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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029249351 
 
/ 
 
 
 JUAN DIAZ. 
 
THE 
 
 Spanish Reformers 
 
 THEIR 
 
 TTlemories anb j)rveUinQ--jplaces 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN STOUGHTON, D.D. 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'HOMES AND HAUNTS OF LUTHER,' 'FOOTPRINTS OF 
 THE ITALIAN REFORMERS,' ETC. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TEACT SOCIETY 
 
 56, Paternoster Row ; 65, St. Paul's Churchyard ; and 
 164, Piccadilly,- 
 
LONDON: 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, Limited, 
 
 STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In recent volumes I have attempted to describe leading incidents 
 of the Reformation connected with the ' Homes and Haunts of 
 Luther ; ' and in like manner to associate salient points of the 
 same great story with ' Footprints of Italian Reformers ' in their 
 own beautiful land. 
 
 I now venture to depict local memories of contemporary- 
 Spanish teachers, confessors, and martyrs, who caught more or 
 less of Protestant inspiration at that critical age in the history 
 of Europe. 
 
 Until lately, Dr. M'Crie's ' Reformation in Spain ' was the 
 principal English authority on the subject ; but investigations 
 since his time, carried on by sympathetic scholars in Spain, 
 in our own country, and especially in Germany, particularly 
 by Dr. Boehmer, have added much to our stock of information. 
 Of all this I have availed myself in the following pages, as will 
 appear from the footnotes. 
 
 I made a tour in Spain this last spring, in order to identify 
 certain spots as the background scenery of facts, deeply interesting, 
 and hence my arrangement, under topographical headings of 
 chapters, intended to present recollections of the journey, with as 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 little disturbance as possible of chronological order, in describing 
 characters and narrating events. 
 
 In noticing the religious ceremony performed by the Inquisition 
 at the burning of victims, I have followed Spanish authorities, 
 in spelling the name Auto de fe, not Auto da fe, which is the 
 Portuguese method. 
 
 August, 1883. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 I. ALC/VLA DE HENARES . . . . .'.'.' 
 
 II. PROTESTANT BOOKS PROHIBITED IN SPAIN .... 
 
 III. CITY OF THE CUENCA AND THE TWO VALDl^S 
 
 IV. SPANISH PROTESTANTS IN GERMANY AND THE NETHERLANDS 
 V. VALENCIA AND CATALONIA . 
 
 VI. CORDOVA ... ... 
 
 VII. GRANADA ..... 
 
 VIII. SEVILLE 
 
 IX. CONVENT OF SAN YUSTE 
 X. TOLEDO .... 
 
 XL VALLADOLID .... 
 
 XII. MADRID AND THE ESCORIAL 
 
 XIII. LOGRONO AND ZARAGOZA 
 
 XIV. BARCELONA AND FIGUERAS . 
 XV. SPANISH EXILES .... 
 
 XVI. MODERN EVANGELISATION EFFORTS IN SPAIN 
 
 I 
 l8 
 
 35 
 5° 
 73 
 91 
 
 102 
 
 114 
 129 
 
 168 
 181 
 203 
 
 226 
 
 251 
 266 
 281 
 301 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 TOMB OF THE CID AND XIMENA AT SAN PEDRO DE CARDENA 
 
 FERDINAND OF SPAIN . 
 
 ISABELLA ..... 
 
 VILLARONA, NEAR SAN SEBASTIAN 
 
 XIMENES 
 
 archbishop's PALACE AT ALCALA 
 ERASMUS ..... 
 
 PASS IN THE PYRENEES, NEAR PERPIGNAN . 
 DEVICE PREFERRED TO VALOfis' BOOKS 
 BURGOS CATHEDRAL ..... 
 
 CATHEDRAL DOOR, VALENCIA 
 MOORISH BRIDGE AND GATE, CORDOVA 
 PRISON OF THE INQUISITION, CORDOVA 
 TOMB OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA . 
 PUERTA DEL PERDON, SEVILLE CATHEDRAL 
 THE SANBENITO ...... 
 
 THE GIRALDA, SEVILLE .... 
 
 CHARLES V. AT SAN YUSTE 
 
 CLOISTERS AT SAN JUAN DE LOS REYES, TOLEDO 
 
 THE CLOISTERS, TOLEDO .... 
 
 GATEWAY OF SAN GREGORIO, VALLADOLID . 
 CELEBRATION OF AN AUTO DE Pfi 
 
 THE ESCORIAL 
 
 THE PLAZA, MADRID 
 
 THE CATHEDRAL OF THE PILLAR, ZARAGOZA 
 
 THE LEANING TOWER, ZARAGOZA . 
 
 THE PRISON OF THE INQUISITION, BARCELONA 
 
 THE MONASTERY OF MONSERRAT 
 
 OtP JESUIT CHURCH, SAN FRANCISCO DE PAULA, SEVILLF- 
 
 PAGE 
 
 4 
 
 10 
 
 II 
 
 19 
 
 22 
 
 25 
 
 40 
 
 46 
 67 
 
 78 
 
 97 
 los 
 109 
 117 
 134 
 IS7 
 161 
 171 
 183 
 195 
 202 
 217 
 
 234 
 245 
 
 253 
 261 
 269 
 273 
 307 
 
THE 
 
 SPANISH REFORMERS: 
 
 THEIR MEMORIES AND DWELLING-PLACES. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Some notice of the history of Spain before the Reformation is 
 required for an adequate appreciation of facts occurring there in 
 connection with that event. Little has been written respecting 
 its influence on Spaniards at the time. Localities where it pro- 
 duced effects are indistinctly known to the generality of English 
 readers ; perhaps still more dimly discerned are thoughts and 
 sentiments in earlier days which contributed to the results which 
 it is my purpose to describe. They united to shape the character 
 and destiny of those who perished in autos de fe, or were forced to 
 wander far away from sunny lands they so much loved. Hence a 
 few historical details are desirable before tracing the abodes and 
 footsteps of Spanish Reformers. 
 
 As early as the fourth century we meet with a presbyter 
 at Barcelona J who attempted to remove corruptions within the 
 Church's pale. Vigilantius, at that period, was born in a village 
 to the north of the Pyrenees, and received ordination from the 
 famous Paulinus of Nola ; but there is no evidence of his exerting 
 reformatory influences on the people amongst whom he tarried 
 for a time. He denied some of the doctrines and practices then 
 in course of development, such as the intercession of departed 
 
 B 
 
THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 saints, and a reverence for relics. It is more likely, however, that 
 Christians on the shores of the Mediterranean were imbued with 
 the sentiments he opposed, than that they shared with him in 
 resisting their adoption. About the same time speculative tenden- 
 cies of a different character appeared in Spain, for Priscillian was a 
 Spaniard, and to him are attributed heresies both Manichsean and 
 Gnostic. He seems to have believed in a dualistic principle,^ and to 
 have inculcated ascetic precepts, though he is charged with practices 
 inconsistent with them. Priscillianism created a considerable party 
 amongst the early Spaniards ; but Arianism took a stronger hold, 
 prevailed to a wider extent, and retained a more enduring power. 
 The Goths, who invaded the South at the beginning of the fifth 
 century, were Arians, and carried their tenets into the regions they 
 conquered ; hence the kingdom they founded tenaciously main- 
 tained the opinions of the Alexandrian heretic. A tenet called 
 Adoptionism also made its mark to the south of the Pyrenees 
 before the close of the sixth century. The doctrine so denominated 
 was most likely a revival of Nestorianism — sharply dividing the 
 human nature from the Divine in the person of our Lord. It con- 
 sisted in the idea that He was the proper son of David, and only 
 the adopted son of God. A Spanish bishop, Felix, compared the 
 Divine adoption of our Lord's humanity to the Divine adoption of 
 all His disciples ; only he said that the first of these relations was 
 superior in degree to the second. Such speculations manifest a 
 resistance of orthodox Church authority, and so far indicate what is 
 termed freedom of thought ; but such opinions were sooner or later 
 effaced. PriscilHanism vanished about A.D. 461 ; Arianism in A.D. 
 569 ; Adoptionism, however, did not sink into oblivion till the 
 year 816. 
 
 The Moorish reign in the Peninsula lasted till the time of 
 Ferdinand and Isabella, whose glory it was, in the estimation of 
 Aragonese and Castilians, that they planted the Cross where the 
 ' Canon Robertson, Neander, Matter and others take this view. 
 
INTRO D UCTION. 
 
 Crescent had shed a baneful brightness. Christianity for a time 
 was crushed into a corner, but it gradually recovered lost ground, 
 and the Church, boasting an unimpeachable orthodoxy, subdued, 
 step by step, the whole country to itself. 
 
 As to the relation in which Spain stood to papal Rome, it may 
 be remarked that a legate of Gregory the Great exerted consider- 
 able influence amongst the orthodox, during conflicts with Arian 
 powers ; but when the Goths became Catholic, they seem to have 
 resisted certain papal claims. Witiza, King of the Goths at the 
 beginning of the eighth century, anxious for the maintenance of 
 royal prerogatives, forbade appeals to the Roman bishop ; but so 
 limited was the sympathy he inspired, that the loss of his throne 
 was deemed a Divine judgment for his daring impiety. For ages 
 Rome received from Spain, not submission, but deference ; its 
 primacy was conceded, not its supremacy. The Councils of 
 Toledo, though provincial, were of high authority. Political as 
 well as ecclesiastical, they ruled the State no less than the Church, 
 and were, in fact, national parliaments ; yet it would be a mistake 
 to suppose there was in them what we understand by a popular 
 element. Nobles made their appearance and took their share in 
 the proceedings, but the clergy ruled. They took care to keep the 
 staff in their own hands ; they were sturdy in asserting the inde- 
 pendence of their country, but they allowed a small measure of lay 
 influence in the councils of Church and State.^ Nor are there 
 proofs of bishops or presbyters having attempted to stem the ad- 
 vancing tide of spiritual abuses, or to exhibit prominently what we 
 understand by evangelical truths. Claude of Turin, a reformer of 
 the ninth century, was a Spaniard by birth, who in some of his 
 writings anticipated the doctrines of the Reformation, and produced 
 
 ' Ecclesiastical influence in the Government of Castile so declined at a subsequent 
 period that for six meetings of the Cortes, between 1299 and 1505, no prelates were 
 summoned (Hallam, ' Middle Ages,' chap. iv.). The king had a prerogative of calling 
 at his discretion persons of the highest orders, and he exercised it with freedom. 
 
 B 2 
 
THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 a great effect on his flock at Turin ; but I cannot discover grounds 
 on which to maintain that he accomplished any reformatory effects 
 in the land of his fathers. 
 
 Whatever might be the authority asserted by Councils at Toledo, 
 prelates and nobles at length gave way to the supremacy of Rome, 
 though a spirit of political and military self-reliance continued to 
 
 TOMB OF THE CID AND XIMENA AT SAN PEDRO DE CARDENA. 
 
 manifest itself in various ways. A temper truly heroic blazed in 
 Spanish deeds, and breathed through Spanish ballads. In the 
 twelfth century, one of " confusion and violence, when the Christian 
 population of the country may be said, with the old chronicle, to 
 have been kept constantly in battle array, we hear the first notes of 
 their wild national poetry, which come to us mingled with their war 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 shouts, and breathing the very spirit of their victories." ^ The Cid, 
 that bright but shadowy form which flits across Spanish literature, 
 is represented as upholding national rights ; but submission to 
 Rome comes out unmistakeably in the twelfth century. Spanish 
 independence of the Roman See was sought to be proved not long 
 ago by a learned. German,^ as existing down to the capture of 
 Toledo in 1085 ; and a bold bearing towards bishops who wore the 
 tiara may be instanced at a much later date ; but if political ties 
 with the papacy were not close and strong, the religion of Spain 
 was most intimately connected with that of Rome, perhaps more so 
 than amongst other people — more even than amongst the Cru- 
 saders. When Toledo was recovered from the Moors, the papal 
 legate did all he could to bring Spanish worship into conformity 
 with the Italian. The Spanish liturgy was called the Mozarabic 
 ofifice,^ and it was popular at Toledo and other places which had 
 been under Moorish rule. Hence arose resistance to the change ; 
 and to decide the controversy a strange method was employed. 
 First two knights, representing the rival liturgies, met in combat 
 before a noble assembly, and the Mozarabic champion won the 
 
 ' Ticknor's ' Hist, of Spanish Lit.' i. 8. 
 
 ^ T. EUendorf. 
 
 ^ The Spanish liturgy appears to have strongly resembled the Galilean, and to have 
 differed from the Roman in the ninth century. The latter, it would seem, was unknown 
 there in the sixth. " The Spanish liturgy," says Palmer, in his ' Origines Liturgicse,' 
 i. 166, "was abolished in Aragon about a.d. 1060, in the reign of Ramiro I., 
 but it was not for some time after relinquished in Navarre, Castile and Leon. 
 Gregory VII. of Rome wrote to Alphonso VI., King of Castile and Leon, and to 
 Sancho IV., King of Navarre, A.D. 1074, and made the greatest exertions to have 
 the ancient liturgy abolished in Spain, giving as his reason that it contained certain 
 things contrary to the Catholic faith." The Spanish Christians who lived under the 
 Arab dominion, and mixed with Arabs, were called Mozarabes,. because, say some, 
 Mtisa in Arabic signifies Christian. Others consider they were so called from the 
 Arab Chief Muza, who subdued some parts of Spain (Du Cange's 'Glossarium,' art. 
 " Mosarabes "). Neither of these derivations is to me satisfactory. See Ticknor's 
 ' Hist, of Spanish Lit.' iii. 393. 
 
THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 day. Then Alfonso ,VI.^ insisted on an appeal to the judgment of 
 God, and the two books were thrown into a fire, in which the Roman 
 was consumed, and its competitor lay untouched. But the ashes of 
 the former curled on the flame-tops, and leaped from the pyre. The 
 monarch construed the incident to mean that though the Mozarabic 
 ritual might remain in the six churches of Toledo, it was the Divine 
 will that the other was to be used in the rest of the kingdom." 
 In time the old liturgy was dropped in Toledo, as in other places, 
 and Rome remained triumphant. From the eleventh century 
 downwards, such high notions of the papal supremacy were 
 introduced into the Peninsula, that ecclesiastical jurisdiction was 
 not only wrested from the crown, but all crowns were declared 
 by the more zealous churchmen to depend on the will of the 
 pontiff.^ 
 
 Juan I. of Aragon, in 1233, prohibited the use of vernacular 
 versions of Scripture, and ordered any such to be delivered to the 
 ecclesiastical authorities, that they might be burnt ; but Alfonso X. 
 of Castile, a literary prince, author of works in prose and poetry, 
 soon afterwards directed a translation of the inspired volume into 
 the Castilian tongue, for the improvement of the language. It 
 was executed for a literary rather than a religious purpose, and 
 remained locked up in a royal library, where it may be seen 
 still amongst the Escorial treasures. The prior of a Valencian 
 monastery translated the Bible into Valencian in the year 1478, and 
 this was intended for public use. Its preparation shows a spirit 
 of reform before the Reformation ; but though the author was a 
 Catholic his work was suppressed, and the whole of the impression 
 was consigned to the flames. Scarcely a copy escaped. 
 
 • A.D. 1072-1109. 
 
 ^ This incident, related in different ways, gave rise to the proverb — " Alia van leyes, 
 adonde quieren reyes " (Laws are things that follow kings). Spain is rich in proverbs : 
 ' Don Quixote ' is full of them. 
 
 ^ Dunham's ' Hist, of Spain and Portugal' (Lardner's ' Cyclopaedia'), iv. 49. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Other facts have to be recollected as bearing on the subject of 
 the present volume, for they illustrate the moral and religious state 
 of the nation, showing how much it needed the efforts of reformers 
 in the sixteenth century. 
 
 It is almost superfluous to notice popular ignorance and super- 
 stition, because they were only signs of degeneracy shared by 
 Spain in common with other European countries. The comparative 
 measures of such evils it is difficult to determine ; but it is not 
 unfair to say that Spain lay at the bottom of the scale. Dense 
 ignorance of course produced dense superstition ; and some of the 
 less-noticed forms in which it appeared may be appropriately 
 njentioned. 
 
 Facts were overlaid with all kinds of fictions. The Spanish 
 life of ' Our Lady St. Mary of Egypt ' is full of fables. In an early 
 poem her story is told in fourteen hundred monkish verses, and 
 incidents are related " rejected as apocryphal, or at least as unfit to 
 be repeated." ^ But ' The Adoration of the Kings,' overlaying the 
 simple Scripture story of the Magi, is a more striking example still, 
 for it relates an arrest of the Holy Family by a band of robbers, 
 and also the cure of a child by the water in which the Holy Infant 
 had been washed. The child is represented as no other than the 
 penitent thief. The mischief was, that people delighted more in 
 these stories than in the New Testament narratives, of which they 
 knew but little. The "Poema de Jose," a childish ballad, not 
 without touches of true feeling, contains strange inventions of 
 incident in the life of Jacob's favourite son, including a conversation 
 carried on by a wolf, brought by his brethren to their father in 
 proof of his beloved son being slain.^ 
 
 I may notice in passing the divorce of devotion from morality 
 as another important fact. The habits of the clergy illustrate this 
 separation, and it is strikingly exemplified in the writings of Juan 
 
 ' Ticknor, i. 25. == Ticknor, i. 88. 
 
THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 Ruiz, the Archpriest of Hita, as he is called. His own tastes and 
 habits are clearly manifested. His discreditable love affairs are 
 boldly exposed, and he relates a fiction respecting Dona Venus, 
 the wife of Don Amor. After indulging in a tone of story-telling ill 
 suited to a priest, he adds, as if in the way of penance, some religious 
 cautions and rebukes. Perhaps the most flagrant displays of united 
 immorality and religion are found in the compositions of Berceo, 
 the oldest known Castilian poet. His aim is to do homage to the 
 Virgin, whom he styles "the glorious," and he relates, as in her 
 honour, how she interposed on behalf of a thief, whom she kept 
 alive as he swung on the gallows, because he was one of her 
 votaries. 
 
 The exaltation of chivalry to Divine honours was another 
 characteristic of the poetry of Spain. Even as late as 1 5 54, five 
 years before the horrible autos de fe occurred at Valladolid and 
 Seville, a poem was published under the title of ' Celestial 
 Chivalry.' Christ is called the Knight of the Lion ; the twelve 
 Apostles are Knights of His Round Table ; John the Baptist is Knight 
 of the Desert, and Lucifer is Knight of the Serpent. Everything is 
 " forced into the forms of a strange and revolting allegory."^ With 
 the literary merits or demerits of the production, I have nothing to 
 do. I only refer to it as showing how the country was steeped to 
 the lips in a wild fancy, which dyed the nation deep with an idea 
 that chivalrous pursuits formed the noblest attributes of religion.^ 
 Glorifications of Spain accompanied these extravagances, and 
 national pride was mistaken for piety. The reign of Ferdinand and 
 Isabella encouraged and increased this temper. The victories they 
 won over the Moors, the recovery of lands long polluted by 
 Saracen footsteps, the transformation of mosques into churches, 
 and the union of the conquering crowns of Castile and Aragon 
 
 ^ Ticknor, i. 221. The immoral tone of Spanish Catholicism was but too faithfully 
 continued after the period of the Reformation. 
 ^ Ticknor, i. 221. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 on the heads of the two sovereigns,^ raised popular enthusiasm 
 to the highest pitch — an enthusiasm prolonged under later reigns, 
 which served to gather round a throne sprinkled with the blood 
 of Protestant martyrs the sympathies of a misguided people. 
 
 Finally, with regard to facts such as prepared for the persecution 
 of heresy, reference may be made to the hatred in which its guilt 
 and consequences were held in mediaeval times. Dante places 
 heretics in hell, lower down than the sensual, the prodigal, and the 
 avaricious. They occupy 
 
 On every part, wide-stretcliing space, 
 Replete with bitters, pain and torment ill. 
 
 'Midst the graves were scattered flames, 
 Wherewith intensely all throughout they burned. 
 That iron for no craft there hotter needs. 
 Their lids all hung suspended ; and beneath 
 From them forth issued lamentable moans. 
 Such as the sad and tortured well might raise." 
 
 Spain was not behind Italy in horror of heresy ; and the fires of 
 the Inquisition seemed meet preparation for the abyss of fire in 
 the world to come. 
 
 Soon after the death of Ferdinand, who survived his wife, and 
 died in 1516, the Protestant Reformation began. The need of a 
 Reformation in Spain was obvious, and traces of the way in which it 
 was attempted will be seen as I proceed ; in the meanwhile reasons 
 may be assigned why Protestantism did not succeed there as in 
 other countries. 
 
 I mention first the maxim which lay at the basis of Spanish 
 policy : it was, that error is to be suppressed by force.^ Hatred of 
 
 > It is to be remembered that Castile, Leon and Aragon had at one time been 
 distinct kingdoms. Barcelona also had been a territory by itself. Navarre and Portugal, 
 added to these, made up the Catholic portion of the Peninsula in the Middle Ages. 
 
 ^ 'Inferno,' Canto IX. 109, et seq. 
 
 ' The doctrine of suppressing heresy by physical force, though developed to an 
 
THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 FERDINAND OF SPAIN. 
 
 heresy was manifested at Toledo in the fifteenth century by frescoes 
 
 unexampled degree by the Spaniards, did not originate with them. The code of the 
 Visigoths enacted that a persistent heretic should be delivered to the secular arm — that 
 if a layman, he should be banished ; if a preacher he should be burnt. — Dunham, ' Hist, 
 of Spain and Portugal,' iv. 144. In the ' Decretum Divi Gratiani,' the great canonical 
 law book, Edit. Lugduni, 1554 (p. 936), the doctrine is recognised, and Matt. v. 29, 
 et seq., is cited in support of it. Of course the Church was only to excommunicate, and 
 then hand over the heretic to the secular power. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 on the cloister walls depicting heretics in the fire. The wars 
 of Christians against Moors proceeded on this principle.^ No 
 doubt the temptations of spoil, the glory of conquest, and the desire 
 of dominion contributed to deepen military enthusiasm in the 
 
 ISABELLA. 
 
 helmeted cavalier, as in the turbaned Moor ; but he mainly thought 
 of the religion he was pledged to support, and the religion he wished 
 
 ' Hatred of the Moors, and the persecution of them, however, did not prevail until 
 a period later than that of the early Ballad Literature, where we find them'spoken of 
 as gentlemen, 
 
 " Caballeros Granadinos, aunque Moros." 
 
THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 to destroy. The hosts which overthrew the kingdom of Granada 
 were as much Crusaders as the Red Cross knights. Their victory 
 would be to them the glory of Christ, their vanquishment a dishonour 
 to Christianity. Toledo blades were unsheathed in the service 
 of the Church, and wounds received became marks of martyrdom. 
 It is difficult for us to estimate the sentiment which throbbed 
 in Castilian and Aragonese soldiers. Argument was too good 
 to silence Moorish dogs. It was wise and right, approved of 
 men and blessed of God, to stamp out unbelief in blood and 
 fire. So thought the knights of Spain. The Crusades against 
 the Albigenses had the same origin. Battles fought by Simon 
 de Montfort in Languedoc, the horrors attendant on the storming 
 of Beziers, and the Dominican Inquisition of contemporary date, 
 arose from a like principle. Dominic, in his own day celebrated 
 for devotion, was afterwards canonized, though the suffering he 
 inflicted surpasses description and almost exceeds belief The 
 glory of God was the motto of the founder ; it was no less the 
 motto of all his followers. The New Inquisition under Ferdi- 
 nand and Isabella had the same aim and end as the old one. 
 The code adopted was intended to find out every Spanish heretic 
 in existence, and to bring him before the Church's judgment-seat. 
 "Yet the Holy Office has been thus described : " The Church, who is 
 the mother of mercy and the fountain of charity, content with the 
 imposition of penances, generously accords life to many who do not 
 deserve it. Whilst those who persist obstinately in their errors, after 
 being imprisoned on the testimony of trustworthy witnesses, she 
 causes to be put to the torture and condemned to the flames ; some 
 miserably perish bewailing their errors and invoking the name of 
 Christ, while others call upon that of Moses." (The writer alludes 
 here to Jewish victims.) " Many again who sincerely repent, she, 
 notwithstanding the heinousness of their transgressions, merely 
 sentences to perpetual imprisonment." " Such," adds Prescott, after 
 quoting these words in his ' History of the Reign of Ferdinand 
 
INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 and Isabella,'^ "such were the tender mercies of the Spanish In- 
 quisition." All the laws against Jews and heretics breathed the 
 same spirit ; and the Inquisition, instead of being, as Dr. M'Crie 
 thinks, in some degree a contrast to earlier criminal proceedings 
 against heretics, only resembled what had gone before. Milman 
 justly remarks, when speaking of the later Middle Ages : " The 
 laws against heresy, and the atrocious juridical persecution of the 
 Jews, already designate Spain as the throne and centre of merci- 
 less bigotry." ^ That judgment is endorsed by a Spanish historian 
 who appeals to the Councils of Toledo as " prescribing punishments 
 against idolaters, Jews and heretics." ^ 
 
 The treatment of Moriscos, as the Spanish Arabs christianized 
 after a fashion came to be called in the reign of Ferdinand and 
 Isabella, is another case in point. Moriscos were not to be trusted. 
 " Trust not a proselyte," it is said by an old Rabbi, " till twenty- 
 four generations, for he holds his leaven." In like manner Spanish 
 Catholics distrusted Moorish converts made by force. The old 
 leaven was thought to remain ; everything possible was done to 
 get it out. Moors and Jews were the earliest victims of Spanish 
 Inquisitional cruelty ; then the Holy Office, so called, managed to 
 bring all sorts of people under its power, and it must be carefully 
 borne in mind that those whom I describe as Reformers constituted 
 but a small part oi \hs. enormous number sacrificed to the vengeance 
 of the Spanish Church. None but thorough Catholics could be 
 trusted. Intolerance was the Church's law, and the power of 
 the hierarchy was supreme. Even kings bowed down before 
 priests, and no sovereign could be acknowledged who did not hold 
 the pure faith — the judges .of purity of course being churchmen. 
 The old era of ecclesiastical ascendency has excited admiration 
 even in modern times, and so late as 1857, a Bishop of Barcelona 
 applauded the fathers of Toledo, as erecting a wall of brass against 
 
 ' Vol. i. 264. " ' Latin Christianity,' i. 380. 
 
 ^ ' Lafuenta,' quoted by Buckle, ' Hist, of Civilization,' ii. 438. 
 
14 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 the inroads of error, because there existed perfect concord between 
 Church and State.^ The Supreme Council, under Ferdinand and 
 Isabella, was, at their request, to include lay members nominated 
 by the Crown ; but the Church took care, while conceding some- 
 thing to the royal wish, that preponderating power should be 
 lodged in clerical hands. An intolerant Church was in the as- 
 cendant, and popular opinion went along with it. 
 
 This leads to the notice of another obstacle in the way of 
 religious reform, namely the superstitious loyalty of the people. 
 So devoted were they to the sovereign, that his will gave the 
 highest sanction, next to that of the Church ; and when he and 
 the Church concurred, the union was irresistible. Catholic princes 
 sympathizing with the hierarchy, largely contributed to make 
 Spanish reformation hopeless on any extensive scale. Venera- 
 tion for the monarch was carried to such an extent as to be 
 truly absurd. Good or bad, he was the popular idol ; and, as 
 Clarendon says,^ submissive reverence to these princes was a vital 
 part of the Spaniard's religion. Whatever his Majesty touched 
 became sacred, and no one might mount a horse on which he 
 once rode. From the time of the Cid, when the Chronicles 
 were written, down to the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, a 
 strain of extravagant loyalty ran through Spanish ballads ; and 
 when those rulers had raised the kingdom to its highest glory, 
 the sentiment was expressed with augmented enthusiasm. Nor 
 when it lost all sense of propriety did it diminish in adulation ; 
 for under Philip II. and other princes — the very worst that ever 
 encumbered a throne — the people bowed down to their behests 
 as though they had been the Vicegerents of Heaven. There 
 were parliaments in Spain, and there was political liberty within 
 certain limits ; but they form a faint resemblance to what ob- 
 tained in England in the fourteenth century. 
 
 ' The original passage is quoted by Buckle, ii. 437. 
 ^ ' Hist, of the Rebellion,' p. 15. 
 
INTROD UCTION. 1 5 
 
 A further circumstance operating in the same direction was an 
 unnatural indifiference to physical suffering. It is to be observed, 
 that in the ' Las Siete Partidas/ the Code of Alfonso, it is said, 
 " The caballero should be cruel, and accustomed to wound, lest he 
 should show mercy to the enemy." ^ To shrink from witnessing 
 or inflicting pain was deemed unmanly. Powers of endurance 
 produced by the chivalry of the mediaeval period are astonishing. 
 Hunger, thirst, fatigue, diseases, wounds and tortures, the knights 
 would bear with the apathy attributed to Red Indians. And as 
 they extinguished sensibility in themselves, so they showed an 
 absence of pity for others. They could burn the peasants' dwell- 
 ings without remorse, slay wives and orphans without compunction, 
 and gaze unmoved upon death and desolation, such as one might 
 suppose would move hearts of stone. Queen Isabella exhibited 
 almost incredible heroism and self-sacrifice ; when clothed in armour 
 and leading her hosts, she kept in the saddle till nature was 
 exhausted. The privations she unmurmuringly accepted, when 
 flying from place to place, may seem to some romantic inventions. 
 No wonder that the stoicism she displayed was accompanied by a 
 sternness towards Moors and Jews quite out of harmony with the 
 other traits of her character. Bull-fights moved her compassion, and 
 she would have been glad to abolish such spectacles, and since that 
 was impossible, she devised a plan for guarding the horns of the 
 animals, so as to prevent the laceration of horses and men. But in 
 carrying out a policy of persecution towards Moriscos, Israelites 
 and heretics, indifference to pain in others as in herself dried up all 
 the springs cf compassion ; and in the fierce citizens of Seville, 
 Valladolid and other cities, under Philip II., the same tempera- 
 ment held full sway, as they witnessed holocausts from time to 
 time at the shrine of a merciless orthodoxy. Tears were shed, 
 sighs were heaved, loud murmurs rose amongst Londoners who 
 gazed on Smithfield fires ; not so was it with such crowds as 
 ' Dunham's ' Hist, of Spain and Portugal,' iv. 53. 
 
1 6 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 witnessed scenes to be described in some of the following 
 chapters. 
 
 I must mention the prevalent demoralization of the clergy. 
 It would be unreasonable to maintain that there were few, if any, 
 good men amongst them in the sixteenth century ; yet it cannot be 
 denied that the general condition of the priesthood at that period 
 was deplorable. A number at the time exposed the carelessness 
 with which their brethren lived, the vices in which they indulged, 
 and the low ebb to which the estimate of their character had 
 sunk. But though clerical scandals were confessed, and rendered 
 a reformation urgently needful, the prevalence of these scandals 
 equally demonstrated the difficulties with which Reformers had 
 to contend, and the virulent opposition they were sure to 
 meet with. The greater the evils to be overcome, the more 
 numerous the enemies to be attacked, the less hope of victory 
 existed on the side of a little band valiant for truth and right- 
 eousness. 
 
 Also we may take into account the nature of the Spanish 
 race, which combines heterogeneous elements — Gothic, Moorish, 
 French, as well as Castilian and Aragonese. The result of the 
 amalgamation is apparent in the qualities of the people as seen 
 in the present day. Brave, proud, reserved ; yet under certain 
 circumstances kind and generous, the bulk of them differ widely 
 from other Europeans. They lag behind in the march of im- 
 provement. Their civilization is incomplete, and strangely con- 
 trasts with that of England, Germany, Italy and France. They 
 have an immobility of character visible in manifold ways. They 
 are conservative to the backbone ; they hate change ; old habits 
 are unconquerable ; they cling to the past with unparalleled 
 tenacity. Everything in Spain is stereotyped ; political and 
 social reformers find it tremendously difficult to innovate upon 
 cherished traditions and prejudices. That which operates now 
 operated three hundred years ago. It raised an obstacle which 
 
INTRODUCTION. 17 
 
 a few brave men and women in their noble aspirations found it 
 impossible to surmount. 
 
 When we have analyzed all the facts recorded in history, and 
 have put together what serves to explain, so far as secondary 
 causes are concerned, how it was that the Reformation failed in 
 Spain, there is a residuum at the bottom of the crucible, as in 
 many other cases, which must ever defy our attempts at explana- 
 tion. Why the destiny of the movement in Spain was so different 
 from that of the movement in England remains amongst the 
 inscrutable mysteries of Providence. 
 
1 8 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 alcalA de henares. 
 
 The most common way of entering Spain is across the river 
 Bidassoa. So I entered it twenty-three years ago, when spending 
 a summer holiday amidst the scenery of the Pyrenees. There was 
 then no railway further than Bayonne, whence travellers had to 
 proceed by diligence to San Sebastian, and thence onward to 
 Madrid — a long, tedious, and for the most part dreary journey. 
 Immediately after crossing the border, I found the country rich 
 and fertile, with well-laden orchards, and abundant maize fields, 
 bushy hedges by the wayside, and glorious mountain views to the 
 south and east. From the banquette of the lumbering vehicle, 
 wide and cheerful glimpses of the country were easily caught, the 
 manners and customs of the people could be noticed ; picturesque 
 Spanish costumes were still in fashion, and on entering the town 
 of San Sebastian, bordering its beautiful bay, the transition 
 into Spain was unmistakable. The streets and the people, the 
 mantillas of the ladies and the long rolled-up hats of the priests, 
 struck the stranger in a moment, and made him feel he was 
 in a new country ; but now railway speed, modern innovation, 
 changing costumes, and the Frenchified and extremely handsome 
 appearance of the formerly old-fashioned Basque frontier, efface the 
 contrast between the two countries, and you cannot tell where 
 France ends and Spain begins. I was struck this last spring with 
 the diff"erence between 1859 and 1883 ; but the country as you go 
 south indicates little improvement in agriculture and general 
 
::ii ;i'l, 
 
 i||fS' 
 III I '' 
 
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 (. 
 
 
 
 'I 
 
 ^1 
 
 ^ 3 
 
 4 * 4- -C » 
 
 <! 
 cq 
 W 
 
 (72 
 
 in 
 
 < 
 
 < 
 
 o 
 
 Pi 
 < 
 
 C 2 
 
ALCALA DE HENARES. 21 
 
 civilization. But once for all I may observe that whatever may- 
 be still the discomforts of Spanish travelling, they are wonderfully 
 diminished during the last twenty years. 
 
 Burgos was and is the first chief halting-place on the way to 
 Madrid ; the railway commands so good a view of the city, that 
 the noble cathedral, with its glorious towers, and the picturesque 
 gateway just over the bridge, impress the imagination of the 
 beholder so as to make it impossible they should ever be forgotten. 
 Burgos, except as the birth-place of certain Protestants I shall 
 have to describe, does not come within the lines of our history ; 
 but I must in passing remark, that to any one who has a taste for 
 architecture, his entrance into Burgos Cathedral, and the first sight 
 of its marvels in building and sculptui-e, marks an era in his life. 
 
 From Burgos to Valladolid there is little worth looking at, and 
 Valladolid is quite a different city from Burgos, with nothing to 
 detain the lover of the picturesque ; it is, however, full of associa- 
 tions connected with the subject of this volume. These, however, 
 for chronological reasons, I must defer noticing for the present, 
 and hurry on to Madrid, the capital and centre of Spain, whence 
 we shall make numerous histoi'ical excursions, before we rest there 
 for a while to look at it in connection with Philip II. and his 
 successors. 
 
 The first place I select, on chronological grounds, is Alcala de 
 Henares. 
 
 Alcala de Henares is . about twenty miles from Madrid, and 
 may be reached by the railway to Zaragoza. The old city bore 
 the name of Complutum, or Compluvium, from a confluence of 
 rivers close to it. It prospered under the archbishops of Toledo, 
 one of whom, Tenorio, built a bridge and a wall in the year 
 1389 ; but he who belongs to our history, and who, above all others 
 conferred on Alcala its renown, was Francisco Ximenes de 
 Cisneros. He was born in 1436, and entered the order of Fran- 
 ciscan Friars at the age of forty-six. The story of his life is truly 
 
THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 romantic. No sooner had he renounced the world than he made 
 the hard ground his bed, and a billet of wood his pillow. His shirt 
 was of haircloth, and he wore himself down by fasts, vigils and self- 
 inflicted stripes. In the chestnut wood of our Lady of Castanar, in 
 which a convent rose amidst mountain solitudes, he built with his 
 
 XIMENES. 
 
 own hands a hermitage, so small that he had to creep into it. 
 Here he subsisted on herbs, and drank of the brooks, barely 
 keeping body and soul together ; but spiritual fervour raised him 
 above physical privation, and we are assured by Flechier, Ms 
 admiring biographer, that in after life, when far differently circum- 
 
ALCALA DE HEN ARES. 23 
 
 stanced, he looked with regret on his experiences at the Castaiiar 
 hermitage. When in 1492 Isabella needed a confessor in Cardinal 
 Mendoza's room, she selected by his advice this wonderful an- 
 chorite, who had by that time been transferred to the Convent of 
 Salzeda. With a dignity of demeanour natural to a man of his 
 character, he entered the royal presence unabashed, and soon won 
 the confidence of his sovereign. He became the keeper of her 
 conscience, and, at the time, he is described as resembling one of the 
 anchorites of the desert. Passing through other dignities, he rose 
 to the archbishopric of Toledo and the primacy of Spain, and in 
 1507 was created a cardinal. His asceticism amidst the luxuries 
 of a court was combined with military enterprise and command ; 
 and, like the bishops of Durham, he entered the battle-field at 
 the head of an army, and signalized his career by the capture 
 of cities. 
 
 In the early part of his episcopate he comes before us as an 
 ecclesiastical reformer. Many who were Catholics saw and ac- 
 knowledged scandals which weakened the Church, and Ximenes 
 was of the number. His royal mistress sympathized with him 
 in this respect. But reform was no easy task, and the queen 
 and primate together could not accomplish what they desired. 
 They improved the moral condition of the monasteries ; but, in one 
 instance at least, monks who were ejected for disgraceful conduct 
 marched out of the abbey gate as if they were martyrs, lifting up 
 the crucifix and chanting the Psalm ' In exitu Israel.' Ximenes 
 deplored the state of the clergy in his own diocese ; but his efforts 
 to restore among them the rule of St. Augustine were met by 
 cunning intrigue and bold resistance. The Franciscans, to whose 
 brotherhood he belonged, gave him immense trouble, and the 
 General of the order, who came over from Rome to protect the 
 accused friars, gained support even from the queen. The arch- 
 bishop addressed her in a tone of violent • expostulation, till the 
 lady asked whether he knew whom he was addressing. "Yes," 
 
THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 said he, "the Queen of Castile, a mere handful of dust like my- 
 self" This man was made of the same mettle as Thomas of 
 Canterbury, and he so overawed his sovereign, as to gain her 
 assurance that she would help him to carry out all practicable 
 reforms. They were of a searching kind, and he pressed the 
 execution of monastic rules to an extreme point ; but the habits 
 of monks, friars and clergy had become so dissolute, that it was 
 more than the sovereign and the archprelate could accomplish 
 to cleanse the stalls of; the Augean stable. Amendments actually 
 effected bore small proportion to the remaining evils. 
 
 In support of his claims to be ranked amongst reformers, what 
 he did in reference to the Mozarabic ritual ^ has been cited as an 
 instance in proof. But an examination of the subject scarcely 
 carries out the favourable opinion. In Toledo, thirteen Mozarabic 
 priests were appointed to officiate ; but the use of the Mozarabic 
 Liturgy did not extend beyond the primate's own diocese, and 
 he took care to have the ancient formulary, so edited as to bring 
 it into close conformity to the Catholic one. 
 
 Ximenes appears in the character both of ascetic and reformer, 
 and he may be taken as a type of the best class of churchmen in his 
 day ; but it is as a zealous promoter of Biblical learning that he 
 is to be honoured. 
 
 In the year 1497 he resolved to establish a new university at 
 Alcala. He employed an architect to prepare plans, and three 
 years afterwards he laid the corner stone of his projected edifice. 
 From that period the enterprise was ever uppermost in his mind, 
 and " he might be frequently, seen on the ground, with the rule 
 in his hand, taking the admeasurements of the buildings, and 
 stimulating, the industry of the workmen with suitable rewards." ^ 
 In eight years the main structure was completed, and Francis I., 
 when he visited the spot after the cardinal's death, remarked, 
 referring to the University of Paris, " Your Ximenes has executed 
 
 ' See page S of this volume. ^ Prescott's 'Ferdinand and Isabella,' ii. 447. 
 
ALCALA DE HENARES. 27 
 
 more than 1 should have dared to conceive ; he has done with 
 a single hand what in France it has cost a line of kings to 
 accomplish." ^ 
 
 In founding professorships he adopted the modern principle of 
 payment for results, so far as to. regulate the salary by the number 
 of students, and he also made appointments determinable at the 
 end of four years. He included the whole range of the arts and 
 sciences, as then understood, within the lines of his curriculum ; and 
 out of forty-two chairs, he devoted eight to logic, physics and meta- 
 physics, four to ancient languages, four to rhetoric, six to grammar, 
 six to canon law, four to medicine, two to anatomy and surgery, 
 one to ethics, one to mathematics, and only six to theology 
 proper. Among the professors were Demetrius Ducas and Nicetas 
 Phaustus, two Greek natives, who, one may infer, were skilled in the 
 knowledge of classical Greek, then beginning to be revived ; and 
 also the Spanish Fernando Nuilez, of the Order of St. Jago, and 
 called by his countrymen the Greek Commendator. This scholar 
 wrote notes on the classics much praised by later critics, and also 
 edited poems by Juan de Mena, his fellow-countryman.^ The 
 learned Antonio de Lebrixa, the Erasmus of Spain, a zealous 
 promoter of the classical revival, and the publisher of works on 
 Castilian, Latin, Greek and Hebrew grammars, read lectures at 
 Alcala, and because he dared to emend the Vulgate text he was 
 suspected of heresy. Deza, Archbishop of Seville, persecuted 
 him on this account, and the scholar defended himself with spirit, 
 saying, " If a person endeavour to restore the pui'ity of the sacred 
 text, and point out the mistakes which have vitiated it, unless he 
 will retract his opinions, he must be loaded with infamy, excom- 
 municated, and doomed to an ignominious punishment. Is it not 
 enough that I submit my judgment to the will of Christ in the 
 Scriptures "i Must I also reject as false what is as clear and 
 
 ' Prescott's ' Ferdinand and Isabella,' ii. 448. 
 ^ M'Crie, ' Hist, of Ref. in Spain,' p. 64. 
 
THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 evident as the light of truth itself ? What tyranny ! " ^ Cardinal 
 Ximenes, as founder of the university, has been compared to 
 Cardinal Wolsey, the founder of Christ Church at Oxford, and so 
 far as the munificence of their endowments is concerned a resem- 
 blance exists ; but in habits and character the two men were very 
 different from each other. The university became full of students, 
 and when Francis I. visited it, within twenty years of the opening, 
 no less than seven thousand came out to welcome his Majesty. 
 
 The University of Alcali is connected with the Reformation in 
 two ways. First, Pedro de Lerma, who was chancellor, and occupied 
 the chair of theology, was reported to the Inquisition, sitting at 
 Toledo, as tainted with the Lutheran heresy, whereupon he fled in 
 terror to the city of Paris. His nephew, Luis de Cadena, fell under 
 the same condemnation.^ Juan de Vergara, Canon of Toledo and 
 Secretary to Ximenes, also one of the Polyglott editors who had 
 pointed out faults in the Vulgate, and his brother Bernardin 
 Tobar, were apprehended, and arraigned before the same tribunal. 
 Erasmus compared the three to the giant Gorgon with three bodies, 
 and prophesied that they would win victories — which were never 
 accomplished.^ Thrown into dismal dungeons, they were kept there 
 until they had abjured Lutheran tenets, and submitting to penance 
 received absolution. News of this occurrence reached Erasmus, 
 and Juan Luis Vives, writing to that scholar, remarked, " We live 
 in troubled times, and cannot speak but at our peril. They have 
 arrested Vergara with his brother Tobar, and many other learned 
 men." * Secondly, students trained up in the university afterwards 
 distinguished themselves amongst Spanish Reformers, especially 
 Juan Valdes,^ and Juan Gil, commonly called Doctor Egidius ; of 
 both I shall have much to say. 
 
 ' Quoted by Llorente, ' Hist, de I'lnquisition,' i. 344. '' Llorente, ii. 430, 454. 
 ^ Epist. lib. XX. ep. 15. ^ Quoted by Llorente, ii. 8. 
 
 ' M'Crie, I think with probability, judges from his intimacy with students there, 
 that he had been at Alcala. ' Hist.' p. 141. 
 
ALCALA DE HENARES. 
 
 It is interesting to add that Cervantes was born and educated at 
 Alcala, and in his ' Don Quixote ' alludes to the burial and enchant- 
 ment of Muzaraque the Moor, on the hill of Zulema, "just as he 
 had probably heard it in a nursery story ; " and in his pastoral 
 entitled ' Galatea,' he mentions the banks of the famous Henares 
 ("las riberas del famoso Henares"), where stood his revered 
 Alma Mater. 
 
 The great work which Ximenes accomplished, and which more 
 than any other act of his life brings him near the domain of the 
 Reformation, was what he did for the Complutensian Polyglott, 
 so called from the name Complutum attached to the city of 
 Alcala. He walked in the steps of the great Origen by bringing 
 the Scriptures in different languages side by side. He had the 
 use of the Vatican Library. Copies of MSS. were made for him 
 in several countries. Old synagogues rendered up their precious 
 treasures. Seven thousand gold crowns were paid for MSS. which 
 came too late for editorial use. Nine scholars were engaged in the 
 compilation, and amongst them were the learned Nunez, also Lopez 
 de Zuiiiga, an opponent of Erasmus, and the famous Greek, 
 Demetrius Cretensis, "all thorough linguists, especially in the Greek 
 and Latin." ^ 
 
 Day by day the revisers, as we may call them, met at 
 the close, to compare and criticize the results of their labour. 
 " Lose no time," said the enthusiastic author of the under- 
 taking, " Lose no time, my friends, in the prosecution of our 
 glorious work, lest, in the casualties of life, you should lose 
 your patron, or I have to lament the loss of those whose ser- 
 vices are of more price in my eyes than wealth and worldly 
 honours." The Polyglott fills six stately folios, four devoted 
 to the Old Testament, one to the New, and another to a Hebrew 
 and Chaldee Lexicon. Only 600 copies were printed. The 
 type v/as cast in a foundry at Alcala, and printers were brought 
 ^ Prescott, ' Ferdinand and Isabella,' ii. 453. 
 
30 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 from Germany to work the press. A copy, originally published 
 at six ducats and a half, fetched some years ago sixty-three 
 pounds.^ 
 
 Wetstein attacked the Greek text, as being corrupted from the 
 Latin version ; but Michaelis, far from pronouncing it immaculate, 
 did not believe that the Vulgate had an appreciable effect on the 
 readings. The learned Dr. Scrivener, who has paid considerable 
 attention to the subject, informs us that in no less than 849 instances 
 the Latin is at variance with the Greek.^ 
 
 "Professor Moldenhauer of Germany visited Alcala in 1784, 
 for the interesting purpose of examining the MSS. used in the 
 Complutensian Polyglott. He there learned that they had been 
 disposed of as so much waste paper, by the librarian of that time 
 to a rocket m.aker of the town, who soon worked them up in the 
 regular way of his vocation. He assigns no reason for doubting the 
 truth of the story. The name of the librarian, unfortunately, is not 
 recorded. It would have been as imperishable as that of Omar." ^ 
 
 The labours of Ximenes deserve cordial appreciation from the 
 lovers of Biblical literature. The toil and expense of his under- 
 
 ' Mallinkrot and Le Long have both preserved the interesting anecdote which 
 is related by his first biographer, Alvaro Gomez, concerning the completion of the 
 Polyglott. "I have often heard John Brocarius (says Gomez), son of Arnoldus Brocarius, 
 ■who printed the Polyglott, tell his friends, that vifhen his father had put the finishing 
 stroke to the last volume, he deputed him to carry it to the cardinal. John Brocarius 
 vyas then a lad, and having dressed himself in an elegant suit of clothes, he gravely 
 approached Ximenes, and delivered the volume into his hands. ' I render thanks to 
 Thee, O God,' exclaimed the cardinal, 'that Thou hast protracted my life to the com- 
 pletion of these Biblical labours.' Afterwards, when conversing with his friends, 
 Ximenes would often observe, that the surmounting of the various difficulties of his 
 political situation did not afford him half the satisfaction which he experienced from the 
 finishing of his Polyglott. He died in the year 15 17, not many weeks after the last 
 volume was published." — Dibdin's ' Bibliomania,' p. 160. Prescott tells the same story 
 on the same authority, ii. 454. 
 
 ^ 'Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament,' 2nd edition, p. 379. 
 
 ^ Prescott, ii. 454. 
 
ALCALA DE HENARES. 31 
 
 taking was great beyond any fair estimate of a similar work in the 
 present day. Thousands of sympathizers can be found now to hail 
 such a work with enthusiasm ; but then there were few indeed 
 who cared for what was done, whilst the majority of his Spanish 
 contemporaries would regard it with more or less suspicion. The 
 appliances of modern criticism were beyond reach, and the 
 difficulties of copying and collation were immensely great. So 
 much the more credit is due to the pains and diligence requisite for 
 the achievement of the task. The book found a place in the 
 libraries of Reformers. Erasmus hailed its arrival in his study. It 
 was perused and pondered carefully by Protestant Biblical scholars. 
 -Stephanus and Beza employed it in their editions. It was the 
 precursor of Walton's Polyglott. It headed a procession of noble 
 works to which additions have been made in our day. Bagster's 
 popular and handy Polyglotts come in the wake of Ximenes' portly 
 Complutensian. What the cardinal did, really contributed to the 
 production of learned editions of God's Holy Word ever since. 
 Unconsciously he was providing materials for the use of Protestant 
 Reformers. 
 
 Unconsciously — for it was the last thing in the world he wished 
 to do. He was a scholar, and felt reverence for the Bible ; but he 
 was a bigot and a persecutor, and these baneful qualities over- 
 mastered his better dispositions and desires. 
 
 He united with political office — for he was in fact Prime 
 Minister — the odious functions of Grand Inquisitor. Over the 
 Inquisition, as revived by Ferdinand and Isabella, he presided. He 
 ■enlarged its limits. The king, pressed by pecuniary difficulties, 
 would have accepted from some victims a pecuniary compensation 
 for their offences ; but Ximenes persuaded him not to accept the 
 offer by providing him with money out of his own resources. 
 Again, when Charles V. was disposed to let off heretics by the 
 payment of a fine, the cardinal used his influence to overcome the 
 disposition. " He?, too it was who arranged the jurisdiction of the 
 
32 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 tribunals of the Inquisition in the different provinces, setting them 
 in deeper and more solid foundations ; and finally it was this master 
 spirit of his time who first carried the Inquisition beyond the 
 limits of Spain, establishing it in Oran, which was his personal 
 conquest, and in the Canaries and Cuba, where he made provident 
 arrangements, by virtue of which it was subsequently extended 
 throughout Spanish America. Yet (strange to say), before he 
 wielded the power of the Inquisition he opposed its establishment. 
 Llorente, indeed, contends that it is an error into which many 
 writers fall, to accuse Ximenes of having had a part in the 
 creation of the tribunal, inasmuch as he concerted with Cardinal 
 Mendoza, and with Talavera, Archbishop of Granada, to prevent its 
 establishment." ^ But when it had been royally founded he was 
 determined . to keep -its government as far as possible in clerical 
 hands, and objected to a Spanish grandee and a counsellor of 
 Castile being made a counsellor of the Inquisition, on the ground 
 that he was a layman. He also showed how open he was to the 
 common prejudices of men irt office, by dismissing from the 
 secretaryship of the council one who for years had been private 
 secretary to the king with credit and honour.^ 
 
 In harmony with his intolerance was his discouragement of 
 Arabic studies. It was proposed to convert the Moors by instruct- 
 ing them in the knowledge of Christianity, and for this an Arabic 
 catechism and a form of worship were drawn up. Arabic translations 
 of the Gospels and Epistles were made ; but all this Ximenes 
 condemned. An appeal was made to St. Paul, who said he had 
 rather speak five words with his understanding than ten thousand 
 in an unknown tongue ; to which Ximenes replied, that the appeal 
 must be made to Peter, not Paul, that to put the sacred oracles 
 into the hands of Moors, just brought within the pale of the Church, 
 was to cast pearls before swine. Nor would he trust the Bible in 
 the hands of Spaniards, who boasted that they had the purest 
 
 > Ticknor, i. 424. ' Llorente, ' Histoire Critique de I'lnqui^ion d'Espagne,' i. 360. 
 
ALCALA DE HENARES. 33 
 
 blood. " Catechisms, solid and simple explanations of Christian 
 doctrine, and other writings calculated to enlighten the minds of the 
 people," says the admiring Fl^chier, " he was willing to have cir- 
 culated." "The Word of God should be wrapped in discreet 
 mysteries from the vulgar, who feel little reverence for what is 
 plain and obvious." " The Scriptures should be confined to the three 
 ancient languages which God with mystic import permitted to be 
 inscribed over the head of His crucified Son ; and the vernacular 
 should be reserved for such devotional and moral treatises as holy 
 men indite, in order to quicken the soul, and turn it from the 
 pursuit of worldly vanities to heavenly contemplation." These 
 words of the biographer of Ximenes explain the point of view from 
 which Roman Catholics, especially the .Spanish, contemplated the 
 work in which Protestant Reformers were then engaged. On this 
 ground, as elsewhere, the battle was fought between Popery 
 and the Reformation. The books promised as substitutes for 
 Scripture were Letters of St. Catherine, St. Angela, St. Matilda, 
 the Instructions of St. Vincent, the Meditations of Landulpho, 
 a Carthusian monk, and the Life of St. Thomas of Canter- 
 bury. Ximenes condemned vernacular translations of the sacred 
 volume. 
 
 Nor had he any more mercy on Arabic books than on Scripture 
 translations. He heaped up piles of MSS., including copies 
 of the Koran, in one of the squares of Granada, and made a 
 bonfire of the whole mass, though some of the treasures destroyed 
 were exquisitely written and splendidly bound. " This memorable 
 auto de je" writes Mr. Prescott, "it will be recollected, was 
 celebrated, not by an unlettered barbarian, but by a cultivated 
 prelate, who was, at that very time, actively employing his large 
 revenues in the publication of the most stupendous literary work of 
 the age, and in the endowment of the most learned university in 
 Spain. It took place not in the darkness of the Middle Age.=, 
 but in the dawn of the sixteenth century, and in the midst of an 
 
 D 
 
THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 enlightened nation, deeply indebted for its own progress to. these 
 very stores of Arabian wisdom."^ 
 
 Ximenes makes a grand figure in the political and ecclesiastical 
 history of Spain ; and it has cast curious shadows over the legends 
 of the people. Sentinels watching on battlements where he had 
 now a victory fancied they saw the martial friar in Franciscan dress, 
 and wearing a cardinal's hat, sometimes on foot, and sometimes 
 mounted on a white horse. As late as the year 1643, when Oran 
 was besieged by the Algerines, he hailed a soldier, terrified by his 
 ghostly appearance : " Tell the garrison to be of good heart, for 
 the enemy shall not prevail against you."^ 
 
 The cardinal died in 1517, recommending his university to 
 the patronage of Charles V. The last words he uttered were, " In 
 te, Domine, speravi " (In Thee, Lord, have I hoped). His body 
 was dressed in the robes of an archbishop, and placed in a chair of 
 state. When kneeling before it, crowds kissed the hands and feet 
 of the cardinal's corpse. Carried to Alcala, it was interred in the 
 Chapel of Ildefonso. 
 
 ' Hist, of Ferdinand and Isabella,' ii. 125. " Ibid. 335-340. 
 
( 35 ) 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PROTESTANT BOOKS PROHIBITED IN SPAIN. 
 
 The first book printed in Spain of which I -find any trace was 
 finished at Barcelona on the 9th of October, 1468.' It is a small 
 Grammar, consisting of fifty leaves, and the only copy of it known 
 to exist is preserved, we are informed by Mr. Ticknor, in the 
 Trinitarios Descalzos of Vich^-a cathedral city of Catalonia. A 
 second and more important publication consists of verses presented 
 in 1474 at a poetical contest — a sort of literary joust, common in 
 the age of Cervantes and Lope de Vega ; of this, as of the earlier 
 volume just mentioned, only a single copy can be found. 
 
