SUPPRESSION OF THE REFORMATION IN SPAIN WE cannot condemn, either upon the principles of nature or revelation, those individuals who, finding themselves in the utmost peril of their lives, chose to forsake their native country, and to seek abroad for a place in which they were at liberty to worship God according to their consciences.

Yet it was this step on the part of some of the Spanish protestants which led to the discovery of their brethren who remained behind. Their sudden disappearance led to inquiries as to the cause, and the knowledge of this excited suspicions that they were not the only persons who were disaffected to the religion of their country. The divines attached to the court of Philip II. at Brussels kept a strict watch upon the refugees from Spain who had settled in Geneva and different places of Germany; and, having got possession of their secrets by means of spies, conveyed information to the inquisitors, that a large quantity of heretical books had been sent to Spain, and that the protestant doctrine was spreading rapidly in the kingdom. This intelligence was received in the close of the year 1557. f395 Roused from their security, the inquisitors instantly put their extensive police in motion, and were not long in discovering the individual who had been active in introducing the heretical books. Juan Hernandez, in consequence of information received from a smith, to whom he had shown a copy of the New Testament, was apprehended and thrown into prison. f396 He did not seek to conceal his sentiments, and gloried in the fact that he had contributed to the illumination of his countrymen by furnishing them with the scriptures in their native tongue. But the inquisitors were disappointed in their expectations that they had formed from his apprehension. His life indeed was in their hands, and they could dispose of it according to their pleasure; but the blood of an obscure individual appeared, in their eyes, altogether inadequate to wash away the disgrace which they had incurred by their failure in point of vigilance, or to expiate the enormous crime which had defiled the land. What they aimed at was, to obtain from the prisoner such information respecting his associates as would enable them “at once to crush the viper’s nest,” (to use their own words) and set them at ease for the future. But they found themselves mortifyingly baffled in all their attempts to accomplish this object. In vain they had recourse to those arts of deceit in which they were so deeply practiced, in order to draw from Hernandez his secret. In vain they employed promises and threats, examinations and cross-examinations, sometimes in the hall of audience, and at other times in his cell, into which they sent alternately their avowed agents, and persons who “feigned themselves just men,” and friendly to the reformed doctrine. When questioned concerning his own faith, he answered frankly; and though destitute of the advantages of a liberal education, he defended himself with boldness, silencing, by his knowledge of the scriptures alone, his judges, together with the learned men whom they brought to confute him. But when asked to declare who were his religious instructors and companions, he refused to utter a word. Nor were they more successful when they had recourse to that horrid engine which had often wrung secrets from the stoutest hearts, and made them betray their nearest and best-beloved friends. Hernandez displayed a firmness and heroism altogether above his physical strength and his station in life. During the three years complete that he was kept in prison, he was frequently put to the torture, in every form and with all the aggravations of cruelty which his persecutors, incensed at his obstinacy, could inflict or devise; but, on every fresh occasion, he appeared before them with unsubdued fortitude; and when led, or rather dragged, from the place of torment to his cell, he returned with an air of triumph, chanting this refrain , in his native tongue: Vencidos van los frayles, vencidos van:

Corridos van los lobos, corridos van.f397 Conquered return the friars, conquered return:

Scattered return the wolves, scattered return.

At length the inquisitors got possession of the secret which they were so eager to know. This was obtained at Seville, by means of the superstitious fears of one member of the protestant church, and the treachery of another, who had for some time acted as a concealed emissary of the Inquisition. f398 At Valladolid, it was obtained by one of those infernal arts, which that tribunal, whenever it served its purposes, has never scrupled to employ.

Juan Garcia, a goldsmith, who had been in the habit of summoning the protestants to sermon; and aware of the influence which superstition exerted over the mind of his wife, he concealed from her the place and times of assembling. Being gained by her confessor, this demon in woman’s shape dogged her husband one night, and having ascertained the place of meeting, communicated the fact to the Inquisition. The traitress received her earthly reward in an annuity for life, paid from the public funds! f399 Having made these important discoveries, the council of the Supreme dispatched messengers to the several tribunals of inquisition through the kingdom, directing them to make inquiries with all secrecy within their respective jurisdictions, and to be prepared, on receiving further instructions, to act in concert. The familiars were employed in tracing out the remoter ramifications of heresy; and guards were planted at convenient places, to intercept and seize such persons as might attempt to escape.

These precautions having been taken, orders were issued to the proper agents; and by a simultaneous movement, the protestants were seized at the same time in Seville, in Valladolid, and in all the surrounding country.

