute magistrates and learned men, when it has not scrupled to attack kings, princes, and grandees. Some writers (particularly the French and Flemish) have singularly exaggerated the accounts of these trials; some of them having but a vague and slight foundation for what they have advanced, and others have filled their accounts with invectives and fictions. The history is derived from the archives and writings of the trials of the Inquisition, and I have attended more to these authentic documents than to the narratives of those who have not had the same advantages. This Chapter will contain all that is certainly known of the trials of the princes and other potentates by the Inquisition.
The Holy Tribunal was scarcely established in Aragon, when it attacked Don James de Navarre, sometimes called the Infant of Tudela, and the Infant of Navarre. His crime was an act of benevolence. The assassination of Pedro Arbues, the first inquisitor of Aragon, which took place in 1485, obliged many of the principal inhabitants of Saragossa to take flight. One of these persons went to Tudela de Navarre, where the Infant of Navarre resided, and asked and obtained an asylum in his house for several days, until he could make his escape into France. The inquisitors being informed of this humane action, arrested and took Don James to their prisons in 1487, as an enemy to the holy office. He was condemned to hear solemn mass, standing in the presence of a great concourse of people, and of his cousin Don Alphonso of Aragon (a natural son of Ferdinand V. and Archbishop of Saragossa), and to receive absolution from the censures which he was supposed to have incurred, after submitting to be scourged by two priests, and having gone through all the ceremonies prescribed in such cases by the Roman ritual.
In 1488, the Inquisition tried John Pic de la Mirandola and de Concordia, a prince who was considered a prodigy of science, from the age of twenty-three years. Innocent VIII. instigated them to this measure by a brief addressed to Ferdinand and Isabella, dated the 16th of December, 1487, in which he said, that he had been informed that John Pic was going into Spain, with the intention of maintaining, in the universities and other schools of the kingdom, the erroneous doctrine of several theses which he had already published at Rome, and had abjured, which rendered him still more culpable. His Holiness added, that he was most afflicted in perceiving that the youth, the pleasing manners and agreeable conversation of the prince would gain him many partisans; he said that these considerations had induced him to request the two sovereigns to arrest the prince when he arrived in Spain, as the fear of corporal punishment might have more effect than the anathemas of the Church. De la Mirandola doubtless received information of what awaited him in Spain, as he did not undertake the journey; at least nothing is to be found in the archives concerning it. The learned historian Fleury must have been ignorant of the existence of this bull, since he says that the affair of the Prince de la Mirandola terminated in the suppression of his theses at Rome, in 1486. This prince had published and defended nine hundred propositions on theology, mathematics, physics, cabala, and other sciences. Thirteen of these were examined and qualified as heretical; the author published an apology, showing the ignorance of his judges. His adversaries, finding that they could not dispute with him, accused him of being a magician; and asserted, that so much knowledge in so young a person could only be acquired by a compact with the devil.
In 1507 the Inquisition, instigated by Ferdinand V., undertook to prosecute and arrest Cæsar Borgia, Duke de Valentinois, and brother-in-law to John d’Albret, King of Navarre. It is most probable that this prince would have been taken, if he had not been killed in the same year before Viana, not far from Logroño, by the governor of a fortress, Juan Garces de los Fayos. Cæsar Borgia was the natural son of Don Rodrigo de Borgia (afterwards raised to the papal see, by the name of Alexander VI.), and the famous Vanoci. He had been a cardinal, but, in 1499, his father, in compliance with the request of Louis XII. King of France, who adopted him, granted him dispensations to marry the sister of the King of Navarre; he then obtained the titles and estates of the dukedom of Valentinois. A short time after the death of Cæsar Borgia’s father, in 1503, he was arrested at Naples, by the order of Gonzalo de Cordova, viceroy of that monarchy, on the pretence that he disturbed the tranquillity of the kingdom. He was taken to Spain, and confined in the Castle of Medina del Campo, from whence he made his escape, and fled to Navarre. Ferdinand, finding that his niece, the Queen of Navarre, would not give up this prince to him, resolved to secure him by means of the Inquisition.