 Jealousy respecting literature had betrayed itself so early as 
 the thirteenth century, when Alfonso X. of Castile published 
 his ' Las Siete Partidas,' a Digest of Decretals and Codes of Law, 
 which takes its name from the seven divisions of the work. It 
 contains sundry rules and maxims, and provides that no book- 
 sellers {estacionarios) in any university should sell books, which 
 the rector had not first examined and licensed.^ Torquemada, the 
 Inquisitor, kept a watchful eye over the world of letters ; and, in 
 1490, burnt a number of Hebrew Bibles, because they had been 
 prepared by Jews ; and at Salamanca he destroyed six thousand 
 volumes, because they were filled with magic and sorcery. In this 
 business he acted by royal authority, and the control of the press 
 
 ' It bears the colophon, " Finitur Barcynone iionis Octobris, anni a Nativitate 
 •Christi MCCCCLXViii." — Ticknor, i. 306. 
 - Ibid. i. 46, 421. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 until 1521 remained in the hands of the Oidores, or Judges of the 
 Higher Courts, licences for printing and circulating books being 
 granted by royal authority. Spanish writers were anxious to 
 obtain the favour of the sovereign, and also the sanction of the 
 Church, so, in order to preserve their works from censure, they 
 dedicated them to the Saviour and the saints ; the more objection- 
 able the book, the more anxious the author was to protect it after 
 this fashion. As late as 1664, a translation of Ovid's 'Metamor- 
 phoses' was dedicated to "la purissima Reyna de los angelos y 
 hpmbres, Maria Santissima " (the most pure queen of angels and 
 men, the most holy Mary). Cognizance of books on; every 
 subject was taken by the Inquisition, and the sanction of the 
 Apostolical Inquisitor was sometimes added to the imperial 
 licence. 
 
 No Protestant works proceeded from the Spanish press, but 
 printers in other parts of the world were busy in producing books 
 in support of the Reformation. England, France, Italy and 
 Switzerland more or less contributed to swell the rising tide of 
 anti-papal literature ; but Germany took the lead in this bold 
 enterprise, and from that quarter Spain looked with alarm upon 
 heretical inroads threatening the Church's peace and security. 
 Workmen at Bile, in the shop of John Froben a noted typo- 
 grapher, and a friend of Erasmus, were busy in 15 19 reprinting 
 several of Luther's tracts, whose name was then beginning to be 
 known all over Europe, through the story everywhere repeated of 
 the Pope's bull being burnt by him at the gate of Wittenberg. The 
 tracts were written in Latin ; but the next year the Reformer's 
 famous Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians was trans- 
 lated into Spanish. In this commentary he brought out in the 
 strongest language the impossibility of being saved by any works 
 of law ; at the same time he insisted on the doctrine of justification 
 by faith in the Lord Jesus as the only way of salvation. Thus 
 he tore up the popular system of human meritoriousness by the 
 
PROTESTANT BOOKS PROHIBITED IN SPAIN. 37 
 
 very roots ; therefore he could not but become, a terror to every 
 priest wedded to penances, pilgrimages and works of supereroga- 
 tion. How all this would be regarded by the Inquisition may be 
 easily imagined. Spanish translations of Luther's treatise on 
 Christian Liberty, and his answer to Erasmus on the freedom of the 
 will, followed not long afterwards. Luther's opinions on the subject 
 were decidedly Augustinian, and so far they were in harmony 
 with the doctrine of the Bishop of Hippo — a favourite Father 
 among Dominican Friars, whilst some Franciscans leaned to Pelagian 
 or semi-Pelagian views. Luther had come, through studying the 
 Bible in the light of his own spiritual experience, to see things as 
 no mere metaphysician, no mere scholastic dogmatist could ever 
 do. " If I felt," he said, " that my salvation depended on my 
 freedom of choice, I should be as one that beats the air. But 
 since God has taken my salvation into His own hands, I am 
 certain of His faithfulness and His promise. What an anxious 
 life it would be if we could only comfort ourselves with the 
 assurance of peace when we fulfilled the law — for who does that ? " ^ 
 The opinions of the Saxon monk, in the first instance, without 
 doubt took their sharpest sting, not from his Augustinian views, 
 but from his defiance of Rome and his opposition to the sale of 
 indulgences. His conduct in these respects rendered his books 
 hateful to the Spanish hierarchy, and accordingly, Fallavicini, in 
 his ' History of the Council of Trent,' remarks, that those in the 
 Peninsula who procured such books " must have sprung from 
 Moorish blood, for who would suspect the old Christians of Spain 
 of such an action ? " It must here be borne in mind that amongst 
 Roman Catholics in different countries, some devout souls sym- 
 pathized with Luther's Augustinian sentiments, and that others who 
 looked at the whole question from a simply politic point of view 
 desired to heal the breach opened in Germany. Even Don 
 
 ' A tlidrough investigation of Luther's opinions, as well as the whole story of his 
 life, according to the latest researches, will be found in Kostlin's ' Martin Luther.' 
 
33 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 Ju^n de Manuel, Spanish Ambassador at Rome, wrote, on the 
 1 2th of May, 1520, to his sovereign, Charles V., recommending 
 him to take a journey into Germany, and there manifest some 
 little favour to the formidable monk who had filled the Pontiff 
 with such disquietude. "The monk," said the ambassador, "is 
 deemed a great scholar, and creates embarrassment to the Holy 
 Father ; " and in another letter, written the 31st of the same month, 
 he remarked, " as to affairs at Liege, the Pope appears much more 
 discontented, because it is reported that the bishop favours Friar 
 IVIartin, who in Germany speaks against pontifical power. He is 
 also for the same reason indisposed towards Erasmus." ^ Now 
 Charles V. was at that time in Spain, about four years after he 
 had ascended the throne, and scarcely a year after he had been 
 elected Emperor ; hence he would have about him grandees of 
 the court and bishops of the realm, to whom the communications 
 from his envoy would be reported. 
 
 The Spaniards first charged with Reformed sentiments seem 
 to have been Franciscans; for, in May, 1526, Clement VH. 
 authorised the General and provincials of the order to summon 
 before their tribunal those of the brotherhood who had embraced 
 the new doctrine. A number of articles are specified — that it is 
 not necessary to confess to a priest, that the true body of Christ is 
 not present in the Eucharist, that prayer should not be offered to 
 saints, nor images be placed in the churches, that there is no pur- 
 gatory, and that it is useless to pray for the dead. Sacerdotalism, 
 indulgences, clerical celibacy and monasticism were all condemned ; 
 and it is implied that such denials had spread amongst the laity, for 
 all Catholic Christians were required to inform against those whom 
 they knew to have defended the doctrines of Luther. At a later 
 period, 1558, the opinions of persons designated ilhimiimti are 
 specified as consisting in the exaltation of mental prayer to the 
 discredit of bodily service, and in a fanatical belief of perfection, 
 ' Quoted by Llorente, i. 398. 
 
PROTESTANT BOOKS PROHIBITED IN SPAIN. 39 
 
 and of an immediate action of the Holy Spirit on the soul. The 
 description of such persons is probably, to some extent, inaccurate ; 
 but it is not unlikely that mystical views of religion, often involving 
 powerful experiences of spiritual truth, did at that time obtain 
 aniongst devout people, tired of the ceremonies of Romanism. 
 We cannot help recognizing the influence of books, at that time 
 secretly circulated amongst Spaniards, in the support, and indeed 
 the inspiration of sentiments such as I have indicated.^ 
 
 The scent of Lutheran heresy was crossed by another of a 
 different kind. Luther and Erasmus, though at first friends, now 
 appeared as antagonists. Erasmus was more of a scholar than a 
 theologian ; he was unimbued with Luther's spiritual sentiments ; 
 he lamented the corruption of the Church, and sighed after reform ; 
 but he was not ready to break with the Pope, and to unite in 
 the coming battle between hostile camps. Several Spaniards 
 who disliked Luther were drawn towards Erasmus. They admired 
 his learning, wit and moderation, and hoped much from the 
 circulation of his writings. Alfonso Fernandez, Archdeacon 
 of Alcor, eulogized the 'Enchiridion/ and translated it into 
 Spanish, declaring there was no other book of that age to be 
 compared with it in point of circulation, since there was scarcely 
 an individual in the emperor's court, the cities of the kingdom, 
 a church, a convent, or an hotel, who had not a Spanish copy of 
 the popular book. Erasmus had become a household name. 
 This work was printed by Spanish authority in 1527, and the 
 ' Colloquies ' were licensed in 1532. 
 
 The ' Colloquies ' had taken the learned world by storm, 
 and were full of amusement as well as instruction. Pretending 
 only to satirize abuses, the author represented the clergy as every- 
 where idle and corrupt. " No one who desired to render established 
 institutions odious, could .set about it in a shorter or a surer way ; 
 and it would be strange if Erasmus had not done the Church more 
 f Llorente, ii. 1-4 ,• see also 151, 215, 
 
40 
 
 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 harm by such pubhcations than he could compensate by a few sneers 
 at Reformers in his private letters." ^ Other books written by the 
 same author were sanctioned between' 1520 and 1551. But if there 
 were priests and laymen who admired the erudite Dutchman, others, 
 especially some friars, manifested a mortal enmity against him. 
 
 ERASMUS. 
 
 The end of it was that whilst the ' Enchiridion ' and some others 
 retained the licence, the ' Colloquies ' were struck out, and the 
 ' Praise of Folly,' together with the ' Paraphrase of the New Testa- 
 ment,' were forbidden. The ' Praise of Folly,' replete with wit, was 
 
 ' Kallam's ' Introduction to the Lit. of Europe^' i. 450. 
 
PROTESTANT BOOKS PROHIBITED IN SPAIN. 41 
 
 intended to show how many fools there are in all the high places 
 of Church and State ; and, though the irony was keen, it is said 
 that Leo X. could not help laughing over the pages. Erasmus's 
 ' Paraphrase of the New Testament ' was a scholarly production, 
 grave and sensible, helping whilst it encouraged the study of the 
 Scriptures ; and it probably got amongst proscribed publications 
 through the bad literary company it had to keep. 
 
 The ' Colloquies,' the ' Praise of Folly,' and ' The Paraphrase ' 
 were neither to be explained in schools nor sold in shops, nor read 
 by any one. " How I am to be pitied ! " wrote the sage. " The 
 Lutherans attack me as a convicted Papist, the Catholics run me 
 down as a Lutheran." ^ Still people got hold of the censured 
 volumes, and still readers were persecuted by zealous friars. 
 Maldonat, a counsellor of Charles V., wrote from the city of Burgos 
 mentioning a Dominican who was zealous in hunting after monks 
 that were getting on the forbidden ground. " He has acted," 
 remarks this correspondent, " in the same way with certain inter- 
 meddling nuns, and with some noble women, who in this country 
 have great influence over their husbands in what relates to religion." 
 The letter takes us inside the Spanish convent, and inside the 
 Spanish mansion, and shows us cowled brethren and high-born 
 dames poring over the sparkling pages of this popular satirist. 
 His productions were scattered over Europe in large editions, like 
 modern novels, and stirred up inquiry where they did not produce 
 conviction. Zealous churchmen watched the readers in private 
 haunts, and were especially alarmed when they saw a noble dame 
 thus employed, fearing lest she should lead astray her lord and 
 master. 
 
 Searching after heretical books, and punishment inflicted on 
 those who possessed them, went on with untiring diligence and 
 unmitigated severity. The court of Rome assisted to. the utmost 
 the lords of. the Inquisition. Sixtus IV., as early as February 
 
 ' ' Epist. Erasmi.' 
 
42 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 1483, had encouraged Isabella in her unnatural career of in- 
 tolerance, assuring her of his earnest desire to see the Inquisition 
 at work in Spain. The most infamous trickery followed this 
 communication to the Catholic Queen. Through private influence 
 and liberal bribes, some who had fallen into the clutches of the 
 Holy Office procured papal interference to stop the proceedings 
 carried on against them. Favours of that kind were sold for 
 money ; and then, when royal authority at home was invoked by 
 Inquisitors against spiritual authority abroad, the latter was base 
 enough to suspend the execution of its own bulls, and to leave the 
 victim of cruelty and deceit to a miserable fate. Leo X., a little 
 while before the burning of his bull by the intrepid German 
 Augustinian, trod in the footsteps of his predecessor Sixtus, and 
 stimulated the Holy Office in Rome to call before them certain 
 native Spaniards on charges of heresy. The Spanish ambassador 
 remonstrated against this proceeding as an insult to the Catholic- 
 government of his master, and requested that all countries should 
 be treated alike. The pontiff cunningly replied that he intended 
 no dishonour, but on the contrary a deserved favour, doing as a 
 rich man might with his jewels, taking care of the most precious 
 amongst them, more than of other property less valuable.^ 
 Whether or not it was that the pope had a distrust of the holy 
 fathers in Spain, he certainly, in 1521, sent briefs to the govern- 
 ment, stirring them up to prevent the circulation of Lutheran 
 books ; but the briefs were unnecessary, Spanish ecclesiastics being 
 very well able to conduct their own affairs. Between 1521 and 
 1 535 Spanish authorities issued decree after decree, the drift of all 
 being that those who possessed books tainted with Lutheranism, 
 and those who neglected to inform against people they knew 
 concealed them, should be denounced and punished. But these 
 proclamations left it uncertain, as to what really were and what 
 were not heretical. To meet the difficulty, Charles V., in 1539 — 
 
 ' Llarente, i.. 239, et seq. 
 
PROTESTANT BOOKS PROHIBITED IN SPAIN. 43 
 
 who was troubled enough just then with German affairs, and with 
 quarrels about a general council — turned attention to his own 
 dominions ; and, with the view of staying the spiritual plague 
 which threatened both Spain and the Netherlands, he obtained 
 from the University of Louvain a list of books which ought to 
 be proscribed. The learned men in that city set to work to 
 find out all the suspected volumes they could, and in 1 546 pre- 
 sented to their royal master an ' Index Purgatorius ' — the first 
 published in Spain, and the second known in other parts of the 
 world; After 1550 no book could be sold or read without a certifi- 
 cate, and nothing printed that came from the north of the Pyrenees 
 could pass that mountain chain without a licence. The ports 
 were closed against their admission. No Spanish bookseller 
 dared to open a bale of goods without the sanction of the Holy 
 OfBce. Protestant Spanish works were pre-eminently odious, and 
 were sought after with a lynx-eyed scrutiny. 
 
 It is impossible to compile a catalogue of books favourable to 
 the Reformation which at that period found their way into Spain ; 
 many besides those particularly mentioned as written by Erasmus, 
 Luther and others, may have been secretly conveyed to readers 
 thirsting for evangelical knowledge such as they had not before 
 received. Nor is it easy to make out a full list of all the works 
 written by Spaniards in support of Anti-Roman Catholic principles. 
 
 Philip II. went beyond his grandfather's zeal. In 1557 he 
 sought for heretical books printed in Spanish outside Spain, and 
 moreover, in 1571, he issued an 'Index Expurgatorius,' which 
 was not to be printed, or to be seen by anybody but a censor ; 
 so that a person holding a forbidden book would not know that 
 it was forbidden until he was detected and punished.^ 
 
 Books were burnt as well as human bodies ; some of the former 
 not burnt were rigorously prohibited. Melancthon's nStes on 
 grammatical treatises were suppressed. All works printed in 
 
 ' Ticknor, i. 423. 
 
44 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 Germany after the year 15 19 without the authors' names were 
 treated in the same way. A translation of Theophylact, by 
 CEcolampadius, was to be seized wherever found, and like measure 
 was to be meted out to a version of Chrysostom's works, by 
 Wolfgang Musculus. Professors in Catholic colleges were required, 
 under pain of excommunication, to deliver into the hands of 
 commissaries of the Holy Office Hebrew and Greek Bibles in their 
 possession. Inquiries were also to be made after Hebrew, Greek 
 and Arabic volumes not sanctioned by the Holy Office. 
 
 The cordon which was drawn around the country seemed as if 
 stupidly intended to keep the Protestant Reformation a secret in 
 Spain. What was known and talked of all the world over was to 
 be left undiscussed there ; and certainly it appears to have had this 
 effect, that, with the exception of those who sought instruction on the 
 subject from outside, comparatively few people troubled themselves 
 about the matter at all. The literature of Spain in the fifteenth 
 century bears few traces of what agitated the rest of Europe. In 
 reading the works of Bouterwek, Sismondi and Ticknor, how 
 little we meet with, indicative of inquisitiveness respecting the 
 Reformation amongst the Spanish literati ! Scraps of poetry may 
 be discovered comparing Luther to Arius and to Sabellius, and 
 Calvin to Pelagius and Nestorius — a comparison betraying much 
 ignorance — but Spanish culture remained almost untouched by 
 theological information in reference to questions which then moved 
 the world. The prohibition of Protestant books so far did the 
 intended business effectually. What rocked other kingdoms to 
 their base, and raised storms which agitated the master intellects 
 of the race, left Spanish thought almost unruffled. Facts stated 
 elsewhere in these pages sufficiently attest that spiritual truths 
 found their way into many hearts, but the fact does not affect the 
 representation I have made in relation to the world of letters. 
 
 So-called heretical works from other lands must have been 
 conveyed into Spain by secret and ingenious methods. Plenty of 
 
;.y.\VvMl*'-- 
 
 PASS IN THE PYRENEES, NEAR PERPIGNAN. 
 
PROTESTANT BOOKS PROHIBITED IN SPAIN. 47 
 
 ships sailed from Antwerp to Cadiz, and captains, mariners and 
 passengers might manage to carry, unknown to other people, some 
 of the dumpy quartos and loose tracts that came from German 
 presses. Into Spanish ports volumes might be smuggled ; and 
 even pedlars from France covild hide amongst their goods 
 heretical wares, and march with them over the mountains. 
 As I think of my own climbing years ago, within sight of the 
 Maldetta, and through gaps of cloud-covered walls of rock — and as 
 I remember the road near Portbou, recently passed, where the 
 Mediterranean washes mountain spurs and fills lovely bays, I 
 fancy I see these colporteurs of the olden time toiling along with 
 burdens on their backs. 
 
 A bookseller at Antwerp, one Peter Keller, informed the 
 Netherland Inquisitors, that twice a year books were bought in 
 Frankfort market for Spanish importation, and that there were 
 book dep6ts at Medina del Campo and Seville. "Money," he 
 said, " was sent from Spain for printing heretical works ; " and he 
 added, "when the Peninsula ports were no longer safe, volumes 
 were sent over the Pyrenees to Aragon and Navarre." ^ 
 
 Even from England, especially under Mary and Philip II., 
 works by English Reformers might pass into the dominions of his 
 father, for, says Pilkington, afterwards Bishop of Durharn, "We 
 have seen come to pass in our days, that the Spaniards sent for 
 into the realm, on purpose to repress the Gospel, as soon as they 
 were returned home, replenished many parts of their country 
 with the same truth of religion to which before they were utter 
 enemies." 
 
 We. have been informed what was accomplished in 1547 by 
 one Julian Hernandez, a man renowned for his Liliputian stature.' 
 He inserted within two large wine casks a curious contrivance for 
 concealing Protestant books, and so conveyed his cargo as to elude 
 the ofHcers and lodge his stores in the city of Seville, whence 
 ' Cited by Boehmer, ' Wiffeniana,' ii. 64. 
 
48 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 they were dispersed in different directions. What was cleverly 
 conveyed could be cleverly kept ; and tales told by John Foxe 
 about schemes in London and elsewhere for the concealment of 
 Bibles, are probably similar to many which three centuries ago were 
 whispered under the rose, in the mansions and monasteries of 
 Valladolid and Seville. As throughout that age, especially in the 
 earlier days, most books of a Lutheran or Calvinistic cast would be 
 in German, French or Latin, and only the well educated could 
 read them, I apprehend they found their way chiefly into the 
 cells of monks, or the chambers of accompHshed ladies. It will be 
 seen, as we proceed, that the Reformation advanced in Spain 
 chiefly amongst the upper classes, and by them the imported books 
 were most desired and most used. 
 
 The contrast between books favouring the Reformation and the 
 literature produced by Spanish Catholics is very striking. I have 
 noticed the separation of morality from religion in the latter. 
 Poetry as well as daily habit placed rites and ceremonies in a 
 position distinct from virtue and purity. A man who transgressed 
 the laws of domestic fidelity might nevertheless, from punctilious 
 regard for the Virgin, and attendance at mass, be esteemed an 
 exemplary Christian. The moral tone of Lutheran volumes, and 
 the daily conduct of Lutheran believers, were very different from 
 Spanish ideas and traditions. Nothing is more remarkable than the 
 union between morals and religion upheld in the literature of the 
 German Reformation. Whatever inferences may be drawn from 
 some of the unguarded statements of Martin Luther, whatever 
 the Antinomian complexion plausibly though unjustly given to 
 certain reasonings of his, nothing is more clear than the virtuous 
 tone of his practical teaching. In that respect he was the furthest 
 removed from what may be^ justly described as an Antinomian. 
 His life was devoted to the inculcation of what constitutes an 
 emphatic protest against the Spanish divorce of household rectitude 
 from Church ceremonialism. Luther strove to purify Christian 
 
PROTESTANT BOOKS PROHIBITED IN SPAIN. 49 
 
 homes, and by assigning a true place to marriage in the house of 
 priest and peasant, to overcome temptations incident to enforced 
 celibacy. He set up against the fictitious devotion of his own 
 day the supremacy of faith, which works by love and purifies the 
 heart : and the temper of his writings, in this respect, was diffused 
 over the writings of his fellow- workers. 
 
 A further contrast appears, when we think of Spanish sub- 
 mission to Church authority on the one side, and Lutheran 
 submission to Scripture authority on the other. The Spaniard was 
 a slave to priests. They were to him expounders of Divine 
 law — mediators between God and man. Lutheranism set aside 
 such authority, and appealed directly to Holy Writ. " Here I take 
 my stand. God, help me ! " were words which startled Charles V,, 
 whom we think of more as Emperor of Germany than as King of 
 Spain. But in the latter capacity he caught the Reformer's 
 declaration as a deadly attack on the religion of his grandfather 
 and grandmother, the religion of a long line of ancestors, the 
 religion of Aragon and Castile. It was an assertion of independent 
 conscientious thought against the claims of spiritual despotism ; 
 and the difference between the ring of the two theologies must 
 have struck every Spanish reader. To some it was an inexcusable 
 •offence ; to others it was an irresistible recommendation. Here, 
 perhaps, in a few instances, the old current of Castilian freedom 
 might come to aid the right of private judgment. People had in 
 bygone days asserted the liberty of thinking for themselves in 
 political matters ; why not now claim and exercise a similar liberty 
 in religious ones .■• 
 
50 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CITY or CUENGA AND THE TWO VALD^S. 
 
 CUENCA lies midway between Madrid and Valencia, where two 
 rivers meet, the Huecar and Jucar, which rush down from neighbour- 
 ing heights, through defiles which are spanned by bridges, planted 
 with poplars, and enlivened by water-mills. The city stands above 
 picturesque scenery — composed of old walls, with here and there 
 parish churches built between the towers. A cathedral erected 
 by Alonso VIII., and nests of dilapidated houses, crown a 
 romantic eminence, whence the eye looks across a fertile valley 
 which spreads below. There are pleasant walks beside trans- 
 parent streams. The leaves of aspens tremble overhead ; timber 
 beams resting on stone piers furnish a footway over brawling 
 torrents ; and '' numerous gardens, filled with fine vegetables and 
 fruit-trees, mantle luxuriantly the crags and stones." Ford calls it 
 " a happy Rasselas valley." ' In Cuenca, among the principal 
 buildings, besides the cathedral, with a modernised fa9ade fronting 
 the plaza, there is the episcopal palace, entered by a mixed 
 Gothic portal ; also there is a Franciscan convent of the twelfth 
 century. The narrow winding streets retain family mansions with 
 stately armorial bearings over the doorways— now poor-looking 
 enough, but reminding the visitor of former magnificence. 
 
 The city was a stronghold of the Moors, and semi-Moorish 
 arches can be detected amidst the Ecclesiastical Gothic. A curious 
 story is told of the manner in which the earlier was changed for 
 ' Handbook, third edition. 
 
CITY OF CUENCA AND THE TWO VALDES. Jr 
 
 the later rule. A Christian shepherd led out his Moorish master's 
 merinos as if to pasture, but really to place them in the hands^ of 
 Catholic neighbours, who killed the flock, and dressed themselves 
 up in the skins, and crawled in on all fours ; they were let into, the 
 city by a small postern gate, and took possession of the place, thus 
 becoming the ancestors of hidalgo families, who raised it to opuleiiGe 
 and renown. Cuenca is now poverty-stricken, with scarcely six 
 thousand inhabitants, but, at the time of the Reformation, it was 
 densely populated, and a thriving trade in wool was carried, on 
 within the walls. 
 
 There are in the neighbourhood fine stone quarries, out of 
 which the cathedral cloisters were built in the last quarter of the 
 sixteenth century ; arid jasper found in the district contributed to 
 the enrichment of the cathedral chapels; 
 
 Twin brothers were born at Cuenca about the end of the 
 fifteenth or the beginning of the sixteenth century — the exact date 
 cannot be ascertained. Their names were Alfonso and Juin de 
 Valdes, and they were destined to appear in memorable connection 
 with reformatory movements in Spain whilst they were still but 
 young men. They sunk into oblivion soon after their death; and 
 scarcely anything was correctly known about them for three hundred; 
 years. Mistaken, as since discovered, one for the other wheix 
 children, they were confounded together as if they had been the 
 same person, by writers not more than fifty years since. They 
 emerged from their obscurity lately, through the researches of a 
 pious Spaniard, Don Luis de Usoz y Rio, of a learned Germanj 
 Dr. Boehmer, and of two intelligent and inquisitive Englishmen, 
 Mr. B. B. Wiffen and Mr. Betts. Now an abundance of light has 
 been thrown on their story ; and we are favoured with beautiful 
 editions of Judn's works, both in Spanish and English- ; ^ some of 
 the treatises now given to the world having for ages been hidden 
 in dusty corners of ancient libraries. 
 
 ' A list is given at the end of this chapter. ■ 
 
 E i 
 
52 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 The family of the Vald& stood high amongst the Spanish 
 grandees of old. An ancestor, Hernando de Valdes, began the 
 foundation of Cuenca in the twelfth century, and left behind him 
 magnificent palaces and an entailed estate. Another Hernando, in 
 the latter half of the fifteenth century, was a Mayorazgo Regidor, 
 or hereditary proprietor, an hidalgo of fortune and renown. He 
 was content with what he had. 
 
 Ten marks of gold for the telling, 
 
 And of silver I have nine score, 
 Good houses are mine to dwell in, 
 
 And' I have a rent roll more. 
 My line and lineage please me, 
 
 Ten squires I count at my call. 
 And no lord who flatters or fees me. 
 
 Which pleases me more than they all. 
 
 This playful verse is believed to have been written by Hernando 
 de Valdes ; and no doubt the lines, which had fallen to him in 
 pleasant places, shone brighter than before, after his noble lady 
 presented him with healthy twins, and the boys were seen growing 
 up amidst picturesque scenery round the rock-built city. Where 
 stood the palace and gardens of their father we know not ; but we 
 can fancy the lads sporting on the banks of the Jucar and Huecar, 
 or climbing up the sides of San Cristobal and El Socorro. They 
 seem to. pass before us in the narrow streets ; we see them kneeling 
 on. the cathedral floor. They were educated, we are informed, at 
 home ; and, at a proper age, as was the custom, they were placed 
 under the charge of a distinguished person familiar with the court 
 and oiie of its members. Pedro Martir de Angleria, an Italian 
 brought to Spain in the suite of an ambassador extraordinary, on 
 his return from Rome, became the educator of Hernando's two 
 sons, and under his guardianship they grew up to be men fit for 
 office. Pedro Martir, or Peter Martyr — to be distinguished from 
 Peter Martyr Vermiglio — possessed great influence, and his nu- 
 
CITY OF CUENCA AND THE TWO VALDES. 53 
 
 merous and copious letters are historical authorities of high value. 
 After serving Ferdinand and Isabella, he -became a trusty attendant 
 on Charles V., and had interest enough with the emperor to get 
 Alfonso Valdes appointed as his Majesty's Latin Secretary. This 
 Peter Martyr was an extraordinary man, and entertained advanced 
 views of political and religious reform. He saw much in Church 
 and State which he deeply deplored, and after the manner of many 
 who shrunk from following his namesake, Martin of Wittenberg, he 
 longed for alterations in ecclesiastical affairs, and for spiritual 
 improvement in the character of the clergy. A passage in one of 
 his letters shows' how fully he grasped the principle at the bottom 
 of religious liberty — " No one, in my opinion, has been united by 
 God in such intimate relationship with Himself, as that He has 
 granted him the faculty of searching the hearts of other men, for 
 He has reserved this His peculiar prerogative to Himself alone. Let 
 no mortal encroach upon this, for we never learn that He ever 
 allowed any other being to share it, no, not one of the angels. It 
 has not been given to any man to penetrate the inward secrets of 
 another." ^ Training under the man who could write thus in the 
 sixteenth century, was an unspeakable privilege ; and no doubt 
 the brothers owed much in their subsequent career to the in- 
 structions of their patron. 
 
 Alfonso and Juan's biographies run along different lines, and 
 must be noticed separately. 
 
 Alfonso, as just stated, was made Latin Secretary to Charles V. 
 In that capacity he accompanied his royal master to Aix-la- 
 Chapelle, on his coronation in 1520. He sent an account of its 
 magnificence to Peter Martyr, and prefaced the minute details by 
 saying, " Were I to attempt to describe to you in detail the legions 
 of soldiers and knights with whom the emperor made his entrance 
 into Aix-la-Chapelle, the magnificent retinue of courtiers, of all 
 ranks, the armed German hosts, the sound of the clarions, the 
 ' Quoted by Wiffen in his 'Life and Writings of Juan de Valdes,' p. 20. 
 
S4 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 keating of the drums and other warlike instruments, the decorations 
 in gold, silver and precious stones, and the personal carriage of the 
 emperor himself — not only would it be difficult to me, but possibly 
 wearisome to you." ^ 
 
 A year after the young man had been dazzled with this scene 
 in the city of Charlemagne, he wrote another letter to his friend, 
 informing him of what had occurred at Worms, and how Luther had 
 said he could retract " nothing contained in his books, unless it were 
 proved by the New Testament, or by the testimony of the Old 
 Testament, that he had erred and written impiously." ^ Referring 
 to the safe-conduct given to Luther, Alfonso adds, " Here you have, 
 as some imagine, the end of this tragedy ; but I am persuaded that 
 it is not the end, but the beginning of it. For I perceive that the 
 minds of the Germans are greatly exasperated against the Roman 
 See ; and they do not seem to attach great importance to the 
 emperor's edicts ; for since their publication, Luther's books are 
 sold with impunity at every shop and corner of the streets and 
 market-places." The books so freely sold and bought at Worms^ 
 where Valdes was, and where he must have seen Luther, would 
 certainly be bought by some of Charles's courtiers, and be by 
 them carried home to Spain. Alfonso had no liking for Luther. 
 Luther went much too far to please the courtly Spanish youth ; 
 yet the latter desired the reform of the Church, and strenuously 
 advocated the holding of a general council. 
 
 He returned to Spain in 1522, and interested himself deeply in 
 public affairs ; and when Rome was taken and sacked by the 
 imperial army in 1527, he wrote an official document in defence of 
 the emperor addressed to Clement VH., in which, in his master's 
 name, he appeals from the pontiff, and demands the convocation of 
 a general and universal council. ^ 
 
 In a letter to the Count Baldessar Castiglione, Nuncio in Spain, 
 
 ' Quoted by Wiffen in his ' Life and Writings of Juan de Valdes;' p. 45. 
 ^ Ibid. p. 34- ■ ' Ibid. p. 49. 
 
CITY OF CUENCA AND THE TWO VALDES. 55 
 
 Alfonso writes, " Desiring to excuse the emperor, I could not avoid 
 accusing the pope, of whose dignity, however, I speak as every 
 good and faithful Christian ought to speak, and the guilt which 
 might be personally brought home to him I try as much as possible 
 to ward off from himself, and to cast it on his ministers." ^ Here 
 we get at the position occupied by the writer as well as many 
 others at that time. They did not dispute the dignity of the Holy 
 See, but, to adopt modern language, they could not take Ultra- 
 montane views of the matter, inasmuch as they condemned the 
 policy of the Roman court, which was then opposing ecclesiastical 
 reform, and resisting the cry for a general council. 
 
 Alfonso was a friend of Erasmus, who greatly praised and 
 sympathetically corresponded with him, as a Church reformer after 
 his own type ; and when Alfonso's father died, Erasmus wrote to 
 him an affectionate letter of condolence. "Farewell, dear Valdes,' 
 he says ; "after this tempest may you have a calm." "You know 
 well that he who writes is wholly yours." ^ 
 
 Alfonso, however much he resembled his friend, could not help 
 displeasing the pope, for in reference to the sack of Rome he wrote 
 a dialogue in order to vindicate the emperor, and to prove that the 
 catastrophe was a judgment from Heaven for the sins of the people., 
 Clement VII. became reconciled to Charles, and officiated in 1530 
 at his second coronation in the city of Bologna.^ There, in the 
 magnificent church of St. Petronio, the iron crown was placed by the 
 pontiff on the emperor's head, amidst a splendid array of nobles 
 and prelates, vying with that at Aix-la-Chapelle ; and then the 
 emperor knelt down to kiss the foot of the pontiff — a piece of 
 hypocrisy akin to a great deal more in those days, for the two had 
 been mortal enemies to each other, and after all could but ill 
 disguise the suspicion and dislike still smouldering in their breasts 
 
 ' Quoted by Wiffen in his ' Life and Writings of Juan de Valdes,' p. 76. 
 
 = Epist. 1 122. 
 
 ^ See ' Footprints of Italian Reformer,s,! for incidents cennected with that event. 
 
56 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 Alfonso was there ; and soon afterwards we meet him with his 
 master at Augsburg. " Alfonso, Spanish secretary of his Imperial 
 Majesty, as also Cornelius" (Schepper), writes Spalatin, "have had 
 some friendly conversations with Philip (Melancthon). Valdes 
 told him that the Spaniards had been given to understand that the 
 Lutherans believed neither in God nor the Trinity, nor did they 
 hold Christ and the Virgin Mary in any estimation, so that they 
 esteemed it a greater service to God to slay a Lutheran than to 
 kill a Turk." This was one of the monstrous ideas of Protes- 
 tantism current among Roman Catholics in those days. They have 
 continued down to our own time. I was once travelling in Italy, 
 when a youth who was with me in the diligence expressed the 
 utmost surprise at finding, from what I told him, that Protestants 
 trusted for salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ, and revered His 
 holy mother, the Virgin Mary, though they did not pray to her. 
 Melancthon corrected the prevalent misapprehensions. He spoke 
 for a long time with them, and explained the principles of his 
 party ; but they came to no conclusion and maintained their own 
 opinions. "Alfonso told Melancthon that he had been in the 
 morning with the emperor, and that no opportunity so favour- 
 able to speak to his Majesty about him having occurred for a 
 long time, he reported to him all the Lutheran articles, and how 
 they believed there was nothing whatever in them contrary to the 
 church. The emperor had asked. What do they wish about the 
 monks ? and had charged him, Alfonso, to request of Melancthon 
 that he should transmit to his Majesty a brief summary drawn up 
 without any prolixity, which Melancthon has done." ^ This 
 summary was the Augsburg Confession ; and it is curious to find 
 that the Spanish Valdes had so much connection with it. Alto- 
 gether it appears that Alfonso acted as a mediator between the two 
 Church parties, and that some, perhaps including himself, supposed 
 the points of contention related chiefly to the Eucharist under 
 ' Quoted in 'Life of Juan de Valdes,' by Wiffen, 88. 
 
CITY OF CUENCA AND THE TWO VALDES. 57 
 
 two forms, to clerical marriage and to the mass. It was then, as it 
 always is, the friends of peace are apt only to look on the surface, 
 and not to see the deep gulfs which yawn beneath. " Alfonso," says 
 Wiffen, " was not a Protestant. Like Erasmus, he was not wanting 
 in genius to soar with Luther ; like Erasmus, he would not separate 
 himself from the simplicity and breadth of the Bible ; and like 
 Erasmus also, both he and his twin brother remained within the 
 pale of their ancient communion till their death." ^ 
 
 But Alfonso went far enough to awaken suspicion amongst 
 familiars of the Holy Office. Years afterwards, Francisco de 
 Enzinas, of whom I shall have much to say, remarked, " There are 
 none of us who did not know Alfonso de Valdes, the emperor's 
 secretary, to be a good man. The satellites of the holy fathers 
 could never endure his doctrine and authority. They laid such 
 snares for him, that if he had returned to Spain there would have 
 been an end of him. They would have caused him to die a cruel 
 death. The emperor himself could not have saved him." ^ Probably 
 he did not return. His death occurred in 1532, as we learn from a 
 letter sent by Thomas Cranmer to Henry VHI., in which he speaks 
 of Alfonso Valdes dying of the plague with others of the imperial 
 household.^ 
 
 We must now take up the story of Judn de Valdes. He 
 remained in Spain till a short time before his brother's death. We 
 find him at Bologna in 1533, where he was in the service of the 
 pope as a chamberlain,* a circumstance difficult to reconcile with 
 ' Quoted in ' Life of Juan de Valdes,' by WifFen, 90. ^ Ibid. ^ Ibid. 91. 
 
 * " The post which Valdes held at the court of Clement VII. must have been that 
 of ' cameriere d' onore, di spada e cappa,' meaning a chamberlain of honour, a secular, 
 a layman, a post of honour involving no regular duties." Moroni's 'Dizionario di 
 enidizione storico-ecclesiastica,' Venezia, 1841, vol. vii., p. 48. Compare Lunadoro's 
 ' Relazione della corte di Roma,' Venezia, 1671, p. 14 ; where it is stated that they do 
 not present themselves at the palace except when they choose to do so, and that it is 
 usual for the popes to send the cardinal's hat by them to newly-appointed cardinals. 
 This information is given by Dr. Boehmer, and is inserted in his ' Lives of the Twin 
 Brothers.' 
 
58 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 his religious history. For before that, he had been employed on a 
 dialogue entitled ' Mercury and Charon,' relating incidents in the 
 war between 1521 and 1528. The boatman Charon, on the river 
 Styx, and a departed soul, are represented as talking about matters 
 in this world ; but the departed spirit in Hades is at length heard 
 relating his experience, and after confessing former slavery to vice, 
 describes a thorough conversion, saying, "God enlightened my 
 mind, and knowing the doctrine of the New Testament to be true, 
 I determined to lay aside superstitions and vices in all their forms, 
 and to occupy myself in following out the former to the best of 
 my poor ability, although friends and relatives placed immense 
 obstacles in the way of my doing so. Some say that I was going 
 mad, and others that I was about to turn monk, whilst I made 
 sport for them all. But from love to Jesus Christ I bore it all 
 patiently." It has been thought that Vald^s here relates his own 
 conversion ; if so, it is strange that with such a manifest Protestant 
 bias, he should afterwards hold office under the pope ; even if the 
 passage be a pure fiction, it is not of a nature such as we should 
 expect would be written by a Roman official. However this may 
 be, we find him with the pope on the 5th of January, 1533, writing 
 the following letter to the Bishop of Culm, Counsellor of the King 
 of Poland — the only letter of Juan's which has been rescued from 
 oblivion. 
 
 " Had I not the certainty, most honoured master, that thy mind 
 is so moulded by the most sacred and by the most virtuous teach- 
 ings, so as to be wholly averse to the principles of those who are 
 wont to love a man, not for his ability, but for his fortunes, I 
 assuredly should not have taken this step; now, however, when I 
 recollect that thou wert intimate with my brother, Alfonso Valdes 
 (who by sad fate has been carried off from us), before that he 
 attained that post about the emperor's person, I feel no hesitation 
 in addressing niyself to thee by letter, in order that thou mightest 
 thereby understand that my mind is not so intent upon attaining 
 
CITY OF CUENCA AND THE TWO VALDES. 59 
 
 the property bequeathed me under iny brother's will, as upon 
 conciliating their favour whom he looked up to as his masters and 
 superiors, or whom he loved as friends, or whom he cherished as 
 his inferiors ; that I may be able either to venerate them as 
 masters, or to look up to them as superiors, or to love them 
 as equals, and that they also may esteem and love me, as his twin- 
 brother, to whom nature has given the same feat-ures and the same 
 tone of voice ; for if the intellectual endowments, which he by the 
 grace of our good and great God had acquired, be not found as 
 richly and copiously in me as in him, I am not on that account to 
 be despised by those to whom my brother was dear, for I do not 
 challenge of them that they value me for my sake, but rather that 
 they should do so for my brother's. Since, revered master, he 
 ever highly esteemed thee as a superior, and that thou hast ever 
 loved and valued him as a friend, it will be just that thou now 
 make me heir of this thy love and of the benevolence towards 
 him, and I shall then assume that thou wilt have done so, when 
 thou shalt give me something in charge wherein I may be enabled 
 to show my feelings towards thee by readiness of service. Shouldest 
 thou have felt constrained by the loss of so dear a friend to commit 
 anythitig to writing, I earnestly entreat thee to send it, whatever it 
 may be, to me, that I may by this token of thy love occasionally 
 soothe and mitigate my most bitter grief. But in order that thou 
 mayest know where to address me by letter, know that I shall 
 henceforth be near the person of the pope ; where should aught 
 transpire in any manner affecting thine interests, thou wilt commit 
 its management to me, which will be most honouring and most 
 agreeable to me. 
 
 "Fare thee well, most noble president, and love me in the stead 
 of Alfonso Valdes." ^ 
 
 A work entitled ' Dialogo de las Lenguas ' there can be no doubt 
 
 ' Bologna,- 12th January, 1533 ; printed in ' Introduction to the Lives of the Twin- 
 brothers, Juan and Alfonso de ValdeSj:' by Eds«ard Boehmer. (Tiriibner.) 
 
6o THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 was written by Juan Vald^s. It is composed in a sparkling style, 
 and is pronounced by Mr. Ticknor, the accomplished and critical 
 historian of Spanish literature, " by far the best didactic prose work 
 of the period." He praises the purity of the style at a time marked 
 by formal and elaborate eloquence, citing these words by the 
 author : " I write as I speak ; only I take more pains to think what 
 I have to say, and then I say it as simply as I can, for to my mind 
 affectation is out of place in all languages." Don Luis goes so 
 far as to believe that De Vega and Cervantes made the style of 
 De Valdes their study. The supposed dialogue is carried on by 
 the seaside at Naples, and it forms a learned and clever dis- 
 cussion on the origin and genius of the Castilian tongue ; but, 
 as Mr. Ticknor points out, it falls into an error when he represents 
 Italian as derived from Greek, and speaks of the latter as having 
 at one time prevailed in the Peninsula.^ In reply to the question 
 "Which do you hold to be the greater fault in a man — want of 
 genius or want of judgment.?" Valdes, who introduces himself 
 by name as one of the interlocutors, replies — " Had I to choose, 
 I should prefer a man with but moderate genius and good judg- 
 ment, to one with moderate judgment and great genius. Man 
 has no jewel to compare with that of a sound judgment!' Those 
 words in the sixteenth century deserve to be weighed by Eng- 
 lishmen of the nineteenth. 
 
 Judn de Valdes retired to Naples, at what date I cannot 
 ascertain ; but he was there when Charles V. went to the city in 
 1535, ^iid on the 4th of February issued an edict forbidding 
 intercourse with Lutherans, or those suspected of heresy. Death 
 or confiscation of property was threatened in case of disobedience. 
 Yet when Judn left for Rome, he went with the emperor as one of 
 the gentlemen of the court, and, on the departure of the emperor 
 from Italy, Juan went back to Naples, and resided there till his 
 death, gathering together on Sundays, for four or five years, 
 ' Ticknor, ' Hist, of Spanish Lit.' ii. 19. 
 
CITY OF CUENCA AND THE TWO VALDES. 6r 
 
 sympathetic friends whom he instructed in things pertaining to the 
 kingdom of God.^ 
 
 Judn Valdes became acquainted with the Italian Protestant 
 martyr Carnesecchi,^ who thus described his friend : — " Although I 
 had known Judn Valdes at Rome in the time of Pope Clement, I 
 cannot say that I knew him as a theologian before the year 1540 in 
 Naples. For when in Rome I did not know that he applied 
 himself to the study of sacred literature, but I knew him only as a 
 modest and well-bred courtier, and as such I liked him very much, so 
 that the intercourse and familiarity I afterwards had with him at 
 Naples was a continuation of our friendship made at Rome ; at 
 Naples, however, the friendship grew to be a spiritual one, for I 
 found him entirely given up to the Spirit, and wholly intent on the 
 study of Holy Scripture. This, however, would not have been 
 sufficient with me-^to give him the credit I did — now that the 
 gentibiomo di spada e cappa, the layman and courtier had, for me, 
 suddenly become the theologian, had I. not observed what a high 
 place he occupied in the eyes of Fra Bernardino Ochino, who then 
 was preaching, to the admiration of everybody, at Naples, and who 
 professed to receive the themes of many of his sermons from 
 Valdes, from whom he used to get a note on the evening 
 preceding the morning on which he was to ascend the pulpit ; and if 
 
 • That society I have described elsewhere ('Footprints of Italian Reformers'), and 
 as it belongs to the Reformation in Italy, any further reference would be out of place 
 in the present volume, except to say that his work in .that country most effectively 
 promoted the interests of spiritual religion amongst the upper class of Italians. He 
 died in 1540. Wiffen and Boehraer have done much to elucidate his life and character, 
 and books on this subject have appeared in Spanish by Don Caballero (1875), ^'^^ iii 
 French by Manuel Carrasco (1880). The former contains many important letters and 
 other doci^Bients. 
 
 ' Some account of Camesecchi is given in the ' Footprints of Italian Reformers ' 
 (Religious Tract Society). A full report of his trial may be found in ' Estratto del 
 processo di Pietro Camesecchi,' edited by Giacomo Mazoni. Tomo X. della Miscellanea 
 di Storia Italiana. Notices of Bernardino Ochino are also contained in the 'Foot- 
 pr;ints,' &c. 
 
62 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 Fra Bernardino's opinion had not been in harmony with that of 
 Flaminio, whom I thought such a prudent and learned man that 
 he would not have been imposed upon ; and so sincere and worthy, 
 that he would hot have wished to delude others ; especially such a 
 great friend of his as I was, and on a matter of such importance as 
 religion." Judn de Valdes died in the summer of 1 541. His decease 
 was placid. He was, in his last illness, visited by the Archbishop 
 of Otranto, his dear friend, who used to commend his writings and 
 discourses in matters of religion. When, in 1543, the archbishop, 
 then a member of the Council of Trent, and his friend Carnesecchi, 
 saw each other for the first time after Valdes' death, and could pass an 
 evening together, at Venice, they, as it were, vied in expressing 
 " their admiration and praise of that blessed divine." ^ 
 
 The influence of this Reformer over Spanish minds is to be 
 attributed chiefly, if not entirely, to his writings. Very little would 
 now be known of them but for the researches of the gentlernen 
 already mentioned ; and to them the English public are indebted 
 for a growing acquaintance with the works of Juan Valdes and 
 other Reformers. 
 
 A book of his, entitled the ' Christian Alphabet,' translated out 
 of Spanish into Italian, was prihted and published in 1546.^ It 
 presents what Valdes regarded as the first principles of Christianity, 
 and it is cast into a dialogue form, of which he and his brother 
 seem to have been fond. The speakers are himself and Signpra 
 Donna Giulia Gonzaga. 
 
 Mr. Wiffen tells us "she was the one who drank deepest of his 
 instructions, and towards whom his mind was most forcibly brought 
 into exercise. Her noble faculties, her pursuit of the highest 
 virtue, and the loveliness of her mind and person, alike engaged his 
 regard." Eulogised by the' father of Tasso and by Ariostb, she has 
 
 ' These extracts are from Boehmer's ' Lives of the Twin-Brothers.' 
 " 'Alfabeto Christiano che insegna la vera via d'acquislare il lume dello Spirito santd. 
 Stampata con gratia et privilegio. (L'Anno mdxlvi.) ' Probably at Venice. • ' . 
 
CITY OF CUENCA AND THE TWO VALDES. 63 
 
 come down to us as a poetess in a little volume published at 
 Bergamo in 1750. At sixteen she married a duke and count, 
 who gave her the titles she bore. Her husband, older than herself, 
 inspired her with an affection which continued in all its strength 
 after his death, which induced her to reject offers of a second union, 
 and which led her to adopt, after a fashion of that age, an 
 amaranthine flower as her symbol, with the motto, Non Moritura, 
 " that will not die." Her history is most romantic, and has been 
 chronicled by Wiffen ; and after a series of adventures she went to 
 live at Naples in the Borgo delle Vergini. The lady whilst there 
 became immersed in troubles, owing to a family dispute ; and it 
 was under these perplexing circumstances that her intimate 
 acquaintance with Judn de Valdes occurred, and that the con- 
 versation given in the ' Alfabeto Christiano ' may be regarded as 
 taking place. 
 
 There are three ways, Judn says, in which people arrive at the 
 knowledge of God. One is by the light of nature. " This light the 
 Gentile philosophers had, and this those people have at the present 
 day to whom Christ is not known. St. Paul speaks of this 
 knowledge when he said that by the visible things of creation 
 people come to a knowledge of the invisible things of God." 
 " Another way to the knowledge of God is by Sacred Scripture. I 
 mean by the Old Testament, which gave a knowledge of God, but 
 imperfectly, exhibiting Him as angry — a God of Vengeance, and 
 such similar severe names." The third way of knowing God is 
 by Christ. This way is the certain, clear and safe way ; this is the 
 straight, royal, and noble way. "And because we cannot know 
 Christ by the light of nature, nor by other human industry, if God 
 does not internally illumine and open the vision of our souls, I 
 say that this knowledge of God through Christ is a supernatural 
 knowledge for which the special grace of God is necessary:" ^ 
 Valdes quotes the words to Peter thus : " Blessed art thou, Simon 
 ' The paragraph in the original is here abridgecL 
 
64 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 son of John ; for this thou hast not gained by human reason, nor by 
 the light of nature ; but My Father who is in heaven has revealed 
 it unto thee ; " and then adds, "When we know God through Christ, 
 we know Him as loving, benign, merciful, compassionate, because 
 we find in Christ love, benignity, mercy, and compassion." This, 
 Valdes seems to place in contrast with what is taught in the Old 
 Testament ; apparently forgetting the revelation of Divine mercy 
 made there, and not connecting the New Testament with the 
 Old, as he should have done. 
 
 The best known work by Valdes is the ' CX. Considerations,' 
 of which the earliest edition identified was an Italian version, printed 
 at Bile in 1550. This volume was translated into English, and 
 printed in 1638 and 1646. It inspired the admiration of George 
 Herbert ; but a far better version is that by Mr. Betts, published 
 in 1865. It may here be added, that recently, since Mr. Betts 
 made his translation of the ' CX. Considerations ' from the Italian 
 edition, thirty-nine MSS. of the book have been discovered in the 
 original Spanish, amongst the Maximilian papers at Vienna. 
 
 From a perusal of the ' Considerations,' it will be found that the 
 author did not deal in scholastic propositions or in logical reasonings, 
 that his habits were religious rather than theological, experimental 
 rather than scientific. Upon the nature of our Lord, though he 
 refuses to speculate respecting the union of Divinity and humanity, 
 he uses language utterly inconsistent with Ahtitrinitarianism ; yet 
 that has been unjustly attributed to him by some writers.^ He 
 did not attack the false doctrines of Rome, such as transub- 
 stantiation, purgatory, the intercession of saints, and the like. 
 We find little or nothing controversial in the volume. It has 
 no bitterness, but from beginning to end abounds in light and 
 sweetness. He did not attempt to struggle with error so much 
 as to inculcate what he believed to be truth. In his ' Con- 
 
 ' See ' Alphonso and Juan de Valdes, by Manuel Carrasco,' p. 105 ; and carefully 
 read Consideration No, XCV. 
 
CITY OF CUENCA AND THE TWO VALDES. 65 
 
 siderations' he dwells upon the atonement, which he describes 
 as "Justice executed upon Christ" (a favourite expression with 
 him) ; upon justification by faith, which is expounded in a some- 
 what Lutheran form ; and upon regeneration as the work of the 
 Holy Spirit, much after the type of doctrine generally adopted 
 by Evangelical divines. The fruitlessness of mere speculation, 
 the moral power of Christian faith, and the spirituality of religion, 
 are ever-recurring topics in a long series of remarks, which do 
 not exhibit any systematic order. He quotes Scripture texts, but 
 more abundantly refers to the illumination of the soul by the 
 direct agency of the Holy Ghost. No doubt several questionable 
 statements are introduced ; yet the chapters are rich in shrewd 
 ideas and lively illustrations, presenting throughout subtlety of 
 thought, and a keen habit of analysis. His meaning some- 
 times is liable to be misapprehended ; hence unfavourable criti- 
 cisms have been suggested by foreign and English readers. Nor 
 can it be denied that there are defects, weaknesses, and mistakes 
 in Juan and other writers of this class. Old moulds and forms of 
 thought were broken up by them, and they were not unlikely to 
 say what enemies and even friends might regard as heretical. 
 Valdes belonged to the same class as Bernard, Tauler, Thomas a 
 Kempis, and the author of the ' Theologia Germanica.' I believe 
 it is said that he used to recommend the sermons of Tauler ; and 
 certainly many trains of thought in the Spanish Christian do 
 wonderfully harmonize with the meditations of the great Teutonic 
 preacher. 
 
 Education, society and mental idiosyncrasies powerfully affect 
 our opinions of others. We judge of them by ourselves. If they 
 do not resemble us, if their tastes and habits differ from our own, 
 we are liable to form a false judgment of their character as 
 spiritual teachers. Some have a strong prejudice against all who 
 are called "Mystics;" on the one hand they are treated as imbecile, 
 on the other as puffed up with religious conceit. Yet when they 
 
 F 
 
66 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 are closely examined their thoughts will be found " to go down to 
 the very deepest and most universal grounds of theology and 
 metaphysics." Nor should the consciousness which they felt of the 
 inward workings of the Divine Spirit be overlooked. " By their 
 fruits ye shall know them ; " and beautiful manifestations of purity, 
 love, meekness and joy do not spring from roots of self-delusion 
 and falsehood. What has been said of the readers of John Tauler 
 may be truly said also of Juan Valdes. " They will find there the 
 same food which they have found already in St. Bernard, k Kempis, 
 and Madame Guyon ; and find there also, perhaps more clearly 
 than in any mystic writer, a safeguard against the dangers which 
 specially beset them ; against the danger of mistaking their 
 passing emotions for real and abiding love of good ; against exalt- 
 ing any peculiar intuition which they may think they have attained 
 into a source of self-glorification, and fancying that they become 
 something by the act of confessing themselves nothing." ^ 
 
 It may be further remarked that in the ' CX. Considerations ' a 
 great deal may be found resembling ideas and sentiments ex- 
 pressed by George Fox and the early Quakers ; and hence, in part, 
 the extraordinary admiration of Valdes expressed by Mr. B. B. 
 Wiffen. " It has been my wish," says the latter, " to represent the 
 truth and depth of his Christian profession, exalted to the simplicity 
 of the Gospels, grounded and settled in the faith of the heart, 
 which Valdes endeavoured to practise himself and to teach to 
 others." " With a masterly power over his whole nature, Valdes 
 sought to apprehend truth through the medium of feeling as well 
 as reason." " To Valdes the internal word of Inspiration was not 
 mystical. He knew that the word of God within, earnestly sought 
 for, patiently believed in, and obediently complied with, was as the 
 highest reason, and that its commands were practicable just in 
 proportion to the degree of the reliance of faith reposed in them." ^ 
 
 ' Kingsley, Preface to 'Tauler's Sermons,' xxxv. 
 
 - Life of Valdes prefixed to the ' Considerations,' 174. 
 
CITY OF CUENCA AND THE TWO VALDES. 
 
 67 
 
 These sentences will indicate to most readers the cast of thought 
 pervading the works of the Spanish Reformer. 
 
 Two works by Valdes in Spanish were printed professedly at 
 Venice, really at Geneva, in 1556 and 1557 ; the latter the very 
 year in which, at the same place, the English exiles brought out 
 what is so well known as the Genevan Testament, so popular 
 amongst our Puritan ancestors. The first of these works by 
 Vald6s was a translation and exposition of the Epistle to the 
 Romans, the second a translation and exposition of the First 
 Epistle to the Corinthians. The foraier has a prefatory letter 
 
 DEVICE PREFERRED TO VALDES' IJOOKS.' 
 
 addressed to his friend Giulia Gonzaga, and in it he explains his 
 method of rendering the Greek into Spanish, which is particularly 
 interesting to the English reader, now that so much controversy has 
 arisen from the publication of our Revised Testament, touching the 
 principle to be adopted in rendering Scriptures from one language 
 into another. 
 
 " In the translation I have sought to adhere to the letter of the 
 text, rendering it word for word as much as it was possible for me 
 
 ' This device is given on the title-page of the ' Commentary on the Epistle to the 
 Romans.' The branches of the Y represent, in the thin line, the narrow way to life, 
 and in the other, the broad way to death. 
 
 F 2 
 
68 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 to do so ; and even leaving ambiguity where, finding it in the 
 Greek text, I have been able to leave it in the Spanish, when 
 the text might apply in one sense or in another. I have done this 
 because in translating St. Paul I have not pretended to write my 
 own conceptions, but those of St. Paul. It is indeed true that I 
 have added some {palabrillas) little words to the text where it 
 appeared to me that some of them are understood in the Greek 
 text, although they are not written, ^vhilst it seems that others are 
 necessarily to be understood. All these are, as you will see, 
 marked in order that you may recognize them as mine, and that 
 you may treat them as shall seem best to you, as to the reading or 
 not reading of them." 
 