In Seville and its neighborhood two hundred persons were apprehended in one day; and, in consequence of information resulting from their examinations, the number soon increased to eight hundred. The castle of Triana, the common prisons, the convents, and even private houses, were crowded with the victims. Eighty persons were committed to prison in Valladolid, and the number of individuals seized by the other tribunals was in proportion. When the alarm was first given, many were so thunderstruck and appalled as to be unable to take the least step for securing their safety. Some ran to the house of the Inquisition, and informed against themselves, without knowing what they were doing; like persons who, rushing out of a house which has taken fire in the night-time, precipitate themselves into a devouring flood. Others, in attempting to make their escape, were pursued and overtaken; and some, who had reached a protestant country, becoming secure, fell into the snares laid for them by the spies of the Holy Office, were forcibly carried off, and brought back to Spain. Among those who made good their retreat, was the licentiate Zafra, formerly mentioned, who was peculiarly obnoxious to the inquisitors. He was apprehended among the first, but, during the confusion caused by want of room to contain the prisoners, contrived to make his escape, and to conceal himself, until he found a favorable opportunity of retiring into Germany. f401 The reader will recollect the reform which the monks of San Isidro had introduced into their convent. Desirable as this change was in itself, and commendable as was their conduct in adopting it, it brought them into a situation both delicate and painful. They could not throw off the monastic forms entirely, without exposing themselves to the fury of their enemies; nor yet could they retain them, without being conscious of acting to a certain degree hypocritically, and giving countenance to a pernicious system of superstition, by which their country was at once deluded and oppressed. In this dilemma, they held a consultation on the propriety of deserting the convent, and retiring to some foreign land, in which, at the expense of sacrificing their worldly emoluments and spending their lives in poverty, they might enjoy peace of mind and the freedom of religious worship. The attempt was of the most hazardous kind, and difficulties presented themselves to any plan which could be suggested for carrying it into execution. How could so many persons, well known in Seville and all around it, after having left one of the most celebrated monasteries in Spain deserted, expect to accomplish so long a journey, without being discovered? If, on the other hand, a few of them should make the attempt and succeed, would not this step bring the lives of the remainder into the greatest jeopardy; especially as the suspicions of the inquisitors, which had for a considerable time been laid asleep, had been lately aroused? This last consideration appeared so strong that they unanimously resolved to remain where they were, and commit themselves to the disposal of an all-powerful and gracious providence. But the aspect of matters becoming hourly darker and more alarming, another chapter was held, at which it was agreed that it would be tempting instead of trusting providence to adhere to their former resolution, and that therefore every one should be left at liberty to adopt that course which in the emergency appeared to his own mind best and most advisable. Accordingly, twelve of their number left the monastery, and taking different routes, got safely out of Spain, and at the end of twelve months met in Geneva, which they had previously agreed upon as the place of their rendezvous. They were gone only a few days when the storm of persecution burst on the heads not only of their brethren who remained in San Isidro, but of all their religious connexions in Spain. f403 It was in the beginning of the year 1558 that this calamitous event befell Spain. Previously to that period Charles V., having relinquished his schemes of worldly ambition, and resigned the empire in favor of his brother Ferdinand, and his hereditary dominions to his son Philip, had retired into the convent of St. Juste, situated in the province of Estremadura, where he spent the remainder of his days in the society and devotional exercises of monks. Several historians of no inconsiderable reputation have asserted, that Charles, during his retreat, became favorable to the sentiments of the protestants of Germany, that he died in their faith, that Philip charged the Holy Office to investigate the truth of this report, and that he had at one time serious thoughts of disinterring the bones of his father as those of a heretic. Various causes may be assigned for the currency of these rumors. Charles had three years before been involved in a dispute with Paul IV., who had threatened him with excommunication; Constantine Ponce and Augustin Cazalla, two of his chaplains, had embraced the protestant opinions; his confessor De Regla had been forced to abjure them; and Carranza and Villalba, who exhorted him on his deathbed, were soon after denounced to the Inquisition. To these presumptions it may be added, that the manner in which Philip treated his son Don Carlos, and the known fact that he never scrupled to employ the Inquisition as an engine for accomplishing purposes purely political, if not domestic also, have induced historians, from supposing him capable of any crime, to impute to him those of which he was never guilty. There is the best reason for believing that Charles, instead of being more favorably disposed, became more averse to the protestants in his latter days, and that, so far from repenting of the conduct which he had pursued towards them, his only regret was that he had not treated them with greater severity. When informed that Lutheranism was spreading in Spain, and that a number of persons had been apprehended under suspicion of being infected with it, he wrote letters, from the monastery of St. Juste, to his daughter Joanna, governess of Spain, to Juan de Vega, president of the council of Castile, and to the inquisitor general, charging them to exert their respective powers with all possible vigor “in seizing the whole party, and causing them all to be burnt, after using every means to make them Christians before their punishment; for he was persuaded that none of them would become sincere catholics, so irresistible was their propensity to dogmatize.” He afterwards sent Luis Quixada, his major-domo, to urge the execution of these measures. In conversation with the prior and monks of the convent, he took great credit to himself for having resisted the pressing solicitations of the protestant princes to read their books and admit their divines to an audience; although they promised on that condition to march with all their forces, at one time against the king of France, and at another against the Turk. The only thing for which he blamed himself was his leniency to them, and particularly keeping faith with the heresiarch. Speaking of the charge he had given to the inquisitors respecting the heretics in Spain, “If they do not condemn them to the fire,” said he, “they will commit a great fault, as I did in permitting Luther to live. Though I spared him solely on the ground of the safe-conduct I had sent him, and the promise I had made at a time when I expected to suppress the heretics by other means, I confess nevertheless that I did wrong in this, because I was not bound to keep my promise to that heretic, as he had offended a master greater than I, even God himself. I was at liberty then, yea I ought, to have forgotten my word, and avenged the injury he had done to God. If he had injured me only, I should have kept my promise faithful; but, in consequence of my not having taken away his life, heresy continued to make progress, whereas his death, I am persuaded, would have stifled it in its birth.” Nor does this rest merely on the evidence of reported conversations. In his testament, made in the Low countries, he charged his son “to be obedient to the commandments of holy mother church, and especially to favor and countenance the holy office of the Inquisition against heretical pravity and apostasy.” And in a codicil to it, executed in the convent of St. Juste a few weeks before his death, after mentioning the instructions he had formerly given on this subject, and the confidence which he placed in his son for carrying them into execution, he adds; “Therefore I entreat him and recommend to him with all possible and due earnestness, and moreover command him as a father, and by the obedience which he owes me, carefully to attend to this, as an object which is essential and nearly concerns him, that heretics be pursued and punished as their crime deserves, without excepting any who are guilty, and without showing any regard to entreaties, or to rank or quality. And that my intentions may be carried into full effect, I charge him to favour and cause to be favoured the holy Inquisition, which is the means of preventing and correcting so many evils, as I have enjoined in my testament; that so he may fulfil his duty as a prince, and that our Lord may prosper him in his reign, and protect him against his enemies, to my great peace and contentment.” f409 But though it appears from these facts that the imprisoned protestants had nothing to hope from Charles V., yet their calamities were aggravated by his retirement and the succession of Philip II. That bigotry which in the father was paralysed by the incipient dotage which had inflamed it, was combined in the son with all the vigor of youth, and with a temper naturally gloomy and unrelenting. Other circumstances conspired to seal the doom of the reformers in Spain. The wars which had so long raged between that country and France were terminated by the treaty of Chateau Cambresis, and the peace between the rival kingdoms was ratified by the marriage of Philip to the eldest daughter of the French king. Previously to that event the dissension between the Spanish monarch and the court of Rome had been amicably adjusted. The papal throne was filled at this time by Paul IV., a furious persecutor, and determined supporter of the Inquisition. And the office of inquisitor general in Spain was held by Francisco Valdes, a prelate who had already distinguished himself from his two immediate predecessors by the severity of his administration, and whose worldly passions were unmitigated by the advanced age to which he had arrived.

The supreme pontiff, the inquisitor general, and the monarch, were alike disposed to adopt the most illegal and sanguinary measures for extinguishing heresy in the Peninsula.