It has been already stated that the inquisitors did not prosecute the memory of Charles V.; but in 1565, they were concerned in the proceedings against Jane d’Albret, the hereditary Queen of Navarre, and against her son, Henry de Bourbon, afterwards Henry IV. of France, and his sister, Margaret de Bourbon Albret, who married the sovereign Duke of Bar. The holy office, however, did not take an active part in this affair. After Ferdinand V. had taken possession of the five districts of the kingdom of Navarre, called Merindades, he refused to recognise either Jane or Henry de Bourbon as sovereigns of Navarre. These princes were deprived of all their dominions, except the sixth Merindade of Navarre, by a papal bull in 1512; the Court of Rome also refused to grant them the title of Kings of Navarre until the year 1561. The first to whom it was given was Anthony de Bourbon.
Charles V. had ordered in his will that the right of his successors to the crown of Navarre should be examined, and that it should be restored to its rightful owners if it had been unjustly seized. In 1561, Philip II., who had not yet thought of executing the intentions of his father, perceiving that the king, Anthony de Bourbon, inclined towards Calvinism, entered into a negociation with him on this subject. In order to attach him to the Catholic party, Philip promised to obtain a dissolution of his marriage with Jane, who was a heretic, to induce his holiness to excommunicate her, and to give her states to him, with the consent of the Kings of France and Spain; to restore Navarre, or to give the island of Sardinia in exchange for it, and to negotiate a marriage between him and Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland. Anthony accepted this offer, but died before it could be executed. Philip then, through the intrigues of his agents at Rome, obtained the excommunication of Jane d’Albret, and that her states should be offered to the first Catholic prince who would take possession of them on the condition of expelling the heretics. Pius V. published a bull on the 28th September, 1563, excommunicating Queen Jane, for having adopted the heresy of Calvin, and promulgating his doctrines in her states; and according to the requisition of the procurator-fiscal of the Inquisition, his Holiness summoned her to appear at Rome, within six months, to answer these charges.
Catherine de Medicis, regent of France, who was then reconciled to the Prince of Condé, the brother of the late King of Navarre, was displeased at the Inquisition of Rome; and in order to stop the proceedings, sent an ambassador extraordinary to the Pope, with a very learned memorial, which has been printed, with the bull, in the Mémoires du Prince de Condé.
Charles IX., and Catherine de Medicis, his mother, wrote to Philip II., (who was married to Elizabeth of France, the daughter of Catherine,) and informed him of what had passed, requesting that he would act in concert with them. Philip replied, that he not only disapproved of the conduct of the court of Rome, but he offered to protect the Princess Jane against any one who should attempt to deprive her of her states. It has, however, been proved by the letters of the French king to the Cardinal d’Armagnac, that Philip at the same time offered assistance to the Catholic subjects of Jane, to induce them to rebel against her, and that he privately introduced Spanish troops into her territories. This event was the origin of a confederation, known by the name of the Catholic League, which forms part of the histories of M. de Varillas, and of the secret memoirs of M. de Villeroi.
The Spanish monarch endeavoured to obtain, by means of the Inquisition of Spain, what he had been refused by that of Rome. The inquisitor-general Cardinal Espinosa, in concert with the Cardinal de Lorraine, caused several witnesses to be examined, to prove that Jane d’Albret and her children were Huguenots, and that, as they encouraged this heresy in their states, it might spread into Spain. Espinosa (who pretended that Philip was ignorant of his proceedings) informed the council that it was necessary to impart this circumstance to his majesty, and entreat him to do all in his power to prevent Jane from persecuting the Catholics.
Philip secretly directed the affairs of the League in France by means of communications with the chiefs of the party; and according to his orders the inquisitor-general formed a plot to carry off the Queen of Navarre and her two children, and confine them in the dungeons of the Inquisition of Saragossa. He hoped to succeed in this enterprise, through the assistance afforded him by the Cardinal de Lorraine, and the other chiefs of the League.