 "The Latin words which I place at the beginning of the 
 Commentaries do not serve, as you might think, to assist you to 
 understand the Latin by the Spanish, for they frequently disagree 
 the one from the other, but rather think that they only serve to 
 help you the more easily to understand which are the Latin words 
 to which the Spanish correspond ; for those, as I have said, conform 
 to the Greek text and not to the Latin, because St. Paul wrote in 
 Greek and not in Latin ; and supposing, for instance, that you 
 should wish to read St. Paul's text without any Commentaries, I 
 wish to point out some things that will open up the way for your 
 doing so with facility, and that will render the apprehension of 
 St. Paul's mind easy." 
 
 The statement he makes as to the spirit of his Commentary, 
 and the idea of Christianity which he means to unfold in it, is still 
 more important. "And thus I tell you that by the Gospel, St. 
 Paul means the proclamation of the good news of the general 
 pardon, that is published throughout the world, affirming that 
 God has pardoned all the sins of all the men in the world, 
 executing the rigour of His justice for all of them upon 
 Christ, who has proclaimed this general pardon to the world, 
 and in whose name all they who publish it do proclaim it, 
 
' CITY OF CUENCA AND THE TWO VALDES. 69 
 
 in order that men, moved by the authority of Christ, who is 
 the Son of God, may give credit to the general pardon, and 
 relying upon the Word of God, may hold themselves to be 
 reconciled to God, and may desist from striving after other 
 reconciliations." ^ 
 
 Valdes' Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew has only of 
 late been brought to light, but is now accessible to the English 
 reader through a translation by Mr. Betts, who has also published 
 in English Valdes' Commentary on the Romans. These works are 
 wonderfully valuable. They are so clear, so comprehensive, so 
 condensed, so spiritual, in general so satisfactory — that I know not 
 how sufficiently to praise them. When we remember that Valdes 
 was a Spaniard, born before the Reformation, brought up in the 
 midst of superstition, living in the world and familiar with the 
 splendour of court life, it is surprising beyond expression that he 
 could expound as he did the Gospel of the Saviour. It is to be 
 explained only by our believing that he was largely blessed with 
 the illumination of that Spirit to which we owe the heavenly 
 oracles themselves. 
 
 A significant passage occurs at the close of the eighth chapter 
 of the Gospel of Matthew : " It behoves the children of God not 
 to contend with, nor set themselves in opposition to those who 
 do not desire their society, but to depart peacefully from them, as 
 did Christ from the Gergasenes." This seems a key to the secret 
 of his own course of proceeding. He abstained from mingling 
 in his last days with the enemies of Protestantism. 
 
 Dr. Wilkens, of Bremen, an enthusiastic admirer of Valdes, in 
 a letter to Mr. Betts in July, 1882, thus speaks of the Commentary 
 
 1 Those who are acquainted with the writings of Thomas Erskine will be struck with 
 the resemblance between some of his sentiments and those of the Spanish reformer. 
 See more on the same subject, Valdes, 'Opuscules,' 27. To affirm, however, that 
 " God has pardoned all the sins of all men," without connecting this with the necessity 
 of repentance and faith, gives a false impression of New Testament teaching. 
 
70 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 on St. Matthew's Gospel — " It is an exposition by means of which 
 the reader will become something (beyond what he was) and not 
 merely better instructed in Scripture. The life, the power, the 
 peace of the word of God will penetrate the heart and awaken life, 
 or nourish it, if it already be there. Such are genuine Expositions, 
 they are not works buried in learning, as though under lava, 
 wherein all that is Divine must disappear to make place for 
 additions that are wholly empty and human ; where one finds but 
 a luxury of citations, of contentious, contradictions, of forgotten 
 opinions, of notices that were best dispensed with, and a farrago of 
 words that never yield enjoyment. In relation to the basket by 
 which St. Paul was lowered down the wall, how can I be interested 
 in a quarto volume, a series of disquisitions upon the baskets of the 
 ancients, those of Egypt, of Babylon, of Greece, of Rome .'' They 
 who wish to occupy themselves upon such topics know where to 
 find them, but a commentary must not weary its reader with them. 
 How admirably does Valdes cut all such investigations short, by 
 referring the curious to them who understand them. In such 
 cases he is a model Expositor. The majority occupy themselves so 
 much with the shell, that they overlook and never eat the sweet 
 kernel ; but the eating of that is nevertheless the principal thing. 
 
 " Valdes' minor works are the golden ingots of God's word 
 worked up into small coins for Christ's children and younger 
 members ; and these groats are as current this day as they were 
 in the sixteenth century. 
 
 " Upon the whole, these Evangelical impulses and efforts in Spain 
 belong to that period, and to the noblest manifestions ; but that 
 which so greatly distinguishes them is their /z^rz'/y. They are free 
 from those bitter polemics, which by their vulgarity, untruths and 
 exaggerations, injure love, embitter Catholics, and which to this 
 present day have so greatly injured the cause of truth." 
 
 The teaching of Juan Valdes could not be much known in 
 Spain until after his death. It might be, and no doubt was, 
 
CITY OF CUENCA AND THE TWO VALDES. 71 
 
 reported to friends in private. At Cuen^a and elsewhere, whisper- 
 ings might be received as to the doctrine inculcated on the Chiaja 
 at Naples. And when Spanish and Italian editions were printed 
 north of the Alps, they might be brought by stealth to those of his 
 fellow-countrymen who were thirsting for Protestant truth. But of 
 late years, thank God, Valdes' books have been printed and 
 circulated in Spain. Don Luis, a distinguished Spaniard of our 
 own time, was indefatigable in this unprecedented enterprise. He 
 had received light into his own soul from this illustrious author, 
 and he longed to pour the same illumination into the minds of 
 others. Through his zeal and that of sympathizing friends, Vald6s, 
 " though dead, yet speaketh." 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 The following is a list of works by Juan Valdes : — 
 
 1. Dialogo de la lengua (Dialogue respecting language). The 
 
 earliest printed edition seems to be that of 1737. 
 
 2. Alfabeto Christiana (Christian Alphabet), 1546, printed probably 
 
 at Venice. Prohibited in the Index of Pius IV. , 
 
 3. Comentario, 6 declaracion breve, y compendiosa sobre la Epistola 
 
 de S. Paulo Apostold los Romanos, i^^e^S. Prohibited. 
 5. Comentario declaracion familiar, y compendiosa sobre la 
 primer a Epistola desan Paulo Apostol a los Corinthios, 1557. 
 
 1. Modo di tener nelt insegnare et nel predicare al principio 
 
 della religione Christiana. 1549. (Mode of teaching the 
 fundamentals of the Christian religion.) Prohibited. 
 
 2. Sul principio della dottrina Christiana. 1545. (Christian 
 
 Doctrine.) 
 
 3. Catechismus (Catechism). Prohibited in the Index of 
 
 1549. 
 
 4. Lac espirituale (Spiritual milk). 
 
 6. Le Cento et died divine considerationi del Giovani 
 Valdesso, 15 50 (Hundred and Ten Divine Considerations). 
 
72 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 7. MS. in the Aulic Library at Vienna containing a Com- 
 mentary on St. Matthew's Gospel. The MS. was un- 
 known till of late, and does not contain the name of the 
 author. It is identified as the work of Judn Valdes. ' 
 
 Mr. Betts has translated into English the following : — 
 ' XVII Opuscules,' Valdes' recently discovei^ed Minor Works. 
 ' Commentary upon St. Matthew's Gospel.' 
 ' Spiritual Milk ; ' or. Instruction for the Children of Christian 
 
 Parents. Translated from the Italian (the editio princeps). 
 'Three Opuscules.' An extract from Valdes' Minor Works. 
 ' Commentary upon our Lord's Sermon on the Mount.' An extract 
 
 from Valdes' Commentary upon St. Matthew's Gospel. 
 The whole Commentary on St. Matthew. 
 ' Commentary upon St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans.' 
 ' Commentary upon the First Epistle to the Corinthians.' 
 
 These works are published by Messrs. Triibner & Co., 57, 
 Ludgate Hill. 
 
( 73 ) 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SPANISH PROTESTANTS IN GERMANY AND THE NETHERLANDS. 
 
 Whilst Juan Valdes was engaged in Italy composing Evangeli- 
 cal works — which may be said in our time to have risen from the 
 dead, and which promise now immortal life — there were other 
 Spaniards, outside their native land, who were studying the new 
 learning, and striving to make it known to their fellow men. 
 
 I wish to pause here, that I may trace the outlines of their 
 history before proceeding further with local memories of the 
 Reformation in Spain. 
 
 Juan Diaz was born at Cuenca, the birthplace of Alfonso and 
 Juan Valdes. His story is deeply tragical. His conversion was 
 accomplished through the instrumentality of Jayme Enzinas, to be 
 noticed in this chapter. Tired of scholastic divinity, he betook 
 himself to the study of Holy Scripture, and acquiring a knowledge 
 of Hebrew he read the Old Testament in the original. He had 
 been educated in the University of Paris, and spent some years in 
 France, after which he removed to Geneva and resided in the house 
 of a fellow-countryman. The first date we light upon is the year 
 1546, when he was residing at Strasburg. Bucer was delighted 
 with his talents and acquirements. He accompanied the Reformer 
 to Ratisbon, where a religious conference was held. There he met 
 with one of his countrymen, Pedro Malvenda, who, learning that 
 he had adopted the doctrines of the Reformation, was filled with 
 astonishment and anger. " What," he exclaimed, " Judn Diaz at 
 Ratisbon, and in company with Protestants ! " He strove hard to 
 
74 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 bring his fellow-countryman back to the Romish faith. Malvenda 
 found the religious atmosphere of Germany very different from 
 that of Spain, and could not succeed in his task. Juan Diaz had 
 a brother at Rome, whose name was Alfonso, and this man felt 
 intense indignation at a breach in the faith of his family. Hoping 
 to recover Juan, and with a design — as Protestant biographers 
 suppose — of an atrocious alternative in case of disappointment, 
 he pursued the heretic ; and Bucer, suspecting mischief, advised 
 the latter to return to Neuburg, a small Bavarian town on the 
 bank of the Danube. Alfonso discovered the retreat and paid his 
 brother a visit. He did everything he could to convince him that 
 Protestantism was heresy, a backsliding from Christ, a sin against 
 God, who had made the Catholic Church the repository of His 
 truth. But all this was in vain. Then it is stated that he altered 
 his plan, and professed sympathy with his relative, listening with 
 feigned simplicity to his explanation of the new creed ; he after- 
 wards proposed they should travel with each other to Rome, where 
 Juan might gain opportunities of diffusing his opinions. The latter 
 promised to think of the proposal, and communicated it to his 
 Protestant brethren. They begged him not to go, and he yielded 
 to their entreaties, though he remained unsuspicious. Alfonso, 
 however, would not leave his brother, but insisted that they should 
 proceed together as far as Augsburg. Bucer prevented compliance, 
 upon which Alfonso departed, bidding an affectionate farewell. 
 Next day the cunning Spaniard changed his route ; and instead 
 of travelling to Italy, went back to a village near Neuburg, in 
 company with a second person, of ominous character. They 
 approached, early one March morning, a cottage where Juan 
 lodged, and knocked at the door. Alfonso remained at the gate, 
 but his companion went in, saying he was bearer of a letter to the 
 gentleman upstairs. Juan, being told that some one had brought 
 a communication from his brother, left his bedroom, and met the 
 stranger. Taking the packet in his hand, he went to the window — 
 
SPANISH PROTESTANTS IN GERMANY. 75 
 
 for the day had only just begun to dawn, and he could scarcely 
 see — the bearer softly stepped behind, and drawing an axe from 
 under his cloak, despatched his victim at one blow. It is added 
 that a person who slept in the same room with Juan, hearing a 
 noise, rose immediately, and found his friend weltering in blood. 
 The assassin, with Alfonso, fled ; but being pursued, both were 
 overtaken at Innspruck, and thrown into prison. They were 
 arraigned before the criminal court in that romantic old city. 
 Lawyers went from Neuburg with a strong body of evidence ; 
 but though the fact of the murder was clear as daylight, and its 
 atrocity black as hell, special pleading defeated the ends of justice, 
 and the murderer escaped. Protestant princes, when assembled at 
 Ratisbon, demanded that the murderers should be punished ; but 
 the judges produced an imperial order forbidding the trial to pro- 
 ceed further. The story, when told in the calmest manner, makes 
 one recoil with horror ; but what must we feel when we are assured 
 that the criminal dared to repeat in his own country the circumstances 
 of the crime ! A narrative of the whole transaction was drawn up 
 by Juan's companion in the chamber, and confirmatory evidence 
 was adduced by Bucer and others. Dr. Boehmer has investigated 
 the subject with great diligence, and gives a trustworthy account 
 of the tragedy. From him we learn that the imperial historio- 
 grapher Sepulveda confirms the report given by the friend of 
 the slain.^ 
 
 Before leaving Juan Diaz of Cuenca, I may state, jn passing, that 
 there were atiios de // in that city, as in so many other places. In 
 1528 a singular character, named Torralva, was arrested there for 
 necromancy, and in 1531, having been imprisoned in the interval, 
 was doomed by the Inquisition to undergo public penance. This 
 Torralva was the common talk of Spain at the time, for nothing had 
 
 ' This friend was a young Savoyard named Claude Senarcle. Boehmer's narrative 
 may be found in the 'Bibliotheca Wiffeniana,' i. 187-216. He refers to Sepulveda, 
 de rebus gestis Caroli V. 
 
76 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 greater fascination for the people of that country than stories about 
 magic, in which they believed with a fear which made them 
 tremble. This notorious person is described by Luis de ^apata, in 
 his 'Carlo Famoso' (1560), a poetical chronicle of the Emperor 
 Charles V. ; and he also figures in ' Don Quixote,' when that 
 hero fancies himself riding on his wooden horse amongst the 
 stars.^ Tales of his enchantments occur in the records of the Holy 
 Office, and show into what absurdities of superstition as well as into 
 what caricatures of belief the Inquisitors were accustomed to 
 inquire. If most of their proceedings were unrighteous and cruel, 
 others of them were I'eally ridiculous. The Inquisitors at Cuenca 
 gravely asked Torralva what his familiar spirit, whose name was 
 Zequal, thought of Luther and Erasmus ! - 
 
 In the same city a more terrible auto was held in 1654, when 
 fifty-seven people were condemned, six being burnt, and the rest 
 reconciled. They were all Jews, except one, who was convicted of 
 Lutheranism. As a specimen of the kind of evidence adduced to 
 prove a person was a Jew or Jewess, I may refer to the case of 
 Dona Isabel, wife of a Portuguese doctor. She had something to 
 do with the marriage of two young people, children of Portuguese 
 Jews, and said, " They were happy, for they observed the law of 
 God." How such words could prove anybody to be a Jew or a 
 Jewess is a puzzle ; but the sage officers of the tribunal decided 
 that these words, " the law of God," signified the law of Moses. 
 We may conclude from this the sort of evidence on which people 
 were convicted of heresy. 
 
 Contemporary with Diaz of Cuenca were other Reformers 
 belonging to Spain, whose track we must now follow. Franzisco 
 de San Romano, a native of Burgos, was of a good family, being 
 son of an Alcayde, or Mayor of Bribiesca. From his native city he 
 went to Antwerp, where he was living in 1 540. The Netherlands 
 
 ' 'Carlo Famoso,' Cantos 28-32, and 'Don Quixote,' Part ji. c. 74. Ticknor, ii. 461, 
 ■ Llorente, ii. 67-75. 
 
SPANISH PROTESTANTS IN GERMANY. 79 
 
 had then for many years been closely connected with Spain 
 through the circumstance that Charles V.^ inherited the governor- 
 ship of that territory from his father Philip, Archduke of Austria. 
 The commercial relationship between the two countries was inti- 
 mate, and young Franzisco was sent to a mercantile house in 
 the famous port at the mouth of the Scheldt. It was then in the 
 zenith of its pride, and ships of many nations landed riches on the 
 spacious quay, to' be distributed over Northern Europe. The 
 Reformation had there made way, and Protestant citizens had 
 already undergone severe persecution. William Tyndale had been 
 busy at Antwerp with his English translation of the Scriptures, and 
 he may be traced in different parts of the neighbourhood, until, in 
 1536, basely betrayed, he was strangled and burnt at Vilvorde, near 
 Brussels. No doubt his story, and that of other reformers, would 
 reach the ear of the young Spaniard, as he mingled with the mer- 
 chants ; but he does not seem to have been brought into sympathy 
 with the Reformation until he visited Bremen. At the time of his 
 going there, one James Spreng (Master Jacobus, Foxe calls him) 
 was a Protestant preacher, in the town, having formerly been prior of 
 Austin Friars at Antwerp. Franzisco went to his church, and from 
 a sermon by Spreng received impressions which he never lost. 
 Foxe relates the incident as if something little short of a miracle 
 occurred, enabling the young foreigner, unskilled in German, to 
 understand the discourse so as to repeat every word in perfect form 
 and order ; probably he knew enough of the language to enable 
 him to catch the^ preacher's drift, and then by subsequent reflection 
 to - make the substance of the matter entirely his own.^ He was 
 " struck by an arrow from the hand of God." He sought out the 
 
 ' It must be remembered throughout that he was the first Charles of Spain, the fifth 
 of Germany. 
 
 ^ ' Acts and Monuments,' iv. 448. Foxe's account of Romano has been little 
 noticed. It is based on the ' Memoirs of Enzinas.' D'Aubigne gives a full description 
 of San Romano, viii. 58, et seq. So does Droin, i. 224. 
 
8o THE SPANISH REFORMERS. ■ 
 
 ex-prior and communicated to him the new convictions he had 
 received ; at the same time evincing an ardour of temperament which 
 betrayed want of discretion in so young a person. San Romano 
 felt so absorbed in his new religious thoughts that he neglected 
 business, and spent his time chiefly in reading German and French 
 Protestant books. He wrote to his Antwerp employers explaining 
 the change he had undergone, and telling them he meant to return 
 to Burgos, and proclaim there the truths which had taken possession 
 of his soul. This missionary zeal alarmed "certain friars," who 
 were informed of the fact by the astonished merchants ; and when 
 Franzisco came back to the city, they seized him as he alighted from 
 his horse, sifted his bag of books, and taking him into a neighbour- 
 ing house, examined what he had brought. " He declared boldly," 
 says Foxe, " ' My faith is to confess and preach Jesus Christ only, 
 and Him crucified, which is ' the true faith of the Universal Church 
 of Christ throughout the whole world ; but this faith and doctrine 
 you have corrupted, taking another abominable kind of life, and by 
 your impiety have brought the most part of the world into blind- 
 ness most miserable.' " We catch here a ring of sentiment different 
 from Alfonso Valdes' sympathy with Erasmus, and also different 
 from Juan's gentle mode of expressing spiritual sentiments. The 
 enthusiastic convert denounced the pope as Antichrist, "born of 
 the devil, being the enemy of Jesus Christ." Masses and purgatory 
 found no mercy at the hands of this outspoken Spaniard. The 
 friars burnt his books ; " then he began to thunder out against them 
 more than ever." Some who witnessed the contest supposed 
 Franzisco mad, and conveyed him " to a tower six miles distant," 
 where he was kept eight months. People expostulated, and 
 entreated him to talk " more modestly." He replied that he held 
 no heretical opinions, and that if he seemed vehement, it was owing 
 to the " importunity " of the friars, and that he would strive to be more 
 calm. He was advised by a Spanish Protestant, " not to alter the 
 state of his vocation, being called to be a merchant, which state he 
 
SPANISH PROTESTANTS IN GERMANY. 8i 
 
 might exercise with a good conscience and do much good." " It is 
 God," he added, " that hath the care of His Church, and will stir up 
 faithful ministers for the same ; neither does He care for such as 
 rashly intrude themselves into the sacred office without being 
 called." Clearly this judicious friend did not think Franzisco had 
 a call. Whatever might be the immediate effect of such advice, 
 the latter broke out again before long; and with a bold simphcity, 
 after his release from the tower near Antwerp, he in 1541 sought 
 and obtained an audience with the emperor at Ratisbon, beseech- 
 ing him to deliver his subjects from a false religion, and restore 
 to them the true Christianity. He seems to have been as 
 plain with his Majesty as he had been with his subjects, and 
 whatever Charles thought of this applicant's appeal, he treated 
 him kindly, and promised to do what was best. Franzisco felt 
 encouraged, and had further interviews with royalty ; but some 
 of the people about court, we are told, " would have thrown him 
 headlong into the river Danube, had not the emperor prevented 
 them." 1 
 
 But Franzisco was detained prisoner, and was conveyed to 
 Spain with the army which accompanied the emperor. There he 
 was to be tried on the charge of heresy, and there he was thrown 
 into the hands of the Inquisitors. On the way to his own country, 
 he is reported to have exclaimed — "You see these chains, but my 
 captivity, so shameful in the eyes of men, is for the Divine glory. 
 These hands and feet are bound, and I am fastened to this cart so 
 that I cannot move, but my spirit is free, I can rise to the throne 
 above, and rejoice in the presence of God." 
 
 He was carried to Valladolid in 1542, and delivered to the 
 Inquisitors, who cast him into one of their dungeons, where he 
 remained for two years. In spite of all endeavours to induce a 
 recantation, he continued firm, saying, " It is impossible for us in 
 our own strength and by our own good works to merit eternal life. 
 ' Droin's ' Hist, de la Ref. en Espagne,' i. 227. 
 
 G 
 
82 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 The Son of God has poured out His blood to clean us from sin 
 and to appease the Father's wrath by the sacrifice of Himself — a 
 sacrifice unique and eternal. The doctrines of the mass, of pur- 
 gatory, of indulgences, and of image worship, are blasphemies and 
 profanations of the blood of Jesus Christ." In terms like these 
 contemporaries condensed the oft-repeated testimonies which the 
 sufferer bore to his own deep-seated beliefs as he stood before his 
 judges. Of course he was condemned as an obstinate heretic, and 
 was conducted with other prisoners, probably Jews and relapsed 
 Mahometans, to the public square, where they were burnt. He 
 refused to do homage to a crucifix, declaring that Christians did 
 not adore a piece of wood. 
 
 He died with characteristic heroism. Making an involuntary 
 motion when fastened to the stake, it was thought he was on the 
 point of uttering a confession, upon which a respite was ordered. 
 " Did you envy my happiness ? " he asked. These words exas- 
 perated the officers, and he was immediately thrust back upon the 
 piled-up blazing fagots. The priests forbad that anyone should 
 pray for this obstinate culprit ; but some of the imperial body- 
 guard present, who had been favourably impressed, gathered up 
 the victim's ashes as relics of a martyr ; and the English ambas- 
 sador, then at Valladolid, where the court was residing — for it 
 was then the Spanish capital — carried away some of Franzisco's 
 bones.^ 
 
 James Spreng, who survived his friend, bears testimony to his 
 virtues. The record is preserved in the archives of St. Thomas's 
 Church, Strasburg. "The Lord will crush Antichrist also in 
 Spain. The blood of our Francis crieth from the ground. I found 
 
 ' Foxe's account is drawn from Crispin's ' Histoire des Martyrs.' So is De Castro's, 
 who is followed by M. Droin in his ' Hist, de la Ref. en Espagne,' i. 222-231. In a 
 subsequent chapter an account of the numerous Valladolid martyrdoms will be given, but 
 1 think it best to anticipate the fate of Romano in connection with his previous 
 wanderings. 
 
SPANISH PROTESTANTS IN GERMANY. 83 
 
 him a treasure in my house. He drank deeply of the Divine 
 Spirit. He glorified God in his death, by which he entered an 
 infinitely better life than that he left. I have no doubt the con- 
 fession he made moved the hearts of many, and that his blood will 
 be the seed of the Spanish Church. Unlearned and reputed mad 
 in this world, before angels and the Church of God he is pro- 
 claimed learned and illustrious." ^ 
 
 Two more Spanish Protestants were natives of Burgos. They 
 were brothers, bearing the name of Enzinas, which means the 
 ever-green oak, and, according to a pedantic fashion of the age, 
 this was translated into Greek, and the elder bi'other appears as 
 Francis Dryander.^ We shall call him Franzisco de Enzinas. The 
 younger was called Jayme, or James. 
 
 The latter was sent to the University of Louvain, in the Nether- 
 lands. Pedro de Lerma, uncle to the two brothers, said, " I can no 
 longer remain in Spain. It is impossible for men of learning to 
 dwell in safety in the midst of so many persecutors." More 
 freedom of opinion existed at Louvain in 1540, when Jayme de 
 Enzinas was student, than could commonly be found in old col- 
 legiate establishments at that period. Elegant literature was 
 cultivated, and the doctrines of the Reformation were discussed. 
 Jayme caught the rising spirit, and became imbued with the newly- 
 promulgated truths. He became intimate with the learned George 
 Cassander, who, acquainted with the leading divines of his age, 
 fruitlessly attempted to reconcile the Roman Catholic and Pro- 
 testant Churches. Jayme removed from Louvain to Paris, where 
 he was filled with horror at the sight of an execution, when the 
 executioner with pincers tore out the tongue of a martyr. He 
 
 ' 'Bibliotheca Wiffeniana,' 155. I give the substance of the Latin MS. printed by 
 Dr. Boehmer. 
 
 ' There was a third brother Juan, who need not be noticed here. Another Juin de 
 Enzinas was a poet, who wrote eclogues, songs and romances. 
 
 G 2 
 
84' THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 returned to Louvain, and thence went to Antwerp, where he 
 printed a catechism, which he had drawn up for the use of his 
 countrymen. It is not unHkely that Jayme met with the prior of 
 the Austin Friars, and heard the Gospel from his lips. The father 
 of Jayme, who intended that he should enter the Church, wished him 
 to visit the city of Rome, a journey which was not at all to his 
 taste. But he went, and after some years' residence in the city, 
 unable to obtain permission from his father to return to Spain, 
 he resolved to visit Germany ; when about to ^depart he was 
 denounced and brought before the Dominicans, who had charge 
 of the Holy Office. For a Spaniard to be charged with Luther- 
 anism was quite a new thing. That pure Castilian blood should 
 be so polluted amazed the authorities, and intense was the in- 
 terest taken in his examination by cardinals and bishops. Jayme 
 stood composed before his judges, and defended the doctrines 
 which led to his condemnation.^ Vain attempts were made to 
 induce him to recant. He persevered, and died at the stake, 
 probably near the foot of the bridge of St. Angelo, in 1546 or 
 
 Franzisco Enzinas, his elder brother, must have been shocked at 
 hearing of this tragedy. He had been at Louvain in 1541, and in 
 May had written to John a Lasco, plainly disclosing Protestant 
 sentiments. From Antwerp, in September of the same year, 1541, 
 he sent to an Oxford divine a letter respecting Stephen Gardiner, 
 Bishop of Winchester, who was then in the Netherlands. Gardiner 
 had been at Louvain, and had offended the professors by maintain- 
 ing the authority of his master, Henry VHI., as head of the English 
 Church in matters political and secular. There \yas much disputa- 
 tion. The bishop adhered to his position. "The divines, contrary, 
 
 ' ' Actes des Martyrs,' 159 ; iii. 170. 
 
 ' ^- M'Crie sayS the. former (' Hist.'' 180), but D'Aubigne thinks, with more probabiUly 
 the latter, ' Hist, of Ref.' viii. 118. 
 
SPANISH PH'OTESTAJSfTS IN GERMANY. 85 
 
 did stiffly maintain their opinion, and divers times openly, with 
 exclamation, called the said bishop an excommunicate person and 
 a schismatic, to the no little reproach and infamy of the English 
 nation." ^ 
 
 In pursuance of his desire to see Philip Melancthon, the elder 
 Enzinas travelled to Wittenberg, and there he resided in the 
 Reformer's house.^ Enzinas matriculated in the . university, 
 October 27, 1541, and no doubt' became acquainted with Martin 
 Luther. 
 
 The Spanish student already entertained an idea of translating 
 the Greek New Testament into - Castilian. Luther at that time 
 had made a German version, and Enzinas wished to follow his 
 example. His countrymen stood in need of such a work. 
 Mention is made of ancient versions existing in MSS., never 
 published. One which was printed had been suppressed by the 
 Inquisition.^ No accessible version of the New Testament was in 
 existence at the period when Enzinas undertook the task. It 
 required labour. He devoted himself to it with assiduity. After 
 remaining at Wittenberg till the beginning of 1543, he departed 
 for the Netherlands. Persecution was rife in Louvain and 
 Brussels. On his arrival at the first of these places, he learned 
 that the night before^ twenty-eight Protestants had been arrested 
 and imprisoned ; and, on revisiting the town, he witnessed the 
 execution of people whose sentiments were accordant with his 
 own. About the same time two women were there burned alive 
 as obstinate heretics. The state of things at Brussels also dis- 
 tressed him. 
 
 Hoping to get a sanction for printing his translation, he sub- 
 mitted his MS. to some of the Louvain doctors ; but, as might 
 be expected, this was in vain. Coming from Wittenberg, "he 
 
 ' Foxe, vi. 140. He prints the letter. 
 ^ See ' Homes and Haunts of Luther.' 
 ^ See p., 6 of this volume. 
 
86 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 smelt of sulphur," — an expression which signified that a man was 
 a Protestant. He, however, determined to persevere, and committed 
 his work to an Antwerp printer. Before the year ended the 
 volume came from the press. Enzinas prefaced a dedication to 
 the emperor.^ 
 
 When the book was finished Enzinas procured admission to 
 Charles V. His Majesty, then at Brussels, was sitting at table, 
 
 ' The following was the title of the book : ' El nvevo testamento de nuestro 
 Redemptor y Saluador Jesu Christo, traduzido de Griego en lengua Castellana, por 
 Francisco de Enzinas, dedicado a la Cesarea Magested. Habla Dios Joseu I. No se 
 aparte el libro de esta ley de tu boca. Antes con atento animo estu-diaras en el de dia 
 y de noche : para, q guardes y hagas conforme, a todo a-quello que esta en el escrito. 
 Por que entonzes haras prospero tu camino, y te gobernaras con prudencia, mdxliii.' 
 
 Colophon : " Acabose de imprimir este libro en la in-signe fibdad de Enueres, en 
 caiade Esteuan Mierdmanno, impressor de libros a 25 de Octubre, en el anno del Senor 
 de MDXLIII." 
 
 The 8th verse of the first chapter of Joshua in this title page by Enzinas is pretty 
 closely followed in the middle of the sentence by Valera in his translation. The words 
 at the beginning and end are different. A notice of Valera's translation will be found in 
 my chapter on Spanish exiles at the close of this volume. 
 
 Some Spanish verses were inserted at the beginning of the volume, which have been 
 translated by Mr. Wifren as follows : 
 
 " He is no heir of mine who shuns 
 The Testament I leave My sons, 
 Nor seeks as legatee to read 
 The rich provisions of the deed ; 
 Much less so he who would defer 
 To be My will's executor. 
 Too many such ; and there are those 
 Who reading, still remain My foes, 
 And show by blood of Mine they shed. 
 How ill, alas ! they've profited. 
 
 But thou who readest, ponder here 
 My name. My nature — Love and Fear ! 
 For thee I suffered, wept and died. 
 The cursed, the scourged, the crucified ; 
 Now crowned and one with Deity, 
 I pour My daily prayer for thee. 
 
SPANISH PROTESTANTS IN GERMANY. 87 
 
 " graceful and dignified ; " he rose, " and leaned on a thin cane," as 
 he listened to a report from one of his generals. Enzinas, led by 
 the Bishop of Jaen, approached, and asked the emperor to accept 
 what he had brought. 
 
 " What is it ? " asked Charles. 
 
 "It is part of Holy Scripture, sire," replied the subject, "which 
 we call the New Testament, faithfully translated by me into 
 Spanish, wherein is principally contained the evangelical history, 
 and the Epistles of the Apostles. I wished to have your Majesty, 
 the protector of religion and pure faith, for judge and propitious 
 examiner of this labour, and I humbly beseech that the work, 
 approved by your Majesty, be recommended to the Christian 
 people under your imperial authority." 
 
 " Are you the author of the book ? " (meaning, one would think, 
 the translation) inquired the monarch. 
 
 "The Holy Spirit," rejoined the translator, "is its Author, 
 inspired by whose breath men of God have handed these Divine 
 oracles to all mankind in the Greek language. I am only a 
 subordinate person and feeble organ who have translated the book 
 into the Spanish language." 
 
 " Into the Castilian ? " proceeded the emperor. 
 
 " Into our Castilian language, sire ; of which work," said Enzinas, 
 "I now beseech you to be patron and defender according to your 
 clemency." 
 
 " Be it as you ask, provided there be nothing suspicious in the 
 book," was the reply. 
 
 Wouldst thou then join Me in the skies, 
 Leam from this fading world to rise ; 
 Turn daily o'er with heart intent, 
 This volume of my Testament, 
 With lowly minds and willing hands, 
 Reading and doing My commands." 
 
 " The. Brothers Wiffen," by S. R. Pattison, 361. 
 
THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 "Nothing in the whole work, sire, is suspicious, unless the 
 voice of God which sounds from heaven, the redemption by 
 His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ our Saviour, who pro- 
 ceeds from the bosom of the Eternal Father, be suspicious to 
 Christians." ^ 
 
 So ended the conversation, Charles adding his consent anew. 
 
 But the hope thus raised was quickly dissipated ; for the 
 emperor's confessor saw a good deal in the book very suspicious ; 
 and when Enzinas had an interview with him in December, he was 
 charged with having been in Germany at Melancthon's house, and 
 with having praised the Reformer's virtues and doctrines. Enzinas 
 replied in a spirited tone, which no doubt made the matter worse, 
 and in the end a detachment of soldiers seized him as he left the 
 residence of his Majesty's confessor. Conveyed to prison, he was 
 afterwards examined before the imperial council, when inquiries 
 were made into his connection with Melancthon, and a great deal 
 followed which plunged him into trouble and sorrow. A visit from 
 his father and mother, who reproached him for the disgrace he had 
 brought on his family, gave him some pain ; but he received comfort 
 from Protestants in Brussels, then amounting to more than four 
 hundred. Family disgrace was a constant topic with Spanish 
 Catholics when expostulating with Protestant relatives. The 
 question of right and wrong, truth and error, was merged in the 
 consideration that heresy polluted the blood, and made its victim 
 an outcast from society, more degraded than the worst of felons. In 
 December, 1 544, a formal indictment was handed to the accused, 
 which he prepared to answer ; but in February of the next year, 
 through contrivance or carelessness of the gaoler, he easily managed 
 
 ' This conversation is given on the authority of the ' Memoirs of Enzinas. ' A French 
 version of the Latin text has been published by M.. Campan, Brussels. The Memoirs 
 are rather dramatic, and lose nothing as rendered by D'Aubigne, viii. 89, et seq. 
 He relates some most romantic incidents, entitling them " A Legend." There is a 
 remarkable letter from Enzinas to Calvin, printed in Calvin's ' Opera,' xii. 126, 
 
SPANISH PROTESTANTS IN GERMANY. 89 
 
 to escape. He called on a friend, scaled the town wall, and was 
 soon far on the road from Brussels to Mechlin. 
 
 By the middle of March, 1545, he reached Wittenberg again, 
 when Melancthon requested him to write a report of his adventures. 
 This he did, and from that source most of the details I have given 
 are derived. 
 
 Though Enzinas had escaped from prison he did not enjoy 
 security. He received a summons to return, and with it a threat 
 of confiscation and punishment. We find him at Strasburg, under 
 Bucer's roof in the month of August, 1546. Then he wandered 
 away to Zurich, next to Constance, and back again to Bale, where 
 he lodged in the house of a learned bookseller, named John 
 Operimus, and whilst there carried through the press some works 
 which he had composed. 
 
 He afterwards criticized the proceedings at Trent after the first 
 year's sitting of the council, and vehemently attacked pope and 
 emperor. Having married he came to England in 1548, when 
 King Edward VI. sat on the throne. In the following year he 
 appears at Canterbury and Lambeth, enjoying the hospitality of 
 Archbishop Cranmer. " We yesterday," says Martin Bucer, under 
 date April 26, 1549, "waited upon the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 that most benevolent and kind father of the Churches, and of godly 
 men, who received and entertained us as brethren, not as dependants. 
 We found at his house, what was most gratifying to us, our most 
 dear friend. Dr. Peter Martyr, with his wife and his attendant 
 Julius, Master Immanuel (Tremellius) with his wife, and also Dry- 
 ander (Enzinas), and some other godly Frenchmen whom we had 
 sent before us." ^ Afterwards we lose sight of the wanderer, and 
 then find him writing to John Calvin. " I am working," he says, 
 "with good conscience, God be my witness. If the people of 
 this time will not thank me, I hope there will come others in 
 the future, of better judgment, to whom our studies will not be 
 ' ' Original Letters relative to the English Reformation.' 2nd Series, 535. 
 
go THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 useless." ^ That hope is now being fulfilled. After visiting 
 Geneva, where he saw Calvin for the first time, Enzinas returned 
 to Strasburg ; then, after living two years and a half in easy- 
 circumstances, he died on the 30th of December, 1552, from a 
 pestilence raging in the city. 
 
 ' Enzinas' 'Epist.' Iviii. Dr. Boehmer, in his 'Bibliotheca Wiffeniana,' i. 133, gives 
 a memoir of Francisco Enzinas and his brother Jayme. 
 
C 91 ) 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 VALENCIA AND CATALONIA. 
 
 Having completed a brief historical sketch of what a few well- 
 known Spanish reformers were doing in the Netherlands and 
 Germany, it is time for me to resume my quest of local memories 
 in Spain itself 
 
 From Cuenca to Valencia the most picturesque route is 
 through Alarcon, a Moorish city — " on a craggy peninsula hemmed 
 around by the Jucar" — with crumbling walls, gates and bridges, 
 " choice bits for the artist," — through Minglanilla, rich in an 
 inexhaustible salt quarry, like the mines near Cracow — and 
 through Requena, an ancient town in an almost impregnable 
 position, watered by the Oleana. Valencia has battlemented 
 walls, arched gates ; the noble puerta de Serranos reminds one by 
 its outline of an old English barbican, presenting a gallery resting 
 on enormous corbels, also tracery pannelling above the archway. 
 The aspect of the city is rather oriental ; and eminently noticeable 
 are the charming arched windows called ajimez^ " literally windows 
 by which the sun enters," — no bad name, by the way, for books 
 and teachers in the cause of religious reformation, which it is my 
 business to describe in this volume. 
 
 Valencia is full of memories connected with the Cid. His 
 
 majestic form, as suggested in poetry and embodied in art, meets us 
 
 everywhere, especially on the heights which he is said to have 
 
 ascended with his wife and daughters, when he had captured the 
 
 ' Street's ' Gothic Architecture in Spain,' 269. 
 
THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 place after a twenty months' siege at the beginning of the eleventh 
 century. The Chronicles of the Cid, translated by Southey, abound 
 in references to Valencia. The cathedral has a lofty cimborro, or 
 lantern, full of delicate tracery, which surmounts the intersection of 
 the nave and transepts. The coro or choir, instead of being at 
 the east end — which was the original position, and is maintained in 
 Europe generally — occupies the nave at Valencia, and is an 
 arrangement noticeable in other Spanish cathedrals. It appears 
 to have been introduced about the fifteenth century ; and there- 
 fore was in existence at the time of the Reformation, when, in some 
 cases, men enlightened by the study of Scripture proclaimed 
 Evangelical truth from pulpits standing near the transepts, which 
 were crowded by eager listeners ; others thundered out from them 
 anathemas against Protestant heresies. 
 
 So early as 1350, Reformers appeared at Valencia, under the 
 name of Beghards, The name originated in Germany. It is 
 difficult to make out exactly what they were, as, according to 
 custom, when people assail a corrupt system monstrous accu- 
 sations are brought against them. One thing only is certain, 
 that their opposition to the dominant Church often ran into 
 mystical speculations, which receive a good or a bad interpretation 
 according to the previous opinions of the critic. The Beghards 
 spread over Europe ; they were found in the south of France, 
 they swept over the Pyrenees as far as Valencia. At the time just 
 referred to, Nicolas Roselli was Inquisitor-General of Aragon ; 
 he discovered a company of these hated people, having for 
 their leader somebody called Jayme Juste. The inquisitor 
 managed to persuade many of the members to recant what he 
 deemed their errors, and at an atito de fi they were reconciled to 
 the Church ; Juste, however, was made an example of, and was 
 committed to prison for life. Three of the accused died before 
 their cases had been decided ; and, not having been penitent, their 
 bones were dug out of the grave and cast into the fire. Another 
 
VALENCIA AND CATALONIA. 93 
 
 auto de fe followed in 1360, when the old story of recantation and 
 reconciliation, on the one hand, and of constancy and fiery martyr- 
 dom, on the other, is sadly repeated by the chronicler of the 
 Inquisition.^ 
 
 I find no traces of what were called Lutheran opinions in 
 Valencia at the time of the Protestant Reformation. The Beghards 
 do not appear to' have made any permanent impression. The 
 Inquisition did its work effectually ; we discover traces of its 
 activity at the commencement of the seventeenth century, but in a 
 different direction from that of its anti-Protestant proceedings. 
 
 A certain Archbishop Juan Ribera — who died in 161 1 — 
 canonised as El Santo Ribera, figures prominently as an enemy 
 of the Moriscos, or Spanish Moors, who had undergone com- 
 pulsory baptism, and were suspected of a lingering and strong 
 attachment to the' religion of their Mohammedan fathers. At 
 length they were expelled from the country. Cruelties inflicted 
 by Moors on Spaniards, and by Spaniards on Moors, had created 
 between them a bitter spirit of alienation and revenge, and their 
 final expulsion was an act of tremendous injustice. Juan Ribera 
 regarded it as a Christian duty, and actually represented it not 
 only as an adoption of the policy of King David, but as an 
 imitation of the example of Christ. A most extraordinary sermon, 
 preached by the Archbishop in the Cathedral of Valencia, has 
 been preserved. It is from the text, " I would they were cut off 
 that trouble you." ^ 
 
 The preacher says, after extolling the mildness of David, 
 "You must now hear something of the zeal that accompanied 
 this mildness, and the fury wherewith he flew upon God's enemies 
 who spoke blasphemies, and committed sacrilege in His house, the 
 zeal whereof, saith he, has confounded me ; and the beholding the 
 offences that are committed has destroyed me — the abhorrence 
 
 ' Llorente, i. 82-83,' 
 
 ^ The sermon is printed in Geddes' 'Miscellaneous Tracts,' i.,i6g. 
 
94 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 I have for those that will not love God being so vehement, that 
 it has cast me into a hectick fever, which consumes me ; neither 
 did he only in his lifetime revenge the injuries that were done to 
 God, but at his death he charged his son Solomon, to revenge 
 them ; so that in David we see a king that is mild and rigid, 
 merciful and severe, a pardoner and a revenger ; and that was both 
 patient and zealous." 
 
 More than this — the preacher cites the example of our Lord. 
 These are his words, " Our Lord Jesus Christ, says the evangelist, 
 went into the Temple, and seeing that what was done there was 
 contrary to God's honour, the zealous God took the cords 
 wherewith the sheep and oxen were bound, and having made a 
 whip of them, He went about shaking it at those cattle and men, 
 driving them out of the Temple ; and, as to those that sold 
 pigeons. He commanded them to be gone with them, and, going up 
 to the tables of the money-changers. He threw them down upon the 
 ground, scattering about the money that was upon them. Now 
 let us consider this fact, and we shall see that besides its being the 
 greatest miracle that ever Christ wrought, for so St. Jerome says 
 it was — who affirms it to be greater than the raising of Lazarus 
 from the dead, the repressing of so many and in the sight of so 
 great a concourse of people, after such a manner, none of them 
 offering to lay hold of Him, or denying to obey Him, notwith- 
 standing they were at that time contriving His death ; being a 
 thing that nothing but the Almighty God could have done — to 
 pass over this, and to come to that which men and angels do 
 admire, that is, how it was possible for one of our Saviour's 
 mildness, modesty, and composure to do such a work — to whip 
 men, to thrust them violently out of the Temple, to break tables, 
 and throw money about, not appearing to be actions suitable to 
 the benignity and practice of our Lord Jesus Christ — of whom the 
 prophet saith that He should be patient and gentle as a lamb, and 
 that when they should take His clothes from Him, He would not 
 
VALENCIA AND CATALONIA. 95 
 
 Open His mouth, as was accomplished at His most holy passion, 
 and who, when He was cursed, cursed not again, when He was 
 tormented, did not complain, having resigned up His will to His 
 Father Eternal, who judgeth righteously ; — and yet this very mild 
 lamb, whose patience and silence under injuries was so much 
 admired by the perverse president, when there was an occasion 
 offered of remedying things that were offensive to God, turned 
 fierce, and forgetting, as we may say, His composedness. He 
 changed the mildness of a sheep into the fierceness and boisterous- 
 ness of a lion." The sermon — which by the way in its rambling 
 sentences presents a fair specimen of Spanish pulpit oratory at that 
 period in point of style — -exhibits the very principle and spirit of 
 those proceedings which were carried on against heretics in general, 
 as well as against Moriscos in particular. Ribera speaks of their 
 heresies, and throughout he lashes his congregation into a state of 
 revengeful excitement against all whom Spanish Catholics de- 
 nounced as the enemies of Christ. I have quoted the words of this 
 prelate, to show the way in which it was the fashion to justify the 
 most atrocious acts of persecution ; and the same false attempt at 
 justification was made in all cases of Protestant imprisonment, 
 torture and martyrdom. 
 
 But, like some other persecuting ecclesiastics, Ribera blended 
 with hatred of heresy great zeal for the moral purification of the 
 Church. Amongst other reforms, he sought to extinguish abuses 
 in the Valencian University. Efforts of such a kind alarmed the 
 professors and some of the clergy. They brought countercharges 
 against him. Having persecuted others, he was persecuted him- 
 self His enemies reproached him with the illegitimacy of his 
 birth — he was the natural son of a nobleman — and fastened on the 
 street walls, lampoons and condemnatory texts of Scripture, 
 pointed at his character and reputation. In one of the Valencian 
 churches prayers were offered for the archbishop's conversion, that 
 he might be enlightened in the faith and escape eternal death. 
 
96 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 The man himself, it is pleasant to find, manifested a difterent 
 spirit, and was unwilling to be avenged on his calumniators ; his 
 friends would not allow them to proceed with impunity. They 
 procure.d the punishment of one Gaelt, who had been a ringleader 
 of the party formed against Ribera, and the man was thrown into 
 prison. Thus the tables were now turned, and those who would 
 have been glad to see the engines of the Inquisition opened upon 
 the archbishop had to bear the brunt of its wrath themselves. 
 Unexpected ways in which the Holy Office was worked at the 
 time of the Reformation, and afterwards, will appear repeatedly in 
 this volume. 
 
 The province of Valencia, in the estimation of the Moors, was 
 a strip of heaven fallen upon earth ; and the city of Valencia 
 retains still signs of its Moorish occupation. It was recovered 
 from the hands of the infidels by the valorous Cid, who kept it 
 under his dominion to the day of his death. An Italian impress 
 has succeeded that of the Moor _ and that of the Cid ; and this 
 appears very plainly in the large cathedral, which, from its 
 original Gothic character, has been transformed into the likeness of 
 a Jesuit church at Rome. The altar mayor when I saw it was 
 covered with embroidered frontales, as they are called, bought in 
 London by two Valencian merchants, when old St. Paul's was 
 stripped of its popish decorations ; and it is a significant circum- 
 stance that the " old clothes " cast ofi" by England at the time of 
 the Reformation were taken over to be worn by the Church in 
 Spain, then becoming more papistical than ever. In the cathedral 
 it was that Archbishop Ribera preached the sermon I have 
 noticed ; and his portrait may be seen amongst portraits of other 
 Valencian prelates, preserved within a large room near the grand 
 entrance door; :he certainly appears in his picture with a coun- 
 tenance more mild than ferocious. His palace is close to the 
 cathedral, and the sight of it recalls the troubles he endured 
 through the malice of his enemies, and the proceedings of the 
 
iil'^ 
 
 W'% 
 
 -ic 
 
 
 -1 ns 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 f' ar >mJi» J. - t -^ita -^ 1 I -I . - > i 
 
 ^^v;;^ I 
 
 -^ 
 
 
 1 1 l-.'*if Hl*-^T^ 
 
 
 ^-'1 
 
 
 CATHEDRAL DOOR, VALENCIA. 
 
VALENCIA AND CATALONIA. 99 
 
 Inquisition. The Mercado, or market-place, bright now-a-days 
 with flowers and fruit in the early morning, was the scene of 
 tournaments and executions. Here the Cid put his prisoners to 
 death, and here it was that the early heretics I have mentioned 
 perished in the flames. 
 
 There is every Friday, in the Colegio del Patriarca, a ceremony 
 described in guide books as singularly affecting — " The imagina- 
 tion is worked up into a breathless curiosity." But the ceremony 
 really consists in nothing more than letting down an altar picture 
 by hidden machinery, and then undrawing a curtain, which reveals 
 a large crucifix, with a candle burning on each side. The singing 
 of the Miserere which accompanies the process is vastly inferior 
 to that which I have heard in Rome. But the whole thing 
 illustrates a craving for sensational representations, still prevalent 
 in the Spanish Church ; a craving much deeper in the sixteenth 
 century than now. Another example of a similar kind I wit- 
 nessed in rude preparations going on at the end of Easter week 
 for celebrating the festival of San Vicente, the patron saint of the 
 city. A sort of mystery or miracle play was to be acted in the 
 streets the Sunday afterwards. 
 
 I cannot leave Valencia without adverting to an illustration 
 aff'orded there, and in the neighbouring Catalonia, of one cause 
 serving to explain the failure attendant on the Spanish Reforma- 
 tion. No one can visit the ecclesiastical edifices of the city, 
 and examine what they still contain, without being impressed by 
 the greatness of the wealth, and the consequent influence, which in 
 days of yore were possessed by the archbishops .'and clergy ; 
 and if we penetrate into Catalonia as far as Tarragona and its 
 vicinity, there we discover further illustrations of the same order. ' 
 The cathedral crowning the heights, which in that city command 
 such magnificent views of the blue Mediterranean, is a monument 
 of architectural magnificence never to be forgotten by any one 
 who has seen it ; and its treasures increase the impression received 
 
 H 2 
 
THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 at Valencia. What an enormously rich institution must the 
 Spanish Church have been ! But the impression is vastly increased 
 by an excursion to Poblet, a few miles from Tarragona, better 
 known to French and German than to English travellers and 
 archaeologists. The monastery there — which in 1835 was attacked 
 and partially destroyed by furious insurgents in the neighbourhood, 
 no doubt on account of the oppression practised by the brother- 
 hood — exhibits, after all the damage done, what must have been 
 the extent, the beauty, the splendour and the resources of that 
 Cisteixian establishment in the days of its palmy pride. If it had. 
 a few rivals, yet no other convent in Europe could surpass it. 
 You wander amongst courts, cloisters, and dormitories, through 
 stately halls which once contained innumerable books and MSS., 
 through a palace appropriated for royal visitors, and through a. 
 stately church with a nave of seven bays. The architectural 
 grandeur may be said to remain ; and the mutilated ornaments- 
 still indicate what a profusion of artistic wealth must have once 
 graced the walls. Kings and nobles were brought to Poblet 
 for burial ; their shattered tombs may be seen, and the monks 
 themselves were of the purest Spanish blood ; no others were 
 admitted.-' What a hold, then, over the nation must the Spanish 
 
 ' A good set of illustrations can be obtained from the guardian of the ruins, witb 
 a brief historical notice of them in Spanish and French. A sketch of the origin,, 
 foundation and curiosities of the abbey, in Spanish, by D. Andreu de BofaruU, may 
 also be had. 
 
 It is interesting to an Englishman to find in one of the chapels a marble slab bearing 
 date 1731, over the remains of an "illustrious English emigrant," " Felipe de Worhon, 
 Marques de Malbursi, y de Cacharloch, Conde Visconde Baron, y Caballero,'' he is- 
 called in the Spanish Guide-Book — which adds that his medal of St. George and 
 other insignia of the order were transmitted to King George of England. The fact is, 
 that the Pretender had made Wharton Knight of the Garter, and it was to him at Rome 
 that the badges were sent. This worthless personage who is buried at Poblet, was no- 
 other than Phihp, Duke of Wharton, the subject of Pope's satire, who, reduced to want,- 
 was sheltered by the brethren of the monastery. He was grandson of the Puritan; 
 Lord Wharton. 
 
VALENCIA AND CATALONIA. 
 
 ■Church have had three centuries ago ! What a power in the 
 State it must have been, entwined as it was with royalty, with 
 princely and noble families, and all that was great and glorious 
 in the land. 
 
 A few Reformers of the upper class, who did not touch the 
 masses of the people, could effect but little amongst the 
 aristocracy, and that little we shall see was destroyed in flames 
 of fire. 
 
THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CORDOVA. 
 
 Some writers, without intending it, have indulged in exaggerated 
 ideas of the extent of the Spanish Reformation, by simply 
 dwelling on what occurred in certain places, without noticing how 
 many districts there were which the movement never touched. la 
 travelling from Valencia to Cordova by the railway route, I passed 
 through a circuit of nearly four hundred miles, with numerous- 
 towns along the line. We do not know how many inhabitants 
 were there three hundred years ago, but there must then have been 
 a great number of people occupying this part of the country ;. 
 yet I find no evidence of the Protestant Reformation having 
 made way amongst them. Vast portions of the country must have 
 remained totally unaffected by the Evangelical excitement which 
 existed in certain centres I shall have to describe. The scenery 
 between the two cities just mentioned is, for the greater part of the 
 •way, very uninteresting ; indeed, it consists of plains and hills 
 brown and grey, with little vegetation, except near Jativa, where 
 the Huerta spreads out in a charming oasis, rich in orange groves, 
 vineyards and rice grounds — the latter, when I saw them, however,, 
 abounding only in the hope of summer plenty. There were 
 besides magnificent gorges in the mountain tracts of La Mancha, 
 which Cervantes has immortalised in his ' Don Quixote.' 
 
 Of no city can it more emphatically be said than of Cordova 
 that the glory is departed. " Ichabod " is written on its walls and 
 gates ; yet, ascending the heights, which stretch towards the clouds 
 
CORDOVA. 103 
 
 on the north-east side, one can see how well ten times the number 
 of the present inhabitants could have found a home on the same 
 side of the Guadalquivir. The scenery is magnificent and beauti- 
 ful ; rocky paths leading to the far-famed ^hermitages, where 
 Eremites still linger in superstitious seclusion, run between orange 
 groves, vineyards, and olive grounds, sprinkled over with pleasant 
 country houses surrounded by gardens. Tall aloes stand as 
 sentinels by the roadside, and hedges of cacti separate one division 
 of cultivated land from another, whilst charming dells open here 
 and there, nourishing in their bosoms wild flowers and ferns. The 
 distant plains and sloping hills I saw in spring-tide verdure ; 
 delicate tints of green contrasting with, or rather melting into, 
 broad belts of purple across the upper landscape. 
 
 The interior of the city, with the exception of the cathedral, has 
 little to recommend it. There is no imposing Plaza, no magnificent 
 Ayujitamiento ; the streets are narrow and mostly mean, though 
 the passer-by gets often, through the entrance door, charming 
 glimpses of the shrubs and flowers which deck the patio of the 
 dwelling. 
 
 Of the gorgeous architecture of Moorish Cordova, a magnificent 
 relic is preserved in the far-famed mosque, certainly one of the 
 wonders of the world. No painting in colour, no engraving or 
 photograph, no verbal description of it whatever, can give an accurate 
 idea of what it is as a whole. The thousand and more pillars, which it 
 contains in rows, have been compared to a forest, and truly enough 
 they resemble an enormous plantation, but it is that of a garden of 
 quincunces, worthy of the eloquence of Sir Thomas Brown. Looked 
 at obliquely, they appear a confused maze ; but examined at 
 certain points, they fall into perfect order, and become avenues, 
 bordered with marble columns, and crossed by horse-shoe arches, 
 striped with broad red bands. The mosque is now turned into a 
 cathedral. The Mihrab remains, a perfect gem of exquisite tracery 
 and sparkling mosaics, just opposite the Puerta del Perdon, which 
 
I04 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 faces the beautiful court of orange trees ; but a gorgeous coro or choir, 
 leading up to a high altar, has been inserted in the midst of the 
 mysterious edifice ; paintings and statues of saints and angels 
 appear amongst Moorish ornamentation, which would not admit of 
 pictures and images. Incongruities enough there are, when one 
 recognises interminglings of classical, Byzantine, Oriental, Gothic 
 and Renaissance elements ; but if the combination be inharmonious, 
 it is striking, effective, and even fascinating to the last degree. 
 
 Here it was that archbishops, who figured at the Reformation 
 era, presided on their thrones and ministered at the altar ; in 
 the palace on the west side they dwelt in princely state. And the 
 Alcazar — of which two massive battlemented towers of yellow 
 stone, and another round one of greyish tint, still exist — served for 
 the office of the Inquisition. Its dismal iron-barred windows are 
 symbols of the cells, in which many a pitiable victim was in- 
 carcerated for heresy. 
 