When only sixteen years of age, Philip gave a proof of his extreme devotion to the Inquisition, and of the principles on which his future reign was to be conducted. In the year 1543 the marquis de Terranova, viceroy of Sicily, ordered two familiars of the Holy Office to be brought before the ordinary tribunals, for certain crimes of which they were guilty. Though this was in perfect accordance with a law which, at the request of the inhabitants, Charles V. had promulgated, suspending for ten years the powers of the inquisitors to judge in such causes within the island, yet a complaint was made, on the part of the familiars, to Philip, then acting as regent of the Spanish dominions, who addressed a letter to the viceroy, exhorting him, as an obedient son of the church, to give satisfaction to the holy fathers whom he had offended. The consequence was, that the marquis, who was grand constable and admiral of Naples, one of the first peers of Spain, and sprung from the royal stock of Aragon, felt himself obliged to do penance in the church of the Dominican monastery, and to pay a hundred ducats to the catchpolls of the Inquisition, whose vices he had presumed to correct. During the regency of the prince, the Spanish inquisitors in more than one instance obtained the revival of those powers which had been suspended, as at once injurious to the civil judicatures and to the liberties of the subject. f411 During the negotiation in 1557 between the court of Spain and the Roman see, which ended so disgracefully to the former, Philip wrote to his general, the duke of Alva, “that Rome was a prey to great calamities at the time of his birth, and it would be wrong in him to subject it to similar evils at the commencement of his reign; it was therefore his will that peace should be speedily concluded on terms no way dishonorable to his Holiness; for he would rather part with the rights of his crown than touch in the slightest degree those of the holy see.” In pursuance of these instructions, Alva, as viceroy of Naples, was obliged to fall on his knees, and, in his own name, as well as that of his master and the emperor, to beg pardon of the pope for all the offenses specified in the treaty of peace; upon which they were absolved from the censures which they had respectively incurred.

After this ceremony was over, the haughty and gratified pontiff, turning to the cardinals, told them “that he had now rendered to the holy see the most important service it would ever receive; and that the example which the Spanish monarch had just given would teach popes henceforth how to abase the pride of kings, who knew not the extent of that obeisance which they legitimately owed to the heads of the church.” With good reason might Charles V. say in his testament, when leaving his dying charge to extirpate heresy, “that he was persuaded the king his son would use every possible effort to crush so great an evil with all the severity and promptitude which it required.” f414 Paul IV. acceded with the utmost readiness to the applications which were now addressed to him by Philip, in concurrence with Valdes, the inquisitor general, for such enlargements of the authority of the Holy Office as would enable it to compass the condemnation of the heretics who were in prison, and to seize and convict others. On the 15th of February 1558 he issued a summary brief, renewing all the decisions of councils and sovereign pontiffs against heretics and schismatics; declaring that this measure was rendered necessary by the information he had received of the daily and increasing progress of heresy; and charging Valdes to prosecute the guilty, and inflict upon them the punishments decreed by the constitutions, particularly that which deprived them of all their dignities and functions, “whether they were bishops, archbishops, patriarchs, cardinals or legates,—barons, counts, marquises, dukes, princes, kings or emperors.” This sweeping brief, from whose operation none was exempted but his Holiness, was made public in Spain with the approbation of the monarch, soon after he himself and his father had been threatened with excommunication and dethronement. Valdes, in concurrence with the council of the Supreme, prepared instructions to all the tribunals of the Inquisition, directing them, among other things, to search for heretical books, and to make a public auto-de-fe of such as they should discover, including many works not mentioned in any former prohibitory index. f416 This was also the epoch of that terrible law of Philip which ordained the punishment of death, with confiscation of goods, against all who sold, bought, read, or possessed any book that was forbidden by the Holy Office. To ferret the poor heretics from their lurking-places, and to drive them into the toils of the bloody statute, Paul IV., on the 6th of January 1559, issued a bull, enjoining all confessors strictly to examine their penitents of whatever rank, from the lowest to that of cardinal or king, and to charge them to denounce all whom they know to be guilty of this offence, under the pain of the greater excommunication, from which none but the pope or the inquisitor general could release them; and subjecting such confessors as neglected this duty to the same punishment that was threatened against their penitents. On the following day the pope declared, in full consistory, that the heresy of Luther and other innovators being propagated in Spain, he had reasons to suspect that it had been embraced by some bishops; on which account he authorized the grand inquisitor, during two years from that day, to hold an inquest on all bishops, archbishops, patriarchs, and primates of that kingdom, to commence their processes, and, in case he had grounds to suspect that they intended to make their escape, to seize and detain them, on condition of his giving notice of this immediately to the sovereign pontiff, and conveying the prisoners, as soon as possible, to Rome. f419 As if these measures had not been calculated sufficiently to multiply denunciations, Philip seconded them by an edict renewing a royal ordinance, which had fallen into desuetude or been suspended, and which entitled informers to the fourth part of the property of those found guilty of heresy. But the existing code of laws, even after those which had been long disabled or forgotten were revived, was too mild for the rulers of this period. Statutes still more barbarous and unjust were enacted. At the request of Philip and Valdes, the pope, on the 4th of February 1559, gave forth a brief, authorizing the council of the Supreme, in derogation of the standing laws of the Inquisition, to deliver over to the secular arm those who were convicted of having taught the Lutheran opinions, even though they had not relapsed, and were willing to recant. It has been justly observed, that though history had had nothing else with which to reproach Philip II. and the inquisitor general Valdes, than their having solicited this bull, it would have been sufficient to consign their names to infamy.

