21

MEMORIALS OF THE INQUISITION.

(Continued from vol. viii. p. 626.)

CHAP. VI.

Treatment of a Prisoner in the Dungeons and Hall of Audience. In the last chapter some account was given of the consequences of an arrest by the holy office, as far as these affected the party arrested. It was not, however, in his person alone that the accused was doomed to suffer. No sooner was the fearful warrant executed, than one of the inquisitors, attended by a body of officials, repaired to the captive's dwelling. With the most unsparing scrutiny, every hiding-place, every chest, every closet was searched for matter out of which to convict the prisoner; or, at least, for such papers and documents as might serve to justify the tribunal in dealing with him to the utmost extent of its own most cruel usage. Whether the search proved successful or not, the inquisitor made of his books, papers, and effects, the most exact catalogue. All his property, indeed, was registered; and such were the effects of fear on the minds of his relatives, that they not only made no attempts to keep anything back, but they positively volunteered information often when there was no natural clue to lead to it. When this was done, the inquisition proceeded to seize for its own use, either the whole or a large portion of the goods of its captive, under the pretext of securing a fund, out of which the expenses incident on the investigation might be defrayed. And to such an extreme was this system carried, that, with men of moderate fortune, an arrest amounted virtually to absolute ruin, while the wealthy were thankful to escape with the loss of a full moiety of their estates.

The property of the accused being thus disposed of, proceedings against himself began, which were for the most part so tedious, that weeks, sometimes months, elapsed ere the captive was so much as made aware of the grounds of his captivity. All this while he was the inmate of a dungeon, so terrible, both in itself and in its adjuncts, as to dispose the mind, however strong, to the influence of absolute despondency. The prisons of the Inquisition were, indeed, mere caves or cells, approachable by winding passages or steep stairs, and so completely embowelled in the heart of the earth, that the wailings of their miserable tenants never reached the ears of those who trod its surface. Scarce a ray of light broke in upon the captive's darkness; so that, being destitute of all other means of occupation, he gave up his thoughts continually, and of necessity, to a consideration of his own immediate sorrows,and of the terrible prospects that threatened him. Conversation, likewise, even with the jailor, was prohibited; and if by chance he overheard the cries of some wretched creatures whose cells adjoined to his own, any attempt to converse

with them was immediately put down by heavy blows with a whip or stick from an official. Necessity, it is said, is the mother of invention, and so, it appears, is misery; for the prisoners of the Inquisition at last fell upon a method by which, in spite of the vigilance of their keepers, they contrived to carry on a limited. conversation. They rapped one to another through the wall, making one blow stand for the first letter in the alphabet, two for the second, and so on,-a rude but ingenious contrivance, by means of which their feelings and condition were mutually described, while the very effort to describe them served to amuse, and of course to withdraw the mind from the contemplation of its griefs.

When the prisoner had thus dragged out his appointed term of days, or weeks, or months, in absolute ignorance, as well of the crime with which he was charged as of the kind of evidence which would be brought against him, his jailor, not officially, but as if instigated by a sense of personal compassion, would ask whether or not he were anxious to obtain an audience of the inquisitors. Be it observed that this proceeding was in perfect agreement with the system of hypocrisy and cruelty which prevailed throughout. It was a point of policy with the holy office to treat the accused under all circumstances as a petitioner; and hence his very trial, with the consequences, whatever those might be, arising out of it, were made to flow out of his own requisition. Accordingly, when the prisoner came before his judges, they, as if they were entirely ignorant both of himself and of his offence, would ask who he was, whence he came, and whether he had anything to say. Thus situated, the wretched being had before him only a choice of dangers and of difficulties. If his memory supplied the record of some word or action against which the terrors of the office were especially directed, or if he were of a timid and desponding temper, on which long confinement had operated, he was not unapt to pronounce himself guilty of crimes from the bare contemplation of which he would, under other circumstances, have turned away with horror. In this case, supposing him now to have been brought for the first time to trial, his life was usually spared; but his property was confiscated, his family declared infamous, and he himself pronounced incapable of filling any office either in the church or the state. On the other hand, if his conscience entirely acquitted him, and his courage were great, his wisest course would be to declare that he had nothing whatever to say, for the Inquisition rarely ventured to convict without some show of proof; and supposing none such to be adduced, and none would be adduced unless in the opinion of the judges it was sufficient, the prisoner received his discharge.

But an escape from the dungeons of the Inquisition under such circumstances afforded very slender grounds of rejoicing. Let

the suspicions of this dread tribunal be once excited, no matter how slightly, and they never fell asleep again. The discharged person was beset at all hours, and in all situations, by the familiars or agents of the holy office. These attached themselves to him with a perseverance of which it is scarcely possible to conceive the extent. Wherever he went, they followed. They watched his going out and his coming in; all that he said, all that he did, was observed by them; indeed, to them the solemn language of Scripture may well nigh be applied, for "they were about his bed, and about his path, and spied out all his doings." Nor can we wonder at this when we reflect that the influence exercised over the public mind by this most horrible instrument of cruelty was such that, not only a man's domestics, but his nearest of kin -his very father, or his child-were induced, at times, to bear witness against him, and to become spies upon his proceedings. Who could expect to escape from such a system of espionage? No one; for the first approximation to error, nay the communication to the holy office of doubts and surmises on the part of those whom it had set to watch, sufficed to ensure a second arrest of the devoted victim. Then, indeed, all hope might be laid aside; for though things went on at first somewhat more vigorously perhaps, but still in the same order as previously, all the world knew that the Inquisition never pardoned twice, and the discharge even of him against whom no accusation had been brought was accounted a pardon. The following example of the pertinacity with which the holy office worked out its designs of vengeance 1 I loosely translate from the valuable and elaborate "Histoire Generale des Ceremonies, Mours, et Costumes Religieuses des tous les Peuples du Monde," by Bernard Picard.