 The glory of Cordova under the Moors has supplied an inex- 
 haustible theme to eloquent historians. Some of them have on this 
 subject vied with Arabs themselves in gorgeousness of description. 
 Gibbon, in his sonorous fashion, rehearses the statistics of its popu- 
 lation and its wealth, with a betrayal, however, of considerable 
 scepticism lurking under the folds of his stately diction ; Prescott, 
 though honestly avowing doubts of reports dropped by Saracenic 
 authors, yet falls into the prevalent strain, and tells of Cordova's 
 delightful situation in a richly cultivated plain, washed by the 
 Guadalquivir ; of houses surrounded with groves and fountains ; of 
 squares and private courtyards sparkling with jets of water, fed 
 from the Sierra Morena ; and of baths supplied from the same 
 source, whilst rivulets conducted into Moorish palaces diffused 
 coolness deliciously grateful to people languishing under a southern 
 sun.-^ 
 
 The rise and fall of the Cordovan kingdom, as painted on the pages 
 ' ' History of Ferdinand and Isabella,' i. 282, 
 
CORDOVA, 
 
 105 
 
 of national historians, are like the incidents of I'omance. Distance 
 lends enchantment to the view, and the further removed from the 
 period when the changes occurred, the richer the azure hues in 
 which the mountain heights of past ages came to be enrobed. 
 Primitive annals are simple and barren enough. Seen, however, 
 
 
 MOORISH BRIDGE AND GATE, CORDOVA. 
 
 some centuries afterwards, they created in the imagination of 
 patriotic and poetical chroniclers marvellous visions of heroic 
 deeds and tragic sorrows. Condensed into plain prosaic words, 
 the story runs thus: — In A.D. 711, on the plain of the river 
 Guadalete near Xeres, and not far from Cadiz, King Roderic, last 
 of the Goths, with his proud army fell before the valiant Tarik and 
 
ro6 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 his cavalry. In A.D. 1236, Ferdinand III. of Castile won back 
 the domain, and placed it under Catholic rule. Within a hundred 
 years of the Prophet's flight, his empire and religion were planted 
 in the Spanish peninsula ; — and, after lasting five centuries, both 
 were rooted up at Cordova, which had been so long the Moham- 
 medan capital of Southern Europe. 
 
 The Moor made a magnificent mark on the architecture of 
 Spain. "The Mosque at Cordova in the ninth century, the 
 Alcazar and Giralda at Seville in the thirteenth, the Court of 
 Lions in the Alhambra in the fourteenth, some of the houses in 
 Toledo in the fifteenth century, are examples of what the Moors 
 were building during the period of the Middle Ages." ^ The Moors 
 borrowed nothing from the Christians ; the Christians, with all their 
 aversion, could not but admit the genius of the Moors. 
 
 During the same period, until the fall of Granada, Arab industry 
 under the Caliph fertilised broad wastes by ingenious irrigation, by 
 cultivating produce before unknown in the west, by planting the 
 sugar-cane, by rearing the silk-worm, and by spinning cotton and 
 wool, to be made into fabrics of fair colours upon the looms of 
 the turbaned weavers. The Arab population incredibly increased. 
 Two hundred thousand dwelling-houses are said to have existed, 
 which, however small and hut-like, would accommodate an enormous 
 amount of people, bringing with them eastern habits of frugality. 
 
 Through Cordova and its suburbs, it is said, you could travel ten 
 miles after sunset by the light of lamps, as in modern London. 
 
 The wealth and luxury of the place were on the same scale. 
 The revenue of this miniature kingdom is reported to have reached 
 six millions sterling, fifteen times as much as flowed into the 
 coffers of our William the Conqueror; and of the voluptuous 
 accommodations in rich men's houses, however forbidding the 
 outer walls, an idea can be formed by any one who has visited 
 Damascus, and reclined on divans such as line the orange and 
 ' Street's ' Gothic Architecture in Spain,' 409. 
 
CORDOVA. 107 
 
 fountain-decked courts of eastern countries. Stately mosques — six 
 hundred of them, Gibbon says — crowded the streets, and above the 
 city walls and towers minarets, like forest trees, clustered together, 
 whence came a daily call to prayer at the noontide hour. The 
 learning promoted in Cordovan colleges is acknowledged to have 
 exceeded that of Christian Europe before the fourteenth century ; 
 for whereas a few score volumes on the shelves of a monastic 
 library formed a rare treasure, Arabian writers talk of 600,000 
 volumes. Allowing for oriental imagination, so extravagant where 
 numbers are concerned, and remembering that it was common with 
 Arabs to count each book or section as a separate volume, still 
 the catalogues of authors must have been surprisingly large ; and 
 Gibbon informs us, he had in his possession a splendid folio, printed 
 at Madrid, in 1760, containing a list of Arabic MSS. reaching 
 the number of one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one. 
 " Cordova possessed a greater abundance of books than any other 
 city of Spain." ^ 
 
 No one acquainted with mediaeval literature can in Cordova fail 
 to think of the illustrious citizen born within its walls — Averroes 
 — him, as Dante sings, 
 
 "who made, 
 That commentary vast." ^ 
 
 Using as his original, not a Greek, but a Syrian copy of Aristotle, 
 he, as translator and expositor, opened the science and logic of the 
 Greek sage not only to Arabic students, but to Latin Schoolmen, 
 who availed themselves of second-hand versions made from Arabic 
 renderings by Averroes. Thus in the thirteenth century, he 
 afforded help to theologians, in the maintenance of a system, after- 
 wards brought terribly to bear on Moors and Jews and heretics, 
 who filled the prisons and perished in the fires of the Inquisition. 
 
 Far less of intolerance was shown by Moors toward their 
 
 ^ Washington Irving's ' Alhambra,' 239. 
 ^ ' Inferno,' Cant. IV. 144. 
 
ic8 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 Catholic neighbours, than their Catholic neighbours afterwards 
 showed to them. Though Mahomet extended his early victories 
 by fire and sword, his successors, when they had subdued a 
 Catholic country, permitted the vanquished to continue their 
 worship, by compounding for permission to do so. No doubt, 
 atrocities were committed by the Saracens in war, and victims 
 ■ were immolated under Abderahman II. and III. ; but these out- 
 bursts of violence were far exceeded by the persistent cruelties 
 of the Spanish Inquisitors. 
 
 The persecution of the Jews is a frightful story. Infamous 
 and incredible reports were sometimes raised against them ; but 
 the truthful charges urged in a contemporary chronicle were 
 that, if they brought children to be baptised, as they were com- 
 pelled to do, they washed out the stains on their return home ; that 
 they used oil instead of lard ; that they would keep the Passover, 
 and would not eat pork ; that they feasted in Lent, and lighted up 
 their synagogues with lamps. Dominicans tormented the Hebrew 
 race. Albigenses and Jews were about equally hateful. Israelitism 
 was an intolerable heresy before Protestantism was thought of in 
 Spain. Ferdinand and Isabella have much to answer for on this 
 score. They encouraged the Holy Office in its diabolical business, 
 and popes backed up the iniquitous partnership. Isabella, naturally 
 amiable, unwillingly entered on the work, and relented when she 
 heard of the cruelties which were practised ; but royal confessors 
 and learned theologians countenanced the undertaking as accept- 
 able in the sight of Almighty God, and in this way silenced her 
 Majesty's scruples. 
 
 The excesses of the Inquisition in its warfare against Judaism 
 were such as to rouse the indignation of Cordovan citizens ; and 
 in 1506 there was a popular revolt against nierciless tyranny. The 
 case was so remarkable and characteristic that it justifies a specific 
 allusion to it in these pages. 
 
 There was a man named Lucero, some called him Tenebrero, 
 
CORDOVA. 
 
 who presided over the Holy Office at Cordova. His inhumanity 
 and reckless course of proceeding almost exceeds belief. He 
 caused a number of respectable people to be arrested, and accused 
 them of indefinite crimes, such as being false penitents or imperfect 
 ' confiientos,' whatever that may mean. Some of them seem to 
 have been fascinated as by the gaze of a basilisk, and volunteered 
 strange confessions of an imaginary crime, hoping, I suppose, in 
 this way to escape the heaviest punishments. Informers were 
 encouraged by the panic produced, and they came in large numbers 
 to the Office of the Inquisition to tender accusations against their 
 frightened neighbours. Stories the most monstrous were trumped 
 up about people of all sorts. Even members of other religious 
 orders came in for a share of suffering under these malignant 
 attacks. Accusers said there was a grand conspiracy afloat to 
 restore Judaism in Cordova and the neighbourhood, and to pull 
 down the Holy Catholic Church. Nuns and other ladies were 
 represented as scouring the country to promote Judaism, by the 
 revival of Israelitish feasts and synagogue worship, and by the 
 preaching of sermons "with great solemnity." The fables invented 
 were taken down by notaries, the houses of rich Cordovan citizens 
 were invaded, and the residents were dragged out of bed, and 
 hurried off to prison. The crusade became intolerable, and the 
 city rose up in arms against the policy of Lucero. The authority 
 of the Inquisition altogether was imperilled. The municipality, 
 the bishop, the cathedral chapter, the principal nobility, the 
 Marquis of Priego and the Count of Cabra at their head, sent a 
 deputation to look into the terrible business, and to put a stop 
 to Lucero's conduct — indeed, to dismiss him from office. But the 
 Inquisitor-General, whose name was Deza, backed his infamous 
 official, and attacked the complainants, denouncing by name a long 
 list of nobles, monks, nuns, canons, and magistrates, as aiders and 
 abettors of the Jewish religionists. The relatives of imprisoned 
 victims now interposed, to implore Philip of Burgundy, and his wife 
 
112 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 Juana, who were rulers of Castile, to transfer the cause to another 
 court. Philip was willing to do so, but he died before he could 
 accomplish his purpose. The Marquis of Priego and his associates, 
 however, would not submit any longer to the tyranny of the 
 Inquisitor, and actually attacked the prison in October, 1506, 
 liberated many prisoners, and put several of the officers in their 
 place. Lucero escaped on the back of a swift Spanish mule. Deza 
 resigned his post, and Cordova regained its tranquillity. 
 
 Several letters written by Peter Martyr d'Anghiera are preserved 
 in which, with righteous severity, he condemns the inquisitionary 
 proceedings in this affair. "The injuries which the ministers of 
 the Inquisition," he says, "have caused in my country are so great 
 and so multiplied that it is impossible not to be most painfully 
 affected by them." And he also exposed the absurdity of the 
 charges brought against the ladies of Cordova, stigmatising those 
 charges as "worthy of the malice of hell, and the credulity of 
 children." ^ 
 
 The end of the matter appears in the forming of a " Catholic 
 Congregation," by the authority of the king and the pope, which 
 acquitted the sufferers under this dreadful persecution, " restored 
 the dead to honour and fame, rebuilt the ruined houses, 
 and ordered all records tending to prejudice the living to be 
 cancelled." - 
 
 The whole story shows that the Inquisition, bad in principle, 
 was worse in practice ; that outrageous abuses of its despotic 
 authority prevailed ; that it had to be checked by the civil power, 
 and by the interference of the pope himself. The indignation of 
 the Cordovan people, it must be remembered, was aroused by 
 charges of Jewish complicity against persons who were perfectly 
 innocent. They did not interfere that they might put an end to 
 tyranny over conscience. They had no notion of what we 
 
 1 Llorente, i. 345-352. 
 
 ^ Rule's ' History of the Inquisition,' 132, 
 
CORDOVA. II; 
 
 mean by civil and religious liberty. Probably, if thorough- 
 going Catholics had been accused of Protestantism, they would 
 have stood up in their defence ; but Protestantism itself they 
 hated as much as Judaism, and would not have thought of 
 attempting to rescue a Lutheran from the flames of an auto defe. 
 
 Protestantism does not appear to have gained any footing 
 in Cordova. We do not read of any Protestant books being 
 circulated, or of any Protestant meetings being held within its 
 walls. The citizens could scarcely be ignorant of what went on in 
 Seville, but there is no sign of their being horrified at the burnings 
 there. 
 
 Nor do I find any record of Protestant martyrs or confessors 
 at Cordova at a later date, Llorente, however, describes an auto 
 which occurred there in 1627, when four Jews were burnt alive, and 
 eleven dead ones were dug out of their graves, that their bones 
 might be consumed. Three blasphemers, one polygamist, and three 
 sorcerers were reconciled — the latter including a wretched woman 
 ■charged with invoking Barabbas and Beelzebub, and another 
 accused of practising necromantic absurdities. The lengths to 
 which " the holy fathers " went in the indulgence of credulity are 
 most amazing. 
 
114 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 GRANADA. 
 
 Granada, about eight or nine hours' journey from Cordova, is 
 situated at the foot of a hill overlooking the Vega, or verdant 
 plains, which, encompassed by mountains — the snowy Sierra 
 Nevada overtopping the rest — spreads out for thirty miles ; and 
 if the Moorish story be true, must have been four hundred years 
 ago a perfect paradise. Travellers in some instances now 
 talk and write about it extravagantly ; but as I saw it in spring, 
 though it gave signs of fertility, it was far from being an Eden of 
 beauty. The city is greatly changed within the last ten or 
 twenty years ; many of the old architectural relics have been swept 
 away. A few narrow streets,^ with rows of Moorish houses, and 
 the Casa Carbon — a rude court-yard with Moorish gates and 
 arabesques — are the chief relics of an oriental glory which once 
 fascinated both inhabitants and visitors. What was once the 
 Moorish plaza, a square famous in legend and song, and the scene 
 of bull baits, of autos defi, with its Casa de los Mir ados — from the 
 windows of which grandees looked out on such ghastly spectacles 
 — is nov/ converted into a market-place of modern appearance. 
 The buildings of the Holy Office, too, have been removed. I could 
 
 ' One of these streets, the Pnerta Suela, contains a house — unpretending outside, 
 but with a beautiful patio and garden within, where the Empress Eugenie was bom. 
 A tablet is placed on the wall, stating that there Her Majesty entered the world, and 
 that the corporation of Granada placed the stone in its present position to commemorate 
 the event. 
 
GRANADA. 
 
 IIS 
 
 find no vestige of the Inquisition prison. A prison near the 
 cathedral I did see — a dirty, wretched-looking place, with grated 
 windows, through which prisoners peered down on the passers-by, 
 and a crowd of them could be seen huddled together in the court- 
 yard. They resemble prisons in Cairo and Damascus. What 
 must the prisons of the Inquisition have been ! 
 
 As one wanders through the courts of the Alhambra, the Hall 
 of the Lions, the Hall of the Ambassadors, and the Hall of the 
 Abencerages — amidst fountains, flowers, arches and columns 
 rich in delicate tracery, and under the shadow of colonnades, where 
 every stone in the wall and every flag on the pavement is vocal 
 with stories of romance and love, of intrigue and murder — there 
 is a strong temptation to yield to its fascinating associations, 
 and to accept as veritable facts what legendary pens have handed 
 down, or legendary tongues, so plentiful in the Alhambra, still 
 repeat without doubt or hesitation. But Washington Irving, who 
 has done so much to make these visions of the past real as the 
 orange trees, the stars, and the moonlight, tells us with relentless 
 fidelity, that after examining Arabic authorities, and letters written 
 by Boabdil's contemporaries, he was convinced the last of the 
 Moors has been traduced, and that the whole collection of stories 
 is due to a historical fiction, with some grains of truth at the bottom, 
 called ' The Civil Wars of Granada,' written in Spanish, though 
 professedly translated from an Arabic original.^ 
 
 When at Granada I could not help remembering how the 
 conquest of it, which began a new era in Spain, occurred about the 
 time that Martin Luther entered the world ; how when Charles V. 
 was rearing within the Alhambra walls a palace for himself, which 
 he never completed, the Reformation was making way in Germany, 
 and had begun to shed a little light on the south side of the 
 Pyrenees ; and how, when the building was fresh with Renaissance 
 gorgeousness, the Inquisition was at work crowding its prisons and 
 
 ' ' The Alhambra,' 51. 
 
 I 2 
 
ii6 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 kindling its fires, for the extinction of simple apostolic faith 
 revived by Spanish confessors. 
 
 But in the city of Granada there are objects connected with 
 details I have to record in this chapter. 
 
 The cathedral was commenced in 1529, when Gothic ecclesi- 
 astical architecture went out, and Renaissance ecclesiastical archi- 
 tecture came in. It stands in the midst of the city, and its dome 
 and towers i-ise conspicuously above other buildings as seen from the 
 walls and windows of the Alhambra. But it is a gaudy, tasteless 
 fabric, in which extravagant decoration covers everything. The 
 columns and piers are enormously lofty, but the construction of 
 the edifice is so overpowered by its intrusive adjuncts that the 
 effect of its magnificent proportions is lost^and destroyed. The 
 gilding everywhere makes the massive materials which they over- 
 power look but a ginger-bread affair ; in this respect presenting a 
 contrast to the sublime simplicity of a genuine Gothic structure. 
 The choir and altar are in keeping with other parts ; the latter 
 crowded with sculpture and ornament, set within an architectural 
 frame, and surmounted by galleries with gilt railings. 
 
 The Capella Real is the choicest part of the structure. Outside 
 there are grand specimens of florid Gothic, inside are the tombs 
 of Ferdinand and Isabella ; also of Philip the Handsome and his 
 wife Juana are noble monuments of marble statuary. The details 
 are worth studying ; and it is curious to observe how the faces 
 of both couples are averted from each other. On a tablet at 
 the foot of the Catholic sovereigns, their hatred of heresy is 
 recorded. I was taken down into the vaults, and there, by 
 the light of candles, saw distinctly the four leaden coffins in 
 which these potentates are enclosed. There is a fifth, contain- 
 ing the corpse of Philip and Juana's son, an elder brother of 
 Charles V. 
 
 Upon the mysterious story of " Crazy Jane," as she is often 
 called — daughter of the two famous sovereigns, mother of a not less 
 
GRANADA. 
 
 117 
 
 famous emperor, Charles V. — light has been thrown of late which 
 brings her into contiguity with the subject of this volume. A friar 
 Thomas, writing, in August, 1498, reported that when two 
 confessors on Assumption Day offered their services to the princess, 
 
 i ,'l '1 '•■ , 'J >•' ill! ! i,b«*ii'l. 
 
 
 TOMB OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 
 
 she declined them. Many years afterwards, in 1518, she refused 
 to attend mass, and when the priests brought her the paten to kiss, 
 she refused it. In 1 522, she interrupted a service, and ordered the 
 altar to be removed. In 1525, some about her recommended that 
 
ii8 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 she should be put on the rack.^ She died in 1555, and De Soto 
 said of her ; " Blessed be the Lord, her Highness told me things 
 that have consoled me. Nevertheless, she is not disposed to the 
 sacrament of the Eucharist." Her granddaughter states, " She 
 committed her soul to God, and gave thanks to Him that at 
 length He delivered her from all her sorrows." Her last words were, 
 "Jesus Christ crucified be with me." All this is startling. A 
 learned German has attempted to prove she was a Lutheran ; ^ 
 but, according to the statements cited, her dislike to Roman 
 ceremonies began long before Luther appeared as a Reformer. A 
 conclusion of that kind appears to me quite inadmissible. In the 
 instructions of the Archduke Philip to a correspondent it is said, 
 " Ferdinand has put into circulation a false report of the madness 
 of his daughter, and other absurdities of the like kind, solely with 
 a view to furnish himself with a pretext for seizing her crown." 
 What are we to make of that passage, in the face of so many- 
 evidences of her insanity .'' 
 
 The archbishop's palace is opposite the cathedral, and has 
 been lately restored. About noon I observed a crowd of men in 
 Spanish cloaks and hats standing in front, and on inquiring what 
 this meant, was informed that they came to receive alms given by 
 the prelate. It amounts to about a halfpenny each, and upon 
 alternate days women assemble to partake of the same charity. 
 
 At Granada, in connection with the cathedral and palace, we 
 meet with a man whose name is familiar to students of Spanish 
 history, Fernando de Talavera. He was really a sort of Reformer 
 before the Reformation, and though he remained ' through life 
 in the bosom of the Catholic Church, he had at least two 
 characteristics which bring him within the general class I am 
 endeavouring to describe — namely, those who deviated from the 
 
 ' ' Calendar of Letters, Despatches, and State Papers relating to negoclations 
 between England and Spain,' edited by G. A. Bergenroth, 1868. 
 « ' Hist. Zeitschrift,' xx. 262. 
 
GRANADA. 119 
 
 common opinion and policy of the age, and thereby incurred 
 the resentment of the Inquisition. 
 
 He was, in early life, a friar of St. Jerome, an order which 
 arose at Toledo in 1370, and rapidly spread through Spain and 
 Portugal. It promoted literary culture, and the brethren were 
 known by their white frocks, their black cowls, and their streaming 
 scapularies. Talavera rose to be prior of a convent near Valla- 
 dolid, and there he remained twenty years. Thence his fame for 
 sanctity, eloquence and learning spread far and wide, and reached 
 the court of Ferdinand and Isabella. Her Majesty made him one 
 of her confessors, and, to show what lofty views he had of his office, 
 this anecdote is related. When he attended her the first time in 
 his new capacity, he continued to sit as she knelt down. " It is 
 usual for both parties to kneel," said Isabella. " No," replied 
 Talavera ; "this is God's tribunal, I act here as His minister, and it 
 is fitting that I should keep my seat while your highness kneels 
 before me." " This is the confessor that I wanted," was her 
 remark afterwards ; whence it appears how in that age of reverence 
 for the priestly office the two suited each other. " This anecdote, 
 however," as Prescott remarks, " is more characteristic of the order 
 than the individual," ^ inasmuch as the confessor was remarkable 
 for his personal humility, and his freedom from ambition, spiritual 
 or worldly. He was very watchful over the social habits of his 
 royal mistress, and his correspondence - shows how anxious he was 
 to withdraw her as much as possible from pornps and vanities ; 
 and so puritanical were his notions in this respect, that he has 
 incurred censure from the American historian just named. " His 
 letters are little else than homilies on the love of company, dancing, 
 and the like heinous offences. The whole savours more of the 
 sharp twang of Puritanism than of the Roman Catholic school." ^ 
 He had no sympathy with Christopher Columbus, whom he, likf" 
 
 ' ' History of Ferdinand and Isabella,' ii. 58. 
 ^ Ibid. ii. 118. 
 
I20 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 many others, regarded as a visionary ; and he ventured to tell both 
 king and queen that his demands savoured in the highest degree 
 of arrogance, and would be unbecoming in their highnesses to grant 
 to a needy foreign adventurer.^ Isabella did not yield to her 
 confessor's advice, and declared she was ready to pawn her crown 
 jewels to meet the adventurous enterprise. 
 
 After having been Bishop of Avila, a city in Old Castile, Talavera, 
 on the fall of Granada in 148 1, expressed a wish to exchange his- 
 Castilian diocese for the new one, to be established around the 
 Alhambra, where he longed to proclaim the faith to the remaining 
 Moorish inhabitants. But he declined to accept an increase of 
 income, which at Avila amounted to about ;^ 14,000 of English 
 money — this he expended chiefly in public improvements and 
 gifts of charity. 
 
 He was advanced in life, yet one of the first things he did on 
 behalf of his new diocese was to study Arabic, that so he might 
 better discharge his missionary duties amongst the Arabic members 
 of his flock. What he did himself he expected his clergy to do 
 likewise. He employed Arabic scholars to assist him in his designs,, 
 by preparing a dictionary and grammar of the language ; he also 
 had an Arabic Christian catechism compiled, and an Arabic version 
 of the Liturgy and Gospels prepared. These works were published 
 in Granada in 1 505, being the firstfruits of an Arabic printing-press.^ 
 Moors, it is further said, availed themselves of the instructions 
 provided, and committed to memory the Ten Commandments and 
 the Apostles' Creed. He also projected a translation of the Bible, an 
 undertaking never completed. This was beginning at the right 
 end, and reflects credit upon a Spanish archbishop, who in these 
 spiritual efforts saw what was adapted to do infinitely more for 
 the propagation of Christianity than the employment of force 
 could ever accomplish. It was not likely that modes of operation 
 
 * ' History of Ferdinand and Isabella,' i. 474. 
 2 M'Crie, 70. 
 
GRANADA. 
 
 so opposed to the spirit of the age would secure approval from the 
 priesthood, who deemed the Inquisition the most efficient instrument 
 of conversion, being more ready to their hands, less troublesome to 
 employ, and swifter in reaping results. Force, therefore, was 
 advocated by zealots, who were blind to the true nature of Christ's 
 religion ; and it was recommended that Mohammedans should be 
 required to submit to baptism, or suffer expulsion from the fair 
 region they deeply loved. Such a policy was espoused by two 
 active churchmen, who came into collision with the amiable prelate 
 I have described. 
 
 The first of these was Ximenes de Cisneros, Archbishop of Toledo, 
 and Primate of Spain, whom we have seen already as founder of 
 the University of Alcala. He accompanied the victorious sovereigns 
 when they took possession of the vanquished kingdom, and obtained 
 royal authority to remain in the romantic city for the furtherance of 
 his views respecting the Christianization of the old inhabitants. 
 
 When he and Talavera met, we may imagine they did so in the 
 archiepiscopal palace; it' soon appeared how divergent were their 
 plans. Talavera brought out his books and manuscripts, and 
 contended earnestly for the vernacular versions of Holy Writ. " Did 
 not St. Paul," he asked, " look upon speaking in an unknown tongue 
 as speaking into the air ? Did he not say, ' In the church I had 
 rather speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice I 
 might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown 
 tongue ? ' " And what was true of speech was true of printing. 
 Ximenes, most inconsistently with his labours on the compilation 
 of a Polyglott, depreciated reasonable methods of diffusing the 
 Gospel, and contended for the efficacy of rites and ceremonies, 
 as making impressive appeals to untutored minds— minds more 
 accessible to what immediately touched the senses than to what 
 only slowly made way into the understanding. Besides, he said, 
 the holding out of worldly advantages to the converted would 
 surely be found attractive, and, when all else failed, there remained 
 
THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 the enforcement of baptism by threats of expatriation. Follow the 
 Church or go into exile, was Ximenes' remedy for Moorish unbelief. 
 Ximenes took up his abode in the Citadel of Granada ; and no 
 sooner had Ferdinand and Isabella left the place, with injunctions 
 that he would pursue a temperate policy, and not provoke the 
 Moors to rebellion, than he invited a number of Mussulman doctors, 
 and by bribes and threats persuaded them to be baptized, so that 
 4000 in one day had holy water sprinkled over their heads, from a 
 hyssop, as it was called, which the primate wielded in his hand. 
 After this edifying ceremony, the crowd went home. Christians, in 
 the eyes of admiring priests and monks. 
 
 To make a clean sweep of Mohammedanism, Ximenes gathered 
 all the Arabic MSS. he could find, some beautifully illuminated, 
 and burnt them in one of the city squares ; but he reserved three 
 hundred volumes upon medical science — assumed to be free 
 from heretical taint — and these he sent to Alcald. The burning 
 greatly shocked the Moors, and many of the Castilians scarcely 
 less. " AIL expostulations against his proceedings were met by the 
 reply that a tamer policy might indeed suit temporal matters, but 
 not those in which the interests of the soul were at stake, that 
 the unbeliever, if he could not be drawn, should be driven into 
 the way of salvation, and that it was no time to stay the hand, 
 when the ruins of Mohammedanism were tottering to their 
 foundations." ^ 
 
 Ximenes roused many to madness. They seized three of his 
 servants, who had made themselves odious, and massacred a couple 
 of them on the spot. In a few hours the city was in a state 
 of rebellion. The cardinal's friends urged him to flee ; but he 
 replied, " God forbid I should think of my own safety, when so 
 many of the faithful are perilling theirs ! No ; I will stand to my 
 post, and await there, if Heaven wills it, the crown of martyrdom." 
 
 ' Prescott, ' Ferdinand and Isabella,' ii. 127. He refers to Gomez, ' De rebus gestis,' 
 and Abarca, ' Reyes de Aragon.' 
 
GRANADA. 123 
 
 He was no coward. After the failure of violence to restore peace, 
 Talavera interposed with his usual persuasiveness. Unarmed, 
 attended by his chaplain, crucifix in hand, he went into the midst 
 of the mob, where one after another knelt down and kissed his 
 garments. The riot was at end ; but the leaders had to pay a 
 penalty afterwards. 
 
 The other dissentient from Talavera's plan was Pedro Diego 
 Deza, successor to Torquemada as Inquisitor-General. He hated 
 the mild ways of the Archbishop of Granada. "What good," 
 he asked, " could ever be done after that milk-and-water fashion .' 
 The tribunal, the dungeon, the rack, the auto de _/"/ were the only 
 effectual cures for heresy of all kinds. Those who disapproved of 
 such methods were themselves to be suspected. Could Talavera 
 be a genuine Catholic .' No. So Diego Deza called on his friend 
 Ximenes, as primate, to take in hand the Archbishop of Granada, 
 and inquire into his opinions and practices, while they were living 
 together in that city. The Inquisitors, however, acted for them- 
 selves, arrested some of the prelate's relatives, and kept him for 
 three years in trouble and anxiety. Ximenes was unwilling to 
 countenance the business ; he shrank from acting as a familiar in the 
 case of one who was himself a provincial archbishop, and wrote 
 accordingly to Pope Julius II. The pope ordered his nuncio to 
 inhibit the Inquisitors, and to report respecting the character of 
 Talavera. Whatever was the report, Julius, at a meeting of 
 cardinals, absolved the suspected dignitary ; and yet his name was 
 retained in the Spanish Index published so late as 1789. ^ 
 
 The Inquisition and the fall of Granada are coupled together by 
 Padre Mariana, the Jesuit. " No sooner was the Holy Office opened 
 in Spain, than there instantly shone forth a resplendent light. 
 Then it was, that, through Divine favour, the nation increased 
 in power, and became competent to overthrow and trample down 
 the domination of the Moors." 
 
 ' Talavera, quoted in the ' History of the Inquisition,' by Dr. Rule, 129. 
 
124 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 Those in Granada who were arrested in consequence of their 
 departures from the Catholic faith were chiefly Moors and Jews ; 
 and I do not find any notice of Protestant victims of the Inquisition 
 there earlier than 1 593, when a heretic is mentioned who denied 
 the resurrection of the dead, together with two persons distinctly 
 described as Lutherans. They were subjected to lighter punish- 
 ments after having professed penitence ; but five Jews were burnt 
 that year at the auto de fL 
 
 A flash of anti-Protestant indignation shoots forth in Granada 
 at a festival in November, 1685, when an allegorical ship was 
 exhibited floating on a silver sea before the Chapel of the 
 Sacrament at the cathedral — an exhibition got up in consequence 
 of an insult offered to the host by a French heretic, and intended to 
 expiate the offence. From this vessel broadsides w'ere fired upon 
 Luther, Wicliff", Calvin, and CEcolampadius, who were represented 
 as swimming round, and attempting to repeat the outrage. The 
 shots were composed of Scripture texts.-^ Well would it have been 
 if the champions of Catholicism had always confined themselves to 
 such artillery. 
 
 In 1680 there was a native of the province of Granada who 
 had been formerly " reconciled by the Inquisition of Llerena as a 
 heretic who denied purgatory, but who having relapsed into this 
 and other errors was again thrown into prison, where he died in a 
 state of impenitence and contumacy." 
 
 Ticknor informs us that he had in his possession the official 
 Relaciones oi autos at Granada in 1720 and 172 1, involving ninety- 
 eight cases — all but two were Jews — some burnt alive, others were 
 corpses dug out of their graves, the rest were condemned to 
 perpetual imprisonment and other penalties.^ 
 
 There are other edifices in Granada besides the cathedral full 
 of decorative display. The Hospital of San Juan, — who devoted 
 his life to the founding of hospitals, was treated whilst he lived as 
 ' Ticknor, ii. 3O4. ^ Ticknor, iii. 278. 
 
GRANADA. 125 
 
 mad in consequence of his enthusiastic benevolence, and then after 
 his death was encased in marble and canonized — is a striking 
 example. | entered the building which bears his name through a 
 filthy lane, and was then ushered into a chapel, resplendent with 
 gold, paintings, statuary, precious stones, and pieces of looking-glass. 
 The Carthusian Convent outside the city is still more remarkable. 
 The cloister walls are covered with pictures of monks who were 
 persecuted and put to death by English Protestants at the . period 
 of the Reformation. The representations are exaggerated, but 
 there can be no doubt that the sufferings of these men were really 
 terrible ; and their story is only one sad blot in the reign of 
 Henry VIII. by the side of another, the burning of Protestant 
 martyrs. Sad indeed was it that the Spanish Inquisition should 
 thus be kept in countenance by doings in our own country ! You 
 pass through these cloisters into a chapel of rare magnificence 
 and beauty. The stucco work is exquisite. There are rich sculp- 
 tures behind the altar, a good Murillo on the walls, and the gates 
 which open into the choir are inlaid with ebony, tortoise-shell, 
 and ivory. The sacristy has cases of drawers, made of similar 
 materials. All the architecture and artistic displays belong to 
 the fifteenth century.; and I could not help thinking that they 
 indicated a sort of frantic effort made to revive the glory of a 
 Church which was then spiritually and morally on the wane. 
 
 In Ford's ' Guide-book for Spain ' notice is taken of the ancient 
 Illiberis, remains of which are found near Atarfe, within a few 
 miles of Granada. " Here," says the editor, " the celebrated 
 Council was held about the year 303 " (it should be in the year 
 A.D. 313) "at which Osius of Cordova presided over nineteen 
 Spanish bishops. The eighty-one Canons breathe a merciless 
 anathema and death, worthy of the land of the future Inquisition. 
 The crimes and penalties give an insight into the manners of the 
 
 ' The Canons are found in Hardouin, ' Collectio Conciliorum,' torn. i. p. 247. 
 
 For full particulars of Church discipline at the period, see Bingham's ' Christian 
 
126 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 age."^ The last remark is true, but the former is not. The lapsed, 
 indeed, as backsliding Christians in an age of heathenism and 
 persecution were called, became numerous, and professors of the 
 faith were sometimes immoral also. The discipline, however, 
 sought to be maintained was strict, as the Canons of lUiberis show ; 
 but the utmost penalty prescribed was excommunication. This was 
 a spiritual penalty. It cut off the guilty from the fellowship of the 
 Church. It excluded them from the privileges and comforts of 
 religion, until they were restored by repentance. But it left 
 property, liberty and life untouched. In an age when the Church 
 was unestablished, and could not employ the secular power in its 
 service, it was impossible that, in point of practical operation, the 
 Canons of lUiberis could resemble the proceedings of the Inqui- 
 sition. Spiritual anathemas no doubt there were in the former 
 case, but death, imprisonment, and the forfeiture of property were 
 additions of later date. The Spanish Inquisition surpasses all 
 that went before it in the history of Church penalties. 
 
 Leaving Granada, I may remark that Reformed opinions, which 
 spread in Seville and Valladolid, did not penetrate to the same 
 extent elsewhere. Nevertheless, other parts of Spain felt their in- 
 fluence. Many an auto de fi numbered amongst its victims people 
 charged with heresy. Murcia, which lies to the north-east of 
 Granada, affords an example. 
 
 Murcia is now a town with 91,509 inhabitants, in the south-east 
 corner of Spain ; its neighbourhood is a land of flowers. " The 
 streets are generally narrow, and many of the houses are painted 
 in pink and yellow colours : those of the Hidalgos are decorated 
 with armorial bearings." ^ In summer the place must look very 
 
 Antiquities,' Book XVI., Chapters ii.-xiv. Carefully distinguish, between ecclesiastical 
 proceedings before and after the legal status given to the Church in the time of 
 Constantine. The Theodosian Code (A.d. 429-438) had in it much of the same spirit as 
 that which appears in the proceedings of the Holy Office. 
 ' Ford. 
 
GRANADA. 127 
 
 pretty, with its awnings drawn over the thoroughfares, and gaily 
 dressed peasants sauntering in the shade, and gazing on the shops 
 of silversmiths and striped mantle sellers. The name Murcia 
 applies to the surrounding province as well as the town ; the 
 country round was fertile in the days of the Moors, when, indeed, it 
 formed a petty kingdom. The plain is still dotted with farms and 
 palm trees, and the chief building in what may be called the capital 
 is the Roman Catholic cathedral, with old carvings and monuments. 
 The name of the place figures in the records of the Inquisition, 
 more, I apprehend, with reference to the province than the town ; 
 certainly more in connection with Jews, Mohammedans, and im- 
 moral members of the Spanish Catholic Church, than in connection 
 with heretics of the Protestant class. Some of the latter, however, 
 are met with, and a few appear at the beginning of that terrible 
 period when persecution, like a sirocco, swept over the Protestantism 
 of Spain. In 1563 I find eleven persons mentioned as suspected of 
 Lutheranism, but they were afterwards reconciled as penitents. A 
 priest popular as a preacher was brought out at the auto de fe in 
 his shirt, bare-headed, and a wax taper in his hand, to abjure his 
 heresies, which seem to have consisted in his condemnation of the 
 Holy Office, and his stigmatising the Inquisition as "devils in- 
 carnate." A priest named Luis de Angelo was violently suspected of 
 heresy, but he abjured, was for a time suspended from sacerdotal 
 functions, and condemned only to pay a fine. In this respect he 
 resembled the other priest just named. Two friars were also 
 degraded as Lutheran heretics, and treated much in the same way. 
 In 1564 a monk of the order of St. Jerome was in trouble with 
 the Inquisition for having married, and, in 1568, twenty-five persons 
 were burnt as heretics, and thirty-five were condemned to minor 
 penalties upon their abjuring errors with which they were charged. 
 What were the errors for which the former were burnt, I do not know, 
 as Judaism and Mohammedanism are sometimes classed amongst 
 the heresies of which people were accused. Suspectus de levi is 
 
128 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 an expression which occurs in records of the Inquisition, meaning 
 one charged with a slight taint " of heresy. When convicted, 
 the person was required to abjure all doctrines but those of 
 the Catholic Church ; then, clothed in a penitent's garb, he was 
 sentenced to do penance for a certain period — it might be for 
 seven years. At all events, we may conclude that there must 
 have been some in the province of Murcia who at the time of 
 these autos were imbued with sentiments which were taught by 
 Protestant Reformers. 
 
( 129 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SEVILLE. 
 
 We started from the Alhambra on a spring morning at daybreak, 
 > and as the sun began to rise, passed near Santa Fe on my 
 journey to Seville. I had visited Santa Fe a few days before, in 
 a carriage which the driver took care should move along the dusty 
 road at the rate of only three miles an hour — a specimen of 
 travelling available in Spain where the railway does not serve. 
 Santa Fe is a miserable town, but famous as the residence of 
 Ferdinand and Isabella during a part of the war with Granada ; 
 there it was that Columbus had his critical interview with the 
 sovereigns, which, after being broken up by their rejection of his 
 project, was renewed by his recall, as he reached the bridge of 
 Finos between Santa F^ and Granada. The final conference royally 
 authorised the Great Admiral to start on his unparalleled voyage 
 of discovery. In the same town the capitulation of Granada was 
 signed. 
 
 The Vega of Granada, covered with promises of a good barley 
 harvest when I saw it in April, is crossed by the railroad, which 
 runs by Loja, the key to Granada. The town is picturesquely 
 situated on the banks of the Genii, and opens gracefully on the 
 traveller's view as he reaches the station ; indeed, it is the most 
 interesting object I noticed in the earlier part of my journey to 
 Seville. Antequera, once a Roman station, still marked by a 
 Moorish castle, is further on ; then comes the junction at Bobadilla, 
 well known to Spanish travellers, where you get upon a line which 
 
 K 
 
ijo THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 strikes off to Seville by a short cut that saves a long round to 
 the Madrid and Seville Trunk Railway. The country improves 
 as you approach the grand old city on the banks of the Guadal- 
 quivir, and the graceful Giralda, towering above the other buildings, 
 arrests the eye some time before the train arrives at its desti- 
 nation. 
 
 The Seville which is, differs materially from the Seville which 
 was ; yet in many respects it continues the same. The picturesque 
 costumes which used to enliven the streets and formed subjects 
 for paintings by Philips and others have nearly disappeared. The 
 romantic adventures by diligence and on horseback over the great 
 high-roads which lead to the city, have reached their end, and 
 travelling by railway is very prosaic. Trams meet you in the 
 narrow streets ; and hack carriages stand in a row as in the heart 
 of London. The Fondas are now handsome hotels, where English 
 and American travellers are very common. All this deserves 
 mention, for books of Spanish travel written twenty years ago 
 are very misleading. Of greater importance far are contrasts 
 between the present and the sixteenth century. The Inquisition 
 is abolished, autos de fe and burnings at the Quemerado are, thank 
 God, unknown ; and the circulation of the Bible and liberty of 
 Protestant worship are, within certain limits, allowed by law. 
 
 On the other hand, great monuments of antiquity, Moorish and 
 Christian, remain. The cathedral and daughter churches still 
 abound in sculpture and painting. The Virgin Mary is worshipped 
 as much as ever. Artistic commemorations in Holy Week have 
 lost little of their splendour and popularity. The bull-fight is still 
 an immense attraction. Fiction and the drama maintain their 
 ascendency. The serenader, though less frequent, may still be 
 seen loitering under a lady's balcony. I am sorry to say that 
 antipathy to Evangelical religion lingers under the shadow of 
 religious liberty ; and untruthfulness, I am assured by inhabitants 
 of Seville is a common rule, with few exceptions. Could 
 
SEVILLE. l-,i 
 
 Reformers return from the dead, they would say, looking at the 
 first class of facts, " How changed ! " looking at the second, " How 
 much the same ! " 
 
 Passing through the narrow streets of Seville, some of my 
 first thoughts rested upon Don Rodrigo de Valer, a man who 
 may be called father of the Protestant Reformation in that 
 ^ picturesque city. His birthplace was at Lebrixa, and, being a 
 member of the aristocracy of Spain, born with an inheritance 
 of great wealth, and brought up amongst those who prided 
 themselves upon their pure blood, he spent his money, and 
 sought fashionable society in the great southern capital of his 
 native land. He had a house there of the kind which still 
 remains — a mansion plain outside, but probably within full of 
 luxury, with a patio in the middle, where the orange trees and 
 flowers were refreshed from a fountain, which threw over them its 
 glittering spray. Fond of country sports and city amusements, 
 he hunted the boar and the bear on the tawny barren hills of his 
 ancestral domain ; and then, in his Seville residence, exchanged 
 excitement of that kind for such as prevailed amongst fashionable 
 neighbours. He is described as a favourite and leader of them 
 all. But, in the midst of his revelry, he was arrested by a Divine 
 hand, which turned his thoughts and ways into a totally new 
 direction. Convinced of his sin and folly, he sought for pardon 
 and peace ; and not finding those blessings in the Church to 
 which he belonged, he turned to books of divinity, to the writings 
 of the Fathers and the schoolmen, of which he knew something ; 
 and especially to the Latin Vulgate, where, with all its faults, he 
 found the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith. On that 
 he laid hold, and having made it his own he kept it to the end. 
 
 From the moment of this change in feeling there commenced a 
 change of conduct. Don Rodrigo de Valer became another man. 
 The pleasures which had once absorbed his thoughts he now 
 abandoned ; and it was his heart's desire to communicate to others 
 
 K 2 
 
t32 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 what, through God's mercy, he enjoyed himself. He repeated 
 what he had learned from Holy Writ, and talked about it to priests 
 and monks of his acquaintance. He is represented as soon 
 preaching in the streets — which must mean that in the Calle, the 
 Plaza, and the Prado, he would converse with people, boldly and 
 plainly, about the things which belonged to their peace. Such 
 conduct could not but create surprise ; and surprise amongst 
 Spanish Catholics burst into flames of indignation. That a man 
 with pure blood in his veins, brought up, not among Moors, Jews, 
 and heretics, could so disgrace himself was intolerable. Luther- 
 anism in Germany was being talked about — heresy had begun to 
 alarm the Sevillians, and sympathy in such things alarmed Don 
 Rodrigo's friends, and gratified the malice of his enemies. He 
 could not fail to be informed against. Officers of the Inquisition 
 were on the watch. He walked for some time on the edge of 
 a precipice, but his steps did not falter. He met with a few like- 
 minded in his own rank of life, and read and expounded to them the 
 Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans — a favourite part of God's Word 
 with all Protestants. Wary advisers, hearing of this, bid him be 
 cautious ; but he regarded himself as the leader of a forlorn hope, 
 and bravely pressed on. The Holy Office could forbear no longer. 
 The familiars laid hold of the courageous young evangelist. He 
 stood before the secret tribunal. He was examined, convicted, and 
 sentenced. No doubt he had intercessors in his behalf, and this 
 saved him from a death by fire. Rodrigo was condemned to 
 imprisonment. He had to bear the sanbenito,^ which I will 
 hereafter describe, and to sit listening to a priest who undertook 
 to convince him of his theological errors. Rodrigo, like one of 
 the apostles, could not but declare the things he had seen and 
 heard, and in the public place, where he received admonition, he 
 rose and warned the people against errors which had just been 
 propounded by his tonsured antagonist. Strange that his judges 
 ' Sometimes written sambenito. 
 
PUERTA DEL PERDON, SEVILLE CATHEDRAL. 
 
SEVILLE. 135 
 
 did not order him to be burnt forthwith. Imprisonment for life he 
 had to endure ; and after dreary days in a cell of the Inquisition he 
 entered on the celestial liberty of the sons of God. 
 
 After death, his sanbenito, or frock of infamy, was hung up 
 in Seville Cathedral, with this inscription in large letters, " Rodrigo 
 Valer, apostate and false teacher, who declared that God had sent 
 him." 
 
 The external aspects of Seville Cathedral are not picturesque, 
 except those which appear from the Orange Court, where the 
 Giralda towers into the blue sky in beautifulness ; and from the 
 steps of the Lonja, or Exchange, where the eye runs across Gothic 
 windows of the fourteenth century and a doorway is seen full of 
 sculpture, and a row of pinnacles of a curious shape, like lamp- 
 stands bearing tongues of fire. The interior of the edifice is 
 wonderful. The pier-like columns of the aisles, transepts, and 
 nave, are of prodigious height, the effect of which is a little 
 diminished by the heavy coro in the middle, quite shutting out of 
 sight the high altar as you enter the church. Attention is arrested 
 at once by a large slab covering the grave of the son of Columbus, 
 whose exploit is commemorated by a lined sculpture of the 
 caravels in which the explorers sailed forth, and by the simple 
 
 words — 
 
 A Castilla y a Leon, 
 Nuevo Mundo di Colono.' 
 
 The discovery of America preceded the Reformation in Spain 
 a little more than half a century, and was the cause of results, in 
 the Church and the world, of which the persecutors and the 
 persecuted could not dream. I contrasted the reign of ecclesiastical 
 freedom in the North of the New World with the long age of 
 spiritual despotism in the South of the old one ; and on entering 
 the Sala Capitular I was struck, not only with Murillo's paintings 
 but with one of the marble medallions representing Christ in the 
 ' Columbus is so called by the Splniards. 
 
136 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 vessel amidst a storm asleep, yet ready to wake and save, with 
 words underneath, expressing the truth "there is no fear for 
 this life when the gracious Saviour is near the helm." I could not 
 help applying it to the Evangelical Church amidst tempests of 
 persecution ; for the cause which I am describing in these pages 
 has not perished, and never can. 
 
 The magnificence of the grand cathedral roof culminates over 
 the centre, where the transepts meet between the coro and the high 
 altar. That point of junction is closely connected with my story, 
 for there, with the subdued and tinted light through the stained 
 windows, three memorable preachers of the Reformation occupied 
 the cathedral pulpit. I will describe the three. Their names 
 were Egidius (or, as he is sometimes called, Dr. Gil), Constantino 
 Ponce de la Fuente, and Gregorio Ruiz. 
 
 Egidius had received his education at the University of Alcala, 
 and had distinguished himself by attainments, especially in the 
 original languages of Scripture ; hence he was denominated a 
 Biblicist, a reproachful term in those days. He, however, attained 
 a theological chair at Siguanza, and became known as a scholastic- 
 deep in the writings of Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas, and 
 Duns Scotus. His scholarship procured him a canonry in Seville 
 Cathedral ; but, as it often happens, learning did not make him an 
 orator ; thus being discouraged by the scantiness of his audiences, 
 he contemplated a resignation of office ; but he had a friend who 
 penetrated below the surface, and discovered in him a power 
 slumbering for want of an impulse sufficient for awakening it. 
 This friend was Rodrigo de Valer. He pointed out the preacher's 
 defects, especially his need of unction ; and, following the example 
 of Aquila and Priscilla, expounded to his half-instructed pupil the 
 way of God more perfectly. The matter as well as the manner of 
 Egidius became changed. He threw force and fire into his pulpit 
 ministrations ; the contrast between the now burning appeals and 
 the old icy disquisitions excited city talk, and the spacious transepts, 
 
SEVILLE. 137 
 
 once empty, were filled to suffocation. Amongst other gifts was 
 "the singular faculty which he had of kindling in the breasts of 
 those who listened to his instructions a sacred flame which 
 animated them in all the exercises of piety, internal and external, 
 and made them not only willing to take up the cross, but cheerful 
 in the prospect of the sufferings of which they stood in jeopardy 
 every hour; a clear proof that the Master whom he served was 
 present with him by His Spirit engraving the doctrine which he 
 taught on the hearts of his hearers." ' This of course applies only 
 to those who heard with sympathy. Many listened with disbelief 
 and scorn, and enemies as well as friends sprung up around the 
 Reformer's pulpit. The fame of Egidius reached Charles V., and 
 the emperor, who seems to have had a taste for oratory, nominated 
 him to the see of Tortosa, one of the richest in Spain. This made 
 those who disliked the preacher's doctrines very angry, and 
 they denounced him to the Inquisition, as the best way of barring 
 all episcopal gates against such a person. They said he held 
 justification by faith, that he placed no reliance on human merit, 
 and that he contradicted the doctrine of purgatory and the practice 
 of confession. They accused him further of discountenancing the 
 veneration of images, and of favouring Protestantism in other ways. 
 Whatever Egidius might say as to other charges, he admitted the 
 accusation of his being a believer in justification by faith. This 
 was quite sufficient ; but when Charles V. heard of what went on 
 he threw his shield over the preacher — for he greatly admired his 
 preaching — and then the opponents of Egidius for a time changed 
 their course, agreeing to what seems a strange arrangement. 
 Dominigo de Soto, a Dominican professor at Salamanca, was sent 
 for. The Dominicans, unlike the Franciscans, were Augustinian 
 in sentiment, and were not so averse as the rival order to what are 
 called doctrines of grace. Dominigo professed to coincide with 
 Egidius as to justification, and in a private conference, after 
 
 ' Montanus, ' Sanctje Inquisitionis Hispanicse Artes.' 
 
138 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 explaining each other's views, the two agreed that befoi-e a 
 congregation in the cathedral, each should produce a statement of 
 belief in the disputed points. They occupied pulpits some 
 distance apart, and Egidius, without distinctly hearing what 
 Dominigo read, assented to his statement by a polite bow ; 
 supposing that what was advanced agreed with what had been 
 previously arranged. Instead of that, it was something quite 
 different ; when Egidius innocently read his own confession, with 
 the idea that it resembled Dominigo's, he discovered to his 
 amazement that all present regarded him and his friend as opposed 
 to each other on the cardinal point under discussion. The 
 Inquisitors found Egidius guilty of holding Lutheran opinions, and 
 condemned him to be imprisoned for a certain time, to be silent 
 for a still further period, and not to leave the country on pain of 
 death ; this sentence was given on condition of recanting his errors. 
 Losing courage and self-possession, the poor fellow acquiesced in 
 the cruel sentence of his judges.^ 
 
 Though it be diverging from the right line of our story, I may 
 here notice what occurred in connection with the trial. The 
 bishopric to which Charles thought of transferring his favourite 
 remained vacant, and the charge of heresy against him made his 
 appointment impossible. Therefore those who were hungering for 
 clerical promotion were on the qui vive, each one hoping to catch 
 the lucrative benefice. One of the aspirants said, that he saw the 
 charge at Tortosa was " too weighty a burden for his shoulders," 
 but he thought he could discharge episcopal functions in the vacant 
 see better than in the one he occupied, and he felt " a strong desire 
 to end his days in tending a few infirm sheep in the peace of God." 
 Another prelate, stationed in Sardinia, sought the vacant episcopate, 
 saying it was not avarice which induced him to do so, but he 
 
 ' Llorento, ii. 142 ; M'Crie, 158. Neither accounts are very clear. I have selected 
 the salient points. De Castro says that the formal recantation is preserved in Seville 
 Cathedral. 
 
SEVILLE. 139 
 
 wanted to get on terra firma, and to be delivered from the restless 
 waves which were then beating round his house.^ 
 
 Whoever got the bishopric, Egidius lost it, and when his im- 
 prisonment expired, in 1555, he visited Valladolid, where the 
 Reformation had taken root, and where, notwithstanding his recan- 
 tation, he joined the Protestants. Yet he returned to Seville, and 
 was condemned to imprisonment by the Holy Office. He died of 
 fever in 1556. The canons of the cathedral had determined to 
 pay him six hundred ducats a year whilst he was in prison, and 
 after his death had an honourable epitaph inscribed on his tomb. 
 But this, by order of the Inquisition, was effaced, and the remains of 
 the confessor were dug out of the grave and reduced to ashes. 
 
 Commentaries on Genesis, the Psalms, the Song of Solomon, and 
 the Epistle to the Colossians, with a treatise on bearing the cross, 
 were composed by him — the last in prison. 
 
 Dr. Constantino Ponce de la Fuente is another of the Seville 
 cathedral preachers who comes under our notice.^ He was a 
 native of San Clemente de la Mancha, in the diocese Cuenca. It 
 is an interesting fact that many Churchmen in Spain at that time 
 devoted themselves to the study of the original Scriptures, and 
 Constantino was one of the number. Nor did he neglect the study 
 of his own language, for he wrote and spoke in it with pre-eminent 
 purity and elegance. He admired Erasmus, had a good deal of 
 his wit, and like him loved to ridicule the monks. " He is a great 
 philosopher, a profound theologian, and the most eloquent preacher 
 in Spain," said Calvete de Estrella.^ His learning, ability, and 
 eloquence won for him a high reputation, and his services were 
 
 ' ' Lettres et Memoires de Vargas,' quoted by M'Crie, 161, et seq. 
 
 ' The most complete accounts of Ponce de la Fuente will be found in the biographical 
 notice by B. B. Wiffen, prefixed to Mr. Betts's translation of ' The Confession of a 
 Sinner.' Dr. Boehmer, in the second volume of his 'Wifleniana,' minutely describes 
 the editions of his Works. 
 
 ' Quoted by Droin, ' Hist, de la Ref. en Espagne,' i. 201. 
 
I40 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 eagerly sought by the chapter of the cathedral of Cuenca, where 
 he might have had a preachership. The metropolitan church of 
 Toledo offered a similar office, renowned for its lucrativeness. He 
 declined both, but at length accepted an invitation to Seville. 
 Charles V. heard him preach there, and, delighted with his oratory, 
 appointed him royal chaplain and almoner. Constantino also 
 accompanied Prince Philip to the Netherlands, and became 
 acquainted with some of the German Reformers. James Schopper, 
 of Biberach in Suabia, is mentioned as one who met with him, and 
 his conversation was useful in opening up Protestant truths. 
 
 Further, he was acquainted with one of whom much has been 
 said in a former chapter, Franzisco de Enzinas. Their acquaintance- 
 ship is shown in a correspondence between Caspar Nidbruck and 
 Enzinas, the former asking the latter to write to Constantino on 
 his behalf " You need not mention," he says, " the topic of reli- 
 gion, and without your engaging me too much by your promises, 
 you may affirm this, that what he shall communicate to me will be 
 entrusted to a confidential person — one attached to men of faith 
 and piety. Were you disposed to confer with him upon your own 
 affairs, that would be best done by your informing him of them when 
 I shall be at Augsburg, for I shall easily ascertain how he is affected 
 towards pure Evangelical doctrine, and how he is affected towards 
 you, as also what others think of you." What exactly was the 
 object of this communication does not appear, but it indicates how 
 cautious persons of a certain class were of committing themselves on 
 the subject of religion, and how well known it was to the writer 
 that Constantino and Enzinas were acquainted with one another. 
 Nidbruck wrote again to Enzinas, in October 1 5 50, saying : " The 
 venerable man, Dr. Constantino, has received me with great friend- 
 liness, and, what with his wisdom and learning, I doubt not that he 
 will be able, assisted by your counsel, to promote what I have 
 proposed, which he promised that he will do, and I do not mistrust 
 his good will." In his letter to Enzinas, Nidbruck adds, ' Dr. 
 
SEVILLE. 141 
 
 Constantino most earnestly desires thee to return to thy family, 
 or at least to settle in the Netherlands at Antwerp." ^ 
 
 Strange to say, Constantino accompanied Philip II. to England, 
 and remained in his Majesty's court for three years, returning to 
 Seville about the end of 1555. He then accepted an engagement 
 to preach in Seville Cathedral every alternate day in Lent. Years 
 before this, Constantino's popularity had been immense. Every- 
 body has read the story of Savonarola's preaching at Florence — 
 how the people got up in the middle of the night to find places in 
 the Duomo, and how they stood with naked feet on the cold marble, 
 waiting for three or four hours till the padre ascended the pulpit ; 
 when the sermon ended it seemed to them as if it had scarcely 
 begun. As it was in the Duomo of Santa Maria so it was in Seville 
 Cathedral, only the florid architecture, the bewildering intricacies of 
 minute ornament, so profuse in the latter edifice, must have strongly 
 contrasted with the severe simplicity of the Florentine church. 
 Service did not begin till eight o'clock in Lent, but by four, crowds 
 of Spaniards — men with their broad hats and ample cloaks, women 
 with their mantillas and fans — poured through the narrow streets 
 and pressed within the lofty walls. On these and other occasions 
 Constantino Ponce avoided controversy, did not attack the 
 dogmas of the Catholic Church, but insisted positively upon 
 spiritual truths. 
 