Neither Ferdinand V. and Torquemada, nor Charles V. and Manriquez, had pushed matters to this length. They never thought of burning alive, or subjecting to capital punishment, persons who were convicted of falling into heresy for the first time, and who confessed their errors; nor did they think themselves warranted to proceed to this extremity by the suspicion that such confessions were dictated by the fear of death. This was the last invention of tyranny, inflamed into madness by hatred and dread of the truth. Were it necessary to point out aggravations of this iniquity, we might state that the punishment was to be inflicted for actions done before the law was enacted; and that it was unblushingly applied to those who had long been immured in the cells of the Inquisition. f421 The next object was to find fit agents for carrying these sanguinary statutes into execution. It is one of the wise arrangements of a merciful providence for thwarting designs hurtful to human society, and for inspiring their authors with the dread of ultimate discomfiture, that wicked men and tyrants are disposed to suspect the most slavish and devoted instruments of their will. The individuals at the head of the inquisitorial tribunals of Seville and Valladolid had incurred the suspicions of Valdes, as guilty of culpable negligence, if not of connivance at the protestants, who had held their conventicles in the two principal cities of the kingdom, almost with open doors. To guard against any thing of this kind for the future, and to provide for the multiplicity of business which the late disclosures had created, he delegated his powers of inquisitor general to two individuals, in whom he could place entire confidence, Gonzales Munebrega, archbishop of Tarragona, and Pedro de la Gasca, archbishop of Palencia, who fixed their residence, the former at Seville, and the latter at Valladolid, in the character of vice-inquisitors general. Both substitutes proved themselves worthy of the trust reposed in them; but the conduct of Munebrega gratified the highest expectations of Valdes and Philip. When engaged in superintending the examinations of the prisoners, and giving directions as to the torture which to which they should be put, he was accustomed to indulge in the most profane and cruel raillery, saying that these heretics had the commandment, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” so deeply seated in their hearts, that it was necessary to tear the flesh from their bones, to make them inform against their brethren. During the intervals of business, he was to be seen sailing in his barge on the river, or walking in the gardens of the Triana, dressed in purple and silk, accompanied with a train of servants, surrounded by wretched poetasters, and followed by hired crowds, who at one time saluted him with their huzzas, and at another insulted the protestants, whom they descried through the grated windows of the castle. An anecdote which is told of him, though trifling compared with the horrors of that time, deserves to be repeated as a proof of the insolence of office, and one among many instances of the shameless manner in which the inquisitors converted their authority into an instrument of gratifying their meanest passions. A servant of the vice-inquisitor general snatched a stick one day from the gardener’s son, who was amusing himself in one of the avenues. The father, attracted by the cries of his child, came to the spot, and having in vain desired the servant to restore the stick, wrested it from his hand, which was slightly injured in the struggle. A complaint was instantly made to Munebrega; and the conduct of the gardener being found sufficient to fasten on him a suspicion of heresy de levi , he was thrown into prison, where he lay nine months heavily ironed. f424 The reader will mistake very much, if he suppose that the holy fathers undertook all these extraordinary services from pure zeal for the truth, or under the idea that their superabundant and supererogatory labors would secure to them an unseen and future recompense. If heretics were visited in this life with exemplary punishment for the sins of which they had been guilty, why should not the defenders of the faith have “their good things” in this life? To meet the expenses of this domestic crusade, the pope, at the request of the inquisitors, authorized them to appropriate to their use certain ecclesiastical revenues, and granted them, in addition, an extraordinary subsidy of a hundred thousand ducats of gold, to be raised by the clergy. The bull issued for that purpose stated, that the heresy of Luther had made an alarming progress in Spain, where it was embraced by many rich and powerful individuals; that, with the view of putting a stop to it, the inquisitor general had been obliged to commit to prison a multitude of suspected persons, to increase the number of judges in the provincial tribunals, to employ supernumerary familiars, and to purchase and keep in readiness a supply of horses in the different parts of the kingdom for the pursuit of fugitives; and that the ordinary revenue of the Holy Office was quite insufficient to defray the expenses of so enlarged an establishment, and at the same time to maintain such of the prisoners as were destitute of means to support themselves. Zealous as the clergy in general were against heresy, they fretted exceedingly against this tax on their income; and after the Inquisition had succeeded in exterminating the Lutherans, it needed to direct its thunders, and even to call in the assistance of the secular arm, against certain refractory canons, who resisted the payment of the sums in which they had been assessed. f425 While these preparations were going on, it is not easy to conceive, but easier to conceive than describe, the situation and feelings of the captive protestants. To have had the prospect of an open trial, though accompanied with the certainty of being convicted and doomed to an ignominious death, would have been relief to their minds. But, instead of this, they were condemned to a protracted confinement, during which their melancholy solitude was only broken in upon by attempts to bereave them of their best consolation; distracted, on the one hand, by the entreaties of their disconsolate friends, who besought them to purchase their lives by an early recantation, and harassed, on the other, by the endless examinations to which they were subjected by their persecutors; assured to-day that they would escape provided they made an ingenuous confession of all they knew, and told to-morrow that the confessions which they had made in confidence had only served to confirm the suspicions entertained of their sincerity; hearing, at one time, of some unhappy individual who was added to their number, and receiving, at another time, the still more distressing intelligence that a fellow-prisoner, entangled by sophistry, or overcome by torments, had consented to abjure the truth. A milder tribunal would have been satisfied with making an example of the ringleaders, or would have brought out the guilty for execution as soon as their trials could be overtaken. The policy of Philip II. and his inquisitors was different. They wished to strike terror into the minds of the whole nation, and exhibit to Europe a grand spectacle of zeal for the catholic faith, and vengeance against heresy. Filled with those fears which ever haunt the minds of tyrants, they imagined that heresy had spread more extensively than was really the case, and therefore sought to extort from their prisoners such confessions as would lead to the discovery of those who still remained concealed, or who might be in the slightest degree infected with the new opinions. While they had not the most distant intention of extending mercy to those who professed themselves penitent, and had already procured a law which warranted them to withhold it, they were nevertheless anxious to secure a triumph to the catholic faith, by having it in their power to read, in the public auto-de-fe, the forced retractions of those who had embraced the truth. With this view, the greater part of the protestants were detained in prison for two, and some of them for three years, during which their bodily health was broken, or their spirit subdued, by the rigor of confinement and the severity of torture. The consequence of this treatment was, that the constancy of some of them was shaken, while others ended their days by a lingering and secret martyrdom.

Among those of the last class was Constantine Ponce de la Fuente.

Exposed as he was to the hatred of those who envied his popularity, and the jealousy of those who looked upon him as the ablest supporter of the new opinions, it is not to be supposed that this learned man could escape the storm that overwhelmed the reformed church in Spain. He was among the first who were apprehended, when the familiars were let loose on the protestants of Seville. When information was conveyed to Charles V. in the monastery of St. Juste, that his favorite chaplain was thrown into prison, he exclaimed, “If Constantine be a heretic, he is a great one!” and when assured, at a subsequent period, by one of his inquisitors, that he had been found guilty, he replied with a sigh, “You cannot condemn a greater!” f428 The joy which the inquisitors felt at obtaining possession of the person of a man whom they had long eyed with jealousy, was in no small degree abated by the difficulties which they found in the way of procuring his conviction. Knowing the perilous circumstances in which he was placed, he had for some time back exercised the utmost circumspection over his words and actions. His confidential friends, as we have already stated, were always few and select. His penetration enabled him with a single glance to detect the traitor under his mask; and his knowledge of human nature kept him from committing himself to the weak though honest partisans of the reformed faith. The veneration and esteem in which he was held by his friends was so great, that they would have died sooner than compromise his safety by their confessions. When brought before his judges, he maintained his innocence, challenged the public prosecutor to show that he had done any thing criminal, and repelled the charges brought against him with such ability and success as threw his adversaries into the greatest perplexity. There was every probability that he would finally baffle their efforts to convict him of heresy, when an unforeseen occurrence obliged him to abandon the line of defence which he had hitherto pursued. Dona Isabella Martinia, a widow lady of respectability and opulence, had been thrown into prison as a suspected heretic, and her property confiscated.