"Every body knows," says my author, "what happened to Mark Antony de Dominis. He was descended from the most illustrious family of Venice. He was a jesuit, and had been successively Bishop of Legni, Archbishop of Spalatro, and Primate of Dalmatia. All this dignity, great as it was, was not however that which obtained for him his chief consideration in the world and among churchmen. Marc Antony de Dominis was accounted the most learned man of his age in every department of science, particularly in theology and history, as well profane as sacred; every species of lore, the most popular and the most recondite, were familiar to him, and when consulted upon all varieties of subjects, as he continually was, he replied in each with such precision and accuracy that he appeared to have devoted his undivided attention to it. But the distinguished prelate's learning did not hinder him from adopting the opinions of the Calvinistic reformers. On the contrary, in his celebrated treatise Concerning the Ecclesiastical Republic,' he attacked the pope and the court of Rome with such vigour, that not from the

hands of any other of her bitterest enemies did popery receive treatment so galling."

The publication of this treatise was of course followed by the flight of the author from Italy. He withdrew first into Germany, and afterwards to England, where James the First received him with the greatest kindness, and supported him in a style befitting his station in society. Well would it have been for him had he remembered his own maxim, that he who once draws his sword against the church of Rome may cast away the scabbard. Unfortunately, however, he did not bear this in mind, for when the pope, through a variety of channels, entreated him to return to his diocese, assuring him that no notice would be taken of his past indiscretions, nor any restraint put upon his opinions, he was weak enough to imagine that he might quit his place of shelter. For his personal friends-nay, his nearest relatives-all combined to draw him into the snare; and Don Diego Sormento de Acuna, the Spanish ambassador at St. James's, lent himself to the same unworthy object. Thus worked upon by motives of which perhaps it would not be easy to give an accurate definition, Mark Antony set the warnings of his English patrons at defiance, and repaired to Rome, where the fate immediately overtook him which he had the best reason to anticipate.

It was not the policy of the see of Rome to put such a man immediately to death. The purposes of popery would be better served by forcing him to recant; so he was seized, committed to the keeping of the holy office, and prevailed upon by such arguments as inquisitors knew how to employ to abjure the noxious opinions which he had previously expressed. He was then set at liberty, and, according to all outward appearance, reconciled to the church, but his fate had never for a moment been doubtful. Wheresoever he went the familiars of the inquisition went with him. They watched his correspondence, and, finding that he continued to receive letters from some of those who had protected him in London, they denounced him as a relapsed heretic, and he was again arrested. Neither the prelate nor his friends could now entertain a hope as to the issue of the trial. His death, and probably a death of lingering torture, was certain; so the most pious began to perceive that they could not offer in his case petitions more full of charity to him than those which besought God to remove him ere he fell into the hands of the tormentors. If such prayers were addressed to the Most High, they were answered; for the unhappy man died in prison while waiting for his process to come on, not without a strong suspicion that poison had been administered to him by one or other of his kindred.

I return now to the detail of facts, as these stand recorded in the annals of that fearful tribunal, to fall a second time into the hands of which was to perish irretrievably. The unfortunate

victim of treachery or false accusation having been seized as before, was dragged in the manner described above to his dungeon, where he again underwent the miseries of a solitary confinement, more or less protracted according to the caprice of his persecutors. When led before his judges, however, he was not asked, as had previously been the case, who he was, or whence he came, but the president or advocate stated that the jailor had announced his, the prisoner's, wish of being put upon his trial. To such an address the prisoner would naturally reply that he did desire to know the nature of the crime of which he stood accused, in order that he might vindicate himself if innocent, or confess and be reconverted to the church if guilty. But it did not accord with the practices of the holy office to make any direct charge. "Son, confess thy crime," was the only answer vouchsafed to him; and in the event of his persisting in a denial of guilt, he was remanded. This was done under the expectation that time and reflection might subdue his obstinacy; nor were the cases unfrequent in which sheer despair operated upon the prisoner to make a false confession. If, however, no such result ensued, a new method of dealing with him was adopted. He was required to swear upon the crucifix and the gospels that he would truly answer all such questions as might be put to him; and his refusal to do so, supposing a refusal to be given, was construed into a full and perfect admission of guilt. He was condemned without further delay as one who either possessed no sense of religion, or feared to vindicate himself by the most legitimate process, lest in striving to do so he might commit perjury.

It rarely happened that a prisoner, bowed down by the effects of a tedious and harassing confinement, refused to take the oath; and the use which the inquisitors made of his compliance was this-they summoned him before them, and, avoiding all allusion to his supposed offence, put to him a thousand questions relative to the circumstances of his past life, and to the lives of his ancestors. The object of such interrogatories was, moreover, cruel in the extreme. Whatever errors of faith or practice they discovered to have been committed by the forefathers of their captives, they industriously noted down, drawing from them an inference that the descendants of men so flagitious could not be otherwise than flagitious themselves. Thus was the wretched being held responsible, not for his own faults only, but for those of his fathers; as if men inherited opinions as they do blood, or even property, or were in all cases trained up to think and act as others had thought and acted before them.

All this while the accused was kept in profound ignorance, both of the nature of his supposed offence, and of the names and condition of his accusers. The object of the inquisitors was merely to inveigle him into some unguarded admission, on which VOL. IX.-Jan. 1836.

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