 The preacher after his return became candidate for a higher 
 dignity than he had held before. It was customary for such an 
 aspirant to pass through a competitive trial. Election depended 
 on success in a sort of literary joust, at a time when rivalries 
 amongst troubadours resembled tilts of chivalry. Constantino 
 shrunk from the encounter. It seemed to him childish and 
 unbecoming. However, he yielded to necessity, and the trial 
 
 ' The autograph letters are in the Protestant Seminary at Strasburg, and have been 
 printed by Mr. B. B. WifFen in his biographical sketch prefaced to Mr. Betts's edition 
 of ' The Confession of a Sinner ' by Constantino. 
 
142 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 was published far and wide. Any who aspired to the vacant 
 post were to meet him in the arena. A canon of Malaga at last 
 entered the lists. But, instead of aiming at a display of erudition, 
 he descended into personalities, which failed to produce the desired 
 effect. Constantino came off triumphant. 
 
 But a storm was brewing.^ The strain of his preaching, more 
 marked than ever, excited suspicion, though it did not supply 
 sufficient evidence of heresy. Doubts respecting him had arisen 
 in earlier years. After his return to Spain the familiars would not 
 let him rest, and accusations against him were supplied by enemies. 
 He was apprehended and confined. It may sometimes be thought 
 that Reformers might have escaped opposition by being less 
 antagonistic ; but the case before us shows how, in times of 
 excitement like that which was then passing over Spain, nobody 
 who did not join with the bigots could avert impending danger. 
 Conclusive evidence against Constantino for a time could not be 
 found. An accident disclosed it at last. An officer of the 
 Inquisition was searching the house of a lady, Doiia Isabella 
 Martina, for another purpose, when he discovered a number of 
 books and manuscripts which Constantino had intrusted to her 
 care. One of them, in his own handwriting, contained an assertion 
 of Protestant principles, a condemnation of the papal system, also 
 a plain statement of justification by faith, together with attacks on 
 indulgences and purgatory. This was enough. On being confronted 
 with these proofs, he honestly exclaimed : " It is unnecessary to 
 produce further evidence. There you have a candid confession of 
 my belief I am in your hands, do with me as seemeth good to 
 you." They did so. 
 
 Thrown into a dismal cell, he exclaimed : " 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 baptised fiends ? " 
 
 ' " A Seville seulement, huit cents personnes furent arretees en un jour." — Hilaire 
 ' Histoire d'Espagne,' viii. 92. 
 
SEVILLE. t43 
 
 Illness followed, and in two years after his arrest he was gone 
 beyond the reach of his persecutors. 
 
 Serious reflections were cast on Constantino's moral character ; 
 and ' The Confession of a Sinner,' which he wrote after the manner 
 of Augustine, expresses terrible compunctions of conscience. They 
 include probably recollections of vicious irregularities in early life ; 
 but, it appears to me, they still more disclose the secrets of his 
 heart, and lay bare that spiritual sense of sin which only enlight- 
 ened believers in the Divine word can discover and adequately feel. 
 The Confession is a most ,extraordinary treatise on the law of God 
 and the sinfulness of sin. Constantino reminds us of John Bunyan 
 and of Augustine. It is plain he was a man of vivid imagination, 
 and through the exercise of that faculty impressively expressed 
 the realities of Christian experience. The sunshine of hope which 
 breaks out at the end of the little book, and rolls away the clouds 
 which darken the earlier part, is exceedingly beautiful. 
 
 " Give me, O Lord, eyes that I may see myself, and strength 
 that I may hold up under self-scrutiny. For my sins are so nume- 
 rous and so aggravated that I myself am ashamed to recognise 
 them as mine, and am tempted to relieve myself by another sin- 
 that of disowning and denying myself, as though I could discover 
 another self less guilty. But with all this. Lord, I see Thy meixy 
 is such, that whilst I close my eyes when confronted by my sins, 
 Thou keepest Thine open and fixed upon them all ; for it is clear, 
 O Redeemer of the world ! that Thou lookest upon wounds in order 
 to heal them, since, however hideous they may be, they do not 
 disgust Thee, and Thou condescendest to infuse from Thy hands 
 cleansing into them. Guide me, O my Lord, and draw me to 
 Thyself, for alone I shall not attain to know myself ; Thy presence 
 shall give me strength to bear up under self-scrutiny. Hold me, 
 that I flee not from myself Sustain me, that I yield not to 
 despair. Impose silence upon Satan, until Thou answer for 
 me. 
 
144 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 " Since it is Thy will, O Lord, that I be not lost, though my 
 ruin be self-wrought, I come to Thee ; and come, like the prodigal 
 son, to seek the hospitality of Thy house, having learned by bitter 
 experience in losses and injuries, that all those who moved me to 
 leave Thy service are my enemies. How much soever conscious- 
 ness of guilt accuses me, whatever evil I may know of myself, 
 however much in fear I may stand of Thy judgment, I cannot 
 cease to cherish hope that Thou purposest to pardon me ; that 
 Thou purposest to manifest Thyself graciously unto me, so that I 
 may never again depart from Thee. Hast Thou, O Lord, not 
 said and sworn that Thou wiliest not the death of a sinner, and 
 that Thou hast no pleasure in man's ruin ? Dost Thou not say 
 that Thou hast not come to call the righteous, but sinners ? Not 
 the whole, but the sick ? Hast Thou not borne the chastisement of 
 the sins of others ? Hast Thou not given satisfaction for that 
 which Thou hast not done ? Is not Thy blood a sacrifice for the 
 pardon of all the sins of the human race .'' Is it not true that the 
 treasures of Thy grace avail more for my welfare, than all Adam's 
 sin and misery for my ruin ? Hast Thou not wept on my account, 
 asking pardon for me ; and Thy Father, has He not heard Thee .' 
 Who then can remove from my heart its confidence in such 
 promises ? " 
 
 ' The Sum of Christian Doctrine ' is another work which pro- 
 ceeded from Constantino's pen, " whereby," says the translator 
 of it into English, "he procured some displeasure and suspicion 
 of heresy among the common sort of learned men, forasmuch 
 as, treating of faith, he did not plainly inveigh against the 
 Lutherans, nor attributed any pre-eminence to the Bishop of 
 Rome, but had written rather in derogation of pardons, of 
 purgatory, of man's merits, and such other like trifles, than in 
 advancement thereof" Four Spanish editions were published. 
 Besides the Summary he wrote a larger work on Christian doctrine. 
 His sermons on the first six verses of the first Psalm are also said to 
 
SEVILLE. 145 
 
 have been published in Spanish ; and his exposition of the Sermon 
 on the Mount, as well as a Catechism, are still in existence.^ 
 
 Gregorio Ruiz was a third cathedral preacher who adopted an 
 Evangelical style of address, and therefore became suspected of 
 having adopted Lutheran heresies ; but he was fortunate enough to 
 escape the harpies of the Inquisition ; and how this happened I 
 will relate, after visiting another locality, where we meet with a 
 singular person who was instrumental in Ruiz's deliverance. 
 
 But before doing so we must take a turn to look at one of the 
 parish churches of Seville. 
 
 In the Calle Vicente — newly whitewashed from end to end, 
 according to Sevillian custom — there stands a building dedicated to 
 the saint after whom the street is named. The first foundation 
 goes back to the fourth century ; in the sacristy is a chapel, where 
 San Isidoro died in 636 ; and there is ablocked-up Gothic archway 
 at the west end which seems to belong to the fourteenth century ; 
 there are external Renaissance additions which belong to the 
 sixteenth, and the great tasteless altar-piece is covered with gaudy 
 gilding. Several pictures hang on the walls, and the edifice covers, 
 it is said, a large number of sepulchres where city magnates are 
 buried. I noticed a restored inscription at the foot of a column 
 near one of the doors, bearing date 1560, which was just after the 
 outbreak of the great persecution. 
 
 In that church one Francisco Zafra preached, who, though 
 vicar of the parish, favoured Lutheran principles. He did not 
 escape strong suspicion, but still he held some office connected 
 with the Inquisition ; in that capacity he saved some of his 
 
 ' The style of Constantino was much praised by Spanish critics in his own day, and 
 the praise is repeated in our own. See 'Bibliotheca Wiffeniana,' vol. ii. 3, 4. 
 Mendendez Pelayo, in his recent ' Historia de los Heterodoxos Espanoles,' a learned work 
 written from a Spanish Catholic point of view, speaks of Constantino's ' Christian 
 Doctrine' as "a complete model of the didactic style;" and, stranger still, says that, 
 "with the exception of some passages which the Inquisition did not notice, the work, 
 apart from the author's name, might pass as texto de lengua " (vol. ii. 427). 
 
 L 
 
146 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 friends frqm the fangs of familiars. The following curious cir- 
 cumstance, however, brought him into trouble. A widow, named 
 Maria Gomez, a zealous Protestant, acquainted with others of the 
 same persuasion, lodged in his house. In the year 1555 this poor 
 woman became deranged, and talked wildly about heretics, naming 
 several of her acquaintances as deserving of punishment. She was 
 put under restraint, but managed to escape, and at once told the 
 Inquisitors that the city was full of heresy, and that it was their 
 duty to cleanse it of the spiritual plague. She gave a list of three 
 hundred names, which filled their reverences with alarm. They 
 sent for Zafra, their counsellor in cases of difficulty, who, moved by 
 sympathy for those who were accused, and helped by his natural 
 shrewdness and cunning, treated the report with feigned unconcern, 
 and affirmed the woman had lost her senses. Thus he lulled to rest 
 the suspicions awakened in the Holy Office. The officers recom- 
 mended the good priest to take charge of the lunatic, which he was 
 glad enough to do. Many were thus saved from immediate peril. 
 
 A few miles from the bridge, on the Triana side of the 
 Guadalquivir, stands the monastery of San Isidoro,^ only a few 
 steps from an old Roman amphitheatre, which carries back our 
 thoughts to the imperial dominion at Seville, when Trajan was born 
 there, and has given, it is supposed, a name to the suburb — Triana or 
 Trajana. The monastery is a memorial of the famous Guzman 
 family, and contains monuments of its members, of whom some 
 romantic stories are told. The chapel remains in tolerable repair, 
 
 ' The miracles recorded of San Isidoro are numerous, and startling even beyond the 
 average of legendary wonders. " Above 300 years ago," says Morales, a Spanish 
 historian, iii. 129 (quoted by Dunham, i. 218), "there was a canon named Martin, 
 whose stupidity was truly great, but who yet was highly venerated for holiness. 
 Being much concerned that he could not learn to read, San Isidoro appeared to 
 him one night in a vision, and ordered him to eat a book which the saint gave him. 
 He did so, and was immediately filled with knowledge, so that afterwards he wrote 
 several books in Latin in very tolerable style. These books are in possession of the 
 canons, and I have looked into them myself." 
 
SEVILLE. T47 
 
 and is used as the parish church ; the chapter-house, sacristy and 
 cloisters are well worth a visit. Ancient paintings adorn the walls, 
 and embroidered vestments are exhibited to visitors. That 
 monastery was a cradle for the Seville Reformation. Within the 
 precincts were those who had strong sympathies with the 
 German theological movement, and cowled members of the brother- 
 hood walked over to the great city near, to confer with persons of 
 the class I have described. "• 
 
 One of them was nicknamed Dr. Blanco, from his white locks— 
 his proper name being Garcia de Arias. He was afraid to avow 
 his real sentiments. When Ruiz, whom I have described, found 
 himself in perplexity, he repaired to Blanco for advice. The monk 
 recommended a line of defence, which his friend adopted when 
 called before the Inquisitors ; immediately afterwards, to his utter 
 amazement, he heard his adviser proceed to refute the very train 
 of reasoning which he had himself suggested. Rebuked for such 
 conduct, the double-faced brother replied : " By the course pursued 
 he was benefiting the cause, for he diverted suspicion." In the 
 character of this person I cannot help recognising that finesse, that 
 fondness for cunning intrigue popular with Spaniards of that day, 
 as we find it exemplified in their works of fiction. Novels and 
 plays abound in scenes and dialogues full of ingenious devices to 
 deceive ; and people were fascinated, as they are still in Spain, with 
 displays of cleverness after such a fashion. Moreover, as M'Crie 
 says, Garcia de Arias " belonged to that class of subtle politicians 
 who, without being destitute of conscience, are wary in committing 
 themselves, forfeit the gdod opinion of both parties by failing to 
 yield a consistent support to either, and, trusting to their address 
 
 ' St. Hilaire, in his ' Histoire d'Espagne,' viii. 79, uses strong language respecting 
 the influence of the Reformation : "Pour une moitie de Seville, la lecture de la Bible 
 remplafa celle des livres de messe et de prieres. La devotion du coeur se substitua a celle 
 des livres. Comme Savonarola k Florence, les reformateurs de Seville s'effor9aient de 
 changer les cceurs avant les institutions." — Ibid, 83. 
 
 L 2 
 
I4S THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 and dexterity to extricate themselves from difficulties, are sometimes 
 caught in the toils of their own intricate management." ^ 
 
 Another illustration of his character is recorded. He talked to 
 the monks, and told them that religion did not consist in chanting 
 matins and vespers, or in any bodily service, but in spiritual life, 
 the inspiration of which must come from God's holy Word. Yet 
 he still walked in crooked ways, for when Lent came round he 
 recommended severe austerities. " Strip your cells of comfortable 
 furniture," he cried ; " lie on the bare floor, sleep standing, wear hair- 
 cloth shirts and iron girdles." He intended to produce a reaction, 
 and succeeded in his tortuous method, for the brotherhood could not 
 endure the miseries he advised, and by a revulsion of feeling they 
 cast off all church penances entirely. Such homoeopathic treatment 
 at least was original, but whether it was right is another question. 
 At all events the white-haired counsellor prepared for the doctrine 
 of salvation by grace, not by mortification. A better mode of re- 
 form followed. The Scriptures and Protestant books were brought 
 into the convent, and the monks began to read them. The prior 
 lent a hand in correcting the abuses, and he and the rest went 
 further. Prayers for the dead ceased, papal indulgences were un- 
 sought, images, though not destroyed, were no longer worshipped, 
 and San Isidoro was swept clean of manifold corruptions. Out- 
 side the influence spread. Members of the house visited other 
 monasteries ; the prior and brethren of one built on the banks 
 of the river Genii began to reform ; and Juan de Regla, prior 
 of Santa Fe, went so far that he was required to do penance for 
 Lutheranism. 
 
 In passing, I must notice a citizen of Seville, belonging to the 
 laity, named Cristobal Losada, a medical man in good practice, who 
 fell in love with a Protestant young lady, and was at first rejected 
 because his sentiments did not accord with hers. The unsuccessful 
 suitor altered his views, but his subsequent conduct proved him to 
 ' ' History of Reformation in Spain,' 219. 
 
SEVILLE. 149 
 
 be a sincere convert. The incident introduces us to " noble women 
 not a few." As one sees a lady in Seville with rose-decked hair, 
 " black as the raven's wing," behind a sun-blind, and leaning over 
 a balcony, she may be recognised as a graceful type of many a 
 dame and maiden in the days of the Reformation. Amongst them 
 might be found some who imbibed Evangelical truth, and sought 
 to diffuse it amongst friends and neighbours. The two Doiias 
 Gonzales were of the number ; they were of Moorish descent. 
 Their brother Juan was a celebrated preacher in Andalusia, of the 
 Reformed class. One of the sisters was named Theresa, described 
 as contemplative ; and perhaps we may imagine, except -in 
 Protestant belief, that she resembled the sainted Theresa of the 
 Catholic Church. DoHa Maria de Bohorques, natural daughter of 
 Don Pedro Garcia de Xeres y Bohorques, a Spanish grandee, 
 was a lady of superior gifts and attainments, a pupil of Egidius, 
 under whom she became a Latin and Greek scholar. She cast in 
 her lot with the Protestants. Doiia Juana de Bohorques was a 
 half-sister, the legitimate daughter of Don Pedro, and wife of Don 
 Francisco de Vargas. The opinions of Maria involved Juana in 
 suspicion, and it soon appeared that the faith of the one was the 
 same as the faith of the other. 
 
 These ladies were of high rank ; so also were some gentle- 
 men penetrated with similar convictions. Don Juan Ponce de 
 Leon, son of Don Rodrigo, Count de Baylen, a man of great 
 benevolence and such profuse almsgiving that he reduced himself 
 to straits, Don Domingo de Guzman,^ son of the Duke of Medina 
 Sidonia, are particularly mentioned as adherents of Protestantism ; 
 others in high life would be influenced by their example. It is a 
 marked feature in the Spanish Reformation that it made way in the 
 upper, not in the lower ranks ; and this may be accounted for 
 partly, by remembeiing that sermons by Reformers addressed to 
 
 ' The family of Guzman was one of the most illustrious iu Castile. A poet, an 
 Inquisitor General, and an ambassador to England were of that name. 
 
ISO THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 the public at large, did not point out to the common people the 
 foundation of errors which made the Reformation a necessity ; and 
 by remembering that full expositions of the Reformed faith found in 
 original Latin or German works were not accessible to any but 
 well-educated people. 
 
 We know little or nothing of these noble Spaniards beyond 
 their names, their lineage, and their heroism. Fain would we 
 recover from oblivion, were it possible, some facts in their private 
 life, some traits of individual character. They had their loves, 
 their hopes, their fears, their pleasures, their troubles and their 
 adventures, like everj'^-day mortals. Perhaps romantic incidents 
 occurred to them, strange fortunes befell them ; bright prospects 
 opened, and then clouds came and disturbed their paths ; thus 
 hearts were knit together with those of others by that " touch of pity 
 which makes the whole world kin." The story of one and all, 
 however, has long since melted into that vast indistinguishable ocean 
 of forgetfulness, where the years of the Reformation mingle with 
 days before the Flood. What we are sure of is, that the faint 
 glimpses we obtain of their faith and their , sufferings have for a 
 background experiences common to humanity in general, and to 
 the Spanish portion of it in particular. They were people of like 
 passions with their descendants, only their deaths made them 
 immortal. 
 
 It should not be forgotten that the social position of the Seville 
 confessors aggravated the sufferings which they had to endure. 
 In addition to the obloquy attached to Protestantism they had to 
 bear imprisonment at a time when imprisonment of every kind 
 was attended by horrors such as it is hard for English people in 
 these days to realise. After walking in the Alcazar at Seville, to 
 think of hidalgos and ladies — who had figured in courts which vie 
 with the Alhambra in Moorish-like magnificence, and who had been 
 familiar with paradisaical gardens where forests of roses bloom under 
 the palm-trees, and refreshing fountains sparkle in the sun being 
 
SEVILLE. i;i 
 
 afterwards locked up within stony cells wliere the barest comforts 
 were denied, makes one's blood run chill. 
 
 Here it may be remarked, too, that the upper classes in Spain 
 are really in some respects inferior to the lower. " The masses, the 
 least spoilt and the most rational, stand like pillars amid ruins, 
 and on them the edifice of Spain's greatness must be recon- 
 structed." ^ The civil and religious monopolies of the aristocracy, 
 their intermarriages and proud exclusiveness, their connection with 
 the Inquisition, both as patrons and victims, must be taken into 
 account if we would judge equitably of the noble exceptions to 
 their order who come before us in these pages. Their religious 
 virtues were enhanced by their social disadvantages. They had 
 little to help them in the spiritual warfare ; the more wonderful, 
 therefore, appears the grace of God in them. The aristocratic 
 soil, with its stony ground and its numerous thorns, was that part 
 of the field in which the " good seed of the kingdom " chiefly 
 fell, and it was not genial ; and I cannot help thinking that if it 
 had been scattered with wise hands amidst the poor and lowly, 
 the history of the Spanish Reformation might have been very 
 different from what it is. 
 
 What occurred in Seville is a typical instance of predominant 
 aristocratic influence in the Spanish Protestant movement generally, 
 and of the remarkable absence, to any considerable extent, of 
 the popular element. In this respect there was a contrast between 
 Spain on the one hand, and Germany, France and England on 
 the other : the Evangelical force which penetrated all classes more 
 or less in other countries, slightly touched ranks of society, to the 
 south of the Pyrenees, below the level of the hidalgo class. The 
 Inquisition, in its cruel work, had mainly to do with persons con-, 
 spicuous in rank and fortune, whom it was comparatively easy to 
 detect, since what they did commanded observation, in spite of all 
 attempts at concealment. The Holy Office had not to grapple 
 
 » Ford. 
 
152 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 with the masses, which, if permeated by Protestant truth, as in 
 Northern Europe, would have proved too formidable for Church 
 rulers to crush and destroy. 
 
 Persons imbued with Protestant principles naturally consorted 
 together with as much privacy as possible ; and they held religious 
 meetings for instruction and worship, of which Losada, the 
 physician, became a leader. 
 
 So great was the knowledge of the Scriptures he manifested, 
 so remarkable were his gifts, and so undoubted his piety, that he 
 really became the guide and instructor of the southern Evangelicals. 
 Dr. M'Crie speaks of them as forming a church "regularly 
 organised ; " but this expression needs to be qualified. " A 
 regularly organised church," is likely to suggest a Protestant 
 community such as we are familiar with. What exactly the order 
 and discipline at Seville might be, I have no means of knowing. 
 But to suppose a church instituted of an Episcopal or Presbyterian 
 type, would be to draw unreasonably upon the imagination, for 
 circumstances did not permit proceedings indicated by either of 
 these names. If we think of a Congregational church, with its 
 pastor, its deacons, and its regularly admitted members, such a 
 society also appears too complete to have existed among Spanish 
 converts from popery in those days. If, however, the word church 
 be used simply to designate believers assembling for prayer and 
 spiritual improvement, it may without impropriety be used relative 
 to this interesting group. I should be glad to ascertain the order 
 of their fellowship, and whether they adopted definite rules, but 
 that lies beyond our reach, in realms of oblivion and silence, where 
 so much is lost that we would fain recover. But we know in whose 
 house the gatherings took place. Dona Isabella de Baena was 
 a lady of high rank, in whom ^he spirit of Christ brightly shone, 
 and under her roof assemblies like the primitive ones were held ; 
 these people sang the praises of God and Christ, nor was anything 
 profane, or any sounds of dissipation heard within the walls. Her 
 
SEVILLE. 153 
 
 house was in 1560 razed by order of the Inquisition to the ground, 
 and^sown with salt : a marble column was raised to perpetuate the 
 infamy of the place. 
 
 Besides meetings for religious instruction, it would appear that 
 means for the circulation of Protestant books existed at Seville. 
 No less an authority than the editor of the Spanish Documentos 
 InMitos informs us that in this city and in Medina del Campo 
 there was a regular dep6t established for the sale of forbidden 
 books at reduced prices.^ Volumes printed in Germany, and sent 
 to Flanders, were forwarded to Spain, in spite of all the vigilance 
 exercised to prevent this contraband trade. Some came by way 
 of France to Navarre and Aragon. By secret contrivances such 
 forbidden wares were circulated amongst those citizens of Seville 
 who were touched with Protestant sympathies. 
 
 One morning, very early, I crossed the bridge at Seville. The 
 water of the Guadalquivir was of a dark red colour, and the 
 thoroughfare was crowded with people ; many of them young 
 women on their way to the tobacco manufactory, where 5000 
 females are employed. The stunted columns of the corridors in 
 the main street, the oriental-looking bazaars, the gaily-dressed 
 gipsies, men in rough Spanish costume — one on a donkey, like 
 Sancho Panza — gave me an idea of old Seville such as I had not 
 gathered in the courtly quarters on the other side the river. In 
 the Triana was a Moorish castle, swept away almost entirely 
 by a flood in 1626. Here the Inquisition had its prison in the 
 sixteenth century ; this was removed to a palace in the Calle 
 San Marcos, then finally it occupied the Alameda Vieja. "Here," 
 says Mr. Wiffen in 1842, "while gazing on the edifice with 
 feelings of awe, I recalled to remembrance those martyrs for 
 the truth, and at the same time I listened with painful interest 
 to the narration made to me by a Spanish gentleman of an 
 attack on those very premises at a recent period by an infuriated 
 
 ' ' Documentos Ineditos,' torn. v. 399. 
 
154 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 populace, who suffered but few of the friars, confined there for 
 political offences, to escape with life. The building having 
 taken fire, some perished in the flames, whilst others fell by the 
 hands of assassins." ^ 
 
 Before proceeding further I must say a few words respecting 
 the institution with which the Triana was connected. The 
 immediate rise of the Inquisition in a new form is attributed to the 
 circumstance of certain Jews at Seville offering an insult to the 
 religion of Jesus Christ. The race of Israel, as well as the 
 descendants of the Moors, were the earliest objects of suspicion ; 
 and, as the European Reformation advanced, Lutheran and other 
 heresies were added to the crimes of which the Inquisition took 
 cognisance. A Supreme Inquisitor, nominated by the sovereign 
 and approved by the pope, presided over the elaborate proceedings. 
 A Supreme Council guided the whole administration of affairs ; and 
 subordinate tribunals in different parts were subject to the control 
 of visitors sent from head-quarters. Prisons were prepared with 
 secret cells ; rooms were set apart for the examination of unhappy 
 persons who had been immured within the walls ; chambers were 
 at hand, where the most ingenious inventions of cruelty were 
 employed to extort confessions from suspected heretics ; and, at 
 the same time, all kinds of blandishments were adopted to fascinate 
 such victims as were proof against the terrors of physical pain. A 
 peculiarity attached to this infamous court, unknown in civil 
 tribunals ; for instead of a plain, straightforward accusation being 
 brought against the prisoner, he was cunningly questioned in all 
 sorts of ways, so as to entrap him into disclosures which might 
 suggest subsequent definite charges. 
 
 Edicts were annually published enjoining the duty of good 
 
 Christians who had fallen into errors to avow and confess them, 
 
 and also of their obligation to inform against any one whom they 
 
 knew to be heretically disposed. Depositions were accepted, 
 
 ' Preface to Perez, ' Epistola Consolatoria.' 
 
SEVILLE. 135 
 
 whether anonymous or signed, it being only necessary to specify 
 the names of witnesses. Victims of such attacks immediately 
 disappeared from their accustomed haunts. Venetian political 
 policy was carried out in Spain in reference to religion. The office 
 of the Inquisition, with its ever-open ears, resembled the ducal 
 palace, with its ever-open lion's mouth ; and Spaniards could not 
 but shudder at hidden cells, as Venetians did at dungeons, close to 
 the canal, and at the piombi in the Grand Duke's roof. The 
 prisoner saw no one but Inquisitor, jailer and priest ; only garbled 
 extracts from volunteered charges were ever placed in his hands ; 
 and, when awaiting formal trial, he was mocked by an offer that 
 he might have an advocate — the permissible advocate being an 
 undoubted Catholic, prejudiced against his client. The horrors 
 which went on in the secret places of this unparalleled institute 
 it is impossible to relate, and I must refer the reader for a de- 
 scription of them to Limborch's ' History of the Inquisition,' and 
 the ' History of Persecution,' by Dr. Chandler, who has condensed 
 much information given by Limborch.-^ 
 
 Different degrees of punishment were inflicted on persons con- 
 victed of heresy. Those who confessed themselves in error, and 
 repudiated, articles alleged against them, suffered loss of property 
 and imprisonment, but they were reconciled to the Church, and 
 escaped with life ; those who retained heretical opinions, and were 
 sentenced to death, could at the last moment, by confessing to a 
 priest and obtaining absolution, secure the privilege, so it was 
 deemed, of being strangled before their bodies were consumed ; 
 but such as would neither recant nor confess were generally burnt 
 alive. In a fe\y instances, however, the sentence was commuted, 
 and, through pity, the victim was strangled. The burning alive in 
 some places was worse than in others ; in Lisbon, a victim was 
 fastened to a stake so high that the flames reduced the extremities 
 
 ' Llorente's ' Histoire critique de I'Inquisition d'Espagne,' is a storehouse of know- 
 ledge on this revolting subject, especially vol. i. 
 
156 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 to ashes, whilst the upper part of the body continued to be 
 roasted.^ 
 
 Autos de // were spectacles in which hidden proceedings 
 culminated in a spectacle of terrible publicity. 
 
 At these autos the victims were clothed in a dress called san- 
 benito — sometimes by another name, the samarra or samaretta. 
 Llorente ^ describes three kinds of this horrid costume. The 
 first, for a penitent, or person who had generally recanted, and 
 whose life was saved, consisted of a mantle with a large opening 
 for the head, and covering the back and front of the body, marked 
 by a broad St. Andrew's cross ; the second, of like form, for one 
 who, after being condemned to death by fire, had expressed re- 
 pentance, and therefore was to be strangled before being consumed, 
 was marked by the badge of reversed flames, indicating a com- 
 mutation of sentence ; the third, for such as, constant to the last, 
 would not recant, and were burnt alive, displayed pictures of 
 flames burning upwards, a head surrounded by fire, and devils with 
 an instrument of torture. A mitre, similarly painted, was worn by 
 persons of the two latter classes. The mantles in both cases were 
 saffron-coloured — that being characteristic of Judas Iscariot — 
 hence Spaniards hate a yellow hue. 
 
 An auto was witnessed in Seville the 24th of September, 1559, 
 in the presence of the Court of Justice, the canons of the 
 cathedral, a number of dignitaries, and the Duchess de Bejar, 
 surrounded by other ladies of rank. 
 
 In an old square, called the Plaza Constitucional, near the 
 cathedral — and not to be confounded with the Plaza Nueva, which 
 it adjoins, and which is surrounded by modern buildings — may be 
 seen, on three sides, a line of old-fashioned shops and dwellings, 
 
 » Geddes* ' Tracts,' i. 447. 
 
 ^ Vol. i. 328. In the ' Inquisitionis Hispanicas artes aliquot detectae,' a full account 
 is given of an auto de fS. This work, which was exceedingly scarce, has been reprinted 
 in the 'Reformistas Antiguos Espanoles.' 
 
SEVILLE. 159 
 
 some of them supported by arcades on marble columns. A little 
 altered, they seem, many of them, to have lasted three hundred 
 years. Forming part of the fourth side is a piece of ornate architec- 
 ture belonging to the Audiencia, or municipal hall, which carries 
 one back to the time of Charles V. The Plaza was anciently the 
 scene of public spectacles. Here multitudes gathered to witness 
 royal pageants ; here it was that the autos — the religious ceremonies 
 connected with the immolation or the penance of Moors, Jews, 
 and heretics — took place. It is the spot where men and women 
 such as I have described were brought from the Triana to witness 
 the ceremonies of the Church, and to hear a sermon from a priest 
 of the Inquisition, before the sentence pronounced against them 
 was executed. At one of the windows of the hall represented sat 
 Philip II. as the condemned, in their sanbenitos, were led up to 
 their seats, tier above tier, on each side of the altar where mass 
 was performed.^ 
 
 Between the railway-station and the palace of San Telmo is 
 El Prado de San Sebastian, a large open space outside the city 
 walls, where in spring a fair is held which attracts an immense 
 multitude of people from both the highest and lowest ranks. Here 
 " was the qiiemadero, or the burning-place of the Inquisition, where 
 the last act of the religious tragedy of the auto de fe was left, with 
 the odium, to be performed by the civil power. The spot of fire is 
 marked by the foundations of a square platform on which the 
 faggots were piled." ^ When Mr. Hare visited Seville a few years 
 ago, he distinctly traced amongst the grass the remains of this 
 platform.^ I was fortunate enough to have with me when I went 
 to look at the place the same lady who accompanied him on that 
 occasion ; but, on endeavouring to identify the exact position of the 
 remains, alterations were found to have been made in the ground 
 
 A picture of an auto is given at p. 217. 
 Murray's last edition of Ford's ' Spain,' 347. 
 ' Wanderings in Spain.' 
 
i6o THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 such as rendered the identification impossible. However, it cannot 
 be doubted that the quemadero was thereabouts — the most con- 
 spicuous object within sight of the sufferers at the awful moment 
 being the beautiful Giralda.^ 
 
 One of the sufferers in September, 1559, had been previously- 
 tormented in a shocking manner. His name was Juan de Leon, 
 who fled from Mexico, and returned to Seville, where he entered 
 the convent of Isidore. Juan Fernandez, sometimes called Juan 
 Sanches,^ had accompanied Juan de Leon in an attempt to escape 
 the Inquisition. Overtaken by the officers, they were brought 
 back to Spain, loaded with fetters and manacles, their faces 
 covered with iron masks, and a gag thrust into their mouths to 
 prevent their speaking. The fortitude of Judn de Leon is specially 
 commemorated in the annals of Seville martyrdom. His perse- 
 cutors hoped to work on his fears by describing the horrors of 
 being burnt alive ; but the picture could not move the confessor's 
 intrepidity. Led to the stake, he calmly met the executioners, 
 who came with torches to set on fire the heaped-up fagots. 
 
 Juan Gonzalez, of Moorish descent, and a celebrated Protestant 
 preacher in Andalusia, manifested equal heroism in prison and at 
 the stake. The Inquisitors sought to obtain from him evidence 
 against his brethren, but he resisted these attempts, and professed 
 his own convictions with unmistakable plainness. Coming on the 
 morning of his martyrdom from the prison of the Triana, as if 
 
 ' The lady I refer to is Miss Butcher, who is doing a good work at Seville. Her girls' 
 school in Calle de Vicente will be noticed hereafter. I may add, the Inquisition at Seville, 
 between 1484 and 1520, committed no less than 4000 victims to the flames, and condemned 
 many times that number to imprisonment and the galleys. (Dunham's ' History of Spain 
 and Portugal,' 272 ; he gives numierous authorities.) I purchased in Seville a localhistory 
 entitled 'Sevilla Historica Monumental, Artistica y Topografica ; 'but I can find in it 
 not one word respecting the Protestant martyrs burnt in that city, or the existence of 
 the Inquisition. There is a very brief allusion to autos, of which it says the last was 
 in April, 1660. 
 
 ' Much obscurity rests on this person. The accounts are confused. 
 
THE GIRALDA, SEVILLE. 
 
 M 
 
SEVILLE. 163 
 
 going to a triumph, accompanied by two sisters, doomed to suffer 
 with him, he began to sing the Psalm, " Hold not Thy peace, O 
 God of my praise, for the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of 
 the deceitful are opened against me." His mouth was immediately 
 gagged, and at the scene of the grand auto he listened patiently 
 to the sentence of degradation and death, meekly submitting to a 
 ceremony which removed him from the priesthood. His sisters 
 said they would do what he did ; and the gag being removed, with 
 the hope that he would yield, he only exhorted them to continued 
 constancy. They were strangled, and he was left to be burnt 
 alive.'^ 
 
 Garcia de Arias, the white-haired doctor, had become a changed 
 man. His duplicity was gone. On his trial he mocked the 
 Inquisitors, and, being condemned to be burnt alive, he ascended 
 the scaffold leaning on his staff, and passed through the ordeal at 
 the stake with heroic joy. Of Cristobal Losada it is said he 
 submitted to the pains of death with "rare intrepidity." Juan 
 Gonzalez, Cristobal Arellano, and Fernando de San Juan were all 
 burnt alive. I shrink from the harrowing details. Cristobal 
 Losada disputed with the friars on the edge of the blazing pyre. 
 
 Doiia Maria de Bohorques suffered at this atito, avowing her 
 faith, advocating Lutheran tenets, and resisting priestly entreaties 
 to the last. On her way to execution she cheered her companions 
 by singing hymns ; and when she saw Juan Ponce ready to waver, 
 she upbraided the poor fellow for his cowardice. She carried on 
 controversy until she was mercifully strangled. 
 
 Don Ponce de Leon confessed to a priest, and received absolu- 
 tion, thus saving himself from being burnt alive. It seems that 
 some who submitted to confession as members of the Spanish 
 Church, did not consider that they thereby abjured their Evangelical 
 convictions. The effigy of Zafra, who had escaped his tormentors, 
 was burnt on this occasion. 
 
 ' The story is told in ' Inquisitionis Hispanicae Artes,' 207. 
 
 M 2 
 
1 64 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 A second auio was held in the same place on the 22nd of 
 December, 1560. Effigies of Egidius and Constantino, both dead, 
 and Juan Perez, who had escaped, were brought out and 
 burnt. 
 
 Juliano Hernandez, a man of humble rank — like Zacchaeus, little 
 
 of stature — a sort of colporteur, who had crossed mountains and 
 
 threaded city, streets, secretly conveying the Scriptures and other 
 
 books to many an inquiring spirit, a brave Christian, whose faith 
 
 had been persecution-proof, now sealed the truth by the bravest 
 
 endurance of death. " Courage, comrades ! " he cried ; " this is the 
 
 hour in which we must show ourselves valiant soldiers for Jesus 
 
 Christ. Let us now bear faithful testimony to His truth before 
 
 men, and withiti a few hours we shall receive the testimony of His 
 
 approbation before angels, and triumph with Him in heaven."^ 
 
 He knelt down and kissed the stone which held the stake. Maria 
 
 Gomez, the mad woman who gave so much trouble to her host 
 
 Zafra, now appeared, in company with five relatives. One of the 
 
 young women thanked her for the truths she had taught, and 
 
 implored her pardon for past ingratitude. The old lady comforted 
 
 her companions " in the tribulation and patience of Jesus Christ," 
 
 cheering them with the thought of coming bliss. The family 
 
 embraced each other, and then submitted to the executioner. Two 
 
 Englishmen suffered at the same time with these Spaniards ; one, 
 
 Nicholas Barton, because he had posted placards at Seville against 
 
 the .Romish faith.; but, as the Inquisition was intended for citizens, 
 
 not foreigners, the. execution was illegal. William Burke, a 
 
 Southampton sailor, was burnt at the same stake, though. he had 
 
 ' In the ' Inquisitionis Hispanicse,' several interesting particulars are related respect- 
 ing this man; they are repeated by M'Crie and others. He was fond of a refrain 
 which he sung in prison — 
 
 " Vencidos van los frayles, vencidos van ; " 
 Corridos van los lobos^ corridos van." 
 
 The vanquished friars run, they run ; 
 Like scattered wolves they run, they run. 
 
SEVILLE. 165 
 
 offered no insult to the Spanish Church. A Frenchman from 
 Bayonne shared a like fate. 
 
 A case of singular barbarity happened. Dona Juana de 
 Bohorques, to whom the reader has been introduced, was appre- 
 hended whilst expecting her confinement ; committed to prison 
 until the child was born, she had the babe taken from her arms 
 eight days afterwards. A Lutheran girl placed in the same cell 
 did what she could to soothe her, and this kindness was continued 
 when the girl one day was brought to her from the torture-chamber. 
 Juana was placed on the rack ; the ropes rent her flesh, and the 
 rupture of a blood-vessel put an end to her mortal Hfe.^ 
 
 Fourteen persons were delivered over to the secular power, and 
 thirty-four were sentenced to minor punishments. It should be 
 added that at this auto an effigy of Constantino was exhibited ; 
 and a curious account of peculiarities in the figure is given by 
 Mr. B. B. Wiffen.^ 
 
 It seems passing strange that in a country so renowned for 
 chivalry as Spain such barbarities should be inflicted on women 
 of the purest blood, daughters of the proudest knights, heiresses 
 of noble name ; but the fact is, the Inquisition crushed out all 
 chivalry in the noblest form, and consigned chaste matrons and 
 pure virgins to the flames, though they confessed Christ ; treating 
 them as their sires had done the Mohammedan and the Jew. 
 The mystery can only be explained in this way — that heresy, 
 through the teaching of priests, had come to be regarded by 
 Spaniards not only as an unpardonable crime, but as an ineffaceable 
 disgrace. Moral offences, even murder, did not fix such a stigma 
 on the name of an individual and his farhily as did a rejection of 
 established dogmas. A criminal on his way to execution excited 
 pity — a Lutheran was regarded with horror. The one was kept 
 
 ' This horrid case is related in the ' Inquisitionis Hispanicse,' etc., p. 181. 
 ' Notice prefaced to ' Confession of a Sinner.' The chief authority for what we know 
 of these martyrs is the boolc so often referred to, ' Inq. Hisp.' 
 
i66 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 within — the other was flung outside the Church. Had it not been 
 for this, surely the nobler spirits of the land would never have gazed 
 on an auto de fd without rushing to the rescue ! But then, what 
 marvellous, almost incredible, heroism was, in consequence of this 
 fact, manifested by men and women of the highest rank, who for 
 the love of Christ underwent all the disgrace of being counted as 
 heretics, and were more hated and despised than the most ferocious 
 murderers ! Truly they were " called and chosen and faithful." 
 
 Before I leave Seville let me briefly point out certain 
 peculiarities attaching to attempts at Reformation there and in 
 other Spanish cities. 
 
 In England the cause was espoused less or more by Henry VIII., 
 Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth ; and, whatever may be thought 
 pf their influence on the spiritual interests of the Church, its im- 
 portance in a political or social point of view is indisputable. In 
 Germany Luther was helped in many ways by his princely patrons 
 and friends. In France Huguenot armies fought on the side of 
 Protestants. Nothing of the kind occurred in Spain — Church and 
 State stood equally opposed to a Reformation there. In this 
 respect Spain resembled Italy. So it did in another respect. 
 Evangelical truth in the beautiful southern peninsula made way 
 amongst people of culture and people of rank, though it was 
 intensely disliked by the Italian governments. The discussions of 
 .literary academies, and the select gatherings of noble ladies at 
 Valdes' house, illustrate the fact. In this respect, a considerable 
 resemblance to Italy is found in Spain, not so much in reference to 
 learning as in reference to rank. How many of the hidalgo class 
 are found amongst the confessors at Seville we have seen. But 
 very few of the poor were among them. Now, in England, 
 together with royal sympathy, there was a large amount of popular 
 sympathy, as seen in crowds round St. Paul's pulpit when 
 Reformers preached. Much the same thing may be said of 
 Germany and France. Moreover, in the countries named, there 
 
SEVILLE. 167 
 
 were direct and unsparing attacks directed against the supremacy 
 of the pope and other Romanistic dogmas. Mariolatry, transub- 
 stantiation, purgatory, and the Hke were boldly dealt with without 
 the smallest ceremony, whereas the Spanish Protestants, if we may 
 call them by that name, seem most of them to have abstained from 
 such controversy, and not to have pushed their warfare into the 
 enemy's dominions. Finally, there was a peculiar want of out- 
 spokenness amongst several of the Evangelical Spaniards. We 
 have had examples of this already ; we shall meet with more. 
 Reticence, concealment, finesse we detect in painful instances. We 
 miss in most of them the boldness of Luther, Calvin, Latimer and 
 Ridley. 
 
1 68 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CONVENT OF SAN YUSTE. 
 
 "About an eight hours' pleasant ride from Plasencia,"— reached 
 by railway on the line from Madrid to Lisbon — brings a traveller 
 to the Jeronymite monastery where Charles V. closed his eventful 
 life.* The building is situated on a south-western slope of the 
 Sierra de Vera, overlooking a valley, said to resemble the happy 
 one described in Rasselas. The convent is sheltered by woods 
 from the cold winds. 
 
 Forty years ago, when Mr. Ford visited it, the entrance was 
 under a walnut tree, where the emperor used to sit, and which was 
 then called el nogal grande. The convent had suffered great 
 injury from the soldiers of Marshal Soult in 1809, who left it a 
 "blackened roofless ruin ; " and the church reformers of Cuacos in 
 1 82 1 had stolen what was left by the French, turned the church 
 into a stable, and made the emperor's room a place for silk- 
 worms ! 
 
 But much of the scenery retained its original character. " The 
 eye in the clear evening swept over the boundless valley, the 
 nightingales sang sweetly in the neglected orange garden, and the 
 bright stars, reflected in the ink-black tank below, twinkled like 
 diamonds : how often had Charles looked out in the stilly eve on 
 this selfsame unchanged scene where he alone was now wanting \ " 
 " When supper was done," adds Mr. Ford, " I shook hands all 
 
 ' Ford's 'Handbook,' third edition, 496. Yuste is so difficult of access, I could 
 not reach it. 
 
CONVENT OF SAN YUSTE. 169 
 
 round with my kind hosts, and went to bed, in the very chamber 
 where the emperor slept his last sleep. All was soon silent, and 
 the spirit of the mighty dead ruled again in his last home ; but no 
 Charles disturbed the deep slumber of a weary insignificant 
 stranger. Long ere daybreak next morning. I was awakened by ai 
 pale monk, and summoned to the early mass, which the prior in 
 his forethought had ordered. The chapel was imperfectly lighted ; 
 the small congregation consisted of the monks, my sunburnt 
 muleteer, and a stray beggar, who, like myself, had been sheltered 
 in the convent. When the service was concluded, all bowed a 
 farewell to the altar on which the dying glance of Charles had 
 been fixed, and departed in peace. The morning was grey and 
 the mountain air keen, nor was it until the sun had risen high that 
 its cheerful beams dispelled the cowl, and relaid the ghost of 
 Charles in the dim pages of history." 
 
 The church was standing in 1857, "but the delicately carved 
 woodwork of the choir, and the beautiful tiles that adorned the walls 
 had fallen from their places or been torn away by the hand of 
 violence. All around, the ground was covered with the wreck of 
 former splendours, with fallen columns and shattered arches, while 
 the black and scathed walls of the older cloister still towered in 
 gloomy grandeur above the scene of desolation." ^ 
 
 The emperor's connection with the Reformation in Spain as 
 well as Germany, and the bearing of certain incidents which 
 occurred at Yuste upon subjects I have introduced, render some 
 notice of what took place there desirable in the present chapter. 
 Shades of obscurity, thick as the clouds which at times gather in 
 that neighbourhood, long rested on this portion of history ; and 
 the efforts made to dispel them^ chiefly served to create delusive 
 imaginations. One author after another, adding to the mistakes of 
 his predecessors, rendered the whole a mass of confusion, until the 
 MSS. of Simancas were brought to light, and Don Tomas Gonzalez, 
 ' Prescott's edition of Robertson's ' Charles V.,' ii. 632. 
 
^70 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 followed by M. Mignet and Mr. Stirling, placed the story on true 
 historical grounds. ' The Cloister Life of Charles V.' is a charming 
 volume from the pen of the last-named writer ; and Mr. Prescott 
 made good use of his discoveries in an appendix to Robertson's 
 ' History of Charles V.' 
 
 This royal abode, after the owner's abdication, so grandly 
 solemnised at Brussels in 1556, consisted of only eight rooms of 
 uniform size, opening upon a corridor. One of them was contiguous 
 to the chapel of the monks, so that his Majesty, when ill in bed, 
 could, through a window, witness the elevation of the Host. 
 There hung a glorious portrait by Titian, which is still preserved 
 and carefully pointed out on a wall of the Escorial Palace. 
 Terraces were arranged in front of the imperial apartments, 
 adorned by flower-beds, fountains and fish ponds. An alley 
 shaded with orange, citron, and mulberry trees led to a summer- 
 Jiouse, the ruins of which might be traced a few years ago. The 
 northern chambers were dark ; the south, open to the sun, were 
 light and cheerful, and the windows were overhung with vine 
 branches, and orange trees, flourishing under the warmth of the 
 sun in front. The prospect of the forest-crowned sierra, and of 
 the wide and fertile expanse at its foot, was truly magnificent. 
 
 Even so slight a matter as the furniture of this dwelling has 
 been misrepresented, owing to passages in Sandoval, the royal 
 historian ; for the inventory drawn up after Charles's death makes 
 mention of Turkey carpets, velvet and cloth hangings, breadths of 
 .Flemish tapestry, and tables and chairs of rich material and 
 elaborate workmanship ; plenty of costly plate was at the master's 
 service, so that though he professedly became a monk, he retained 
 the luxuries of his kingly life. As to eating and drinking he was 
 most particular, and no modern gourmand could be more dainty in 
 the choice of dishes than he was. Pictures of great beauty and 
 .worth hung on "the -walls, especially the de la Glaria ■5x16, others 
 from the pencil of Titian. Charles had a taste for music, was a 
 
r ^^^2^-i; 
 
 
 
 
 
CONVENT OF SAN YVSTE. 173 
 
 connoisseur in that art, and insisted upon the most careful perform- 
 ance of religious services. He made a formal profession on his 
 entrance into the Jeronymite order, when mass was said and a 
 sermon preached. The preacher told his hearer, " how much more 
 glorious it was to become the servant of Christ, poor and lowly as 
 such a condition might be, than to be lord of the whole world." 
 But this flattery of his royal brother, now acting the neophyte, was 
 ludicrously contradicted by the luxuries in which he still indulged. 
 His attention to rites and ceremonies was punctilious in the 
 extreme. Mass and vespers he regularly attended. He desired to 
 be drenched with holy water, not content with the sprinkling of 
 a few drops. In all his devotions he displayed great earnestness, 
 and though he did not keep fasts himself — on the ground of personal 
 infirmities — he zealously enforced them on others. On Ash Wed- 
 nesday he took care that no one was absent. Every Friday in 
 Lent, after service was over, and the lights were extinguished, he 
 would unsparingly lash his own back and shoulders till they were 
 stained with blood. There is no room to doubt his sincerity in all 
 this ; and it is instructive, in connection with our whole subject, to 
 look at the emperor's conduct in this way, as typical of religion in 
 Spain over which he had ruled for many years. Such a union of 
 worldly pride with ritual humility, of intense ambition with self- 
 inflicted pain, of sensual luxury with feivour of devotion, thoroughly 
 represents the state of things in that country at the period of the 
 Reformation. 
 
 It is a further mistake to suppose that the royal recluse, who 
 had shut himself out of the world, ceased to take a lively interest 
 in its aff"airs. He would talk to the monks about religion, would 
 listen attentively to the reading of saintly books after dinner, 
 would glorify a life of asceticism, and laud to the skies St. Francis 
 of Assisi and other canonised souls ; but his delight still was to 
 read despatches from his son, to hear reports of battles and 
 poHtical intrigues, and to plunge afresh into old schemes of 
 
174 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 ambition. " He was completely withdrawn from the business of 
 the kingdom and the concerns of government, as if he had never 
 taken part in them." So speaks one historian. " He was so 
 entirely abstracted in his solitude that neither the arrival of the 
 treasures brought in his fleets from the Indies, nor the sound of 
 arms, amidst which his life had been hitherto passed, had any 
 power to disturb his tranquillity." ^ So says another. The truth 
 is that he hated the policy of the Roman court as much as ever — 
 detested France and its king as in days of yore, so that at one 
 time it was thought he would resume his old place in Europe. He 
 promised to aid his son Philip by word and deed, and caused letters 
 to be written about places to be defended, troops to be raised, and 
 tactics to be carried out. By personally applying to ecclesiastical 
 dignitaries, he obtained sums of money, which he sent to the Duke 
 of Alva, in support of his Italian campaign. " His counsels may be 
 said to have directed the policy of the regent's court at Valladolid ; 
 and the despatches from Yuste were held in much the same 
 deference as the edicts which had formerly issued from the 
 imperial cabinet." ^ Consequently he may justly be regarded as 
 responsible for the general measures executed in Spain during his 
 lifetime for suppressing the Reformation. His occasional outbursts 
 of passion were truly characteristic. In reference to an act which 
 had displeased him he exclaimed — " Were it not for my infirmities, 
 I would go to Seville myself, find out the authors of this villainy, 
 and bring them to a speedy reckoning."^ This was said in 1557, 
 when the Inquisition was at work in that city, though not in the 
 fierce way displayed two years afterwards. Vazquez de Molina, 
 Secretary of State for Castile, communicated with the emperor in 
 April, 1558, on the progress of the Reformation in Spain. He told 
 his Majesty that Protestants were being arrested, and that the 
 mischief they had done demanded a prompt and adequate remedy. 
 
 ' Prescott's edition of Robertson's ' Charles V.,' ii. 566. 
 
 ^ Ibid. ii. 569. ' Ibid. ii. 570. 
 
CONVENT OF SAN YUSTE. 175 
 
 It was necessary that the Inquisition with all diligence should stop 
 the growing evil. Immediately afterwards, in May, Charles wrote to 
 his daughter Juana, beseeching her to stir up the Archbishop of, 
 Seville to augmented zeal against heresy, stimulating her by the 
 information that measures similar to those he recommended had 
 been employed in England by Philip, and that this was a strong 
 reason for their adoption in Spain. It may be noticed here that 
 Philip was then by no means behind his father in the battle with 
 Protestantism, for he ordered that all who bought and sold pro- 
 hibited books should be burnt alive. Letter after letter from Charles 
 to his daughter followed in the same strain as those now cited, 
 showing how earnest he was in the business of persecution. In a 
 short time he was at his desk again, writing to the princess, telling her 
 to employ punishment for the arrest of the enormous evil.^ Again 
 he said to Vazquez : " The culprits should be arrested, put in irons, 
 and removed under a strong guard to Simancas, where they should 
 be thrown into a dungeon, and their effects sequestered until the 
 king's pleasure can be known," Capable of such indignation at 
 what he considered wrong, what might he not have done to stay 
 persecution, if he had been so disposed ! 
 
 The loss of Calais in the reign of Mary, Philip's wife, was a 
 terrible blow to the emperor. He fancied he saw French armies 
 marching on Brussels ; and reverses there might lead to disasters 
 in Philip's southern dominions. He forwarded despatches to 
 Valladolid, urging that remittances should be forthwith sent to 
 his son. " I know," he said to the regent left in Spain, " that 
 you will require no arguments of mine to make you use all 
 diligence in this mattter. But I cannot help writing, for I feel 
 so sensibly what may be the consequences of the late disaster, 
 that I shall have no more peace till I learn what has been done 
 to repair it." 
 
 ' The letters to Juana are found in ' Gachard Correspondence, Philip II.,' ii. 417. 
 There is a list of Lutherans imprisoned at Valladolid. 
 
176 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 Besides other misapprehensions of the relation in which Charles 
 stood to Protestantism, it has been supposed that in German affairs 
 at least he had been tolerantly disposed. It is quite true he had con- 
 ceded something at Augsburg to the modest requests of Reformers. 
 Extreme Romanists had advised that he should execute the Edict 
 of Worms at the sword's point ; but he listened to moderate 
 counsels, hoping that thereby he might conciliate the Protestant 
 party. It is also true that he had interposed on behalf of personal 
 favourites seized by the fangs of the Inquisition, as in the case of 
 Alfonso de Virves, who when condemned to abjure, in the metro- 
 politan church of Seville, the heresies of Martin Luther, was, through 
 imperial intercession, relieved from further pains of censure ; but 
 when Constantino de Ponce was grasped by the fangs of the Holy 
 Office, Charles at San Yuste exclaimed, " If Constantino be a heretic, 
 he is a great one ;" and when informed that the preacher he admired 
 was found guilty, he remarked, " You cannot condemn a greater." ^ 
 
 Further it is true, and the truth is very startling, that Charles was 
 charged by Pope Paul IV. with being a protector of Lutheranism, and 
 that Paul actually commenced a process on that score to deprive 
 Charles of the imperial purple, and his son Philip of the Sicilian 
 crown. His holiness even suspected him of heresy, because 
 ■of decrees he had published in 1554, only three years before he 
 returned to Yuste, and went so far as to think of issuing a bull of 
 excommunication against father and son, and to release the Spanish 
 as well as the German and Italian nations from their oaths of 
 allegiance.^ But it is plain that personal pique inflamed, if it did 
 not originate this unseemly quarrel, Charles hating Paul, and Paul 
 hating Charles ; in consequence, partly at least, of their being mixed 
 up in the feuds of the Colonna and Sforza families. It is equally 
 true that Charles had been a patron of the Holy Office on many 
 occasions, and had made great efforts in 1546 to Establish its 
 jurisdiction over the Neapolitan kingdom ; to his credit, however, 
 ' M'Crie, 135, 262. ' Llorente, ii. 173, 174. 
 
CONVENT OF SAN YUSTE. . 177 
 
 be it said, he opposed the extension of Inquisitorial courts to 
 the Indians of America.* 
 
 If there had been now and then relentings in his bosom with 
 regard to the treatment of heretics, they ceased after his arrival at 
 Yuste. Letters written by him there breathe threatenirigs and 
 slaughter. When he heard of what was going on at Valladolid, he 
 wrote to his daughter Juana, "Tell the Grand Inquisitor and the 
 council from me, to be at their posts, and to lay the axe at the 
 root of the evil before it spreads further. I rely on your zeal for 
 bringing the guilty to trial, and for having them punished, without 
 favour to anyone with all the severity that their crimes demand." 
 And again, "If I had not entire confidence that you would do 
 your duty, and arrest the evil at once by chastising the guilty in 
 good earnest, I know not how I could help leaving the monastery 
 and taking the remedy into my own hands." * He expressed regret 
 at not having violated the safe-conduct granted to Luther at the Diet 
 of Worms, thus showing himself willing to walk in the steps of the 
 Emperor Sigismund. And in the codicil to his will he enjoined 
 on Philip to bring to justice every heretic in his dominions without 
 a single exception. " So," he said, " shall you have my blessing, and 
 the Lord shall prosper all your undertakings." ^ The fact is, the 
 emperor became more intolerant than ever during his residence in 
 San Yuste's Convent. Bigotry flourishes more in solitude, or in the 
 company of a few kindred spirits, than in the minds of men who 
 mix with the world, and cannot but be familiar with a variety of 
 opinions. To be shut up within the narrow walls of a mountain 
 monastery, daily conversing with monks absorbed in their own order 
 and in the glorification of their own Church, was the very, thing, 
 above all others, adapted to quench every lingering spark "of sym- 
 pathy and compassion. 
 