The inquisitors being informed, by the treachery of a servant in the family, that her son, Francisco Bertran, had contrived, before the inventory was taken, to secrete certain coffers containing valuable effects, sent their alguazil, Luis Sotelo, to demand them. As soon as the alguazil entered the house, Bertran, in great trepidation, told him he knew his errand, and would deliver up what he wanted, on condition that he screened him from the vengeance of the Inquisition. Conducting the alguazil to a retired part of the building, and breaking down a thin partition-wall, he disclosed a quantity of books which Constantine Ponce had deposited with his mother for the purpose of security, some time before his imprisonment. Sotelo signified that these were not exactly what he was in search of, but that he would take charge of them, along with the coffers which he was instructed to carry to the Holy Office. Dazzling as were the jewels of Isabella Martinia, the eyes of the inquisitors glistened still more at the sight of the books of Constantine. On examining them, they found, beside various heretical works, a volume of his own handwriting, in which the points of controversy between the church of Rome and the protestants were discussed at considerable length. In it the author treated of the true church according to the principles of Luther and Calvin, and, by an application of the different marks which the scriptures gave for discriminating it, showed that the papal church had no claim to the title. In a similar way he decided the questions respecting justification, the merit of good works, the sacraments, indulgences, and purgatory; calling this last the wolf’s head, and an invention of the monks to feed idle bellies. When the volume was shown to Constantine, he acknowledged at once that it was in his handwriting, and contained his sentiments. “It is unnecessary for you (added he) to produce further evidence: you have there a candid and full confession of my belief. I am in your hands; do with me as seemeth to you good.” f429 No arts or threatenings could prevail on him to give any information respecting his associates. With the view of inducing the other prisoners to plead guilty, the agents of the Holy Office circulated the report that he had informed against them when put to the question; and they even suborned witnesses to depone that they had heard his cries on the rack, though he never endured that inhuman mode of examination. By what motives the judges were restrained from subjecting him to it, is uncertain. I can only conjecture that it proceeded from respect to the feelings of the emperor; for, soon after his death, Constantine was removed from the apartment which he had hitherto occupied, and thrust into a low, damp, and noisome vault, where he endured more than his brethren did from the application of the engines of torture. Oppressed and worn out with a mode of living so different from what he had been used to, he was heard to exclaim, “O my God, were there no Scythians, or cannibals, or pagans still more savage, that thou hast permitted me to fall into the hands of these baptized fiends?”

He could not remain long in such a situation. Putrid air and unwholesome diet, together with grief for the ruin of the reformed cause in his native country, brought on a dysentery, which put an end to his days, after he had been nearly two years in confinement. f430 Not satisfied with wreaking their vengeance on him when alive, his adversaries circulated the report that he had put an end to his own life by opening a vein with a piece of broken glass; and ballads grounded on this fabricated story, and containing other slanders, were indecently hawked through the streets of Seville. Had there been the least foundation for this report, we may be sure the inquisitors would have taken care to verify it, by ordering an inquest to be held on the dead body. But the calumny was refuted by the testimony of a young monk of San Isidro, named Fernando, who being providentially confined in the same cell with Constantine, ministered to him during his sickness, and closed his eyes in peace. f431 The slanders which were at this time so industriously propagated against him, only serve to show the anxiety of the inquisitors to blast his fame, and the dread which they felt lest the reformed opinions should gain credit from the circumstance of their having been embraced by a person of so great eminence and popularity. In this object, however, they did not succeed altogether to their wish. This appeared when his effigy and bones were brought out in the public auto-de-fe celebrated at Seville on the 22d of December 1560. The effigies of such heretics as had escaped from justice, by flight or by death, usually consisted of a shapeless piece of patch-work surmounted by a head; that of Constantine Ponce consisted of a regular human figure, complete in all its parts, dressed after the manner in which he appeared in public, and representing him in his most common attitude of preaching, with one arm resting on the pulpit and the other elevated. The production of this figure in the spectacle, when his sentence was about to be read, excited a lively recollection of a preacher so popular, and drew from the spectators an expression of feeling by no means pleasing to the inquisitors. In consequence of this they caused it to be withdrawn from the prominent situation which it occupied, and to be brought near to their own platform, where they commenced the reading of the articles of the libel on which Constantine had been condemned. The people, displeased at this step, and not hearing what was read, began to murmur; upon which Calderon, who, as mayor of the city, presided on the occasion, desired the acting secretary to go to the pulpit provided for that part of the ceremony.