Those French historians who wrote after this period (such as the Abbé St. Real, Mercier, and others) have endeavoured to throw all the odium of this plot on Philip II. and the Duke of Alva; but as truth is the first duty of historians, I am compelled to say, that the De Guises were the authors of it. Nicolas de Neuville, Lord of Villeroy, minister and first secretary of state during the reigns of Charles IX., Henry III., Henry IV., and Louis XIII., has left details of this affair, in a Memoir which was found after his death among his papers, and which has been printed with many others, under the title of Secret Memoirs of M. de Villeroi. This author, who was a contemporary, and acquainted with the secrets of the government, seems to be more deserving of confidence than any other.
Philip II. took advantage of the attempt, though it entirely failed; and wrote to represent to the Pope, that his subjects in the neighbourhood of France might imbibe the heresy, and demanded and obtained an order to separate from the bishopric of Bayonne the villages of the valley of Bastan, and those of the arch-priesthood of Fontarabia.
In 1563, the Inquisition of Murcia condemned another prince, called Don Philip of Aragon. See Chapter 23.
In 1589, the Prince Alexander Farnese, governor-general of the Low Countries and Flanders, and uncle to Philip II., was denounced to the Inquisition of Spain, as suspected of Lutheranism, and a favourer of heretics; it was also said, that he intended to become the sovereign of Flanders, for which purpose he courted the Protestants. No proofs of heresy were produced, and the inquisitor-general suspended the proceedings. Although the enemies of Prince Farnese made every effort to ruin him, Philip did not deprive him of his office, and he remained Governor of the Low Countries till his death in 1592. It has been said that he was poisoned by Philip II.
The Cardinal Quiroga, and the Council of the Inquisition, treated the Sovereign Pontiff, Sextus Quintus, with little respect. This Pope published a translation of the Bible in Italian, and prefaced it by a bull, in which he recommended every one to read it, saying, that the faithful would derive the greatest advantages from it. This conduct of the Pope was contrary to all the regulations from the time of Leo X. All doctrinal works had been forbidden to be in the vulgar tongue for fifty years, by the expurgatory index of the council, and by the inquisitions of Rome and Madrid. The Cardinals, Quiroga at Madrid, and Toledo at Rome, and others, represented to Philip II., that great evils would arise from it, if he did not employ his influence to induce the Pope to relinquish his design. Philip commissioned the Count d’Olivarez to expostulate with the Pontiff; the Count obeyed, but at the peril of his life, for Sextus Quintus was on the point of depriving him of it, without respect for the rights of nations, or for the privileges of Olivarez as an ambassador.
This formidable Pope died in 1592, and Philip was suspected of having shortened his days by slow poison. After this event, the Inquisition of Spain having received witnesses to prove that the infallible oracle of the law was a favourer of heretics, condemned the Sextine Bible, as they had already condemned those of Cassiodorus de Reyna, and many others.
A preparatory instruction was commenced against Don John of Austria, a natural son of Philip IV., but the proceedings were suspended by the king. This event was caused by the intrigues of the inquisitor-general, John Everard Nitardo, who was the mortal enemy of Don John; and some persons were found base enough to accuse the king’s brother of Lutheranism, in order to flatter him.
The Grandees of Spain may be numbered among the princes, since Charles V. declared them to possess that title, and that they were equal in rank to the sovereigns of the Circles of Germany; they had likewise the privileges of being seated and covered in the presence of the king, as, for example, when the emperor was crowned.
Among the princes humiliated by the Inquisition, the following persons must be included. The Marquis de Priego, the grand-master of the military order of Montesa, the Duke de Gandia, St. Francis de Borgia, the blessed Juan de Ribera, the venerable Don Juan de Palafox, and many others, among whom were several ladies. None of these trials had any serious result; the denounced persons only received a severe remonstrance, except in the case of the Dowager Marchioness d’Alcanices, who was imprisoned in the Convent of St. Catherine, at Valladolid. These persons were all innocent; the only foundation for the accusations was their intimacy with the Doctors Pedro and Augustine Cazalla, Fray Dominic de Roxas, and Don Pedro Samiento de Roxas: they were also accused of having heard conversations on justification, and of not having denounced them.