 A story is told of Charles, who was wont to amuse himself with 
 
 ' Llorente, ii. 119, 196. 
 
 » Prescott's edition of ' Charles V.' by Robertson, ii. 599- ' Ibid. ii. 6i3. 
 
 N 
 
178 J'HE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 mechanical contrivances, that" he had a number of watches, which he 
 tried to regulate so that they should keep common time ,; arid that he 
 remarked on the abstirdity of striving to bring people to uniformity 
 of religious opinions when he could not make two time-pieces agree 
 with one another Perhaps it is one of the many legends which 
 gathered, nobody knew how, round his memory when he was gone ; 
 but if there is any truth in it, it must have been this, that he 
 thought amongst the human clocks those which could not be made 
 to agree with the Roman dial had better be smashed in pieces, 
 leaving the rest to go on ticking time with regularity. 
 
 !Dr. Robertson, in his ' History of Charles V.,' gives the following 
 account of a scene in the monastery : ' 
 
 "The timorous and distrustful solicitude which always ac- 
 companies superstition, still continued to disquiet him, and, 
 depreciating all the devout exercises in which he had hitherto been 
 engaged, prompted him to aim at something extraordinary, at some 
 new and singular act of piety, that would display his zeal and merit 
 the favour of heaven. The act on which he fixed was as wild and 
 uncommon as any that superstition ever suggested to a weak and 
 disordered fancy. He resolved to celebrate his own obsequies 
 before his death. He ordered his tomb to be erected in the chapel 
 of the monastery. His domestics marched thither in funeral 
 procession, with black tapers in their hands. He himself followed 
 in his shroud. He was laid in his coffin with much solemnity. 
 The service for the dead was chanted, and Charles joined in the 
 prayers which were offered up for the rest of his soul, mingling his 
 tears with those which his attendants shed, as if they had been 
 celebrating a real funeral. The ceremony closed with sprinkling 
 holy water on the coffin in the usual form, and all the assistants 
 retiring, the doors of the chapel were shut. Then Charles rose out 
 of the coffin, and withdrew to his apartment, full of those awful 
 sentiments which such a singular solemnity was calculated to 
 ' Prescott's edit. ii. 456. 
 
CONVENT OF SAN YUSTE. 17.9 
 
 inspire," Mr. Prescott, says, " It was not till the present day, that a 
 more careful scrutiny, by discovering inconsistencies in the account, 
 led some writers to regard it as a monkish legend, and to doubt the 
 truth of it altogether." But a MS. written by one of the monks, 
 and discovered at Brussels — the substance of which is printed in the 
 ' Bulletins de la commission Royale d'Histoire ' — seems to be an 
 authentic narrative of the way in which he anticipated his obsequies, 
 and gives a version of the incident, shorn of the last extravagance 
 adopted by Robertson. The emperor is represented as taking 
 part in a funeral service, as being clad in mourning, as bearing a 
 lighted candle, and placing it in the hands of a priest, as a sign of 
 the surrender of his soul to God ; but not a word is said of his 
 wearing a shroud and lying in a coffin. 
 
 As the emperor's death approached, Carranza, of whom I shall 
 have much to say in the next chapter, paid him a visit. He was 
 the " black friar," so called from his swarthy visage, who had 
 made his name famous by the part he took in the persecutions in 
 England. He read at the emperor's desire some portions of 
 Scripture, including the 1 30th Psalm, " Out of the depths have I cried 
 unto Thee, O Lord. Lord^ hear my voice : let Thine ears be attentive 
 to the voice of my supplications. If Thou, Lord, shouldest mark 
 iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand ? But there is forgiveness with 
 Thee, that Thou mayest be feared. I wait for the Lord, my soul doth 
 wait, and in His word do I hope. My soul waiteth for the Lord 
 more than they that watch for the morning : I say, more than they 
 that watch for the morning. Let Israel hope in the Lord : for with 
 the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption. 
 And He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities." 
 
 Nothing could be more touching than that beautiful passage of 
 Scripture at such a moment. Whether it was Carranza or the 
 emperor who selected it, I do not know, probably the former ; at 
 all events what followed was in harmony with it. Kneeling at the 
 bedside and holding up a crucifix, Carranza said, "Behold Him 
 
 N 2 
 
i8o THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 who answers for all. There is no more sin: all is forgiven." 
 Luther could not have said anything more Evangelical. Then 
 followed another of Charles's preachers, who, not liking the tone of 
 Carranza's words, added, " Your Majesty came into the world on 
 the day of St. Matthew — you will leave on that of St. Matthias. 
 St. Matthew and Matthias were two apostles, two brothers bearing 
 nearly the same name, and both disciples of Jesus Christ. With 
 such intercessors you can have nothing to fear. Let your Majesty 
 turn your heart with confidence to God, who will this day put you 
 in possession of glory ; " one of these ministers of religion in the 
 sick man's chamber pointed him to the cross of Christ, the other 
 to the intercession of saints. " Thus," says Mignet, " the two 
 doctrines which divided the world in the age of Charles V. were 
 once more brought before him on the bed of death." 
 
 Funeral rites at Yuste continued after his decease for nine days, 
 and services in his honour were performed at Valladolid, Seville, 
 Toledo, Tarragona, and other places. The bells all over the 
 country were tolled thrice a day for four months ; and for that 
 period no festival or public rejoicings were allowed. In 1574 the 
 royal corpse was removed to the Escorial. 
 
 Four years before that, twelve years after Charles's death, 
 Philip IL visited Yuste. There he read on the walls of the 
 monastery, "In this holy house of Jerome of Yuste, Charles V., 
 Emperor, King of the Spains, most Christian, most invincible, passed 
 the close of a life which he had devoted to the defence of the faith 
 and the maintenance of justice." On the wall of the terrace was 
 another inscription: "His Majesty, the Emperor Don Charles the 
 Fifth, our Lord, was sitting in this place, when he was taken ill on 
 the thirty-first of August, at four in the afternoon. He died on the 
 twenty-first of September at half-past two in the morning in the 
 year of grace 1558." Mr. Prescott questions the accuracy of the 
 former date ; he says, " It should have been a day earlier." ^ 
 
 * Edition of Robertson's ' Charles V.,' ii. 627. 
 
( i8i ) 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 TOLEDO. 
 
 Toledo is within easy reach of Madrid — not more than forty- 
 miles — a distance now accomplished by rail in less than two 
 hours and a half, but which in the diligence days occupied the 
 traveller a much longer time. There is little to interest one on 
 the road. 
 
 Views of Toledo from the railway station are finer than those 
 obtained on approaching any other city in Spain which I was able 
 to visit. Crossing the bridge over the Tagus, and ascending the 
 hill — ^which reminds one of the rocky seat on which Durham 
 Cathedral is placed, with the river flowing round its foot — the 
 remark of Mr. Ford is found to be perfectly true : 
 
 "Here the voice of the Goth echoes amid Roman ruins, and 
 the step of. the Christian treads on the heel of the Moor ; 
 here are palaces without nobles, churches without congregations, 
 walks without people ; the narrowness of the streets, by prevent- 
 ing carriage traffic, adds to that silence, so peculiar to the ancient 
 cities of Spain, and which at once, as Cervantes said, strikes the 
 ear of the stranger." 
 
 Winding about through narrow streets, between lofty walls of 
 strange complicated masonry, and past Moorish entrances opening 
 into patios where bright green shrubs and bright red flowers 
 shone in the sun, I could but think of Toledo as a wonderful 
 album, with leaves on one side covered with romantic pictures, 
 and on the other side written over with romantic legends. By 
 
1 82 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 the bridge of St. Martin, at the foot of a rocky hill, is an old ruin 
 called the Cava, which tradition says is the spot where was seen 
 by Roderic, the last of the Goths, that lady whose seduction 
 brought on him the Moorish invasion, and cost him his crown and 
 kingdom. Hard by is the tower of St. Tome, draped with chains 
 worn by Christian captives during the Moorish dominion, a sight 
 which helps to explain, though it canhot 'justify, or even excuse, the 
 vengeance often wreaked on Moslems by their conquerors. Near 
 to these touching trophies is a beautiful Jewish synagogue, now 
 restored, where Jews were"allowed to worship under Mosfem sway," 
 And again, going back to the tower of :St, Tome, you enter the 
 convent of St. Juan los Reyes, with its sculptured.chapdl and cloisters, 
 wondrously magnificent still, though desolate and mutilated, and 
 within whose storied walls are seen unmistakable signs of the; 
 Christian "domiriion ia Spain after the expulsion of its old enemies. 
 
 But the crown of all is the cathedral. Entering by the north, 
 transept door, there burst' upon me the most enchanting vision of 
 architectural sublimity and heauty I ever saw. At the moment, 
 a flood of sunshine poured in through the richly stained window's, 
 lighting up the Capilla Mayor, and the massive and delicate 
 sculptures upon enormous piers on either side ; saint after saint in 
 canopied niches was revealed with, woridrouS effect. The whole 
 building is an unparalleled treasury of art. At the south-west 
 corner is the Mozarabic chapel, a plaia building, where every 
 morning the ritual of that name is used. A copy of it was 
 shown me, a thin folio with the order, of service in Latin ; and near 
 the beginning of the book is a curious engravihg, which represents 
 the ordeal of fire through which the two Missals .passed.^ 
 
 ' See page aft 6f this volume. Dunham, in his ' History of Spain and Portugal,' 
 iv. 281, gives another version,, '.' Two fierce buHs were baptised — the one Tqleda, tfee other 
 Rome ; &nd in presence of King and Court were pitched agairist each other.' After a 
 'gory conflict, Toledo remained Victor." - I endeavoured in vain to procure a copy of the 
 Mozarabic Xiturgy..'- Palmer (' XDdgines LiturgicSe,.'!. I73)j following Martene,.deSclibeE it, 
 
CLOISTERS AT SAX JUAX DE LOS REYES, TOLEDO. 
 
TOLEDO. i8s 
 
 Close to the cathedral is the archbishop's palace ; and the two 
 together are connected with a remarkable character, who affords a 
 characteristic specimen of persons not uncommon at the period of 
 the Spanish Reformation. He entertained theological views of a 
 Lutheran kind, yet supported the Church by persecuting heretics, 
 and, at the same time, humbly suffered from the acts of the 
 Inquisition. 
 
 His story must here be told. 
 
 Bartolomeo Carranza was born in 1503, at Miranda de Arga, 
 a little town vp. the kingdom of Navarre. 
 
 His parents were of a noble family, and when he was twelve 
 years of age he was sent to a college affiliated to the University of 
 Alcald, where his uncle was a doctor, who distinguished himself 
 as a decided opponent of Erasmus. In 1535 the young man 
 removed to another seminary, where he proceeded as student in 
 the philosophy of arts. Two years afterwards he assumed the 
 Dominican habit, in a convent of that order in Alcaria.^ Imme- 
 diately on his making this profession, he studied theology at far- 
 famed Salamanca; and in 1525 we find him at Valladolid at St. 
 Gregory's College, with its gorgeous gateway. 
 
 His progress in study was extremely rapid. He read and 
 thought much more than was common, and it was alleged against 
 him in after years, that so early in life he limited the authority of 
 the pope, and often presumed to utter opinions decidedly erroneous. 
 The doctrines of Erasmus formed a topic for college talk, and 
 Carranza ventured, on that subject, to differ from the current 
 ideas. He was denounced before the Holy Office in 1530, as a 
 defender of the Rotterdam divine in reference to penance, and to 
 
 and points out the resemblance to the Gallican. He considers that " the chief missionaries 
 caine from Gaul to Spain, and with the ecclesiastical order, introduced the liturgy of their 
 own Church." I do. not think .this point can be established ; but at any rate it appears 
 that both the Gallican and. the early Spanish service had an Eastern rather than a 
 Roman origin. ' Now Guadalajara in New Castile. 
 
i86: THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 frequent confession by those guilty only of venial sii; and it --(vas 
 further objected to him that he hesitated to admit the authority- 
 of certain fathers; also that, following Erasmus, he dared to 
 attribute the Apocalypse to another John than the fourth Evan- 
 gelist. 
 
 After all, his credit does not appear to have been matei-ially 
 shaken, for in 1534 he was installed as Theological Professof at 
 Valladolid. In 1537 he attained to such eminence as. to be sent 
 to Rome, to assist in the general chapter of the Dominican order, 
 which occupied the Monastery of Sopra Minerva. There he- 
 maintained, with much ability, theses in the presence of Cardinal 
 Caraffa, afterwards Paul IV., and other great personages. \ 
 
 On returning to Spain he resumed his place at St. Gregory's ; 
 and; there, in IS40, he obtained popularity by his beneficence to- 
 the mountain peasants of Leon and Santander, The self-denying^ 
 Dominican sold his books to; buy them bread, only reserving on 
 his shelves the Bible and St. Thomas's 'Summa.' At that time he- 
 was constantly occupied with duties in connection with the Holy 
 OfBce, being censor of writings sent him by the Supreme Council ; 
 he also preached sermons at autos de fi, - especially one at the 
 burning of Francisco San Roman.^ 
 
 In the same year, 1540, the bishopric of Cuzco, in Peru, was 
 offered him, when he replied he was ready to go to America as a 
 gospel missionary, but not as a bishop. 
 
 The fathers at Trent were sitting in 1545. The eyes of Europe' 
 were turned in that direction, and Spain, as well as. Italy and' 
 Germany, was deeply interested in the discussions. The Spanish! 
 priest Carranza delivered a sermon during the sittings of the^ 
 Council at the Church of St. Laurence ; his subject was justifica- 
 tion, a main topic of controversy at that period between Catholics- 
 and Protestants, though some of the former at Trent approached 
 the latter on this point so closely as to surprise people unacquainted^ 
 
 ' Llorente, iii. 188. ,. .- 
 
TOLEDO. 187- 
 
 with the theology of those days. The Archbishop of Siena 
 ascribed all merit to Christ, and none to man, and spoke of 
 righteousness as obtained by faith only. The Bishop of Cava' 
 followed on the same side, contending ■ that hope and love are the 
 companions of faith, and not the causes of our being justified, whilst 
 Caterinus maintained that good works are not the foundation but 
 the fruit of righteousness.^ The sermon delivered by Carranza 
 was printed, but I do not know where it is to be found. It 
 was not condemned. The same year, a book by him on the 
 Councils of the Church was printed at Rome; and at Venice in 
 1 547, another on theological controversies, which was attacked by 
 Father Caterinus and defended by Father Soto, both of them 
 Dominicans. 
 
 Carranza must by this, time have become a court favourite, for 
 in 1548 he was nominated confessor to Philip II., then Prince of 
 Asturias. The nomination came from his father, who, by wishing 
 the Dominican to be the keeper of. the prince's conscience, showed 
 the confidence he had in his . character. Next year he was 
 nominated to the diocese of the Canaries, but he again refused a 
 mitre, counting himself unworthy of the honour. At the same 
 time the. Dominicans of Plasencia elected him prior of their 
 monastery, an appointment which he accepted ; and in that capacity 
 he delivered expositions of Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, a choice 
 which necessarily led him to treat of justification. In the capacity 
 of provincial in Castile he visited that province, diligently applying 
 himself to the enforcement of monastic I'ules and of offices for souls 
 ■in purgatory — thus striving to unite together incompatible doctrinal 
 .views I and . ecclesiastical practices. It was the habit of his life to 
 act in this manner. 
 
 ; ; The Council being convoked again at Trent in .1551,- the 
 iprovincial attended by order of the emperor,, .armed :with full 
 ipowers. from the^Archbishop of Toledo. . : TPresent at assemblies and 
 
 ' Father Paul's .' History^'. 
 
1 88 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 congregations till the suspension of meetings in 1552, he took a part 
 in drawing up an index of forbidden books. On returning to Spain, 
 the term of his provincial office expired, and he once more entered 
 the College of St. Gregory. The Inquisition was now busy with 
 difficult questions which required his assistance, and he helped to 
 edit a Latin Bible, which served as a standard for subsequent 
 editions. 
 
 Carranza accompanied Philip to England on his marriage with 
 Queen Mary, and helped, together with Cardinal Pole, to restore 
 popery in her dominions. He preached and convinced many heretics, 
 we are told, as well by his writings as by his voice ; and yet Villa 
 Garcia, a Dominican pupil of this active proselyter, was, on returning 
 to Spain, apprehended by the Inquisition as a suspected heretic, 
 because of his intimacy with Carranza. The man's life is made up 
 of surprises ; for while he was in England he says, with the king's 
 permission (Philip II.), " I caused the bodies of the greatest heretics 
 to be disinterred, and they were burnt to support the power of the 
 Inquisition." He alludes here to the disinterment of deceased Pro- 
 testants at Cambridge, described by Foxe, who tells us that, bound 
 with ropes and laid on men's shoulders, they were carried into the 
 midst of the market-place, and fastened as if alive with chains to a 
 stake, and then reduced to ashes.^ Bucer's corpse was treated in 
 this fashion. In England Carranza got the name of " the black 
 friar ; " and to aid the Inquisition he drew up a list of. Spaniards 
 who had sought refuge in England and Flanders because of their 
 religious convictions. 
 
 On the death of Siliceo, Philip offered his confessor the arch- 
 bishopric of Toledo, which, with great reluctance, he accepted in 
 obedience to the royal command. The appointment was approved 
 by Paul IV.', and the prelate-elect took possession of his see in 
 March,, 1558. He was consecrated at Brussels with more than 
 usual, pomp, and soon afterwards he published Commentaries on 
 ' ' Acts and Monuments,' viii. 282. 
 
TOLEDO. 189 
 
 the Catechism. In the west plaza of Toledo Cathedral stands the 
 episcopal palace with its fine portal. There Carranza resided in 
 princely state. By the entrance to the coro, there are two pulpits 
 of metal, gilded all over, and placed on marble columns of 
 wonderful workmanship. In one of them I suppose the arch- 
 bishop preached. 
 
 We lately saw him at the death-bed of the emperor, and heard 
 his memorable words, " Behold Him who answers for all. There 
 is no more sin ; all is forgiven." Those words reached the ears 
 of the emperor's confessor. Father Regla, who was present, and of 
 others also who, dismayed at the utterance of such a Protestant 
 sentiment, from that hour plotted the destruction of the "black 
 friar," now. Primate of Spain. 
 
 He had several personal enemies ; Pedro de Castro, Bishop of 
 Cuenca, and Valdes, Inquisitor-General, were of that number. The 
 first of these reported to the second, that in the writings of 
 Carranza were Lutheran opinions upon justification. He further 
 said that he had heard the archbishop preach in London, when he 
 spoke of the same doctrine in a Lutheran tone ; also he had used 
 " perilous language ; " and somebody had whispered, " Carranza 
 has preached like Melancthon." In agreement with his counsel 
 to the dying emperor, he was represented as having declared he 
 would confess on his own death-bed that he renounced all merit, 
 and, availing himself of Christ's atonement, his sins would be as 
 though they had never been. 
 
 On the strength of suchcharges the Inquisitor-General decreed 
 that the primate should be imprisoned. In the meantime the 
 latter received a message from the Princess Juana commanding 
 him to proceed to her at Valladolid. Afterwards he met with 
 persons who told him rumours were abroad that he would be 
 arrested. At length we find him at Tordelaguna, a town under his 
 jurisdiction, and there, one Sunday night in August, the following 
 scene took place. 
 
I90 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 A friar in attendance on the archbishop was sleeping in an 
 antechamber when some men knocked at the door. 
 
 " Who is there ? " he asked. 
 
 " Open to the Holy Office," was the reply. 
 
 Instantly they were admitted. At once they proceeded to the 
 room where the primate slept, and the potent words, " The Holy 
 Office" opened a second door. Rodrigo de Castro, who had supped 
 with Carranza, stalked in, and said, " Most illustrious seiior, I am 
 commanded by the Holy Office to make you prisoneh" 
 
 " Have you orders to do that .■' " 
 
 "Yes, sefior." The order of the Inquisitor-General was 
 produced, with the names of the council appended. 
 
 "But these cannot be my judges," he retorted. "I am 
 immediately subject to the pope, and to him I make my appeal." 
 
 " On this point your reverence shall have satisfaction," it was 
 added ; at the same moment a papal brief appeared and was read.^ 
 That settled the matter. 
 
 The poor archbishop — in a coach says one authority, on a mule 
 says another — was conveyed to Valladolid. 
 
 He was kept in confinement for two years, in such a state of 
 seclusion from the world that though a fire broke out at Valladolid 
 and destroyed four houses, he never heard a word about the 
 incident. 
 
 Philip, so far from protesting against this treatment of his 
 confessor, bowed before the tribunal, and, forgetful of his servant's 
 claims, regarded him with aversion, not because anything had been 
 proved against him, but simply because he was suspected of 
 heresy, Carranza still had friends. There were fathers at the 
 Council of Trent who commiserated his condition, indeed, espoused 
 
 ' Dr. Rule, in Ms 'Hist, of the Inquisition' (177), tells this story, and cites as 
 authorities, Llorente and Adolfo de Castro. The latter does not stand high in my 
 estimation. Prescott, in his ' Life of Philip II.,' relates the history of Carranza, and 
 refers to Salazar's life of him, and to ' Documentos Ineditos,' as well as to Llorente. 
 
TOLEDO. 191 
 
 his cause. They had been convoked for the third time, and 
 bishops charged with the examination of books had their attention 
 called to Carfanza's catechism. They approved of it, and gave 
 it their imprimatur. The Spanish ambassador present at the 
 Council protested, in the name of his master, against this proceed- 
 ing, because the author of the book was before the Inquisition. A 
 Spanish bishop backed this objection, and said that he was a 
 member of the committee, but was not present at the meeting 
 when the catechism was under consideration; he highly dis- 
 approved of what had been done. The two men disliked the 
 primate extremely, and charged the committee with countenancing 
 heterodoxy. The Archbishop of Prague, who presided over the 
 Censure Committee, demanded from the Spanish prelate an apology 
 for the insult he had offered, and until it was offered, he said he 
 would no longer sit in the Council.^ Cardinal Moron interposed 
 to throw oil on the ■ waters, and suggested that the sanction of 
 the catechisrti should remain as it was, but that no further copy of 
 it should be given, whilst the one already issued was to be in the 
 keeping of the archbishop's agent. Such a device was in harmony 
 with common contrivances to keep all smooth above board, what- 
 ever elements of contention might be concealed underneath. 
 Philip was angry with the Council, and many, of its members were 
 angry with him ; yet there was no relenting towards his old friend 
 and spiritual adviser. Pope Pius the Fifth appeared also on 
 behalf of the accused. He was a brother Dominican, and could 
 not endure that one of his order should be unfairly treated ; 
 accordingly he sent orders to Spain for the removal or suspension 
 of the Grand Inquisitor. Pius was not to be trifled with, and even 
 
 ' It is not generally known that there were great divisions in the Council. The 
 letters of the Legate of the Emperor Charles V. informed him of this, and that all the 
 Spanish bishops, except the Bishop of Granada, were opposed to withholding the cup 
 from the laity. Altogether thirty-eight votes were given for the withholding, and thirty 
 against it. The letters are quoted by Jenkins in his excellent work, ' Romanism : an 
 Examination of the Creed of Pope Pius IV.,' p. 159 (Religious Tract Society). 
 
192 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 Philip did not dare to resist the pontifical will. Consequently 
 Carranza, after seven years' imprisonment in Spain, was sent to 
 Rome, where he was kindly received by the pontiff, and handsomely 
 lodged in the Castle of St. Angelo. 
 
 Pius proceeded to look over the immense heap of papers which 
 had accumulated in the course of this business, but at the end of 
 six years, when about to give judgment, he died. His successor, 
 Gregory XIII., then took matters up, and at length determined 
 on a decision. The primate was summoned before his holiness. 
 There he stood alone, unsaluted by the dignitaries around him. 
 His form was bowed down by a load of infirmity, and his face by 
 careworn lines told of what he had endured. Kneeling, he received 
 his sentence. The decree of the Inquisition prohibiting the use of 
 his catechism was confirmed, notwithstanding the endorsement of 
 that catechism at Trent. Sixteen propositions in his writings of a 
 Lutheran tinge were selected as censurable. He was to be sus- 
 pended from the exercise of episcopal functions, and to be shut up 
 for five years in a convent of his order. Eighteen years he had 
 been persecuted in the way described. Sixteen days after the 
 deliverance of this judgment he died. He expired in the Convent 
 of Sopra Minerva, May 2, 1576, " with tears in his eyes declaring 
 his innocence, and yet with strange inconsistency admitting the 
 justice of his sentence. When he was interred, though it was upon 
 a working-day, all the shops were shut up as close as if it had been 
 Easter. The people had as great a veneration for his corpse as 
 they could have had for that of a saint." ' 
 
 Then, to close all, the pope built a monument to his memory, 
 bearing an inscription commemorative of his virtues. 
 
 The history of this singular case places in a striking light the 
 power possessed by the Spanish Inquisition. It asserted for itself 
 a singular measure of independence, so far agreeing with incidents 
 in the earlier annals of Spain, when the Church and State in that 
 
 ' Bayle's ' Dictionary,' ii. 337. 
 
TOLEDO. 193 
 
 •country would not allow of any outward interference whatever. In 
 the present instance, the Spanish sovereign and the Spanish 
 Inquisition united in assuming an attitude almost defiant towards 
 the Council of Trent and the Pontiff of Rome. The Spanish 
 ambassador bearded certain of the fathers so insultingly that an 
 apology was demanded ; yet the apology was not made, and the 
 wound inflicted on their dignity was salved over by a miserable 
 kind of ointment. The Council in this matter really succumbed to 
 the Inquisition backed by the king. Also against the pope, the 
 Spanish Holy Office manifested vast effrontery, so much so that he 
 had to bring them to book by the exercise of his supreme power ; 
 after all it took years to settle the business, the documents dis- 
 patched from Spain to Rome being so numerous and difficult to 
 understand, that they wore out the patience of his holiness. In 
 the end the Inquisition really triumphed, for it procured the 
 condemnation, the suspension, and the imprisonment of the 
 primate, though Gregory XIII. thought well of the accused, and 
 engraved in marble an eulogium on his character. 
 
 On reviewing the whole, I think there can be no doubt that 
 Cai'ranza believed in the doctrine of justification by faith. His 
 advice to Charles V. proves this, and propositions extracted from 
 his writings confirm it. But he believed in other doctrines and 
 ■practices, which in a number of cases would render the mere 
 theoretical opinion quite nugatory. Besides, he held with tenacity 
 to the wretched principle, that error can be crushed, and truth 
 established by the employment of force. It often happens that 
 men holding views discordant with the Church system to which 
 they still adhere, defend themselves against charges of unfaithful- 
 ness by a more than ordinary amount of zeal in maintaining such 
 parts of the system as they thoroughly approve. They know 
 they are suspected, and therefore do everything they can to recover 
 a reputation for orthodoxy. Carranza seems to have been of this 
 class. The more suspected in one respect the more demonstrative 
 
 o 
 
194 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 he was in another. He had maintained what was deemed heresy ; 
 but he would be sound to the last degree in abetting the power of 
 the Inquisition — the grand safeguard of the Church in the eyes of 
 Catholic Spaniards. 
 
 Carranza in his inconsistency did not stand alone. He re- 
 sembled Cardinal Contarini, who remained in other respects a 
 decided Romanist to the end of his days, only lamenting the 
 corruptions of the Church, and propounding at the same time the 
 doctrine of justification by faith. Carranza resembled Cardinal 
 Pole, who, indeed, went farther than Carranza in sympathetic 
 intercourse with Reformers, and approved of the celebrated Italian 
 work on ' The Death of Christ,' attributed to Paleario. Yet this 
 man, who seemed so near the truth, helped to kindle the Smith- 
 field fires.-' 
 
 There is in Toledo near the cathedral what Spaniards call the 
 Zocodover, meaning "the square market." It is also called the 
 Plaza Mayor, and is a semicircular area planted with trees, and 
 surrounded by old houses supported in front by columns forming 
 a colonnade — the top stories open to the air. Some of those 
 buildings must have existed there in the days of Philip II. ; and 
 from the Alcazar, rising in a lordly way over this place of public 
 gathering, he descended to witness bull-fights and autos de fi on the 
 occasion of his visiting this portion of his dominions. People of 
 all ranks still swarm and buzz along the tree-shaded walks which 
 border the plaza, where many a bull-fight has delighted the 
 multitude. On the 25th of February, 1560, a memorable scene was 
 enacted on this spot. Philip II. was married in Guadalajara to his 
 third wife, the beautiful daughter of Catherine de' Medici. Toledo 
 was decked with triumphal arches and other adornments, in which 
 fancy ran riot amidst mythological stories and saintly legends, 
 
 ' My view of Carranza is based on the facts of his life as given by Llorente, Prescott, 
 Droin, and others. De Castro devotes three chapters to the subject. I cannot concur in 
 some of his conclusions. 
 
O 2 
 
TOLEDO. 197 
 
 when the royal pair entered the city gates in brilliant procession to 
 be welcomed by municipal authorities. For weeks the citizens 
 kept holiday. Bull-fights and tournaments took place with more 
 than usual magnificence ; and on the 25th of February an exhibition 
 was added strangely out of keeping with wedding festivities. But 
 in Spanish estimation it was religious and exciting, a demon- 
 stration of Catholic faith, and a sensational spectacle in which life 
 and death came in agreeable contrast. An auto defd was held. 
 
 The Zocodover was graced by the presence of the bride and bride- 
 groom, Don Carlos, Prince of Asturias, Juana, the royal widow of 
 Portugal and sister of Philip, with other members of the family, also 
 of prelates and nobles in dazzling throngs. There they sat on velvet 
 cushions, under rich awnings, curtained with tapestry, to hear a 
 sermon preached by a Dominican friar, and to gaze on victims 
 who had mounted the scaffold in sanbenitos, or in the garb of 
 reconciled penitents. What immediately followed many visitors 
 would not see, but enormous crowds would flock together round 
 the blazing fires somewhere not far distant. Several Protestants 
 were among the condemned, who escaped with minor punishments ; 
 but one in particular is mentioned as burnt on this occasion, a 
 gentleman in the train of Henry X. Duke of Brunswick, who 
 was a stern opponent of Luther and his cause. It is thought that 
 the victim was singled out to excite salutary fear in the Flemings, 
 the Germans, and the French, who had come to Toledo, and 
 who were suspected of leaning towards the new religion. 
 
 A year afterwards another auto was to be seen in the old 
 Moorish city. Now four priests, two Spanish and two French, 
 were burnt alive, as renegades to the faith of their fathers ; 
 nineteen other condemned Protestants were admitted to recon- 
 ciliation. One exceptional case is recorded. A royal page, 
 Charles Estreet, born in Brussels, had been convicted of heresy ; 
 but the amiable queen, touched with compassion at the youth's 
 fate, interceded on his behalf, and prevailed on her husband to 
 
THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 remit the execution of capital punishment, on the faith of a promise 
 to abandon heresy for the future. 
 
 Again on Trinity Sunday, in 1565, the fires were lighted, and 
 several persons suffered— described as "Lutherans," "believers," 
 and " Huguenots " — besides a number of Jews, Mohammedaps, 
 blasphemers, and necromancers. 
 
 In 1571, after intermediate atitos not particularly described, 
 one is mentioned, notable from the circumstance that Doctor 
 Sigismund Archel, a native of Cagliari, was then immolated 
 under peculiar circumstances. Arrested in Madrid in 1562, and 
 then shut up in a prison at Toledo, he had contrived to escape, 
 but before he crossed the frontiers he was again arrested, being 
 detected by means of his portrait sent to a place where he hoped 
 to be in security. He admitted that he believed in the doctrines 
 alleged against him, but contended that, so far from being heretical, 
 they were perfectly accordant with primitive Christianity, and that 
 he really was more Catholic than the popish Spaniards. From 
 strong excitement, he, as some others were tempted to do under 
 circumstances of exti^eme irritation, ridiculed the priests who came 
 to argue with him, and in consequence of this he was gagged on the 
 scaffold ; when brought to the stake he was stabbed with lances 
 before his body was consumed. Amongst the condemned at this 
 auto two other persons are mentioned — one for having told the 
 inhabitants of the village of Yepes, where he lived, that it was 
 useless to offer bread and wine to the dead and the saints, by 
 which perhaps he meant, saying masses for the departed ; and 
 another for having said that it was better for Catholic priests to 
 marry like Protestant pastors, than to profess celibacy, and then lead 
 scandalous lives.* 
 
 ■■ Llorente, ii. chap, xxiv., ' Inquisition de Tolede.' In a Catalogue of Spanish 
 MSS. in the British Museum I notice the following item: — "From the Cardinal 
 Archbishop of Toledo to the Council of the Inquisition, asking particulars of a prisoner 
 named Captain Martin mentioned in a letter from Henry IV, of France, and enclosing 
 
TOLEDO. 199 
 
 Towards the close of the first quarter of the sixteenth century 
 there was a movement in Toledo on the part of numerous citizens, 
 who called themselves Comuneros, or Communists ; not that they 
 were Communists, in the present acceptation of the term, but political 
 reformers aiming at changes in the condition of the State. The 
 immediate occasion was the course adopted by Charles, as King of 
 Spain ; that course being deemed by many of his subjects a violation 
 of constitutional principles. It was really a conflict between the 
 people's purse and the king's prerogative, between the privilege of 
 self-taxation and the exercise of despotic government. Royalty 
 wanted money, and the community demanded the removal of 
 grievances. The citizens of Toledo took up arms, and fought for 
 what they deemed their rights, and Don Juan de Padilla, son of a 
 nobleman, took the lead in their proceedings, and stirred up other 
 Castilian cities to join in resistance of tyrannical rule. The 
 demands of the dissatisfied developed as the quarrel advanced, and 
 that which would have sufficed at the beginning to content the 
 popular party was rejected at the end. Popular violence ran into 
 frightful excesses at Toledo and elsewhere. The right of sanctuary 
 in churches was violated, and a royal favourite, who fled to the 
 altar for refuge, was torn away to die in prison, from blows received 
 at the hands of a mob. Riots prevailed, and ran like wild-fire 
 through the northern and eastern cities of Spain. In an advanced 
 stage of the conflict, Padilla and others formed what they called 
 "the holy junta," and drew up a list of grievances, for which 
 they sought redress. Their grievances were mainly political, 
 but a few were ecclesiastical ; and they show that a measure of 
 Church reform was contemplated in the remonstrance. The 
 Spaniards had no idea of theological reform, such as then loomed 
 in the sight of Germany, nor of ecclesiastical reform, such as 
 
 also a copy of a letter of Don Bernardino de Mendoza, Ambassador in England, 
 announcing that a number of English heretics were sent to Spain, there to spread their 
 heresies. Toledo, 16 Nov. 1581." 
 
THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 afterwards appeared in England ; but dissatisfaction with existing 
 abuses in spiritual matters had become apparent. A cardinal 
 who held the reins of government during Charles's absence was 
 very obnoxious, and some of the clergy were very unpopular ; 
 yet this did not indicate any desire for what we understand by 
 ecclesiastical improvement. There were however articles in the 
 remonstrance which pointed at changes in Church as well as 
 State. The junta asked that none but natives should hold a 
 benefice ; that indulgences should not be preached or bestowed 
 until the cause of their publication was examined and approved 
 by the Cortes ; that the money raised by such means should be 
 employed in carrying on war against the infidels ; that non- 
 resident prelates should be deprived of their revenues ; that 
 ecclesiastical judges should be prevented from exacting exorbi- 
 tant fees ; that the Archbishop of Toledo, at that time a 
 foreigner, should be removed, to allow of a Castilian prelate 
 taking his place ; and that the king should never solicit the 
 pope or any bishop to grant absolution for a breach of promise.^ 
 
 The struggle was unsuccessful. Padilla fought for reform, but 
 totally failed. He was condemned and executed. His widow, a 
 woman of commanding ability and of Amazonian courage, after 
 desperate resistance, fled from Toledo to Portugal, where she died 
 in poverty. Political aspirations were quenched in Spain, and with 
 them disappeared attempts at ecclesiastical reform of the kind 
 sought by members of the junta. 
 
 - Robertson's ' Charles V.' (under date 1522), vol. i. 323 ; Prescott's edition. 
 
GATEWAY OF SAN GREGORIO, VALLADOLID. 
 
( 203 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 VALLADOLID. 
 
 We must now proceed to Valladolid, before we notice numerous 
 associations which require attention at Madrid. I was not 
 much interested in what I saw of the former city, though I 
 paced the narrow streets again and again. The exterior of the 
 cathedral is ugly in the extreme ; and I thoroughly concur with 
 Mr. Street, who says nothing could ever cure its hideous unsight- 
 liness. The inside is not much better, the walls being naked 
 without any kind of ornament. The only redeeming architectural 
 feature in the town belongs to the combined edifices of San 
 Pablo's Church, and San Gregorio's College. 
 
 The facade of the former is a wonderfully elaborate example of 
 the Gothic flamboyant, lines of armorial decoration rising one 
 above another ; but the gateway of the latter, with its heraldic 
 ornaments of the same style, surpasses its neighbour. The cloister 
 is very fine, and so is the staircase by which you reach a gallery 
 running round the patio. But if Valladolid is lacking in public 
 edifices, it can boast of being the residence of Columbus and 
 Cervantes. Columbus died in the Calle de Col6n, and Cervantes 
 wrote the first part of ' Don Quixote ' in the Calle de Rastro. 
 
 Dr. M'Crie connects the name of Egidius of Seville with the 
 early history of Protestantism in Valladolid, stating that on his visit 
 to the city he found there " a number of converts to the Reformed 
 doctrine." How those converts were made does not appear ; but 
 afterwards Domingo de Roxas is described as occupying a leading 
 
204 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 position amongst them.' His father was the first Marquis de Posa ; 
 the son destined for the Church entered the Dominican order. 
 He received his education from Carranza, whom I have described 
 in connection with Toledo ; the latter advised his pupil to be 
 cautious and modest ; but the pupil was different from his teacher, 
 and soon outstripped him in the race of knowledge and faith. 
 He gave up purgatory and the mass, and deviated from other 
 principles of the Church. He did not remain a silent disciple, but 
 became an active propagator of the truth, inducing many neigh- 
 bours of noble rank to espouse the cause to which he had devoted 
 himself. 
 
 It is interesting to notice how many members of the same 
 family in Valladolid and the neighbourhood embraced Protestant- 
 ism, to a greater or less degree, thus showing the religious activity 
 of their domestic life. The following instances are conspicuous. 
 
 Augustus Cazalla, commonly called Doctor Cazalla, a man 
 of ability and renown, was the son of Don Pedro Cazalla, of 
 Jewish extraction, and entered the world in 1510. He attended the 
 College of San Gregorio, just mentioned. In his time the institu- 
 tion was in its glory, and possessed a superb library ; some years 
 ago, however, the building was transformed into a Governor's House. 
 It is now used for public offices. From Valladolid Cazalla went 
 to Alcala de Henares, and having completed his studies there 
 accepted a canonry at Salamanca. Becoming a pulpit orator, 
 he could not but attract the eloquence-loving emperor, who took 
 him to Germany, in 1545, as court preacher and almoner ; there 
 as a champion of Catholic orthodoxy he entered into controversy, 
 
 ^ 'Reformation in Spain,' 169. " Une petite Eglise evangelique se forma dans 
 I'ombre ; son premier pasteur fut un moine de ce mSme ordre auquel I'Espagne 
 devait I'Inquisition, un dominicain, Domingo de Roxas, second fils du Marquis de 
 Posa." St. Hilaire's ' Hist. d'Espagne,' viii. 84. The historian adds in a note " C'est 
 ce Posa que Schiller a mis en scene dans son drame, un peu fantastique, de Don Carlos. 
 Le heros de theatre, I'ap&tre humaniiaire ,ri! esX. en realite qu'un humble martyr chretien, 
 mort sur le bucher, en 1S59, dans le deuxieme auto de fe qui eut lieu a Valladolid." 
 
VALLADOLID. 205 
 
 private and public, with German Reformers. The result of his 
 
 disputations, however, was to bring him over to the side he 
 
 opposed. Still he maintained a reputation for orthodoxy, and was 
 
 nominated by his royal master as member of a committee of 
 
 divines, to draw up an opinion upon the transference of the 
 
 Trentine Council to the city of Bologna. Imperial favour for a 
 
 time screened Cazalla from Church censures ; but eventually his 
 
 tendencies were detected by enemies, and he had to pay the penalty. 
 
 Having returned to Spain, he for some time lived at Salamanca, 
 
 where he corresponded with the Protestants at Seville ; then, 
 
 finding his chaplainship took him to Valladolid, where the court 
 
 was resident, he determined to fix his abode in that town, still the 
 
 capital of the Spanish dominions. We learn exactly very little of 
 
 what he did for several years in relation to the controversies of the 
 
 age. He evidently had no strength of will, like Martin Luther ; 
 
 none of the courage indispensable at a great crisis, where 
 
 momentous interests quiver in the balance. He did not put his 
 
 foot where the Saxon monk did, and say, " Here I take my stand. 
 
 I can do no otherwise, God help me ! " ^ M'Crie speaks of the 
 
 Protestants at Valladolid as obtaining in Cazalla an instructor of 
 
 great talents and reputation, presently adding that he continued 
 
 to be regarded as a patron of the established faith, and 
 
 was consulted by Churchmen in important questions. How 
 
 these statements are to be reconciled I do not understand. 
 
 The respected author adds : " In spite of the caution which 
 
 Cazalla used, his real sentiments were discovered by the more 
 
 intelligent of those who frequented the court ; but they were 
 
 unwilling to fix the stigma of heresy on a person of so great 
 
 reputation, and could not permit themselves to believe that he 
 
 would rush upon certain danger by transgressing the line of 
 
 prudence which he appeared to have prescribed to himself. In 
 
 this opinion they were deceived. After his settlement at Valla- 
 
 ' ' Reformation in Spain,' 226. 
 
2oe THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 dolid, a house connected with his family became an ordinary 
 place for Protestant worship. The greater part of his relatives 
 were among the members. He could not resist pressing re- 
 quests to take charge of their spiritual interests ; and, favoured 
 with his talents and the authority of his name, they increased 
 daily in numbers and respectability." ^ My remarks respecting 
 Seville are applicable to Valladolid ; and as to the authority 
 of Cazalla's name, as though he were publicly known as a 
 Pi-otestant teacher, Llorente, who drew up from the records 
 of the Inquisition an account on which the above represent- 
 ation is professedly based, plainly says, that when accused of 
 dogmatising in the conventicle at Valladolid, and carrying on a 
 correspondence with that of Seville, he denied the facts imputed 
 to him, and confirmed his declaration in a manner the most solemn, 
 even by taking an oath to that effect.^ Cazalla afterwards avowed 
 that, though he had been a Lutheran, he had not dogmatised on 
 the subject, as he was charged with doing, nor had he indoctrinated 
 others with his own views. 
 
 A brother of Cazalla, named Pedro, born at Valladolid, was 
 curate of a parish in the diocese of Zomara. This young man, 
 twenty-four years of age, avowed Lutheran opinions without any 
 hesitation, explaining at the same time the motives and grounds of 
 his belief.^ Besides these were two other Protestant members of 
 the Vibero-Cazalla family, named Juan de Vibero and Francesco. 
 
 An elder Doiia Leanor of the De Vibero family — who had died 
 in 1524 in a state of relapse to Judaism, so it was said, she being a 
 Jewess by birth — would have been disinterred at an early period, 
 but for the interposition of relatives. Several of her children were 
 Protestants, and this was deemed a conclusive proof of her being a 
 heretic. 
 
 ' ' Reformation in Spain,' 231. 
 
 2 " Confirma par son seiinent,'' Llorente, ii. 222. We are dependent chiefly on. 
 Llorente for what we know of the Valladolid Reformers. ^ Ibid., 237. 
 
VALLADOLID. 207 
 
 Another Leaner, named Leaner de Cisneros, was discovered by 
 the Inquisition to be a heretic ; so she and her husband, Antonio 
 Herezuelo, an advocate in Leon, were shut up, in the Valladolld 
 prison, each in a separate cell. Of the high family named De 
 Roxas, there were the following members who in Valladolid joined 
 the Reformers ; Don Pedro Sarmiento and his wife ; Don Luis ; 
 Doiia Ana Henriquez ; and Dona Maria. Domingo de Roxas, as 
 mentioned already, was a teacher in the congregation, and greatl}^ 
 promoted the cause by his activity and influence.^ 
 
 Don Carlos de Seso, an Italian by birth, who had rendered 
 important services in the employ of the emperor, and who held 
 the office of Corregidor, or Spanish magistrate, was also numbered 
 amongst the Valladolid Reformers. He married Isabella Castella, 
 daughter of a nobleman in whose veins flowed the blood of Pedro 
 the Cruel ; and ere, in passing, I may remark that, whatever the 
 paucity of details respecting these Protestants, we have ample 
 notices of their dignified descent. After his marriage, De Seso 
 took up his abode in Villamediana, near Logroiio, and, ac- 
 cording to the records of the Inquisition, diffused Lutheran 
 heresies in Valladolid. We are informed that he promoted 
 the Reformation by circulating books as well as by personal 
 instruction. 
 
 Amongst ladies of the Spanish Reformation at Valladolid, 
 there was Doiia Ana Henriquez de Roxas, daughter of the Marquis 
 d'Alcagnizes, and wife of Don Juan Alonso de Fonseca Mexia — a 
 lady well skilled in Latin and familiar with the writings of John 
 Calvin. Notice is taken also of her aunt. Dona Maria de Roxas, 
 a nun in St. Catherine's Convent, Valladolid, who imbibed the 
 Reformed faith. Doiia Euphrosine Rios, Doiia Marine de Guevara, 
 Dona Catherine de Reinoso, Doiia Marguerita de St. Etienne — I 
 omit their pedigrees — nuns of different orders, were also on the 
 
 ' Fernando de Roxas, at tlie commencement of the fifteenth century, and Francisco 
 de Roxas about the middle of the sixteenth, were Spanish poets. 
 
2o8 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 Protestant list.^ They show what was going on in the convents, 
 how light penetrated within the walls, and ladies, tired of ceremo- 
 nialism, and praying for the Spirit of God, found guidance and 
 instruction in the teaching of Reformers. Llorente adds one 
 Jeanne Sanchez, of a class denominated in Spanish Elates, meaning 
 a woman who wears a religious habit and engages in works of 
 charity. By mockers the word was applied in the sense of religious 
 hypocrite ; this good woman, accused of heresy, was like one of 
 the French sisters of charity. 
 
 The archbishop of the province at length began to suspect that 
 heresy was making way at Valladolid, and he encouraged there 
 those whom he could trust to discover heretical offenders, and not to 
 mind employing dissimulation for the purpose. An inhabitant of 
 Zamora was denounced as a Lutheran, and sent to prison ; but he 
 was allowed still to communicate with his associates, that evidence 
 might be obtained respecting more culpable persons, who sought 
 safety by leaving Spain. Several persons were arrested. Doctor 
 Cazalla, and other members of his family ; Don Pedro Sarmiento 
 and his wife, Doria Ana Henriquez ; Don Luis de Roxas, and other 
 residents in Valladolid. Domingo de Roxas and Carlos de Seso 
 tried to escape from impending danger by leaving the country and 
 entering France, but their plans were frustrated, and at Logroiio 
 they were seized and sent to Valladolid under an escort of arque- 
 busiers. On their journey, men, women and children rushed out of 
 their houses to see the heretics going to prison, whence it was 
 certain they would be led to the stake ; and such was the popular 
 indignation against Protestants, that the recovered fugitives were 
 brought within the gates of Valladolid by night, lest a mob should 
 gather together and stone them.^ 
 
 ' Llorente, ii. 240. I give the names as he does. 
 
 ^ ' Rapport de Vazquez a I'Empereur,' Droin, ii. 202 ; Appendix. Compare this with 
 the case of Juan de Leon and Juan Fernandez (or Juan Sanches), related in the chapter 
 on Seville, p. 160. 
 
VALLADOLID. 209 
 
 A fact in relation to this part of the subject may be referred to 
 before going further. Unselfish bigotry, a misguided conscience, 
 blind hatred of error, the idea that by persecution people could do 
 God service, might seem at first sight the only motive prompting to 
 such cruel proceedings ; in some cases it may be hoped personal 
 compassion mingled with what was thought to be only salutary 
 justice. But it must be recollected confiscation of property followed 
 condemnation for heresy. Wealth so forfeited was designed to flow 
 into the royal exchequer, but first a stream was drawn off to pay 
 the salaries of officials and other expenses ; moreover, we learn 
 " that those who confessed and sought absolution within the brief 
 term of grace allowed by the Inquisitors from the publication 
 of their edict, were liable to arbitrary fines ; and those who 
 confessed after that period escaped with nothing short of con- 
 fiscation." ^ 
 
 Previous to an account of what followed the apprehension of 
 several Protestants at Valladolid, I cannot help referring to Luis 
 Ponce de Leon, who was connected with that city, and who 
 occupies a conspicuous place amongst Spanish poets. Bouterwek 
 thinks he had never been surpassed in the literature of his 
 country. Hallam follows the German critic, and adopts his eulogy. 
 Sismondi declares that he is the last of the great poets who 
 rendered illustrious the age in which he lived ; and Ticknor, well 
 qualified to form an independent judgment, describes him as "a 
 poet of no common genius."^ He was born in 1528, and died in 
 1591. But he was more than a poet. Being an accomplished 
 divine for that age, he occupied a theological chair at Salamanca ; 
 probably his reputation created enemies, and having provoked 
 
 ' Prescott's 'History of Ferdinand and Isabella,' i. 269. Confirmed by Llorente, i. 
 176, 177. 
 
 ' Bouterwek's ' History of Spanish and Portuguese Literature,' i. 240, Hallam's 
 'Introduction to Literature of Europe,' ii. 279. Sismondi's 'Literature of Europe,' 
 ii. 209. Ticknor's ' Spanish Literature,' ii. 85. 
 
 P 
 
THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 members of the Dominican order, they charged him with deviations 
 from the Cathohc faith. He had translated Solomon's Song, and- 
 treated it as an eclogue ; he had spoken of the Vulgate as open to 
 improvement; he had interpreted the Old Testament, not after 
 the manner of the schoolmen, but as a skilled Hebrew scholar ,' 
 and he had adopted opinions which his accusers said leaned in a 
 Lutheran direction. He was denounced before the Holy Office in 
 1571. Twenty witnesses sent in what we might call affidavits 
 against him ; and they are preserved in the National Library of 
 Madrid, with other documents relating to his trial, filling altogether 
 more than nine hundred pages. He was brought before the 
 tribunal at Valladolid, and confined in its secret prisons (carceles 
 secretas), being denied not only the use of paper without formal 
 permission from his judges, but also the use of a knife to cut his 
 food. Moreover, he says himself that for the space of five years 
 he was kept in solitary confinement, and not permitted to see the 
 light of day. Judgment was pronounced by four judges to the 
 effect that he should be put to the rack, but moderately, because 
 of his health — and by two others, that he should be rebuked in 
 the hall of the Inquisition, and be made to confess before his 
 university ; that propositions he had advanced were " suspicious and? 
 ambiguous," and finally that he should be suspended from public 
 teaching. Strange to say, the Supreme Council at Madrid passed- 
 over in silence the proceedings at Valladolid, and acquitted the 
 prisoner, only counselling him to be prudent for the future, and to 
 suppress his translation of Solomon's Song, which he affirmed he 
 had made for the private use of a friend. He quietly submitted, 
 showing how an active mind like his could at that age, and in that 
 country, throw aside a sense of personal responsibility, and blindly 
 accept the judgment of a despotic court.^ 
 
 ' A full account of Luis de Leon is given by Ticknor, ii. 74-89 ; based upon an 
 examination of the ' Coleccion de Documentos ineditos para la Hist, de Espaiia,'' 
 torn. X. xi. 
 
VALLADOLID. 211 
 
 In 1 5 80 he published his Commentary on the Canticles, in which 
 he followed the method of exposition approved by the Fathers, 
 treating the book literally, symbolically, and mystically ; so that, 
 whilst saving its character as an eclogue, he found in it doctrines 
 harmonising with the Church's creed. An extensive work on the 
 names of Christ proceeded from his pen, in which he devoutly 
 meditates on our blessed Lord as the Shepherd and King of 
 His people, rising occasionally to a strain of lofty eloquence, and 
 dwelling upon the harmony of creation, after a manner which 
 strongly resembles the immortal sentence of Richard Hooker on 
 the subject of Divine Law.^ 
 
 His poetry took a religious form, and he exclaims, " Would to 
 God that no other poetry were ever sounded in our ears ; that only 
 those sacred tones were sweet to us ; that none else were 
 heard at night in the streets and public squares ; that the 
 child might still lisp it, the retired damsel find in it her best 
 solace, and the industrious tradesman make it the relief of his toil. 
 But the Christian name is now sunk to such immodest and reckless 
 degradation, that we set our sins to music, and, not content with 
 indulging them in secret, shout them joyfully forth to all who 
 will listen." Evidently he disapproved of the immoralities counten- 
 anced in the literature of his country, and aimed at a spiritual 
 reformation in this respect. His hymn on the Ascension is 
 affecting, but it wants faith in the " Comforter." 
 
 And dost Thou holy Shepherd, leave 
 Thine unprotected flock alone. 
 Here in this darksome vale, to grieve, 
 While Thou ascend'st Thy glorious throne? 
 
 Oh, where, can they their hopes now turn, 
 Who never lived but on Thy love"? 
 Where rest the hearts for Thee that burn, 
 When Thou art lost in light above ? 
 
 • 'Ecclesiastical Polity,' close of Book I. 
 
THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 How shall those eyes now find repose 
 That turn, in vain, Thy smile to see? 
 What can they hear save mortal woes. 
 Who love Thy voice's melody? 
 
 And who shall lay his tranquil hand 
 Upon the troubled ocean's might ? 
 Who hush the winds by his command ? 
 Who guide us through this starless night? 
 
 For Thou art gone ! — that cloud so bright. 
 That bears Thee from our love away, 
 Springs upwards through the dazzling light. 
 And leaves us here to weep and pray ! ' 
 
 Luis de Leon confined his prose writing exclusively to spiritual 
 subjects, and his sermons are " invariably mentioned in terms of 
 praise by Spanish writers, whenever they allude to the theological 
 literature of their country." ^ 
 
 Yet this was a man whom Inquisitors punished as a heretic, and 
 shut him up in darkness for five long years ! 
 
 The Plaza Mayor is in the heart of Valladolid, an open space 
 surrounded by shops under colonnades unworthy of note, one side 
 opening into a smaller square. Grand spectacles, bull-fights and the 
 like, here took place ; and when Valladolid was the seat of royalty 
 I should suppose it exhibited a very different appearance from 
 what it does now. 
 
 In this square, two autos were held — one on the 2ist of May, 
 1559, the other on the 28th of October the same year. I may 
 mention that a fire in 1561 destroyed a large portion of the neigh- 
 
 ' Ticknor, ii. 88. 
 
 == Bouterwek, ii. 253. HaUam ('Int. to Literature of Europe,' ii. 278) says, 
 " The best lyric poet of Spain, in the opinion of many, with whom I venture to concur, 
 was Fra Luis Ponce de Leon." If it be not presumptuous, I would say that in 
 this opinion I unite, so far as a limited knowledge of the history of Spanish literature, 
 chiefly founded on the study of Bouterwek, Sismondi, and Ticknor, enables me 
 to judge. 
 
VALLADOLID. 213 
 
 bourhood.^ On the first of these occasions now nnentioned, Don 
 Carlos, son of Philip II., Prince of Asturias, heir to the throne, 
 together with his aunt, the king's sister, appeared on the Plaza 
 Mayor in state amidst a blaze of Spanish grandeur, accompanied 
 by nobles and ladies of the highest rank. On the second occasion, 
 Philip himself, just arrived in the dominions he inherited from 
 his father, who had recently died at Yuste, gave additional 
 splendour to the scene, in this the city of his birth, for he entered 
 the world in a palace opposite San Pablo. To prevent revolting 
 repetition I shall only describe the victims at the first auto, 
 reserving an account of the whole ceremony for what I have to 
 say of the second. The names of certain Valladolid Protestants 
 have been given. Some of them were now amongst the condemned. 
 The mother of the Viberos was dead, but that did not release her 
 from the power of the Holy Office. An &^^ had been placed 
 upon a large deal box, and brought out into public view. The 
 effigy represented the lady, the box contained her remains, for she 
 was disinterred at last. As she herself was happily beyond the 
 reach of human tormentors, vengeance could be wrought only 
 upon the insensate clay which was wrapped in its winding-sheet. 
 The corpse was flung into the flames. Members of her family still 
 living were doomed to share in the penalty. Doctor Cazalla — 
 related to the family, and teacher of the Protestants at Valladolid — 
 with limbs dislocated by the rack, and crushed with terror, recanted 
 at first, buoyed up with the hope of life, but like Archbishop 
 Cranmer, he found no escape at the last moment. The night before 
 his execution a monk acquainted him with the final sentence. 
 "Well then," said the condemned one, according to some au- 
 thorities, when all prospect of life vanished, " 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." Yet, at the last moment, it is said 
 
 • The marriage of Philip II. and Isabel of France did not take place until after 
 these autos. 
 