This intimation being disregarded, the murmurs were renewed, and the mayor, raising his voice, ordered the service to be suspended. The inquisitors were obliged to restore the effigy to its former place, and to recommence the reading of the sentence in the audience of the people; but the secretary was instructed, after naming a few of the errors into which the deceased had fallen, to conclude by saying, that he had vented others so horrible and impious that they could not be heard without pollution by vulgar ears. After this the effigy was sent to the house of the Inquisition, and another of ordinary construction was conveyed to the stake to be burnt along with the bones of Constantine. The inquisitors were not a little puzzled how to act respecting his works, which had already been printed by their approbation; but they at last agreed to prohibit them, “not because they had found any thing in them worthy of condemnation,” as their sentence runs, “but because it was not fit that any honorable memorial of a man doomed to infamy should be transmitted to posterity.” But they had a still more delicate task to perform. The history of a voyage to Flanders by Philip II. when prince of Asturias, had been printed at Madrid by royal authority, in which his chaplain Constantine was described as “the greatest philosopher, the pro-foundest divine, and the most eloquent preacher, who has been in Spain for many ages.” Whether Philip himself gave information of this work, we know not; but there can be no doubt that he would have run the risk of excommunication by retaining it in his library, after it was stigmatized by the inquisitorial censors of the press. They ordered all the copies of the book to be delivered to them, that they might delete the obnoxious panegyric; “and on this passage,” says one who afterwards procured a copy of the History in Spain, “the expurgator of the book, which is in my hands, was so liberal of his ink, that I had much ado to read it.” f434 Constantine Ponce was not the only protestant who fell a sacrifice to the noxious vapors and ordure of the inquisitorial prisons. This was also the fate of Olmedo, a man distinguished for his learning and piety, who fell into the hands of the inquisitors of Seville, and was often heard to exclaim, that there was no species of torture which he would not endure in preference to the horrors of his present situation. Considering the treatment which the prisoners received, it is wonderful that many of them were not driven to distraction. One individual only, a female, had recourse to the desperate remedy of shortening her days. Juana Sanchez, a beata , after having long kept in prison at Valladolid, was found guilty of heresy. Coming to the knowledge of her sentence before it was formally intimated to her, she cut her throat with a pair of scissors, and died of the wound in the course of a few days. During the interval every effort was employed by the friars to induce her, not to repent of her suicide, but to recant the errors which she had cherished. She repulsed them with indignation, as monsters equally devoid of humanity and religion. f436 I must again refer my readers to the common histories of the Inquisition, for information as to the modes of torture and other cruel devices used for procuring evidence to convict those who were imprisoned on a charge of heresy. One or two instances, however, are of such a character that it would be unpardonable to omit them in this place. Among the protestants seized at Seville was the widow of Fernando Nugnez, a native of the town of Lepe, with three of her daughters and a married sister. As there was no evidence against them, they were put to the torture, but refused to inform against one another. Upon this the presiding inquisitor called one of the young women into the audience-chamber, and after conversing with her for some time, professed an attachment to her person. Having repeated this at another interview, he told her, that he could be of no service to her unless she imparted to him the whole facts of her case; but if she intrusted him with these, he would manage the affair in such a way as that she and all her friends should be set at liberty. Falling into the snare, the unsuspecting girl confessed to him that she had at different times conversed with her mother, sisters, and aunt, on the Lutheran doctrines. The wretch immediately brought her into court, and obliged her to declare judicially what she had owned to him in private. Nor was this all: under the pretence that her confession was not sufficiently ample and ingenuous, she was put to the torture by the most excruciating engines, the pulley and the wooden horse; by which means evidence was extorted from her, which led, not only to the condemnation of herself and her relations, but also to the seizure and conviction of others who afterwards perished in the flames. Another instance relates to a young countryman of our own. An English vessel, which had entered the port of St. Lucar, was visited by the familiars of the Inquisition, and several of her crew, who, with the frankness of British seamen, avowed themselves protestants, were seized before they came on shore. Along with them the familiars conveyed to prison a boy of twelve years of age, the son of a respectable merchant to whom the principal part of the cargo belonged. The pretext for his apprehension was, that an English psalm-book was found in his portmanteau; but there is reason to believe that the real ground was the hope of extorting from the father a rich ransom for his son’s liberation. Having been piously educated, the youth was observed to be regular in his devotions, and to relieve the irksomeness of his confinement by occasionally singing one of the psalms which he had committed to memory. Both of these were high offenses; for every piece of devotion not conducted under the direction of its ghostly agents, and even every mark of cheerfulness on the part of the prisoners, is strictly prohibited within the gloomy walls of the Holy Office. On the report of the jailer, the boy’s confinement was rendered more severe; in consequence of which he lost the use of both his limbs, and it was found necessary, for the preservation of his life, to remove him to the public hospital. f439 So shameful were the measures taken for procuring the conviction of the prisoners at this time, that a legal investigation of the procedure in the inquisitorial tribunals was afterwards demanded by persons of great respectability in the church. In 1560, Senor Enriquez, an ecclesiastic of rank in the collegiate church of Valladolid, presented to Philip a remonstrance against the inquisition of that city, in which he charged it with tyranny and avarice. Among other things he asserted, that in the cause of Cazalla the officers had allowed the nuns, who like him were imprisoned for Lutheranism, to converse together, that, by confirming one another in their errors, the judged might have it in their power to condemn them, and thus to confiscate their property. Having accomplished the object which they had in view, they changed their measures, kept the prisoners apart, and, by examinations and visits, promises and threatenings, tried every method to induce them to recant and die in the bosom of the church. f440 Nearly two years having been spent in the previous steps, the time was considered as come, according to Spanish ideas of unity of action, for the exhibition of the last scene of the horrible tragedy. Orders were accordingly issued by the council of the Supreme for the celebration of public autos-de-fe, under the direction of the several tribunals of inquisition through the kingdom. Those which took place in Seville and Valladolid were the most noted for the pomp with which they were solemnized, and for the number and rank of their victims. Before describing these, it may be proper to give the reader a general idea of the nature of these exhibitions, and the order in which they were usually conducted.

An auto-de-fe , or act of faith , was either particular or general. In the particular auto, or autillo , as it is called, the offender appeared before the inquisitors in their hall, either alone or in the presence of a select number of witnesses, and had his sentence intimated to him. A general auto, in which a number of heretics were brought out, was performed with the most imposing solemnity, and formed an imitation of an ancient Roman triumph, combined with the last judgment. It was always celebrated on a Sunday or holyday, in the largest church, but more frequently in the most spacious square, of the town in which it happened to be held. Intimation of it was publicly made beforehand in all the churches and religious houses in the neighbourhood. The attendance of the civil authorities as well as of the clergy, secular and regular, was required; and, with the view of attracting the multitude, an indulgence of forty days was proclaimed to all who should witness the ceremonies of the act.

On the evening preceding the auto, such of the prisoners as were penitent, and were to suffer a punishment milder than death, were assembled, the males in one apartment of the prison, and the females in another, when they had their respective sentences intimated to them. At midnight a confessor entered the cell of the prisoners who were sentenced to the stake, and intimated to them for the first time the fate which awaited them, accompanying the intimation with earnest exhortations to recant their errors, and die reconciled to the church; in which case they obtained the favor of being strangled before their bodies were committed to the flames.

On such occasions the most heart-rending scenes sometimes took place.

Early on the following morning the bells of all the churches began to toll, when the officials of the Inquisition repaired to the prison, and having assembled the prisoners, clothed them in the several dresses in which they were to make their appearance at the spectacle. Those who were found suspected of having erred in a slight degree were simply clothed in black.

The other prisoners wore a sanbenito, or species of loose vest of yellow cloth, called zamarra in Spanish. On the sanbenito of those who were to be strangled were painted flames burning downwards, which the Spaniards call fuego revolto, to intimate that they had escaped the fire. The sanbenito of those who were doomed to be burnt alive was covered with figures of flames burning upwards, around which were painted devils carrying fagots, or fanning the fire. Similar marks of infamy appeared on the pasteboard cap, called coroza , which was put on their heads. After this ceremony was over, they were desired to partake of a sumptuous breakfast, which, on their refusal, was devoured by the menials of the office.

The persons who were to take part in the ceremony being all assembled in the court of the prison, the procession moved on, generally in the following order. Preceded by a band of soldiers to clear the way, came a certain number of priests in their surplices, attended by a company of young persons, such as the boys of the college of Doctrine in Seville, who chanted the liturgy in alternate choruses. They were followed by the prisoners, arranged in different classes according to the degrees of their supposed delinquencies, the most guilty being place last, having either extinguished torches or else crosses in their hands, and halters suspended from their necks. Every prisoner was guarded by two familiars, and, in addition to this, those who were condemned to die were attended each by two friars.

After the prisoners came the local magistrates, the judges, and officers of state, accompanied by a train of nobility on horseback. They were succeeded by the secular and monastic clergy. At some distance from these were to be seen moving forward, in slow and solemn pomp, the members of the Holy Office, the persons who principally shared the triumph of the day, preceded by their fiscal, bearing the standard of the Inquisition, composed of red silk damask, on which the names and insignia of pope Sixtus IV. and Ferdinand the Catholic, the founders of the tribunal, were conspicuous, and surmounted by a crucifix of massive silver, overlaid with gold, which was held in the highest veneration by the populace. They were followed by the familiars on horseback, forming their body-guard, and including many of the principal gentry of the country as honorary members.

The procession was closed by an immense concourse of the common people, who advanced without any regular order.

Having arrived at the place of the auto, the inquisitors ascended the platform erected for their reception, and the prisoners were conducted to another which was placed opposite to it. The service commenced with a sermon, usually preached by some distinguished prelate; after which the clerk of the tribunal read the sentences of the penitents, who, on their knees, and with hands laid on the missal, repeated their confessions. The presiding inquisitor then descended from the throne on which he sat, and advancing to the altar, absolved the penitents a culpa , leaving them under the obligation to bear the several punishments to which they had been adjudged, whether these consisted of penances, banishment, whipping, hard labour, or imprisonment. He then administered an oath to all who were present at the spectacle, binding them to live and die in the communion of the Roman church, and to uphold and defend, against all its adversaries, the tribunal of the Holy Inquisition; during which ceremony the people were to be seen all at once on their knees in the streets. The more tragical part of the scene now followed. The sentences of those who were doomed to die having been publicly read, such of them as were in holy orders were publicly degraded, by being stripped, piece by piece, of their priestly vestments; a ceremony which was performed with every circumstance calculated to expose them to ignominy and execration in the eyes of the superstitious beholders. After this they were formally delivered over to the secular judges, to suffer the punishment awarded to heretics by the civil law. It was on this occasion that the inquisitors performed that impious farce which has excited the indignation of all in whose breasts fanaticism, or some worse principle, has not extinguished every sentiment of common feeling. When they delivered the prisoner into the hands of the secular judges whom they had summoned to receive him, they besought them to treat him with clemency and compassion. This they did to escape falling under the censure of irregularity , which the canons of the church had denounced against ecclesiastics who should be accessory to the inflicting of any bodily injury. Yet they not only knew what would be the consequence of their act, but had taken all the precautions necessary for securing it. Five days before the auto-de-fe, they acquainted the ordinary royal judge with the number of prisoners to be delivered over to him, in order that the proper quantity of stakes, wood, and every thing else requisite for the execution, might be in readiness. The prisoners once declared by the inquisitors to be impenitent or relapsed heretics, nothing was competent to the magistrate but to pronounce the sentence adjudging them to the flames; and had he presumed in any instance to change the sentence of death into perpetual imprisonment, though it were in one of the remotest forts of Asia, Africa, or America, he would soon have felt the vengeance of the Holy Office. Besides, the statutes adjudging heretics to the fire had been confirmed by numerous bulls of popes, which commanded the inquisitors to watch over their exact observance. And in accordance with this, they, at every auto-de-fe, required the magistrates to swear that they would faithfully execute the sentences against the persons of heretics, without delay, “in the way and manner prescribed by the sacred canons, and the laws which treated on the subject. Were it necessary to say more on this topic, we might add that the very appearance of the prisoners, when brought out in the public spectacle, proclaimed the unblushing hypocrisy of the inquisitors. They implored the secular judge to treat with lenity and compassion persons whom they themselves had worn to skeletons by a cruel incarceration,—not to shed the blood of him from whose body they had often made the blood to spring, nor to break a bone of her whose tender limbs were already distorted and mangled by their hellish tortures! f446 The penitents having been remanded to their several prisons, the other prisoners were led away to execution. Some writers have spoken as if they were executed on the spot where their sentence was read, and in the presence of all who had witnessed the preceding parts of the spectacle.

This however is a mistake. The stakes were erected without the walls of the town where the auto-de-fe was celebrated; but though the last act was deemed too horrid to be exhibited on the same stage with those which we have described, yet it was performed publicly, and was witnessed, not only by the mob, but by persons who from their rank and station might have been expected to turn with disgust from so revolting a spectacle.

Seville contained by far the greatest number of protestants under confinement; and the long period during which its prisons has been crowded gave it a claim to the benefit of the first jail-delivery. Valla-dolid, however, was preferred; for no other reason, apparently, than that it afforded the Inquisition the opportunity of exhibiting the greatest proportion of criminals of whom it could boast as converts from heresy.

The first public auto-de-fe of protestants was accordingly celebrated in Valladolid on the 21st of May 1559, being Trinity Sunday, in the presence of Don Carlos the heir apparent to the crown, and his aunt Juana, queen dowager of Portugal and governess of the kingdom during the absence of her brother Philip II.; attended by a great concourse of persons of all ranks.