2T4 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 by others, he did not break with the Church of Rome. He professed 
 himself a penitent, received absolution, and in return secured the 
 miserable benefit of being strangled before being burnt. His 
 confessor was so pleased that he said he had no doubt Cazalla had 
 gone to heaven.^ 
 
 There is a street in Valladolid still known as Calle del Doctor 
 Cazalla — the street of Doctor Cazalla ; once it bore the name Calle 
 del Rotulo de Cazalla, the street of Cazalla's label, or infamous 
 inscription, a building situated in that street being pulled down, and 
 the spot strewed with salt ; a marble column was erected over it 
 bearing this inscription — 
 
 tiienlJO la pgle.a 
 Homaa faulo 91F. p IRei 
 nantio en €0?" #teltp 11. 
 
 lEl ^anto^ficio lie la gnquisJicion tonlieno a tierrocac z 
 asfolar £0ta0 Ca^siass Be PeDro De Cajalla p 2Da l^eonor tie 
 Fi'bero 0u Slpuffei: porque lo0 jbereges UuteranoiS 0e jutitaban 
 a acec conciltabulo^ contra nfa ^ta fee cl)aa e i^V 1K,omaa glfio 
 tie apacmia^*, en %m. tie apapo. 
 
 Translation. — Paul IV. presiding in the Roman Cliuich, and Philip II. reigning 
 over Spain. The Holy Office of the Inquisition condemned these houses of Pedro de 
 Cazalla, and Doiia Leonor de Vibero his wife, to be demolished and razed, because the 
 Lutheran heretics assembled here in Conventicle against our holy Catholic faith and the 
 Roman Church. In the year 1559, on the 21st of May. 
 
 The column with its inscription was seen in the seventeenth 
 century by Fernando Texeda, of whom I shall have to speak in the 
 last chapter upon Spanish exiles, and in the eighteenth century by 
 Llorente ; in the present century Mr. Wiffen saw it in 1826, "the 
 characters," he says, "though engraved in marble, were almost ob- 
 
 ' The accounts of Dr. Cazalla's death are conflicting. I am unable to determine 
 which is most accurate. 
 
VALLADOLID. 215 
 
 literated by time." ^ The column was removed under the regency 
 of Espartero. 
 
 On comparing the inscription with the story told by Llorente 
 and others, it should be remembered that they speak of A ugustino 
 Cazalla as Doctor Cazalla ; but the Cazalla in the inscription is 
 Pedro Cazalla, and Dona Leonor de Vibero ; they were the parents 
 of Doctor Augustino Cazalla. The inscription relates only to the 
 place or places of meeting— ^-^^ houses of Pedro de Cazalla and 
 Doila Leonor de Vibero, whence the street appears to have been 
 originally named Calle del Rotulo de Cazalla, not Calle del Doctor 
 Cazalla. The connection of it with Dr. Augustino Cazalla seems 
 to be a popular mistake. It was the residence of Pedro not 
 Augustino Cazalla ; but there can be no doubt the latter officiated 
 within the walls of his father and mother's residence in religious 
 service. 
 
 Francisco de Vibero Cazalla, who had been a parish priest, was 
 another of the victims in the first of these autos. His tongue was 
 pierced with a piece of wood, so that he could not speak, but he 
 " remained constant in the open profession of his faith." ^ Antonio 
 Herezuelo also behaved heroically. Neither torture nor the fore- 
 sight of fire moved him in the least. The only thing he felt was 
 the sight of his wife dressed as a penitent, implying that she 
 recanted. But though reconciled and only imprisoned in 1559, 
 she openly confessed herself a Protestant, and was burnt in 1568. 
 •" The parting look of her husband never departed from her eyes." ^ 
 Pedro Cazalla, brother of Augustino, was burnt, as we shall see, at 
 the second auto in October, 1559. 
 
 Altogether the sufferers at this first auto were thirty in 
 number ; sixteen were reconciled, but imprisoned ; fourteen were 
 burnt — two alive, the rest after strangulation. The two who 
 
 ' Preface to ' Epistola Consolatoria,' by Juan Perez. 
 
 "^ Register appended to Skinner's translation of Montanus. See also Llorente, ii. 
 ^25. ' M'Crie, 290. 
 
2i6 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 felt the fire were Antonio Herezuelo and Francisco de Vibero 
 Cazalla. 
 
 The second auto was a grander occasion than the first, and 
 occurred, as I have said, on the 28th of October, 1SS9. 
 
 It began in the same square. A platform stood at one end 
 covered with rich carpets and decked with the Inquisition's heraldic 
 arms ; close by was a royal gallery, adorned, one may suppose, with 
 plenty of colour gilding and upholstery, for the delight of Spanish 
 eyes. A private entrance led to these reserved seats. A large 
 scaffold was erected opposite, where the condemned were to take their 
 place. At six o'clock in the morning, the city bells began to toll, 
 and a procession moved from the Holy Office in solemn state, 
 under the gaze of multitudes who could get near enough to see 
 anything. Soldiers rode or walked in front. Next followed 
 prisoners, first penitents who escaped death, next those who were 
 doomed to die. The former were bareheaded and wore a mantle 
 marked by a St. Andrew cross ; the second had mantles shaped 
 like the first, but marked with detestable devices.^ 
 
 Then followed the magistrates of the city in municipal robes, 
 the judges of the court in judicial costume, a train of dignitaries 
 and common priests in distinguishing vestments, and next a number 
 of knights on horseback in glittering armour. Robed officers of the 
 Inquisition had a standard of crimson damask borne before them, 
 displaying on its folds the arms of the Institution, and those of 
 Sixtus the Fifth, and Ferdinand of Aragon. Familiars, subordinate 
 officials, followed on horseback, accompanied by gentlemen proud 
 to show their loyalty to the Church. Behind pressed a motley 
 crowd — and at this ceremony as many as 200,000 ^ are reported to 
 have been present. An altar with a green cross upon it had 
 chairs on each side, where the secretaries sat. The Inquisitors took 
 their appointed seats ; the prisoners were conducted to a stage 
 consisting of several tiers of forms narrowing in length one above 
 ' See-page 157 of this Volume, chapter on Seville. ^ No doubt an exaggeration. 
 
W 
 
 a 
 o 
 
 H 
 
 & 
 
 <! 
 
VALLADOLID. 219 
 
 another. The royal box, opposite to that of the Inquisitors, was 
 filled. There sat Philip II., a widower, about to be married early 
 the next year to Isabella of France. Whether dressed in armour, 
 as in some of his portraits, or in gorgeous apparel, I do not know, 
 but the man himself is visible ; his face reveals his character, cold, 
 clever, cunning, no traits of goodness, a grizzly moustache and beard 
 harmonising with a mouth marked by cruel decision. His family 
 were with him, including his sister, Margaret of Parma, natural 
 daughter of Charles V., Regent of the Netherlands, a masculine 
 woman, to whom nature had given something of a beard ; Philip's 
 son, Don Carlos, whose history is mysterious, and his nephew 
 Alexander Farnese. In attendance, of course, were many prelates 
 and nobles of high rank. Foreign, ambassadors were also present. 
 
 Autos took place on Sundays and holy days only; and, to 
 stamp them with the more sanctity, the pope proclaimed an 
 indulgence of forty days to all who attended them. Sermons were 
 preached on these occasions ; and at the one now described, the 
 Bishop of Zanovia, some say the Bishop of Cuenca, officiated. 
 When he had concluded his discourse, he administered an oath 
 to the people in general, all bending down upon their knees. 
 Philip rose from his throne, drew his sword, as champion of the 
 Holy Office, and then took the oath administered to him by the 
 Grand Inquisitor. "Your, majesty,", said the latter, "swears by 
 the cross of the sword whereon your royal hand reposes, that you 
 will give all necessary favour to the Holy Office of the Inquisition 
 against heretics, apostates, and those who favour them, and will 
 denounce and inform against all those whoto your royal knowledge 
 shall act or speak against the faith;" 
 
 Philip answered, " I swear it." 
 
 Then sentences on the prisoners were read, upon which penitents, 
 who desired reconciliation, abjured their errors and were sent back 
 to prison. The steadfast, who were death-doomed, had ropes 
 put round their necks, and, holding inverted torches, were handed 
 
220 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 over to the secular power. The Church would not shed blood, 
 would not kindle flames ; the State was to do that sort of 
 work ; and as the Grand Inquisitor committed his victims to the 
 Corregidor of the city, he besoOght him to show all kindness 
 and mercy ! 
 
 There were thirty convicts this time — sixteen reconciled, four- 
 teen to be executed. 
 
 The scene of execution was not the Plaza Mayor. It was 
 somewhere outside the walls, on the Campo Grande. 
 
 The procession attendant on those who were now to be 
 sacrificed moved to the Quemadero, or burning-place. Whether 
 Philip and the court accompanied them is uncertain. One 
 authority says that the king witnessed the execution from a 
 window, heard the dying martyrs' cry, and enjoyed the spectacle; 
 but this account is not confirmed by another, who simply speaks 
 of his assisting at the auto, which was performed on the Plaza 
 Mayor. ^ 
 
 Don Carlos de Seso, so zealous and active in the cause 
 of the Reformation, stood at the head of the martyrs in 
 October, 1559. When he had been tried and condemned, he 
 called for pen and ink, and wrote as follows, "This is the true 
 faith of the Gospel as opposed to the Church of Rome, which 
 has been corrupted for ages. In this faith I wish to die, and in 
 remembrance and lively belief of the passion of Jesus Christ, to 
 offer to God my body now, reduced so low." Then he added a 
 confession of Reformed doctrines upon two sheets of paper : "penned 
 with uncommon vigour," says Llorente, who found the document 
 in the Archives of the Inquisition. When the gag De Seso wore 
 on his way from the Plaza Mayor was removed at the stake, 
 he exclaimed, as the friars besought him to confess, " I could 
 demonstrate to you that you ruin yourselves by not imitating my 
 example ; but there is no time. Executioners, light the pile that 
 
 ' Cited by M'Crie, 297. 
 
VALLADOLID. 221 
 
 is to consume me." ^ Domingo de Roxas, after some little vacilla- 
 tion, under torture, exclaimed, on his way to the pyre in the 
 Campo Grande, that he was ready to die for the defence of the 
 Gospel as taught by Luther. The records of the Inquisition say 
 that at the last moment he begged for a confessor, and having 
 received absolution was strangled : but Sepulveda, in his ' History 
 of Philip II,' states that De Roxas was one of those "who were 
 thrown alive into the flames because they persevered in error." ^ 
 An awful story is told of Juan Sachez, who leaped out of the 
 flames, and then, witnessing the heroism of De Seso, walked back, 
 saying he would die with him. Domingo Sanchez, a converted 
 priest, remained constant to the last. Pedro de Sotelo was burnt 
 after being strangled. Pedro de Cazalla, refusing to make con- 
 fession at the auto, was gagged ; but at the stake, a confessor 
 regarding him as penitent, caused him to be strangled. 
 
 Doiia Emphrosene Rios, Dona Catalina de Reinoso, both of 
 them already mentioned, together with Doiia Marina de Guevara, 
 sister in a Valladolid convent, were all burnt after strangulation. 
 Dona Marina Guevara, who had embraced Protestant doctrine, 
 after protracted examination showed pre-eminent magnanimity. 
 
 Sixteen victims were reconciled at the auto defe'oi May, 1569 : 
 
 ' Llorente, ii. 237. It is said by Colmenares, in his ' Historia de Segovia,' quoted 
 by Puiblanch, that Don Carlos de Seso reproached Philip on his way to execution ; -and 
 the same story is told of De Roxas. M'Crie urges that De Seso wore a gag, and that the 
 ■story is not true of him, but that it is of De Roxas. At all events, this is true, that one 
 of the martyrs did appeal to the monarch, and that his Majesty replied, "Yo traere 
 la lena para quemar a mi hijo, si fuere tan malo come vos.'' " I would carry the fagots 
 for the burning of my own son, if he were as bad as you." In the funeral sermon for 
 Philip II. by Augustus Davila, he quotes the very words, as a "famosa sentencia" 
 ( ' Sermones Funerales en las Honras de Felipe II. ; ' see Ticknor, iii. 236). This seems 
 to have been a royal mode of expression, as will appear when I have to speak of the 
 descendants of Philip II. in the chapter on Madrid. 
 
 ^ Llorente, ii. 239. ' De Rebus gestis Philippi II.,' Ub. ii., cap. xxvii. ; quoted by 
 M'Crie, 297. 
 
THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 and therefore were not delivered over to " the secular arm," as the 
 executors of a capital sentence were termed.^ 
 
 The sternness of Philip on the horrid occasion now described, 
 the absence of all pity, as he saw the victims of intolerance on the 
 way to execution, was no exceptional fact in his history, but of a 
 piece with his whole character and the general tone and spirit of 
 his reign. His treatment of heretics was in terrible harmony with 
 his conduct towards the unhappy Moriscos, and his desire to root 
 them out of the land for evermore. Their rebellion in Granada, 
 and the cruelties they inflicted upon their foes, inspire our indig- 
 nation ; but we must remember it was provoked by the previous 
 tormenting policy of the sovereign towards a race that had done 
 more for the civilization of Spain, more for its magnificence and 
 wealth than he and his government had ever attempted. 
 
 The burnings at Valladolid were not all over when the autos 
 of 1559 came to an end. Cypriana de Valera, in his ' Tractado de 
 los Papas,' relates a story which seems incredible but for the 
 infuriated detestation of Protestantism cherished by Spaniards. 
 He actually tells us that a father denounced his two daughters 
 
 ' De Castro gives a list of thirteen distinguished persons at Valladolid who were 
 branded with infamy, and lost their possessions : — 
 
 Don Pedro Sarmiento de Rojas. 
 Don Luis de Rojas. 
 Doiia Mencia de Figueroa. 
 Dona Ana Henriquez de Rojas. 
 Dona Maria de Rojas. 
 Dona Zuniga de Baeza. 
 Doiia Constanza de Verbero Cazalla. 
 Don Juan de Vibero Cazalla. 
 Dona Juana Silva de Ribera. 
 Isabel Minguez. 
 Anton Minguez. 
 Daniel de la Cuadra. 
 Don Juan de Ulloa Pereira. 
 Several of these noble persons are described as wearing the sanbenito. 
 
VALLADOLID. 223 
 
 as heretics, and caused them to be shut up in the dungeons of 
 the Inquisition — that he adopted all sorts of new expedients to 
 restore them to a confession of Catholic faith — and that as they 
 persevered in their Evangelical convictions, they were left in the 
 hands of the odious tribunal, which condemned them to perish 
 on the funeral pyre. The parent is represented as being such 
 a monster, that he cut fagots from a forest on his estate, and 
 brought them to the stake with his own hands.'' 
 
 Llorente makes no mention of this terrific incident, but 
 he refers to an auto in June, 1636, when twenty-eight were 
 condemned, including Jews, rogues, sorcerers, bigamists and 
 blasphemers. No Protestants are mentioned as being amongst 
 them,^ nor does it appear that the condemned were burnt. 
 Peculiar punishment was inflicted on Jews ; they, like the Moriscos, 
 were objects of special hatred to the Spanish people. Antipathies 
 arising out of a difference of race were added to those which 
 sprang from a difference of religion ; but, whilst we condemn 
 the Spanish for their cruel oppression, we must not forget what our 
 forefathers did in the days of Edward I., when five hundred Jews 
 were massacred, and the Old Jewry was burnt to ashes. 
 
 Besides those who died at the stake others were punished in 
 different ways. Don Juan de Ulloa Pereira, Commendator of the 
 Order of St. John at Jerusalem, was condemned, by the benignity of 
 his judges, to perpetual imprisonment, with a confiscation of his 
 property, the loss of his dignities, and the infamy of his name ; 
 but, by the intercession of friends, and the pope's favour, the 
 severity of his sentence was mitigated.^ 
 
 Seville and Valladolid may be described as the head-quarters 
 
 ' ' Dos Tractados del Papa i de la Misa, ' etc., reprinted in vol. viii. of the ' Reformistas 
 Antiguos Espanoles.' 
 
 ^ Llorente, iii. 466. He describes amongst the condemned, a nun of St. Catherine, 
 who seems to have been crazy. 
 
 ' Llprente, ii. 230. 
 
224 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 of the Spanish Reformation. Nowhere else did it strike its roots 
 so deeply into the soil, chiefly, however, amongst the upper classes, 
 the cultivated and the refined ; but elsewhere its principles were 
 diffused, and the effect is testified by contemporaries, friendly and 
 inimical. " A great number of persons belonging to the nobility," 
 says the Protestant Cyprian de Valera, " were condemned in Spain 
 on account of religion. There was scarcely a town or a village 
 or a distinguished family that did not include one or more who 
 were enlightened by the Gospel." ^ " In former times," says a 
 Roman Catholic historian, " the heretics imprisoned and burnt 
 were foreigners of low condition, but now-a-days those who are 
 of lofty rank and are superior for knowledge and virtue fill the 
 prisons and die in the flames. Their names should be respected 
 for the sake of their ancestry ; and no ignominy should attach to 
 the illustrious houses of which they were members. The number 
 of' them was so great that if a remedy had been deferred much 
 longer, all Spain would have been on fire." ^ 
 
 In concluding this chapter I may remark, that with these pro- 
 ceedings of the Inquisition Bouterwek connects the literature of 
 the drama in Spain. Speaking of the tragedy of ' Nise Laureada,' 
 based on the melancholy story of Inez de Castro, he says, " The 
 first act contains many beautiful passages, but when the last 
 judicial ceremonies commence, horror and disgust fill the mind of 
 the reader. The hearts of both culprits (Inez's murderers) are 
 extracted from their bodies, the one through the breast, the other 
 through the back. The most brutal exclamations accompany the 
 execution of the royal sentence ; and the chorus utters shouts of 
 joy while the executioner discharges his barbarous task. That 
 these horrors might be regarded as pathetic incidents by the 
 Spaniards of that age — accustomed as they were from early child- 
 hood to stifle every sentiment of humanity, and to allow fanatical 
 
 ■■ Valera's ' Preface to the Bible.' This appears to me an exaggerated statement. 
 * Gonzales de lUescas, ' Hist. Pontifical y Catolica.' Madrid, 1552. Cited by Castro. 
 
VALLADOLID. 225 
 
 exultation to overcome the natural emotions of the heart, when- 
 ever a brutal sentence was performed by ecclesiastical or royal 
 authority — is unfortunately but too probable. Had it not been 
 for this perversion of feeling, a people otherwise so noble-minded 
 could not have attended the cruel festivals of their Church, and 
 witnessed the burning of Jews and heretics with as much pleasure 
 as the exhibition of a bull-fight." ^ 
 
 ' History of Spanish Literature,' i. 302. 
 
226 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MADRID AND THE ESCORIAL. 
 
 It is now time to enter Madrid, and to tarry there awhile. It 
 is the centre from which we have made our historical excursions, 
 so as to disturb the chronological order of events as little as possible. 
 We have diverged considerably to the north, that due notice 
 might be taken of important incidents at Valladolid, which, next 
 to Seville, was the main scene of Reformatory achievements and 
 of patient suffering. It was not until after the great auto of 
 1559, that Philip II., as King of Spain, took up his abode first at 
 Madrid, and then at the Escorial, where we are presently to 
 trace his sanguinary career as the desperate antagonist of the 
 Reformation. The choice of such spots for his abode is the 
 wonder of most visitors, when they reflect on their dreary sur- 
 roundings, and feel the cutting winds which sweep through their 
 thoroughfares and their courts ; yet these circumstances do but 
 accord with what we know of the monarch's disposition and cruel 
 temper. 
 
 Charles V., his father, allowed Madrid, in 1554, to emblazon a 
 crown on its escutcheon ; whence it obtained the title of Imperial 
 y Coronada. Alonso Nunez de Castro, in 1658, proclaimed its 
 glories in a book entitled ' Solo Madrid es Corte ' — "The display in 
 it of the wealth of the hierarchy, and of some of the great military 
 orders, may well be called astounding." ^ 
 
 The present Royal Palace was begun by Philip V. in 1737, and 
 ' Tidtnor, ii. 295. 
 
MADRID AND THE ESCORIAL. 227 
 
 therefore does not connect itself with what was going on in the 
 sixteenth century, except that on the same site a royal residence 
 existed, reaching back to Moorish times ; for it is said that the 
 original outpost of the Moorish dominion stood on the spot, and 
 was occupied by Enrique IV. Whatever might be the building 
 in Philip II. 's time, so much of it as remained in 1734 was burnt 
 down by a fire on Christmas Eve, when the sovereign determined 
 on an entirely new structure which was to rival Versailles. But 
 he could not fully carry out his intention, and had to satisfy 
 himself with a smaller and less expensive edifice. 
 
 Philip II. removed the court from Valladolid to Madrid, and 
 resided here more or less, especially on state occasions, for several 
 years. 
 
 Aiitos for the burning of Protestants did not take place in 
 Madrid under Philip II., for the simple reason that during this early 
 period of the city's history no such persons were found within its 
 walls; so effectual did his repressive poHcy prove, so entirely did 
 he succeed, between 1559 and 1570, in stamping out within the 
 neighbourhood of his palace all sparks of disaff"ection to the majesty 
 of the Church. There are, however, traces of the struggle then 
 going on, visible in other things than blazing pyres and dark prisons. 
 In the departments of Art and Literature they are manifest. Signs 
 of Inquisitionary influence on the art of Spain can be discerned in 
 the enormous and bewildering picture gallery of Madrid, especially 
 if we take with us into the magnificent rooms the ' Handbook 
 of Painting ' for the Spanish schools, edited by Sir Edmund Head. 
 From that book curious lights will fall on the pictures touching 
 the subject to which I now refer. Roman Catholicism has tinged 
 much of the canvas with colours of its own. " The prevailing tone 
 of Spanish pictures is one of gloom and severity," " the whole result 
 expresses the characteristic spirit of Spanish religion, which united 
 the gloom of St. Dominic with the mystical fervour of St. Ignatius 
 or St. Teresa. Tendencies opposed to the Roman Catholic Church 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 were kept down by the constant pressure of the one Spanish 
 Institution — the Inquisition. I say the one Spanish Institution, 
 because it was the single common bond, I think, which united into 
 one monarchy all the scattered kingdoms and lordships which 
 make up Spain." " The zeal for purity of doctrine was maintained 
 at such a pitch that the royal authority found little difficulty in 
 carrying out at once its own interests and those of the Church." 
 These sharp-sighted remarks are fully borne out by the civil and 
 ecclesiastical annals of the country. 
 
 A singular example of the influence of the Church, through the 
 medium of the Holy Office and of the Jesuit Society, is afforded 
 in the observation on painting by Pacheco : " It will not appear 
 alien from my profession to point out to Christian painters the 
 method which they ought to pursue, more especially since I find 
 myself honoured with a particular commission from the Holy 
 Tribunal of the Inquisition, to denounce the errors committed in 
 pictures of this class by the ignorance or the wickedness of artists." 
 Pacheco cites the authority of the Holy Office to this effect : " If I 
 find anything to object to, I am to take the pictures before my lords 
 the Inquisitors, in order that they, having seen them, may take such 
 order as may be fitting therein." 
 
 Art was in bondage to the Inquisition — so was literature. Per- 
 mission to publish books had to be sought from the Holy Office, or 
 an immense deal of trouble and suffering fell to the lot of the 
 author. That Office persecuted even Roman Catholics. It would 
 be a great mistake to suppose that no piety existed in the Spanish 
 Church, and that no devout books issued from the Spanish press ; 
 but every volume, to secure wide circulation, needed the In- 
 quisition's imprimatur. 
 
 Juan de Avila, Luis de Leon, Luis de Granada, Quevedo, San 
 Juan de la Cruz, and Santa Teresa, and others of the same class, 
 were tormented by the Holy Fathers, through expurgations and 
 prohibitions which issued from that quarter. Popular writers not 
 
MADRID AND THE ESCORIAL. 229 
 
 only submitted to this authority, but supported and promoted it. 
 Lope de Vega ^ was himself one of the familiars, and Cervantes 
 joined a religious brotherhood in alliance with the "'one Spanish 
 Institution." 
 
 Most affecting is it to read what Ticknor, well qualified 
 to speak on the subject, has said in his 'History of Spanish 
 Literature.' 
 
 "The great purpose, therefore, of the government and the 
 Inquisition may be considered as having been fulfilled in the latter 
 part of the reign of Philip II., further, at least, than such a purpose 
 was ever fulfilled in any other Christian country, and further than 
 it is ever likely to be again fulfilled elsewhere. The Spanish nation 
 was then become, in the sense they themselves gave to the term, 
 the most thoroughly religious nation in Europe ; a fact signally 
 illustrated in their own eyes a few years afterward, when it was 
 deemed desirable to expel the remains of the Moorish race from the 
 Peninsula, and 600,000 peaceable and industrious subjects were, 
 from religious bigotry, cruelly driven out of their native country, 
 amidst the devout exultation of the kingdom — Cervantes, Lope de 
 
 ' As an illustration of the better side of this poet, read the following — translated by 
 Longfellow. 
 
 Lord, what am I, that with unceasing care, 
 
 Thou dost seek after me — that Thou didst wait, 
 
 Wet with unhealthy dews before my gate. 
 
 And pass the gloomy nights of winter there ? 
 
 O strange delusion ! that I did not greet 
 
 Thy blest approach, and oh to heaven how lost, 
 
 If my ingratitude's unkindly frost 
 
 Has chilled the bleeding wounds upon Thy feet. 
 
 How oft my guardian angel gently cried, 
 
 " Soul, from thy casement look, and thou shalt see 
 
 How He persists to knock and wait for thee ! " 
 
 And oh, how often to that voice of sorrow, 
 
 "To-morrow we will open," I replied. 
 
 And when to-morrow came, I answered still,' " To-morrow." 
 
230 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 Vega, and others of the principal men of genius then alive, joining 
 in the general jubilee." ^ 
 
 The literary consequences of the suppression of Protestantism in 
 Spain, the degradation entailed upon the generality of authors, and 
 the wretched taste perpetuated amongst the people, show what the 
 result of a like suppression would have been in England. Can we, 
 looking at the story of Spain, believe that if the policy of Philip 
 and Mary had been continued in this country ; that if the Queen of 
 Scots had ascended the English throne with a strong popish party at 
 her back ; that if fires in England had continued to burn as they did in 
 Spain ; or that, failing all this, if the Armada had done for England 
 what Philip earnestly desired, the current of our glorious literature 
 could have been what it is? If the Holy OfSce could have 
 established itself in London, if books could not have been printed 
 without the imprimatur of the Inquisition, where would have been 
 Hooker's ' Ecclesiastical Polity,' where would have been the writings 
 of Shakespere, where would have been Bacon's ' Novum Organum ' ? 
 
 Queen Elizabeth, in 1 567, had trouble with her brother in Spain, 
 as she was wont to call him. The English ambassador at Philip's 
 court had English worship in his house at Madrid ; but he was 
 forbidden to continue the practice, and his servants were compelled 
 to attend mass. 
 
 She wrote in consequence to the Spanish ambassador after 
 the following manner : " That since his servant's coming, she had 
 understood a matter very strange unto her, and not to be suffered : 
 which was, that all his household, being her natural subjects (his 
 own person only excepted), did resort to the common services of the 
 churches there, contrary to her laws and ordinances ; and were not 
 only compelled, but also by fear restrained from the exercise of any 
 common or private Divine service within his own house, agreeable 
 to her^laws. That she found this matter so inconvenient, as, con- 
 sidering what impunity and privilege the King of Spain's ambas- 
 ' ' History of Spanish Literature,' i. 428. 
 
MADRID AND THE ESCORT AL. 231 
 
 sador had here for his own servants (which also some thought he 
 enlarged, to serve the appetites of others) was not allowable. That 
 she thought meet to declare unto him, the said Spanish ambassador, 
 her great disliking hereof; and had required him to impart to the 
 king, her good brother, this misusage of the privilege that belonged 
 to him, as her ambassador, and to procure the speedy remedy 
 thereof. For otherwise she would not with such an inequality 
 suffer her minister to reside there." ^ 
 
 The Spanish ambassador professed to be ignorant of this usage, 
 and promised to write on the subject to his royal master. The 
 queen required that a remedy should be provided for the injustice 
 done, threatening to recall her own ambassador, if he were not 
 allowed the same liberty of worship in Madrid as she granted to 
 the Spanish ambassador in London.^ 
 
 After a faithful description has been given of persecutions 
 in Spain between 1559 and 1570; when Protestantism is seen 
 almost extinguished to the south of the Pyrenees, a light broader 
 and more intense falls on the general subject before us, when we 
 turn to look at the steady and persistent policy which Philip II. 
 pursued towards the Reformed faith of the Netherlands. 
 
 The king's home may be said to have been at Madrid from his 
 accession till he removed to the Escorial in 1577 ; and from 1559 — 
 when the fires were kindled in the campos of Valladolid and 
 Seville, until his removal to an abode which was at once a palace 
 and a convent — his busy brain tasked itself day and night to stay 
 the flood which kept rising higher and higher all over the Low 
 Countries. 
 
 ' ' Strype's Annals,' i. 543. 
 
 ^ In the Catalogue of Spanish MSS. in the British Museum, there is notice of 
 much MS. correspondence respecting affairs of the Inquisition, and special mention is 
 made of letters and papers relating to the case of Richard Rolls and Edward Squier, 
 Englishmen converted to Romanism, and who being secluded in a convent made their 
 Escape, v/ith the petition of the said Enghshmen to be allowed to return to England, 
 May, June, IS97- 
 
232 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 One of the first things he did was to revive an earHer edict forbid- 
 ding anyone to print, copy, sell, buy or conceal any book by Martin 
 Luther, or any other heretic, which the Church had repudiated ; 
 or to injure holy images, or attend conventicles, or dispute con- 
 cerning Scripture, or entertain heretical opinions; so minute were 
 the meshes of the drag-net, that it firmly held within its compass 
 every one caught, however small his religious offence might happen 
 to be. Sword and fire v/ere threatened against every man, and 
 burial alive against every woman, convicted of disaffection to the 
 Church, she being represented as the loving mother of them all. 
 To help on the conversion of heretics, new bishops and Inquisitors 
 were appointed, and additional armed forces were levied and sent 
 out to back these spiritual endeavours. The bow was bent till it 
 broke. In 1562 two victims were about to be offered in the 
 market-place of Brussels. One of them exclaimed, "O Eternal 
 Father!" when a multitude of spectators — unlike those in Spain,, 
 being men and women in sympathy with the sufferers — dashed 
 against the barriers round the pyre, and seizing the blazing brands 
 wildly flung them in all directions, and put a stop to the burning 
 for that day. People chanting psalms went about the streets, 
 encouraging their neighbours to assail with vigour this accursed 
 despotism. The prisoners escaped, and the crisis was named the 
 day of the ill burning. A civil war ensued. Battle after battle was 
 fought. Siege after siege was laid ; Philip's soldiers were repulsed 
 at Bois-le-duc ; Antwerp was saved by the Prince of Orange ; the 
 Duke of Alva appeared on the field ; then naval forces were raised 
 by patriot Protestants. Leyden stood out heroically against Spain, 
 and in the last extremity, the Prince of Orange came to the rescue, 
 opened the dykes, raised the sluices, and swept away the enemy's 
 camp. Then came the Pacification of Ghent, followed by the 
 government of John of Austria, Philip's half-brother, who failed 
 to i-educe the country again under Spanish sway. The people were 
 resolved on breaking the tyrant's yoke, and they did it effectually. 
 
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MADRID AND THE ESCORIAL. 235 
 
 raising out of a miserable Spanish province the noble republic of 
 the European United Provinces. 
 
 All this — from year to year, from month to month, from day 
 to day, down to 1577 — Philip, from his palace in Madrid, watched 
 with calmness and inflexibility, never desponding, hopeful to the 
 last, though final defeat was not far off. 
 
 Some time before that came, he moved to his new convent 
 palace, there to prolong operations upon the Netherlands, and to 
 commence others against England as well. 
 
 We must visit the Escorial. 
 
 The situation of the Escorial is wild and desolate — a vast 
 expanse of rocky undulations, scarcely to be called mountainous, 
 except in the distance, where snow-streaked sierras send cutting 
 blasts over the slate roofs and against the grey stone walls : 
 the building itself looks like a manufactory, at best like spacious 
 barracks, one may think it something between a prison and a 
 convent — or rather a combination of the two ; at any rate, its cold, 
 stern, repulsive exterior is a fair type of the builder's character and 
 influence. The only objects of much interest, and they are in 
 truth most melancholy, one finds in the monkish apartments, the 
 monastic chapel, and the costly sepulchre of the founder and 
 his family. A long narrow room is shown with brick floor, and 
 leathern chairs, where he dined. Next to it is another, only 
 separated by folding doors, from which, when open, the despot 
 borrowed the light by which he wrote his despatches. In this 
 room is a plain oak table, with three brass ink bottles on one side, 
 and a velvet writing-case in the middle : these, with the leather- 
 bottomed chair on which he sat, are carefully preserved. From 
 this room you pass into a third, low and dark, a mere cell, whence 
 through an opening in the wall the altar of the monastery chapel 
 may be seen ; there he spent his last hours, after being, like his 
 prototype Herod, smitten by an angel of the Lord, and eaten 
 up of worms ; no death could be more horrible. That chapel 
 
236 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 is an enormous marble building, most costly, most dreary ; 
 and into one corner of the coro, he would sometimes steal, to 
 perform his devotions with the Jeronymite brotherhood. The 
 sepulchre is under the high altar, and is reached by a slippery 
 marble staircase ; and round the sides of the vault are placed 
 sarcophagi, one above another, Charles V. occupying the topmost 
 position, and Philip being placed under his father. The dismal- 
 ness of the spot is unrelieved by any emblem or suggestion of 
 Christian hope : not even such a ray falls over it as that which 
 lighted up the mind of the heathen Cicero, when he spoke of 
 meeting in the future life an assembly of noble souls. 
 
 The first stone of the monastery was laid by Philip II. on 
 the 23rd of April, 1563 ; the first stone of the church on the 20th 
 of August following. The work went on, and the palace was fit 
 for the reception of royalty in 1577. Just after that time, a fire 
 broke out, which threatened to destroy the building ; but the 
 flames were extinguished, though not without difficulty, and after 
 some partial injury had been done. What the royal builder 
 lamented most was the loss of precious relics consumed in the 
 conflagration ; but the recovery of a piece of the true cross, and 
 of St. Lawrence's right arm, proved a great solace. Between the 
 two years just mentioned, 1563 and 1577, a bereavement had 
 occurred in the royal family — the death of Philip's son Don Carlos, 
 whose name has been interwoven with the history of the 
 ^ Reformation. 
 
 He was suspected of heresy whilst he was living, and De Castro 
 has endeavoured, I think most unsuccessfully, to prove that he was 
 a Protestant. His life was made up of the strangest conduct which 
 can be imagined, and it ended in a painful tragedy. On numerous 
 occasions he acted as one thoroughly mad, and was ultimately 
 accused of a plot against his father's life. The whole of his life is 
 wrapped in mystery, and it would be quite out of place to attempt 
 any elucidation of it here. The State papers bearing on ^the 
 
MADRID AND THE ESCORTAL. 237 
 
 circumstances are not to be found, and numerous theories to 
 account for his character and his fate have been devised by- 
 ingenious historians. Some have thought that intrigues went on 
 between him and Isabella, his step-mother, Philip's wife, who 
 had been originally selected as a bride for the youth ; but I find no 
 satisfactory proof whatever of improprieties between them. Nor 
 can the charge of a plot against his father be substantiated, much 
 less the assertion that the youth was a Protestant. That he did 
 not think as his father did respecting theological questions is more 
 than probable. He was, however, very unlikely to have troubled 
 himself about them at all, though I judge it likely that he could 
 not accept the dogmas he had been taught, and did not like the 
 antos he had witnessed.'^ 
 
 Philip, after he took up his abode in the Escorial, went on with 
 his old work, striving to crush the Reformation wherever he could. 
 In that cell-like apartment which I have described, seated at his 
 desk, on his leather-bottomed chair, he laboured with all the 
 assiduity of a common clerk who earns his bread by the number 
 of folios for which he is paid. " He did four times the amount of 
 work here, says a Jeronymite (Siguenca), that he did in the same 
 number of days in the capital. He used to boast that thus hidden 
 from the world with a little bit of paper he ruled over both 
 hemispheres." ^ 
 
 Philip's designs on the Reformation in our own country are of the 
 
 ' "De Castro labours hard,'' says Prescott (' Life of Philip II.' ii. 501), " to prove 
 that Don Carlos was a Protestant. If he fails to establish the fact, he must be allowed 
 to have shown that the prince's conduct was such as to suggest great doubts of his 
 orthodoxy among those who approached the nearest to him." I think De Castro does 
 fail to establish the fact that Don Carlos was a Protestant, but I fully concur with 
 Prescott in the latter part of his opinion. To show that a man is not a Roman Catholic 
 is insufficient to prove that he is a Protestant. He may be an unbeliever altogether. 
 There is an elaborate life of Don Carlos and Philip II., by M. Gachard, who cites 
 different opinions respecting the death of the former. His own opinion is that Philip did 
 not put his son to death by direct means, but that he hastened it by cruel treatment. 
 
 ^ Prescott's ' History of the Reign of Philip II.,' iii. 391. 
 
238 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 greatest interest to English readers. At an early period he began 
 to lay plans which issued in his ill-fated Armada. 
 
 Criticism on this mad project would be out of place, but I 
 cannot help quoting what Motley says, " Perhaps in the history of 
 mankind there has never been a vast project of conquest conceived 
 and matured in so protracted, and yet so desultory a manner as 
 was this famous invasion."^ We are often surprised at the want 
 of common prudence betrayed by common criminals, in their 
 cunning schemes for working out abominable ends ; but their folly 
 is surpassed by this stupendous culprit in his designs upon the 
 temporal and spiritual liberties of mankind. Faith in himself 
 betrayed him into all sorts of blunders. He sent out his Armada 
 as if to a water frolic rather than an enterprise equally daring and 
 difficult. What became of the expedition despatched in a fit 
 of insanity, to finish his war upon Protestantism by conquering 
 England, I need not tell. Yet the Spaniards were as mad as their 
 monarch. They counted on victory with the proudest hope, the 
 wildest confidence, and people went about Madrid singing the 
 following ballad. 
 
 "And Bartolo, my brother, 
 To England forth is gone, 
 Where the Drake he means to kill ; 
 And the Lutherans, every one. 
 Excommunicate from God, 
 Their queen among the first, 
 He will capture and bring back, 
 Like heretics accurst. 
 And he promises, moreover, 
 Among his spoils and gains, 
 A heretic young serving-boy. 
 To give me, bound in chains ; 
 And for my lady grandmamma, 
 ■Whose years such waiting crave, 
 A little handy Lutheran, 
 To be her maiden slave."" 
 
 Motley, ' United Netherlands,' ii. 463. '■' Ticknor, ii. 171. 
 
MADRID AND THE ESCORIAL. 239 
 
 Hatred of Protestantism prevailed generally amongst the 
 Spanish people, and Lope de Vega in his poems expressed the 
 popular sentiment in this respect. Sir Francis Drake, as the 
 ballad just quoted shows, was an object of intense antipathy. 
 When he died, in 1 596, the event inspired Lope's ' La Dragontea.' 
 The poet rejoiced that the Dragon, as he calls the English captain, 
 had been taken out of the world, in answer to Christian prayer, and 
 that the " scarlet lady of Babylon," as he terms Queen Elizabeth, 
 had been at last defeated. 
 
 The efforts of Philip to destroy the Reformation signally failed. 
 He aimed at restoring the Church of Rome to the position it held 
 before Martin Luther's time ; but, whatever the temporary success 
 attendant on his policy, he was in the long run beaten at every 
 point. The Netherlands he made a frantic endeavour to Romanize 
 from end to end ; he would fain have swept out of the country 
 every vestige of Protestantism, but the end of all he did was to 
 drive the people into an attitude of invincible resistance ; to root the 
 new faith more firmly in their hearts ; to cause it to grow to a 
 loftier height and to extend so broad a shadow, that under it 
 they found shelter through coming centuries. And thence the 
 Pilgrim Fathers were destined to go forth, and found an unexampled 
 Commonwealth in another hemisphere. He made a political 
 blunder whilst committing a moral crime ; for he forfeited the 
 allegiance of his northern subjects, cut off the Low Countries from 
 the Spanish realm, and not only curtailed his empire, but struck 
 a deadly blow at its commercial prosperity. England he sought to 
 bring back to the dominion of 'the pope, to neutralise all that had 
 been done by Tyndale, Latimer and others, to snatch the crown 
 from Elizabeth and to set up a Catholic dynasty in her room ; but 
 the upshot of his plans was to help the cause he laboured to 
 destroy. He divorced in this island patriotism from popery, he 
 caused the latter to appear in the eyes of honest Englishmen as 
 the enemy of their country, seeing that it equipped a proud 
 
240 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 Armada to invade its shores ; and he caused patriotism, rising 
 in renewed strength, to strike a treaty of, everlasting friendship 
 with Protestantism as the best defender of national independence. 
 He made popery more than ever hateful, thus driving home the 
 lesson taught by the fires which he and his unhappy wife had 
 kindled in Smithfield and throughout the kingdom. Spain and 
 popery became identical : England and Protestantism wholly one. 
 Philip's policy made our seamen braver than they had ever been, 
 and the seizure of many a Spanish galleon was the forfeit paid for 
 Philip's madness. The inspiration of righteous resentment for that 
 great wrong continued to move our fathers' hearts throughout the 
 seventeenth century, and to quicken by its breath the policy of 
 Oliver Cromwell, who was the terror of Spain and Rome. In the 
 Peninsula, for a long sad time, it is true, Philip's anti-Protestant 
 designs appeared wholly to prosper. The Roman Catholic religion 
 had the whole field to itself — with what intellectual, political and 
 moral results, the history of the two hundred years after his time 
 tells. Though Roman Catholicism has still a strong hold on Spain, 
 two institutions which Philip regarded as the main props of his system 
 have fallen under the assaults of modern civilisation — the Inqui- 
 sition and the monastery. The Inquisition is no more, and modern 
 Spaniards, including many a Roman Catholic, point with horror to 
 the cqmpos where hecatombs of victims were offered to the Moloch 
 of intolerance.^ Convents are comparatively few and far between. 
 
 If any two things were thought by Philip essential to the success 
 of his plans, they were those just mentioned, and he would have 
 regarded their destruction as the extinguishment of his hopes. 
 
 1 Motley, in his ' History of the United Netherlands' (iii. 517), justly remarks, " Spain 
 was not a nation, but a temporary and factitious conjunction of several nations, which it 
 was impossible to fuse into a permanent whole, but whose united resources a single 
 monarch for a time disposed. And the very concentration of these vast and unlimited 
 powers, portentous as it was, in this single hand, inspiring the individual, not un- 
 naturally, with the consciousness of superhuman grandeur, impelled him to those frantic 
 and puerile efforts to achieve the impossible which resulted in the downfall of Spain." 
 
MADRID AND THE ESCORIAL. 241 
 
 There was a curious contrivance of his to check the Reforma- 
 tion which is commonly overlooked. He threw a network over 
 the ocean as well as over the land. The pope granted a bull, in 
 July, 1571, sanctioning the appointment of a Commissary-General 
 in every sea-port in the Peninsula, to require an official declaration 
 from all shipmasters, before they set sail, that they had no 
 heretical wares on board their vessels. Cadiz, in particular, was 
 a place for such operations, and the reverend fathers, with their 
 attendants, might be seen on the quays of that port, looking after 
 the freights which were shipped, and exacting the required 
 <;ertificates. At a subsequent period we discover the same general 
 policy carried out in a treaty between the King of Spain and 
 James I., King of England, Any Englishman coming into the 
 Spanish kingdom was not to be held accountable for any anti- 
 Roman Catholic acts previously committed by him elsewhere, nor 
 was he to be compelled to attend on the worship of the country ; 
 but if he did enter a sacred edifice he was required to do homage 
 to the Holy Sacrament, and if he met the Host as it was carried 
 through the streets, he was to fall down on his knees before it, or in 
 some way escape from the pathway of the procession. If the 
 officers of ships should commit any excess, whatever the elastic 
 word might mean, and the Holy Office proceeded against them for 
 such offence, their own goods were to be sequestered in conse- 
 quence ; the property of others on board being graciously 
 exempted from forfeiture.^ 
 
 Before I leave that part of my subject which relates to 
 Philip n., may I be allowed to observe that it is natural to suppose 
 that in carrying out his extended policy he habitually acted in 
 harmony with the pontiffs of Rome ? This was, however, by 
 no means the case. Philip H. sent a letter to the Princess 
 Juana, July 10, 1556, written from England, and speaks of 
 Protestant sects there, saying they were being reduced to the 
 ' Win wood's ' Memorials, ' ii. 29, JO. 
 
 R 
 
■ THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 obedience of the Church ^ " by being castigated ; " then he tells her 
 " that no attention should be paid to the papal interdict, for it was 
 unjust and without foundation." ^ He and the popes were often 
 at variance. The one to whose interdict he refers in this communi- 
 cation was John Peter Caraffa, Paul IV. ; with Felix Peritti, 
 Sixtus v., he also, though not to the same extent, came into 
 collision. The pope insisted on the revocation of certain articles 
 in a pragmatic sanction which Philip maintained. He told the 
 king " that no offence was more displeasing to God than to usurp 
 ecclesiastical jurisdiction, as was proved by all sacred and profane 
 history." He conjured his majesty to abandon ecclesiastical 
 control over bishops, archbishops, and cardinals. '' It was," he 
 said, " a great offence. Do not believe those who give contrary 
 counsel. Rather believe me, whom God has given for a spiritual 
 father, and believe the Church which is your mother, and obedience 
 to her is necessary to salvation." ^ Nor were their views with 
 regard to Queen Elizabeth the same. Philip was_for crushing the 
 sister of his deceased wife ; Sixtus preferred a gentle method, 
 hoping for her conversion. The former with an iron will prepared 
 and carried out the Armada enterprise : the latter vacillated, 
 according as he received intelligence from Madrid and from 
 England. Philip had his eye on the English crown for himself - 
 Sixtus did not wish him to have so wide a dominion,* for 
 
 ' Philip's persecuting policy appears from the whole history of his life ; but we find a 
 remarkable passage in Strype relative to a sermon listened to by him whilst in England : 
 " February loth (1554), being Sunday, Alphonsus, a. Spanish Greyfriar, preached before 
 the king ; and in his sermon inveighed against the bishops for burning of men j saying 
 that they leai-ned it not in Scripture to put any to death for conscience, but, on the 
 contrary, rather to let them live and be converted." Strype's ' Memorials,' iii. 209. This 
 friar was Philip's confessor. See Prescott's remarks on this^incident, ' History of the 
 Reign of Philip II.' 
 
 ^ ' Coleccion Diplomatica,' Madrid, 1809. No. 4. 
 
 ' ' Sixte-Quint d'apres des Correspondances Diplomatiques inedites, tirees des 
 archives d'Etat du Vatican, de Simaucas, deVenise, de Paris, de Vienneetde Florence,'" 
 par M. le Baron de Hubner, i. 365. * Ibid. 357. 
 
MADRID AND THE ESCORIAL. 243 
 
 he entertained modern ideas as to the balance of power. Ranke, 
 however, represents Philip as tardy in his preparations for the 
 Armada, and Sixtus as irritated by Philip's delay ; ^ in either view 
 of the case, a want of harmony between the prince and the pontiff 
 is apparent. It comes out still more strongly in an account of the 
 Spanish envoy's interview with the pope. He protested in his 
 master's name against the papal conduct. Sixtus told him it was 
 heresy to act in that way, and would not allow him to proceed. 
 The ambassador knelt and persisted in his entreaties, the pontiff 
 called him " a stone of offence," and left the room, declaring that 
 no earthly prince had a right to school one whom God had set over 
 all other men.^ 
 
 After Philip's death, a letter from Sir Charles Cornwallis, dated 
 Madrid, April 19th, 1608, discloses another example of Spanish 
 interference with the liberty of English subjects. "There hath 
 lately been apprehended by the Office of Inquisition at Aya- 
 monte, and conveyed to Syvill (Seville), one Thomas Ferres, a 
 merchant, whose brothers in London, I suppose, are not unknown 
 to some of your lordships. His trouble, as himself supposeth, 
 groweth out of the malice of a friar of our nation, resident in that 
 town ; who, prevailing not to draw him to subscribe ^to a form of 
 a confession and oath (the copy thereof I send here enclosed), hath, 
 as it seems, either by himself or some other of that malignant 
 condition, procured him to be accused to the Inquisitors. These, 
 like hungry hawks, have been easily induced to seize upon so 
 pleasing a prey ; having not only laid their talons upon his person, 
 but upon his goods." ^ Ferres was shut up in a dungeon for six 
 months at least, and was set at liberty only through the resolute 
 interposition of the ambassador. The sufferer managed to recover 
 his property a fortnight afterwards. The Jesuits threatened the 
 
 ' 'History of the Popes,' ii. 169. 
 
 » Ibid. ii. 218. 
 
 ^ Winwood's ' Memorials of Affairs of State,' ii. 347. 
 
 R 2 
 
24+ THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 Inquisitor-General, for not preventing this interference of the civil 
 power, and the royal court, with the higher prerogatives of the 
 spiritual tribunal. 
 
 Autos de fi were witnessed in Madrid after Philip II.'s time. 
 One was held on the accession of Philip IV. to the throne, in 1621 ; 
 but no Protestant was burnt. A nun, however, was led forth, 
 in a sanbenito, with a gag in her mouth, to receive two hundred 
 lashes for heresy — so a contract she is said to have made with Satan 
 is strangely described. Heresy sunk lower in the scale of guilt 
 than vice. 
 
 A Franciscan monk expelled successively from two religious 
 houses on a charge of heresy, one day, in a frantic fit, seized the 
 consecrated Host from a priest's hands and destroyed it before his 
 face. For this inexcusable act he had of course to answer before 
 the Inquisition, and was pronounced by that authority to be a 
 Lutheran and a Calvinist — a very confused kind of description. He 
 underwent the sentence of death by fire, the poor man being burnt 
 alive, in 1623. Lope de Vega officiated on the occasion, and 
 directed the ghastly ceremonies. Four years afterwards the poet 
 wrote the ' Corona Tragica ' on the fate of Mary, Queen of Scots, 
 whom he glorified as a martyr, and, at the same time, denounced 
 Queen Elizabeth as a Jezebel and an Athaliah, who ought not to 
 have been spared by King Philip when he had her in his power.^ 
 
 The spots connected with the autos de fi in Madrid are easily 
 identified. The Plaza Mayor, not far from the Puerta del Sol, or 
 Gate of the Sun, was the scene of preliminaries before the burning. 
 The square is different now from what it was at the commence- 
 ment of the seventeenth century ; but the magnificent statue of 
 Philip III. on horseback existed there in 1616; pulled down by 
 the Red Republicans in 1 873, it has been replaced in its original 
 position, and looks very majestic in the midst of the beautiful 
 garden laid out in the noble area. That is between 400 and 500 
 
 ' Ticknor, ii. 187. 
 
w 
 
 K 
 
MADRID AND THE ESCORIAL. 247 
 
 feet long, and between 300 and 400 feet broad. It was the 
 place for public spectacles before the garden was planted ; and 
 here our Charles I., when visiting Madrid, was entertained by the 
 exhibition of a bull-fight. " By a clause in their leases, the inmates 
 of houses were bound on these occasions to give up their front 
 rooms and balconies, which were then fitted up as boxes. The 
 royal seat was prepared on the part called La Panaderia." ^ 
 
 In this plaza the autos of 162 1, 1623, 1632, were held. Fifty- 
 three victims were condemned at the auto of 1632,^ when the king 
 was present with his family. Seven of the condemned were 
 burnt in person, and four in effigy, while forty-two, nearly all 
 Portuguese Jews, were reconciled. One of these Israelites and his 
 wife were proprietors of a house they had used for a synagogue, 
 and on that account the building was razed to the ground. In 
 1869 excavations were being made on the spot, when a little 
 below the surface a black layer was discovered, found to consist of 
 charred wood, bones, chain-links, nails and rivets. There could be 
 no doubt what those relics meant. Among them were two bony 
 hands clasped in the attitude of prayer, and a spear was seen 
 protruding from a mass of bones. " Shortly after the discovery," 
 says Dr. Manning, " I visited the spot, and, much as I had heard of 
 the horrors of the Quemadero, I was not prepared for the sight I 
 beheld ; layer above layer, like the strata in a geological model, were 
 these silent but most eloquent witnesses to the : murderous cruelty 
 of Rome." * I went to the same place, near the Hospital de la 
 Princesa, and found the streaks which Dr. Manning mentions still 
 distinctly visible. And I may add, in further identification of 
 localities connected with Spanish persecution, that on visiting my 
 friend, the Rev. Mr. Jameson— a Presbyterian minister, who is 
 carrying on efficient missionary work in Madrid — I found that the 
 
 ' Ford's ' Handbook,' sixth edition, 40. 
 ^ Misprinted 1522 in Llorente, iii. 465. 
 ^ ' Spanish Pictures drawn with Pen and Pencil.' 
 
248 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 chapel in which he preaches — and that in which Episcopalian v/orship 
 is conducted under the ministry of the Rev. Mr. Whereat, Chaplain 
 to the British Embassy —really form part of a larger edifice, 
 which once constituted an office where the Inquisition carried 
 on its proceedings. I went down into long subterranean passages 
 and recesses, not looking like cells, but connected with places 
 now walled up, which were no doubt used for Inquisitionary 
 purposes. The number of Protestants, properly speaking, burnt at 
 Madrid, I cannot ascertain ; but I conclude, from such specific 
 instances as are given by Llorente, that they must have been few 
 compared with other victims, such as Jews and people accused of 
 sorcery. The reason is plain enough, Protestantism did not gain a 
 footing in the Spanish metropolis as it did in the cities of Seville 
 and Valladolid. 
 
 The Inquisition claimed an independence which Philip IV. was 
 by no means prepared to concede. In the year 1633, he wrote to 
 De Castro, the Inquisitor-General, in the following strains : — " My 
 principal care and obligation have been, and always will be, the 
 increase and preservation of our Holy Catholic faith, in which care 
 the Holy Office and its ministers are occupied with a well-known 
 devotedness and vigilance. And because they need my sanction 
 and protection, in order that they may proceed with the authority 
 that is desirable, I have ordained, conformably with what the kings 
 my predecessors have done, to reserve to myself all the causes and 
 matters of the Inquisitions of this kingdom which in any way 
 concern it ; and of which it is I who must render an account, 
 without permitting them to be discussed in any other council or 
 junta whatsoever. For my pleasure is, that such matters be 
 immediately submitted to myself only, by you, through the Count 
 Duke of St. Lucar, whom I have named to this effect, that he may 
 answer and despatch in such manner as may be most convenient, 
 without the intervention of any other minister or tribunal ; and 
 that, if there be not present in my court any minister deputy for 
 
MADRID AND THE ESCORIAL. 249 
 
 the Inquisitors, you remit the papers that may be wanted to Diego 
 Suarez, my Secretary of State in the Council of the Crown, who 
 resides with me, and who is also Secretary of the Holy Office, that 
 he may pass them to the Count Duke." '• 
 
 This is a very important document, and throws light on a conflict 
 often occurring between the civil and spiritual powers in Spain. 
 But it must not be imagined that Philip IV. was opposed to the 
 principle of the Inquisition, that he had any notion of what we call 
 religious liberty. He was a determined persecutor. On being 
 asked as a matter of form for permission to thrust one of his 
 ministers of state into the Inquisition, he gave it, and added as a 
 voluntary protestation, that if his own son were guilty he would 
 give him up with an equally good will. His son, "Balthazar was 
 then alive, and a child he passionately loved." ^ The fourth Philip 
 walked in the footsteps of the second, and only resisted the Inquisi- 
 tion when he thought it trenched on his own absolute authority. 
 
 An auto makes its appearance at Madrid in 1688, under 
 circumstances which indicate, how popular still was- the brutal 
 display, and how thoroughly it accorded with the temper of the 
 nation. A " relacion " of it is published, whence it appears that on 
 the morning of June the 30th, at seven o'clock, the ceremony 
 commenced, and was not over till the next morning at nine ; the 
 king and queen sitting to witness the spectacle for fourteen hours. 
 Eighty-five grandees acted as familiars of the Holy Office, and the 
 king sent with his own hands the first faggot to the pile. Twenty- 
 one persons were burnt alive, on what account I do not know ; 
 altogether one hundred and fifty were paraded as penitents. 
 
 The despotism and cruelty of the Inquisition, in principle 
 sanctioned and promoted by the crown, continued through the 
 seventeenth century down to the middle of the eighteenth. Philip 
 v., " as he grew oldei', grew more bigoted." At first he thought of 
 suppressing the Holy Office; but at last "he seemed to rejoice as 
 • Rule's ' History of the Inquisition,' 203. " Ticknor, iii. 236. 
 