It was performed in the grand square between the church of St. Francis and the house of the Consistory. In the front of the town-house, and by the side of the platform occupied by the inquisitors, a box was erected, which the royal family could enter without interruption from the crowd, and in which they had a full view of the prisoners. The spectacle continued from six o’clock in the morning till two in the afternoon, during which the people exhibited no symptoms of impatience, nor did the queen retire until the whole was concluded. The sermon was preached by the celebrated Melchior Cano, bishop of the Canaries; the bishop of Palencia, to whose diocese Valladolid at that time belonged, performed the ceremony of degrading such of the victims as were in holy orders. When the company were assembled and had taken their places, Francisco Baca, the presiding inquisitor, advancing to the bed of state on which the prince and his aunt were seated, administered to them the oath to support the Holy Office, and to reveal to it every thing contrary to the faith which might come to their knowledge, without respect of persons. This was the first time that such an oath had been exacted from any of the royal family; and Don Carlos, who was then only fourteen years of age, is said from that moment to have vowed an implacable hatred to the Inquisition.

The prisoners brought forth on this occasion amounted to thirty, of whom sixteen were reconciled, and fourteen were “relaxed,” or delivered over to the secular arm. Of the last class, two were thrown alive into the flames, while the remainder were previously strangled.

The greater part of the first class were persons distinguished by their rank and connections. Don Pedro Sarmiento de Roxas, son of the first marquis de Poza, and of a daughter of the conde de Salinas y Ribadeo, was stripped of his ornaments as chevalier of St. James, deprived of his office as commander of Quintana, and condemned to wear a perpetual sanbenito, to be imprisoned for life, and to have his memory declared infamous. His wife Dona Mercia de Figueroa, dame of honor to the queen, was sentenced to wear the coat of infamy, and to be confined during the remainder of her life. His nephew don Luis de Roxas, eldest son of the second marquis de Poza, and grandson of the marquis d’Alcagnizes, was exiled from the cities of Madrid, Valladolid, and Palencia, forbidden to leave the kingdom, and declared incapable of succeeding to the honors or estates of his father. Dona Ana Henriquez de Roxas, daughter of the marquis d’Alcagnizes, and wife of Don Juan Alonso de Fonseca Mexia, was a lady of great accomplishments, understood the Latin language perfectly, and though only twenty-four years of age, was familiar with the writings of the reformers, particularly those of Calvin. She appeared in the sanbenito, and was condemned to be separated from her husband and spend her days in a monastery. Her aunt Dona Maria de Roxas, a nun of St. Catherine in Valladolid, and forty years of age, received sentence of perpetual penance and imprisonment, from which, however, she was released by an influence which the inquisitors did not choose to resist. f450 Don Juan de Ulloa Pereira, brother to the marquis de la Mota, was subjected to the same punishment as the first-mentioned nobleman. This brave chevalier had distinguished himself in many engagements against the Turks both by sea and land, and performed so great feats of valor in the expeditions to Algiers, Bugia, and other parts of Africa, that Charles the Fifth had advanced him to the rank of first captain, and afterwards of general. Having appealed to Rome against the sentence of the inquisitors, and represented the services which he had done to Christendom, De Ulloa was eventually restored to his rank as commander of the order of St. John of Jerusalem. Juan de Vibero Cazalla, his wife Dona Silva de Ribera, his sister Dona Constanza, Dona Francisca Zunega de Baeza, Marina de Saavedra the widow of a hidalgo named Juan Cisneros de Soto, and Leanor de Cisneros, (whose husband Antonio Herezuelo was doomed to a severer punishment) with four others of inferior condition, were condemned to wear the sanbenito, and be imprisoned for life. The imprisonment of Anthony Wasor, an Englishman, and servant to Don Luis de Roxas, was restricted to one year’s confinement in a convent.

Confiscation of property was an article in the sentence of all these persons. f451 Among those who were delivered over to the secular arm, one of the most celebrated was Doctor Augustin Cazalla. His reputation, and the office he had held as chaplain to the late emperor, made him an object of particular attention to the inquisitors. During his confinement he underwent frequent examinations, with the view of establishing the charges against himself and his fellow-prisoners. Cazalla was deficient in the courage which was requisite for the situation into which he had brought himself. On the 4th of March 1559 he was conducted into the place of torture, when he shrunk from the trial, and promising to submit to his judges, made a declaration, in which he confessed that he had embraced the Lutheran doctrine, but denied that he had ever taught it, except to those who were of the same sentiments with himself. This answered all the wishes of the inquisitors, who were determined that he should expiate his offence by death, at the same time that they kept him in suspense as to his fate, with the view of procuring from him additional information. On the evening before the auto-de-fe, Antonio de Carrera, a monk of St. Jerome, being sent to acquaint him with his sentence, Cazalla begged earnestly to know, if he might entertain hopes of escaping capital punishment; to which Carrera replied, that the inquisitors could not rely on his declaration, but that, if he would confess all that the witnesses had deponed against him, mercy might perhaps be extended to him. This cautious reply convinced Cazalla that his doom was fixed. “Well, then,” said he, “I must prepare to die in the grace of God; for it is impossible for me to add to what I have said, without falsehood.” He confessed himself to Carrera that night, and next morning. On the scaffold, seeing his sister Constanza passing among those who were sentenced to perpetual imprisonment, he pointed to her, and said to the princess Juana, “I beseech your highness, have compassion on this unfortunate woman, who has thirteen orphan children!” At the place of execution, he addressed a few words to his fellow-prisoners in the character of a penitent, in virtue of which he obtained the poor favor of being strangled before his body was committed to the fire. His confessor was so pleased with his behavior as to say, he had no doubt Cazalla was in heaven. His sister Dona Beatriz de Vibero, Doctor Alonso Perez, a priest of Palencia, Don Christobal de Ocampo, chevalier of the order of St.

John of Jerusalem, and almoner to the grand prior of Castile, Don Christobal de Padilla, and seven others, shared the same fate as Cazalla.

Among these were the husband of the woman who had informed against the protestant conventicle in Valladolid, and four females, one of whom, Dona Catalina de Ortega, was daughter-in-law to the fiscal of the royal council of Castile. They were all protestants, except Gonzales Baez, a Portuguese, who was condemned as a relapsed Jew. f455 The two individuals who on this occasion had the honor to endure the flames were Francisco de Vibero Cazalla, parish priest of Hormigos, and Antonio Herezuelo, an advocate of Toro. Some writers say that the former begged, when under the torture, to be admitted to reconciliation; but it is certain that he gave no sign of weakness or a wish to recant on the day of the auto-de-fe. Seeing his brother Augustin Cazalla, not at the stake, but on the adjoining scaffold among the penitents, and being prevented from speaking by the gag, he signified his sorrow by an expressive motion of his hands; after which he bore the fire without shrinking. Herezuel