250 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 much as any of his predecessors in devoting the whole of his 
 prerogatives to advance the interests of the priesthood." ^ 
 
 In connection with the bigotry of Philip V., it may be mentioned 
 that in his reign the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, 
 countenanced in 1617 by papal bull, prevailed throughout Spain. 
 " It penetrated," says Ticknor, " the whole people ; " and he adds, 
 " I remember that if one peasant met another, or entered another's 
 cottage in Spain in 1 818, he would say, by way of salutation, Ave 
 Maria purissima ; to which the one addressed made answer Sin 
 pecado concebida""^ 
 
 In concluding this chapter, let it be remembered that through- 
 out its existence the Inquisition, established professedly for 
 preserving the faith of the Church, was applied really and very 
 often for different purposes. If a man became politically, 
 socially, or personally obnoxious, it was easy enough to make him 
 pay a penalty for it through help from the Holy Office. An 
 informer had only to trump up a charge of heresy, and the object 
 of revenge was accomplished at once. Some word hastily spoken, 
 some act thoughtlessly performed, some sympathetic or pitiful 
 feeling kindly expressed in reference to one under the Church's 
 ban, had but to be reported in the proper quarter, and the accused 
 disappeared from his home, and soon found himself a prisoner in 
 some secret cell. If a conviction of heresy could not be secured — ■ 
 and very slender grounds sufficed for the purpose — a long 
 detention, much suffering, great expense, and not a little disgrace, 
 would be endured by an innocent neighbour, to the iniquitous 
 gratification of a private enemy. 
 
 ' Ticknor, iii. 276. ^ Ibid. iii. 277. 
 
( 2SI ) 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 LOGRONO AND ZARAGOZA. 
 
 LOGRONO, by a detour, may be glanced at on our way to 
 Zaragoza. It is a town of little importance, built on the banks of 
 the Ebro, amidst a rich plain spreading out to Navarre, Alava and 
 Old Castile. It has a corn-mirket, maintains considerable , traffic, 
 and is on the whole rather a prosperous place. A Gothic church 
 with two spires, dedicated to Santa Maria la Redonda, is said to 
 have been built by the Emperor Constantine ; and this, no doubt, 
 is quite as worthy of behef as many other Spanish traditions. A 
 Dominican, San Juan de Ortega, was a pontifex maximiis ; and he 
 built not only the bridge at Logrofio, but bridges elsewhere. San 
 Formedio is another celebrity and patron. He milked, it is said, 
 lions, tigers and bears, and with the milk made cheeses for the poor 
 by angelic authority.^ Whatever may be the superstition now, it 
 cannot be less than it was in the sixteenth century, when the 
 Inquisition reigned in glory, laying cruel hands on Jews, Moors, 
 and heretics. Logrofio had its annual auto de fi, and witnessed 
 the punishments of several Lutherans. In 1568, Inquisitorial zeal 
 was stirred up afresh by rumours of heretical books bi'ought over 
 the frontiers, and of Protestant movements in the kingdom of 
 Navarre. About 1573, a Carthusian monk of the Convent of 
 Portaceli, at a particular auto arranged for the occasion in the Hall 
 of Audience belonging to the Tribunal, and in the presence of 
 
 ' Ford (third edition, 946) quotes 'Anquiano,' p. 191, as his authority. I find 
 neither Juan de Ortega nor Fonnedio in Butler's ' Catalogue of Saints.' 
 
252 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 a number of Carthusian brethren, made his abjuration as a 
 suspectivo de /evi—that is, as one tainted in a measure with heresy, 
 the heresy being of a Lutheran cast. He was allowed to perform 
 penance in the convent cloisters, after having been confined in a 
 secret cell of the Office.^ Such mild penalties were not common. 
 Four French Huguenots, who had come to live in Spanish Navarre, 
 and were engaged in honest employments, were, in 1593, sentenced 
 to do penance, when five others were condemned to be burnt in 
 person, and seven in effigy. 
 
 Zaragoza, with its transitional and Renaissance domestic 
 architecture, its carved rafters and cornices, its cinque-cento decora- 
 tions, and its slim belfry towers, seems to be a picturesque but dirty 
 city. Its great boast rests on two cathedrals, occupied alternately, 
 six months at a time, by the same staff of priests and their atten- 
 dants. " The old cathedral is called the ' Seu ' par excellence, the 
 other being the cathedral ' dei pilar ' The Seu (sedes or see) is 
 the usual term for the principal church, and the name of the second 
 is derived from a miracle-working figure of the Blessed Virgin on a 
 pillar, which, it seems, the people care only to worship half the 
 year.^ The Seu was modernised in the sixteenth century, retaining 
 a Gothic outline with the addition of Renaissance details. Ford 
 calls attention to the Chapel of San Bernardo — a saint who, he 
 says, was "an ultra advocate of Mariolatry, in reward of which 
 the Virgin suckled him, as Juno did Hercules ; a subject which 
 Murillo was fond of painting. Yet Bernardo was a very severe 
 saint, for when her graven image spoke to him in the Cathedral of 
 Spires, he replied not over politely, ' MuHer taceat in ecclesia.' " El 
 Pilar, the other cathedral, is famed for "the identical pillar on 
 which the Virgin descended from heaven." 
 
 The legend of St. James, or Santiago, as the Spaniards call 
 him, is closely connected with Zaragoza, and ought to be noticed, 
 
 ' Llorente, ii. 61 ; 408, et seq. 
 
 " Street's ' Gothic Architecture in Spain,' 369. 
 
LOGRONO AND ZARAGOZA. 
 
 2S3 
 
 as an illustration of a circle of beliefs which characterised the 
 Spanish Church at the era of the Reformation. 
 
 Santiago was elder brother of St. John, and received, says 
 tradition, the benediction of the Virgin, who bid him go to one of 
 the cities of Spain, "where," she said, "thou shalt convert the 
 greatest number of men to the faith, and erect a church in my 
 
 THE CATHEDRAL OF THE PILLAR, ZARAGOZA. 
 
 name." The saint did the lady's bidding, and coming to Zaragoza 
 converted eight people to the faith. These eight went to the 
 banks of the river Ebro, and there fell asleep; and one night, 
 Santiago being with them, they heard angel voices, and saw the 
 Holy Mother standing upon a white marble pillar; she said, 
 " Here, son James, is the very place where a church must be built 
 
254 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 to my honour. Take this pillar, which, my Son, thy Master, has 
 sent, that it may remain here to the end of the world." ^ " All 
 this is of great authority," remarks Morales, the father of Spanish 
 history. The legend goes on to relate that Santiago returned to 
 Jerusalem, and was there beheaded, and there remained on his 
 knees with his head in his hand, until nightfall, and the disciples 
 came for his body to bury it. Santiago was the patron of Spain, 
 and in his name armies were wont to wave their banners and draw 
 their swords. As the Romans believed that Castor and Pollux, 
 mounted on white steeds, led their fathers to battle, so Spaniards, 
 at the time of the Reformation, believed that Santiago had, on his 
 war-horse, headed many a conquering fight with Moorish hosts. 
 They traced the origin of their Church back to Jerusalem, not to 
 Rome ; and it seems probable that Christianity came to their 
 country from the eastern rather than the western centre of 
 Christendom. 
 
 Another tradition informs us that Zaragoza produced Christian 
 martyrs. The neighbourhood is called by Prudentius, in a beautiful 
 hymn, " patria sanctorum martyrum." St. Vincent takes a first 
 place amongst them. He was a heathen magistrate's son, and, 
 becoming converted, fell into the hands of persecutors, who 
 imprisoned him in Valencia. Brought before Dacian, he confessed, 
 " I have always wished for an opportunity of proving my attach- 
 ment to the religion of Christ ; thou hast given it to me, and I am 
 content.'' Mangled under iron bars, and torn on a bed of flints, 
 he endured all with patience. So far the tradition is credible, but 
 monstrous legends take up the story, and declare that his body, 
 thrown into the sea, was preserved through the instrumentality of 
 a crow, which figures quaintly in many an old Spanish carving. 
 It is a curious fact, however, that both Santiago and Vincent, are 
 embalmed in Italian rather than Spanish art. I find many 
 
 ' 'Libro de Grandezas y Cosas Memorables de Espana,' etc., quoted in Dunham's 
 ' History of Spain and Portugal,' i. 314. 
 
LOGRONO AND ZARAGOZA. 255 
 
 pictures of them by Italian masters, but very few by Spanish ones. 
 There are in existence eighty-four distinct books on the Virgin as 
 she appears in different places, and no less than four hundred and 
 thirty on her life generally. One is entitled ' La Mystica Ciudad,' 
 published in Madrid, 1670, which Maria Coronel, canonised under 
 the name Santa Maria de Agreda, was "inspired to write by a 
 Divine revelation." ^ It should be stated, to the credit of their 
 common sense, that the doctors of the Sorbonne and the Vatican 
 condemned this absurd production, notwithstanding the effoils of 
 the Spanish ambassador to the contrary. 
 
 Spanish superstition runs riot in its Mariolatry. In the silver- 
 smiths' quarter at Zaragoza, the shops are as full of Holy Mothers 
 as those at Ephesus were of Goddess Dianas. Models of the 
 miraculous pillar may be seen everywhere, and prints of the 
 Virgin's descent are hung up in bedrooms to frighten away the 
 nightmare. Mary is called, " La Sehora de la Merced," the mother 
 of mercy ; and the thoughts of Spaniards who Desire divine 
 compassion are directed to her — the " only one name, and no 
 other." She, as Regina et Conjux, " calms the rage of her heavenly 
 husband ; " tempers the " angiy judge ; " "commands and compels 
 her Son ; " because she, as His mother, has done more for Him 
 than He could have done for her.^ 
 
 The Inquisition was introduced to Zaragoza in the reign of 
 Ferdinand of Aragon, who rnarried Isabella. The citizens were 
 opposed to it, and some of them conceived a deadly hatred against 
 its president, one Pedro d'Arbues, a canon of the cathedral. 
 
 > Ford, 913. 
 
 ^ Diogo de Astorga, Primate of Spain, excommunicated all who questioned the 
 history of the pillar; and as late as 1850, Madoz (xvi. 569), "the enlightened 
 liberal, asserts that as more than ninety foreign and 400 Spanish authors maintain 
 the legend, it cannot be apocryphal" (Ford's 'Handbook,' 911, third edition). 
 What an idea this Madoz must have had of historical evidence ! Ford enumerates 
 seven learned books in which this precious piece of hagiology is maintained and 
 illustrated. 
 
256 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 They resolved to mui'der him in bed, but, being disappointed in 
 the attempt, they slew him in the church, whilst he knelt at the 
 altar. The deed resembled that at Canterbury, and the result was 
 similar ; Pedro d'Arbues, like Thomas a Becket, was counted a 
 martyr, and his beatification followed ; the crime only established 
 more firmly the authority of the tribunal.^ 
 
 The building appropriated to the Inquisition by King 
 Ferdinand lies outside the portillo. It was a palace of the 
 Moorish kings, and now has the look of a dilapidated citadel — 
 type of the fortunes of the " Holy Office." There is a room in the 
 old fortress in which Elizabeth of Hungary was born ; it is called, 
 El Salon de Santa Isabel. The roof still retains stalactical 
 ornaments in blue and gold. 
 
 The annals of Zaragoza supply an example of Jesuit influence, 
 in] the stirring up of persecution against advocates of Reform. 
 Judn de Regla was a monk of St. Jerome, and confessor to 
 Charles V., who favoured the order. This man was arrested by the 
 Inquisitors at Zaragoza, having been denounced by the Jesuits 
 as^a Lutheran. He abjured eighteen propositions which he was 
 accused of having maintained, and obtained absolution by perform- 
 ing penance ; but he in consequence conceived an implacable 
 hatred to the society, and distributed copies of a letter which had 
 been written to him in September, 1559, saying that the Jesuits 
 were the Visionaries and Gnostics of the sixteenth century, as 
 Charles V. well knew, and Philip II. would find out some day.^ 
 Probably Judn de Regla was no better than he ought to have 
 been, and not particular in stating facts or forming opinions ; but 
 the incident cited shows how wide was the sweep of Inquisitionary 
 discipline, and what a feud existed between the new order of 
 Jesuits and the old order of monks, and what a satire it is, with 
 this and other facts before us, for anyone to boast of the unity of 
 the Roman Catholic Church. 
 
 ' Llorente, i. 188, et seq. ^ Ibid. ii. 161 ; iii. 84, et seq. 
 
LOGRONO AND ZARAGOZA. 257 
 
 The Inquisition at Zaragoza was very active, and autos were 
 familiar to the citizens. Victims were burnt at the stake — others, 
 by a custom as absurd as it was common, were represented by 
 effigies, dressed up as if they were alive. Twenty people are 
 mentioned in official records as "reconciled," the greater part of 
 them Huguenots from Beam, who had come to Zaragoza. 
 Mohammedans, Jews, and people accused of immorality, are also 
 enumerated. The legitimacy of proceedings in a few cases was 
 called in question by the Supreme Council ; and the details of what 
 occurred plainly show that arbitrariness and irregularity were 
 inherent vices of the Institute. 
 
 No one can be surprised that officers at Zaragoza, situated as it 
 was so near to Navarre, were zealous in looking after Calvinists, 
 who in considerable numbers at the time passed over into Spain, 
 Circumstances arose in 1568, which led to redoubled vigilance and 
 activity. 
 
 Llorente informs us that there was communicated to the Holy 
 .Office new informationreceived from England and France, touching 
 Protestantism in the Peninsula. Don Diego de Guzman, Spanish 
 ambassador at London, stated to his master at Madrid, that 
 English people were talking of the Reformation in Navarre and 
 Spain. At the same juncture his excellency the Spanish ambas- 
 sador to France, then at Vienna, sent home accounts of French 
 Calvinists, saying how they congratulated themselves upon a treaty 
 of peace signed between their own and the Spanish monarch, 
 from which treaty they hoped for brighter days.^ 
 
 The year 1568 was near the close of the twelve years' war 
 carried on by Philip II. and his allies of the Inquisition against 
 Spanish Reformers — and it was also a year when Conde was 
 pushing his victories, though all the while treading ground which 
 shook under his feet. The Treaty of Long-jumeau, in the March 
 of that year, was followed by outrages on the Huguenots, which 
 
 * Llorente, ii. 394. 
 
 S 
 
258 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 roused them to fresh efforts of bravery. At La Rochelle, Conde 
 was joined by Jean, Queen of Navarre, and her son Henry, after- 
 wards Henri Quatre — who said to some Protestant orators who 
 welcomed him, " I have not yet studied enough to speak as 
 well as you do, gentlemen ; but I assure you that if I speak but ill, 
 I will do better ; for I know more of acting than of talking." An 
 oath of fidelity to the cause was adopted at Rochelle with French 
 enthusiasm. In that year it was that the tidings just noticed 
 reached Spain ; and the eyes of the king and courtiers would be 
 looking over the Pyrenees, to see what the gathering of events 
 boded in relation to the conflict of the age. 
 
 Aragon and Navarre were closely connected. Zaragoza was 
 the capital of Old Aragon, and after this ancient domain, by the 
 marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, had been united with Castile, 
 the two constituted one kingdom. To this united realm, a portion of 
 Old Navarre, situated to the south of the Pyrenees, had been an- 
 nexed by Fei'dinand, so that in 1568 it formed the north-eastern 
 border of Spain. The inhabitants of this little strip would be one 
 in heart with those on the other side the mountain wall, and one 
 in bonds of forced submission with the Aragonese of Zaragoza. 
 This twofold relation explains the interest taken by Spanish 
 rulers and subjects at the time in the Protestant affairs of Navarre, 
 and also the interest taken by Navarre Protestants in the 
 Catholic affairs of Spain. 
 
 Jean d'Albret was a thorough Protestant, and tiied, but 
 unsuccessfully, to make her son like herself. She established, 
 chiefly by her own will, the Protestant faith in her little kingdom ; 
 and when French enemies were trying to frighten her, she magnani- 
 mously resisted ; yet, in a pacific spirit, she said, " I will do nothing 
 by force ; there shall not be death nor imprisonment nor condem- 
 nation, which are the. sinews of force."^ Merlin, a famous French 
 
 'See quotation from the original letters, Baird's ' Rise of the Huguenots,' ii. 1 48. 
 Jean d'Albret -was so pronounced an advocate of the Reformation., that upon a glass 
 
LOGRONO AND ZARAGOZA. 259 
 
 pastor, was her counsellor and friend, though she did not always 
 take his advice ; perhaps it might have been better had she 
 done so. 
 
 Five years before 1568, a Spanish invasion of that part 
 of Navarre under the rule of its brave queen, was threatened. 
 Charles V., in a moment of conscientious compunction, had told his 
 son to ascertain whether Spain had a right to any part of Navarre ; 
 but Philip, instead of restoring stolen property, thought of adding 
 to it more and more plunder. Pope Pius IV. abetted dishonesty, and 
 issued a bull in 1563, excommunicating Jean d'Albret, and offering 
 her dominions to an orthodox competitor, who would purify them 
 from heresy. Though Philip had instigated the pope in this 
 nefarious transaction, he positively assured the French court that 
 he disapproved of it ; yet in 1563 he planned the capture of the 
 queen and her son. 
 
 Thus a decided Protestant power is seen vigorously at work 
 to the north of the Pyrenees,' and standing face , to face with the 
 old Aragonese kingdom and its capital. Catholic to the backbone. 
 Commercial intercourse there could not but be between the people 
 of the two kingdoms. No one who has travelled on the sides of 
 the Pyrenees, and having scaled that wall, reached one of its 
 picturesque gaps, can ever forget how on the north, France is seen 
 opening out her vast plains, and on the south, glimpses are caught 
 of far-spreading Spanish landscape's. Muleteers, as intimated 
 already, I well remember meeting there, in' i-ich native costume, with 
 their animals gaily caparisoned, strung together, and carrying heavy 
 burdens ; that picture illustrates the kind of intercourse which went 
 on three hundred years ago over those same hill-tops ; and it is easy 
 to imagine how the peasant merchants talked of what happened in 
 
 window at Limoges still in existence, she appears in a pulpit preaching to Huguenots. 
 Underneath is this couplet — . . . • , • • 
 
 " Mai sont les gens endoctrines 
 Quand par femme sont sermones." 
 
 S 2 
 
26o THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 the world, and perhaps told of what had been seen at the Zaragoza 
 autos. If Spaniards went over to Navarre, Navarrese would re- 
 turn the visits. Some would be Protestants, and would search out 
 Spanish brethren, telling them of good Queen Jean and the good 
 pastor Merlin. It does not require any stretch of imagination to 
 conceive of some wayfarer up the passes, carrying cleverly secreted 
 Protestant books. The Inquisitor-General received information 
 about such books, in the Castilian tongue, designed for Spain. 
 Some, we know, were put into casks of champagne and burgundy, 
 and were smuggled through custom-houses ; and it is likely enough 
 that others would be conveyed over the mountains in the pedlar's 
 sack, or in piled-up luggage on the backs of sleek Spanish mules. 
 
 A curious episode is recorded about the transportation of 
 horses across the border. At an auto held in 1 578, a man was brought 
 out condemned for heresy, and punished because he had taken 
 some Spanish horses into France. In the reign of Alfonso XL, 
 King of Castile, the transportation of horses into neighbouring 
 dominions had been forbidden under the severest penalties. The 
 civil wars in France gave more importance than ever to this pro- 
 hibition, lest assistance should be given to the Huguenot party. 
 Philip II. thought that the prohibition would be better executed 
 by officers of the Inquisition than by any other agents ; he deemed 
 ecclesiastics the best instruments for putting an end to contraband 
 dealings, which were made the means of promoting heretical designs, 
 — though, at first sight, what horses have to do with heresy is hard to 
 understand. The Council of the Inquisition issued a declaration 
 obliging every Spanish Catholic to denounce anybody known to 
 have bought horses, and passed them over the Pyrenees for the service 
 of Protestants. They were also to inform their confessors of any 
 whom they suspected of selling munition of war to infidels, heretics 
 or Lutherans.^. 
 
 Amidst the jealousies and strifes which were ever and anon 
 ' Llorente, ii. 393-398. 
 
LOGRONO AND ZARAGOZA. 
 
 361 
 
 bursting out between the two powers, separated not only by the chain 
 of the Pyrenees, but by their religious antipathies, an incident 
 occurred, showing how merely personal strife prompted applications 
 
 THE LEANING TOWER, ZARAGOZA. 
 
 to the Holy Office, and how charges of heresy could be invented to 
 subserve selfish ends. The diocese of Jaca and the diocese of 
 Huesca in Aragon were, after a temporary separation, reunited in 
 
262 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 1572, and Don Pedro de Frago was appointed prelate over the 
 reunited sees. If one of the sees gained by the arrangement, the 
 other lost by it, so it was said ; and the aggrieved parties sought to 
 upset what had been done by attacking the character of the new 
 bishop. Hence they went to the Inquisitors of Zaragoza, and 
 trumped up a charge of heresy against him, founded on irregularities 
 in reference to the confessional, the celebration of mass, and some 
 other things. The real object was to separate again the two sees, 
 for the gratification of clerical complainants who were irritated by the 
 bishop's attempt to reform abuses condemned by the Council of 
 Trent.^ The Inquisitors lent a willing ear to an accusation of 
 heresy — an accusation always welcome ; but in this case it seems to 
 have been utterly baseless ; moreover, they were eager to exercise 
 control over episcopal dignitaries, whose resistance of Inquisitional 
 authority proved a sore trouble to the Holy Office. 
 
 A curious defence of the Inquisition was set up at Zaragoza, 
 which is worth a passing notice. Manuel Guerra Ribera, a 
 Salamancan professor, preached in the Franciscan convent of that 
 city, and the theme of his discourse was the murmuring at Christ, 
 saying, that He cast out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of devils. 
 A like accusation, remarked the preacher, was brought against 
 Inquisitors, who only walked in the footsteps of our Lord.^ They 
 were employed in casting out devils, and many said they did it 
 through Beelzebub's help. " I will reduce my discourse to two 
 points," the preacher goes on to say, "first the obligation" to 
 denounce ; secondly, the sacred functions of the Judge Inquisitor." 
 As to the first point, Ribera remarks that Saint Stephen prayed to 
 God that He would pardon those who stoned him, so far as his 
 death was concerned ; but he did not ask God to pardon Stephen's 
 persecutors for their sin in rejecting the Holy Ghost. In like 
 manner, ■ the Inquisition forgave enmity against itself, but ' not 
 offence against the Almighty. . Moses, was an Inquisitor, and con- 
 
 ' Llorente, iii. 73, et seq. , _ '' See his namesake's sermon. Chapter V. 
 
LOGRONO AND ZARAGOZA. 263 
 
 demned his grandfather Pharaoh, and rebuked his brother Aaron ; 
 and Joshua was an Inquisitor, who committed to the flames Achan, 
 a Canaanitish prince. Therefore, it is just that heretics should 
 be denounced and consumed, whether they be fathers, mothers, or 
 princes royal. As to the second point, Peter was an Inquisitor, 
 who proceeded against Simon Magus. So also was David, who 
 proceeded against Goliath. The book of the Apocalypse is a 
 symbol of the Inquisition. Angels poured out the vials of Divine 
 wrath. Inquisitors do the same.^ There is much more to the same 
 effect in the friar's sermon ; the whole manifesting the absurd 
 fanaticism of the preacher, and the spirit of vengeance with which 
 the Reformation was assailed. 
 
 The same spirit continued down to the beginning of the present 
 century. Don Miguel Judn Antonio Solano was Vicar of Esco, in 
 Aragon, in 1805. He had been educated in one of the Spanish 
 universities, and had been taught the Aristotelian system of 
 natural philosophy, as well as the Scholastic system of Christianity. 
 The former he abandoned ; and objections to the latter arose in 
 his mind. Severe illness crippling him for life, and compelling a 
 relinquishment of his vicarage, he devoted his leisure to reading'and 
 studying the Bible. He worked out a combination of theological 
 opinions, which agreed on the whole with Protestant confessions ; 
 and when he had done so, he felt constrained to avow the change 
 he had undergone to the bishop of the diocese and the Zaragozan 
 university. The Holy Office apprehended and imprisoned him. 
 He escaped to France, and then resolved to return to Spain. 
 Arraigned before the Tribunal soon afterwards, he declared 
 his belief of the following doctrines : that all saving truth was 
 contained in ^the Sacred Scriptures ; that every departure from its 
 teaching, whatever Rome might say, was false and wrong; that 
 purgatory was a human invention ; that it is sinful to say masses 
 for the sake of money ; that tithes, do not divinely belong to the 
 
 ' Llorente, iv. 23. 
 
264 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 Church, but have been improperly claimed by the priesthood ; and 
 that ministers ought to be paid by the State, as civil officers are. 
 After undergoing a trial, Solano was condemned to death, and 
 handed over to the secular magistrate for execution. But the 
 Inquisitor-General, at that time Archbishop of Zaragoza, had no 
 heart for such work. He shrank from an auto defi, and could not 
 endure burning a man for heresy. He proposed further inquiry ; 
 but the Inquisitors renewed their previous sentence. The arch- 
 bishop then required that Solano's state of mind should be 
 examined. A friendly physician, being consulted, gave an opinion 
 that the accused was insane, otherwise how could he have embraced 
 opinions contrary to the judgment of his brethren ! The obtaining 
 of a retractation was attempted, but Solano persisted in renewing 
 his confession, and added against the papal court a charge of 
 avarice and of suppressing truth. In prison, with flames before him, 
 he caught a fever. Inquisitors tried to persuade him to return 
 to the Church's bosom. A physician, seeing that life could not 
 last any longer, begged him to be reconciled to the Church. " I 
 am in the hands of God," he replied, " and have nothing more to 
 do." Christian burial was refused, and his remains were interred 
 within the Inquisition enclosure, by a back gate near the River 
 Ebro.i 
 
 Before leaving Zaragoza it will be scarcely a digression to turn 
 back from the Inquisition and the monastery to Philip II., and 
 notice a circumstance which took place when the king visited 
 the city to celebrate the nuptials of his daughter with the Duke of 
 Savoy. It happened in 1585, and was a grand occasion ; the etiquette 
 of the court, the personages present, the jewelled costumes worn, 
 and the dances executed by lords and dames, were duly chronicled 
 by an ambassador who delightedly gazed at the ceremonies.^ 
 
 ' Llorente, iv. 127, et seg. 
 
 ' De Hubner in his ' Sixte-Quint,' has drawn up from the despatches of the 
 Venetian ambassador an elaborate account of thi whole affair, torn. i. 402. 
 
LOGRONO AND ZARAGOZA. 265 
 
 They were certainly more in harmony with a wedding feast than 
 the autos at Valladolid, when Philip himself was espoused to his 
 French bride. Nevertheless he was intent now, as then, on the 
 extirpation of heresy. The young Duke of Savoy insinuated 
 himself into the good graces of his new father-in-law. He adopted 
 Spanish manners, we are told, became as grave as any hidalgo, 
 and returned to his own country completely transformed into a 
 Castilian prince, Philip turned to account the advantage he had 
 gained over his daughter's husband, by incensing him afresh against 
 the city of Geneva, that hot-bed of heresy, and stimulating him to 
 attempt its total extirpation. But the attempt was in vain. 
 
266 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 BARCELONA AND FIGUERA?. 
 
 Barcelona appears to be the most prosperous city in Spain. 
 Tlie shipping and commerce may well remind Englishmen of Liver- 
 pool ; the Rambla suggests to the American an avenue in New 
 York ; and the whole resembles a modern French port. 
 
 It is famous for its festivals. Christmas and New Year's days 
 are holidays immensely popular, when dancing and eating almond 
 cakes are amusements decidedly in the ascendant. St. Antony, 
 the patron of pigs, and of the lower class of Catalans, is highly 
 honoured on the 17th of January, when animals are blessed, and 
 mulis and asses are led in procession three times round his 
 church, the saddles and harness being ornamented in true Spanish 
 style. St. Eulalia is a sort of Diana amongst the Barcelonians, 
 and they vie with the Ephesians of old in glorifying that lady, 
 whoever she was, dining, dancing and playing games in memory of 
 her saintship. The Carnival at Barcelona is like the Carnival of 
 Rome, and the Rambla then is filled with masqueraders, as the 
 Corso used to be. On the first day of Lent Barcelona marches out 
 into the country to bury the Carnival, and then the inhabitants, 
 having taken their fill of pleasure, become punctilious in per- 
 forming certain Catholic ceremonies. Easter brings back the tide 
 of revelry, and Corpus Christi is a most joyous festival. St. lago 
 and the days dedicated to the Virgin are kept with much ritualistic 
 splendour. In mentioning all this as taking place in Barcelona I 
 am indicating at the same time what generally prevails in Spain, 
 
BARCELONA AND FIGUERAS. -zOj 
 
 and it brings before the imagination pictures of the state of the 
 country in the days of the Reformation. 
 
 The cathedral is the chief object of architectural interest ; but, 
 like other buildings of the same order in Italy, its glory is within 
 rather than without. Some of the doorways are finely sculptured ; 
 but the width and height of the interior, with its marble Coro, 
 its high altar, its magnificent retablo, and its richly stained 
 windows, will most impress the visitor, though the darkness of the 
 choir and nave make them rather disappointing. Cloisters on the 
 south side, with a pretty garden and fountain, with the traditional 
 geese,^ compose altogether a very interesting picture. 
 
 I visited the church on Easter Sunday, filled with thoughts 
 respecting the history of the Spanish Reformation, and little ex- 
 pected that I should hear any preacher who would serve to 
 illustrate what I have recorded in a previous chapter relative to 
 impressions associated with Seville. But I did. In what respect ? 
 First, the cathedral was crowded with an immense congregation. 
 After certain childish ceremonies, a priest pressed through the 
 throng, ascended the altar steps, knelt down and prayed, after 
 which he mounted a temporary pulpit. As soon as he opened 
 his lips, every eye was turned ; there was perfect silence and 
 riveted attention. His voice was marvellous, his tones varied, 
 his attitudes graceful ; sometimes he was persuasive in manner, 
 sometimes indignant, always earnest ; women wept, and tears 
 ran down the cheeks of men apparently unused to tenderness. 
 The subject of the sermon was the resurrection. He began 
 in a calm, measured style, insisting upon . our duty to remember 
 Christ as the way, the. truth, and the life, on this the morning 
 of His resurrection. He described the wonderful fact, and then 
 showed the influence it had produced on the hearts of men, and 
 what it would do for believers here and hereafter. He dwelt 
 
 ' " Here was the canonical aviary, in which certain sacred "geese were kept, like those 
 of the Roman Capitol." — Ford. 
 
268 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 upon the sins of mankind, and upon the duty of repentance, and 
 earnestly invited his hearers to come to Christ because the love of 
 God was so great, and the joy of salvation was so great also. 
 He exhibited the consequences of neglecting religion ; in a touching 
 manner he referred to his own spiritual experiences ; and as a 
 minister sent from God he exhorted the congregation to believe the 
 Gospel, most impressively saying, again and again, " Haber fe, fe, fe." 
 Have faith, faith, faith.^ 
 
 There were passages in the sermon, however, which made it 
 apparent that he was a Roman Catholic beyond all doubt ; and he 
 urged that those who heard him should come to the confessional ; 
 but Gospel notes were mingled with other strains, musical to 
 Protestant ears, I thought of Constantine de Ponce at Seville. 
 Was not his preaching in nianner and effect something of the same 
 kind ? I know nothing of the padre who preached that morning 
 except what could be gathered from his sermon ; how he might 
 preach at other times I do not know, but certainly there was 
 an , Evangelical ring in his eloquence reminding one of Spanish 
 Reformers more than three hundred years ago. 
 
 Close to the cathedral is the Plaza del Rey, once a principal 
 square, though small ; and it receives its name from the ancient 
 palace of the Aragonese kings. Part of a castle-like building still 
 remains and abuts on the Plaza, as shown in our engraving. 
 Connected with it is a Gothic chapel of the thirteenth century. 
 The old palace was given to the Inquisition, and here were held its 
 iniquitous courts ; here were immured its ofttimes innocent and 
 always pitiable victims. The prison-like look of the grim stone 
 edifice is still to some extent retained. The grated windows tell 
 sad tales, but the place now is used for a museum. 
 
 This brings me to notice the following facts, but where exactly 
 the autos were held in Barcelona, and the burnings took place I 
 could not determine. The former might have been in what is now 
 ' I am much indebted to my daughter for this report, 
 
BARCELONA AND FIGUERAS. 
 
 269 
 
 the Plaza Constitucion, 
 the latter at the lower 
 end of the Rambla, where 
 Philip V. pulled down 
 two thousand houses, 
 thirty-seven streets, arid 
 three churches, to make 
 room for an entrenched 
 camp ; but such local 
 identifications are quite 
 conjectural. 
 
 In a despatch from 
 the French ambassador 
 to his own court in May, 
 1564, allusion is made 
 to an auto de _/"/ at Bar- 
 celona in the month of 
 February. A special 
 preparation had been 
 made for the ceremonies, 
 because of the royal pre- 
 sence, and the presence 
 also of Spanish bishops 
 just returned from sit- 
 tings of the Trentine 
 Council. The scaffold 
 was erected under the 
 palace windows, that 
 Philip II. might sit at 
 his ease and view the 
 spectacle, surrounded 
 by the court and the 
 
 . C^'i^J^JJX.-^^ 
 
 THE PRISON OF THE INQUISITION, BARCELONA. 
 
 clergy. Eight persons were burnt alive, and a great number were 
 
270 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 condemned to the galleys. The victims were almost all of them 
 French, which was to be accounted for by the nearness of Barce- 
 lona to France, and shows how people from that country, tainted 
 by heretical opinions, were sought out and punished by the 
 Inquisition. 
 
 The same despatch addressed to Catherine de' Medici states 
 that the ambassador had complained to Philip respecting the 
 manner in which Frenchmen had been maltreated by the In- 
 quisition. All he could get from his Spanish majesty was that he 
 had little power over its affairs, but he would recommend the 
 Grand Inquisitor to render fair and prompt justice to the accused. 
 The Grand Inquisitor promised that the French should be no more 
 ill-treated than the Castilians. "The fair and prompt justice," 
 says his excellency, " amounts to this, that they were burnt alive 
 in his majesty's presence." ^ 
 
 We catch further glimpses of activity, in 1568, on the part of 
 the Inquisition at Barcelona. They informed the Supreme Council 
 of heretical books having been introduced across the French 
 frontiers. An officer at Perpignan, they said, apprehended a 
 merchant who had packed up a number of Lutheran books in the 
 Castilian language destined for Spain : and at the same time the 
 Spanish ambassador at Paris informed his njaster that heretical 
 volumes were secreted in wine casks sent from Champagne and 
 Burgundy, and that the manoeuvre had been accomplished with so 
 much skill that the custom-house officers had allowed them to pass. 
 Next year the Inquisition of Barcelona excommunicated and 
 imprisoned two city magistrates — one a military, the other a court 
 officer — for having interfered with the Holy Office in some matters 
 of a commercial kind. The Royal Council of Aragon entered into 
 a contention with the Tribunal respecting its competence to meddle 
 with such affairs ; but Philip II. put an end to the dispute by 
 liberating the prisoners ; not daring, perhaps not wishing, to punish 
 ' ' Don Carlos et Philip,' ii. 107. 
 
BARCELONA AND FIGUERAS. 271 
 
 the disobedrence of Inquisitors, who had been forbidden by law 
 to anathematise magisti'ates, in the fulfilment of their office, and 
 had been ordered to treat them with respect.^ This is all I 
 find particularly stated respecting the conduct of the Barcelona 
 branch of the Holy Office at that time ; but Dr. M'Crie states in 
 general terms, " none of the provincial tribunals was so much 
 occupied in suppressing the Reformation as those of Logrono, 
 Zaragoza and Barcelona. In the numerous atitos celebrated in 
 those cities, a great part of those who appeared on the scaffolds 
 were Protestants." He refers to Llorente as his authority, but 
 though with regard to Logroiio and Zaragoza, that author records 
 facts showing that several persons in those cities suffered for heresy, 
 I cannot discover any notice of Spanish heretics being punished at 
 Barcelona, though I think it highly probable that this was the case. 
 The nearness of Barcelona to Navarre and France, the constant 
 ti'ading intercourse carried on between the two kingdoms divided by 
 the Pyrenees, and the zeal of a few people in each of them to learn 
 and diffuse Scriptural religion, confirms that probability. And I 
 have no doubt that even amongst Roman Catholics in that district 
 there were some who did not depend for salvation upon the 
 ceremonies of the Church, but, enlightened by the truth of God's 
 Holy Word, conveyed to them in divers ways, they looked for 
 salvation only through the merit of our Lord Jesus Christ.^ 
 
 Monserrat is close to Barcelona, and at Monserrat we reach 
 footprints of Ignatius Loyola. There it was that he laid his 
 sword on the altar, and dedicated himself to the Virgin, whose 
 
 ' Llorente, i. 477 ; ii. SO'- 
 
 '' Stephen Grellet, a well-known Minister of the Society of Friends, gives an 
 interesting account of a Bishop of Barcelona fifty years ago, who was a zealous .advocate 
 for printing and circulating ^ Spanish translation of the Vulgate. He seems to have 
 been a man of liberal mind. But Mr.. Ticknor informs us that the version made by this 
 bishop, whose name was Amat, was accompanied by authorised notes, and was not 
 intended for popular use. 'History of Spanish Literature,' i. 297, 426. Grellet's 
 account is found in his ' Memoirs,' ii. 360. , < 
 
!272 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 soldier till death he intended to be, instead of spending his days 
 in martial strife and worldly pleasure. The sword is preserved in 
 a church at Barcelona. From San Sebastian to that seaport, the 
 traveller is on the track of the founder of the Jesuits. At Cestoria 
 near San Sebastian, there is a college of the order, built on the 
 site of a residence which belonged to the Loyola family, where a 
 fertile plain is crowned by heights running up into the mountain 
 chain of the Pyrenees. Upstairs, within the monastery, is shown a 
 room in which the saint was born, "now encased and venerated, 
 like the house of the Virgin, which angels moved from Palestine 
 to Loretto." ' A chapel too is shown, where he is said to have 
 recovered from his wounds at the siege of Pamplona, a few miles 
 off; and where, according to Romanist mythology, as incredible 
 as that of the old Greeks, St. Peter came down to attend on this 
 patient. From Pamplona to Zaragoza,> and from Zaragoza to 
 Barcelona, Ignatius can be traced, till he reached Monserrat, and 
 the story of his conversion is recalled to memory. Suffering from 
 a cannon-ball, which shot his legs, he had a protruding bone sawed 
 off, in order to preserve him from personal disfigurement — so vain 
 of his appearance was he at the time. He wished for favourite 
 romances, but finding none, he read the lives of the saints, and, 
 better than these, the life of our Lord, which so wrought on his 
 soul, that, to use the words of Mrs. Jameson, " the lady to whom 
 he henceforth devoted himself, was to be neither countess nor 
 duchess, but one of far nobler state," — the Holy Virgin, mother of 
 the Saviour, and the wars in which he was to fight were to be 
 waged against the spiritual foes of God, whose soldier he was 
 henceforth to be.^ From Monserrat he went forth on his memorable 
 mission. In 1534, he founded the new order. He saw what was 
 going on in Germany. He saw what was threatening the Catholic 
 Church of Spain ; and, mistaking good for evil, and evil for good, 
 he strove to destroy truth, which he called heresy, and to restore the 
 • Ford, 902, ' ' Legends of the Monastic Orders,' 430. 
 
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BARCELONA AND FIGUERAS. 275 
 
 damaged bulwarks of spiritual despotism, which he called the Church 
 of Christ. Never was the name more misapplied on the whole than 
 when he incorporated his followers as the Society of Jesus. The 
 central idea was obedience to human rules. All independence was 
 extinguished, personal responsibility was merged in reliance upon 
 laws imposed by mortal man. . The Jesuit was to be a mere staff 
 in the hands of the general of his order. Submission to a superior, 
 the very essence of Spanish political life at that time, was here, 
 as in other monastic institutions, the spring of action, the motive 
 force of life. Ignatius was a thorough Spaniard. The whole was 
 a Spanish creation, and strong was the hold it took upon the 
 Spanish Church. "In Barcelona he made a very distinguished 
 convert in the Viceroy, Francisco Borgia, Duke of Gandia ; in 
 Valencia one church could not contain the hearers of Aroaz, and a 
 pulpit was erected for him in the open air. In Alcala followers of 
 consideration soon congregated around Francisco Villanova, spite 
 of the disadvantages of sickness, mean extraction, and extreme 
 ignorance under which ' he laboured. From this place and from 
 Salamanca, where, in 1548, they began their labours in a small 
 miserable house, the Jesuits principally issued forth and occupied 
 the whole of Spain." ^ Jesuitism was a deadly foe of the Refor- 
 mation, and, together with the Inquisition, helped to arrest the 
 progress of what was beginning to enlighten and bless the in- 
 habitants of Spain. 
 
 There were others in Spain beside Ignatius who promoted a 
 reaction against Protestantism by founding religious orders. St. 
 Teresa, who in early life had been fond of novels and romances, and 
 indulged in worldly inclinations, became absorbed in the idea of 
 eternity, and devoted herself to a life of prayer and penance, be- 
 seeching the Virgin Mary to be a mother to her. She adopted the 
 Carmelite rule, and established one nunnery after another upon that 
 basis. At Toledo a young woman came to her, and asked to be 
 ' Ranke's ' History of the Popes of Rome,' i. 220. 
 
 T 2 
 
BARCELONA AND FIGUERAS. 277 
 
 prisoner by Edward the Black Prince, and brought over to England, 
 wrote the ' Rimado de Palacis,' in which he describes kings and 
 nobles, and paints with strong colours the vices of his times. He 
 fails not to introduce St. Peter's bark, tossed on tempestuous waters, 
 by storms arising from the sinfulness of the age, — whilst prelates, 
 careless about the Church, oppressed their vassals, minding neither 
 conscience nor Holy Writ. Vincent Ferrer, born 1357, of the order 
 of St. Dominic, a preacher and an author, urged the reading of Scrip- 
 ture and prayer for Divine illumination to understand it.^ Others 
 might be added, but these suffice to show the existence in Spain of 
 sentiments tending to the Church's reformation before the six- 
 teenth century. They anticipated and typified what was to come, 
 under aspects somewhat resembling those presented amongst the 
 Waldenses. 
 
 One of the first things I noticed at Figueras was a number of 
 boys scampering across the plaza, each with a wooden mallet in 
 his hand. Every now and then they stopped and began to beat 
 the ground vehemently, as if trying to get at something underneath, 
 which they wished to destroy. The explanation given by a Spanish 
 friend was, that in Holy Week these young urchins were wont to 
 vent in this way their indignation against Jews, who crucified our 
 Lord ; and I further learned that, so intense is the degree in which 
 the people realise the incidents of the Divine passion, that they go 
 over them from hour to hour, calculating how long it will be before 
 the final tragedy of the crucifixion occurs. Their feelings towards 
 Jews are inherited from their fathers, and what I saw in the streets 
 of Figueras illustrated the old Spanish hatred against the house of 
 Israel — a hatred which extended towairds all deemed enemies of the 
 Saviour, and therefore it was cruelly wreaked on Mohammedans and 
 heretics, no less than on Jews. The Jews looked on Jesus as a 
 blasphemer, and put Him to death ; in like manner, with blind and 
 
 ' Villemain, 'Lit. du Moyen Age,' i. 218, et seq. ; 'Hist, de la Reformation en 
 Espagne,' par Droin, who gives citations, K. j,i,-et-seq. 
 
278 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 impious resentment, the Spaniards three centuries ago put to d,eath 
 as blasphemers the very men who loved Him with all their souls, 
 and were striving to walk in His holy steps. 
 
 The inhabitants of this and of the neighbouring towns and 
 villages are of the same Roman Catholic stock as those who were 
 contemporary with the Protestant martyrs. Spaniards in large 
 cities penetrated by modern civilisation, and especially the Liberal 
 political party, have lost the spirit which lay at the bottom of the 
 persecutions I have described ; but in out-of-the-way corners that 
 spirit is as rife as ever. I was taken to visit a town called Castillon, 
 a few miles from Figueras, where there is a magnificent church — 
 little known — with a richly sculptured west doorway, a Spanish 
 Coro, an elaborate retablo, and a number of other objects full of 
 interest to antiquaries ; there I witnessed, in the evening after dark, 
 a procession redolent of mediaeval times. Large unwieldy repre- 
 sentations of Christ on the cross, and the Virgin Mary, surrounded 
 by candles and flowers, were carried on men's shoulders. A man, 
 with artificial hair all dishevelled, bore a huge cross on his 
 shoulders, and a companion, stooping to the earth, lifted up the 
 foot of the instrument of torture. A number of penitents marched 
 behind dressed in mantles — and conical hoods, which hid the whole 
 face except the eyes, and carrying in their hands flaming torches. 
 One of them, who was doing penance for some great sin, was 
 fettered with exceedingly heavy chains, dragged along by his naked 
 feet on the rough stoned pathway. All this gave a vivid idea 
 of the kind of religion upon which, in their day, Roderic de Valera, 
 Constantine de la Ponce, and others had to work in their Protestant 
 mission. 
 
 Next evening, there was a procession at Figueras of a much 
 more imposing character. Few penitents appeared, and I saw no 
 one dragging iron fetters on his naked feet, but there were i^epresen- 
 tations of the Saviour and the Virgin on a large scale, with an 
 immense profusion of candles. Gentlemen in ancient Spanish 
 
BARCELONA AND FIGUERAS. 279 
 
 costume, with, enormous tapers, marched on each side, whilst three 
 Marys in deepest mourning and flowing hair, followed the Crucified 
 One, a lady personating Veronica, upholding her handkerchief, paced 
 backwards in front of the image. Other three Marys occurred 
 elsewhere in the strange pageant ; and between one and another of 
 the moving groups were little children, evidently above the lower 
 orders, dressed in long trained mantles, sedately bearing the 
 emblems of Christ's sufferings. The procession was more than half 
 a mile long, and had nothing of the rude simplicity witnessed the 
 night before. 
 
 Just on the outskirts of Figueras is a ruined monastery which 
 served for barracks in the Carlist war, and the walls now retain marks 
 significant of its having been used for such a purpose. A little way 
 into the country, at Vilabertran, is another ruined monastery, once 
 of great importance and honoured by the presence of royalty, but 
 now for the most part in a mutilated state, whilst the chapel serves 
 as the village church. These instances recall many others, 
 some noticed in this volume — Poblet and San Isidore, near Seville, 
 may be in the reader's recollection. In accordance with such 
 circumstances is the comparative paucity of monks and friars in the 
 Spanish peninsula. I do not recollect meeting with half-a-dozen 
 men of the latter order in a journey extending over seven or eight 
 hundred miles. The government has seized much of the con- 
 ventual property, once so enormously great ; and this surely it could 
 not have done if aristocratic and popular opinion in favour of 
 ecclesiastical institutions had remained as it was in the sixteenth 
 century.^ 
 
 Figueras is about fifteen miles from Portbou, where the traveller 
 finds the Spanish custom-house in a gully between two tunnels. 
 
 • I am informed "that, in accordance with the Concordat, only three religious orders 
 are permitted, those of San Vicente de Paula, of San Felipe Neri, and a single order of 
 monks." The Government, however, tolerates, I believe, Jesuits, Franciscans, and 
 others. 
 
28o THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 The coast scenery in the neighbourhood is very pleasant, consisting 
 of beautiful bays amidst picturesque rocks ; after flying past them 
 to the north, we are on the vast plain of Roussillon, looking, I 
 should think, very delightful in autumn ; the route to Perpignan 
 and Narbonne, however, must always be uninviting ; and with 
 the antiquities of the latter Roman city I was greatly dis- 
 appointed. 
 
( 28l ) 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 SPANISH EXILES. 
 
 In a former chapter I described a group of Spanish travellers, who 
 from different causes left their own country, and, not being able to 
 return on account of their religion, devoted themselves to the 
 advancement of the Reformation by means of the writings they 
 published. In the present chapter I have to describe another 
 group, consisting of those who, having more or less embraced the 
 Protestant faith, were obliged to flee from their native country, and 
 seek refuge beyond the reach of Inquisitors, 
 
 A large number went to Geneva. That beautiful city, which 
 now attracts so many tourists by the scenery surrounding it, had 
 other attractions in the sixteenth century more powerful than blue 
 waters, green banks and snow-crowned hills. Geneva was a City 
 of Refuge for Protestant exiles of many lands. John Calvin there 
 reigned supreme from 1541 to 1564, and during those years 
 Protestantism was the established religion of the place, and the 
 gates were open to receive emigrants in sympathy with the ruling 
 faith. Many of them remained long afterwards. The most 
 numerous colony consisted of emigi-ants from Italy. The Reform- 
 ation was then spreading amongst Italians, and family after family, 
 influenced by it, fled from persecution to find rest on the shore of 
 Lake Leman. The famous Bernardino Ochino arrived in 1 542, and 
 found a number of his compatriots, who wished to hear him preach 
 in their own tongue ; the Genevese Council, agreeably to their desire, 
 gave them provisionally the use of the Chapel of the Cardinal. 
 
282 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 They afterwards occupied the Temple of St. Germain. Peter Martyr 
 Vermiglio joined Ochino ; and the Italian refugees enjoyed the 
 privilege of listening to the discourses of these eloquent Reformers. 
 A regular Italian church organisation was accomplished in 1552 by 
 the Marquis Galeazzo Carraciolo, a Spanish Neapolitan grandee. 
 Converted partly by what he heard in his native land, and partly by 
 instructions in Germany, .he sought to promote the Reformation after 
 his return to Naples, but finding himself disappointed he resolved 
 to leave Italy, also trying to persuade his wife and family to 
 accompany him. After a series of romantic adventures, he settled 
 at Geneva ; and after a long residence there procured a divorce 
 from his wife, who had refused to follow him. The church 
 which he organised was on the Genevan model, democratic in 
 constitution — religious zeal and pure orthodoxy rather th^n wealth 
 or rank procuring official distinction amongst the little band. A lay 
 element preponderated, and four elders, four deacons and a treasurer 
 were chosen by the coijgregation. With the two pastors, Ochino 
 and Vermiglio, they formed ^ church consistory. Attention was 
 paid to the musical part of worship. There was a choir, and the 
 Psalms of David were chanted in the language of Petrarch. The 
 syndics of the city had control over the temporal interests. 
 Laetantio Ragnoni, of Siena, became pastor after Ochino had 
 retired, and Celso Massimiliano Martinengo, a man of ability, was 
 united with him in 1553. After his death, in 1557, Calvin endea- 
 voured in vain to recover the services of Vermiglio, together with 
 those of Zanchi ; but, until 1559, Ragnoni remained sole pastor, 
 when Nicola Balbani was chosen as a colleague. The church was 
 disturbed by Unitarian controversies, which ended in the drawing 
 up of an orthodox confession in 1558. 
 
 It was to the Italian congregation that the earlier Spanish 
 refugees attached themselves ; some probably understood Italian, 
 and others, from affinity of languages, soon learned it. A German 
 Protestant tells us that when he was in Geneva, he heard Balbani 
 
SPANISH EXILES. 283 
 
 preach to a large congregation of Italians and Spaniards in their 
 own church. 
 
 In 1559 the Spaniards had, at the Temple of St. Germain, a 
 service in their own language at the request of Calvin, and Juan 
 Perez is mentioned as their minister ; but they seem afterwards to 
 have held communion with the Italians ; exiles from both countries, 
 together with converted Mussulmans and Jews, formed one congrega- 
 tion of Protestants. Between the years 1556 and 1568 there occur 
 in the Genevan archives the names of the following exiles from 
 Seville, Farcas or Farias, Hernando de Leon, Pedro Pablo, 
 Peregrino de Pas and Cyprian Valera. One is mentioned from 
 Valladohd, Judn Vivarte or Vivares; two from Zaragoza, Judn 
 Ferrares and Francisco de Lunes ; and one from Barcelona, Judn 
 Tallavero. Fifteen Spanish families are said to have been 
 included in the community.^ 
 
 Some prominent persons require special notice. Michael 
 Servetus is described in the register as from " Villanueva en 
 Aragon, savant universel, brule vif pour cause dogmatique, 15 S3-" 
 Sad entry ! Into the much-controverted question of Calvin's share 
 in this act it is unnecessary to enter. Intolerance, it must be 
 acknowledged, was largely countenanced and upheld by Protes- 
 tants ; though the number of those whom they put to death bears 
 no comparison'with the multitudes burnt by the Spanish Inquisition. 
 Servetus did not, as is often supposed, maintain that Christ was a 
 mere man — so far from it, he believed that the Divine Logos was 
 incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth; but in his conceptions on the 
 subject he trod rather closely in the footsteps of ancient Gnostics. 
 He denied the doctrine of justification by faith and infant baptismy 
 and also opposed the opinions of both Calvin and Luther on the 
 Lord's Supper. 
 
 Judn Perez, described as "ministrede I'Eglise Espagnole, 1559," 
 
 ' ' Le Refuge Italien de Geneve,' par J. B. G. Galiffe, D.D., is my authority for these 
 statements. 
 
THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 was an interesting person. Born at Montilla, in Andalusia, he 
 appears in 1526 at Rome, connected with the Spanish embassy- 
 there. Returning to Spain, he was appointed head of an institute at 
 Seville, called the College of Doctrine, and became acquainted with 
 Egidius and other Reformers, in whose doctrines he sympathised. 
 Becoming a suspected person, he left the beautiful city, and 
 managing to escape detention on the frontiers of Spain, reached in 
 safety the Lake of Geneva, to be welcomed by the community settled 
 on its charming shore. It was attractive to such fugitives, and 
 Calvin, writing to Farel, 1551, spoke of them as daily increasing at 
 that period. In 1557 twelve refugees are mentioned as having 
 arrived from Seville within a year, including the prior, vicar, and 
 proctor (procurador) of San Isidoro. 
 
 In 1556 Perez was at work upon a translation of the New 
 Testament. The question whether the work was really his has 
 been set at rest by Dr. Boehmer, who cites a passage from Cypriano 
 de Valera, distinctly saying that in Geneva, Perez printed the New 
 Testament, and other books in Spanish.-' In the dedication he 
 writes as a patriotic Spaniard, jealous of his country's fame, 
 and wishing by the victories of Divine truth to surpass those which 
 had been won by the sword. He dedicates his version to the King 
 of Kings, and adds an address to the King of Spain, telling him it 
 was a royal duty to protect and advance the teaching of Holy Writ. 
 He also published a Spanish Catechism, and a translation of the 
 Psalms, inscribed to the sister of the Emperor Charles. In 1557 
 came from his busy pen a bold letter to King Philip, in which 
 he concludes that things ought to be called by their proper names. 
 Truth, he says, is truth, and a lie, a lie. A lamb is a lamb, and a 
 wolf a wolf; and so he tells the Catholic King to his face, that 
 papists cast aside the Bible, and cloak the truth with papal false- 
 
 ' 'Bibliotheca -Wiffeniana,' ii. 61. Perez's Testament -faears the imprint Venecia, but 
 this is only a blind. Juan Philadelpho is named as printer — a pseudonym of Jeatr 
 Crispin, Geneva. See also notice by -Wiffen, prefixed to the ' Epistola Consolatoria.' 
 
SPANISH EXILES. 285 
 
 hoods. Excommunications, he declares, are scarecrows to frighten 
 ignorant people ; and the immorality of Rome, he maintains, 
 exceeded even its disbelief. Perez seems to have gone beyond his 
 brethren in freedom of speech ; and besides this letter he addressed 
 another, prefixed to a Spanish translation of Sleiden's Orations, to 
 the emperor. In this epistle, instead of courtly compliment, we 
 meet with a denunciation of Spanish Inquisitors, and the King is 
 told, if he allowed it to go on, he would become, not a ruler of 
 men, but a king over sanbenitos and ashes. What ashes ? 
 Why the ashes of his most loyal subjects, the ashes of Christ's 
 disciples. 
 
 Fires at Seville and Valladolid were blazing in 1559 and 1560, 
 and as the tidings reached the ears of Perez in his exile, he wrote a 
 consolatory letter to the sufferers. He reminded them that Simeon 
 had prophesied the infant Jesus would be " for the fall and rising 
 again of many in Israel, and for a sign that shall be spoken against." 
 This prophecy, he said, was then being fulfilled, also that the 
 condemnation of those who opposed the Divine cause would be 
 terrible, but that those who believed should be saved by Him, 
 because of the love which made them willing to be crucified by the 
 world. No wonder the circulation of this -letter made Inquisitors 
 very indignant. 
 
 In 1560 appeared a work entitled ' A brief Treatise on the old 
 Doctrine of God, and the new Doctrine of Men, profitable for every 
 faithful Christian.' On the title-page are the words of Jeremiah, 
 " Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the way and see, and ask for 
 the old paths. There is the good way, and walk therein, and ye 
 shall find I'est for your souls." This production has been attributed 
 to Perez, and in its pages the tables are turned against Rome ; real 
 antiquity, the writer asserts, is on the side of Reformers, and papal 
 doctrines are corrupt innovations. There is another clever 
 Spanish tract entitled ' A brief summary of Indulgences,' in which 
 the author, probably making use of a French original, brings out 
 
286 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 the fulness of Divine mercy in the gospel of Jesus Christ, item after 
 item, being a condensed repetition of Scripture passages assuring men 
 of God's willingness to forgive them through His only begotten Son. 
 The contrast between Divine and papal indulgences is obvious, 
 and this suggestion of it, given in plain Spanish speech, is a work 
 which has been attributed by Don Luis, and Wiffen to Judn Perez. 
 Another book, called the ' Image of Antichrist,' has been regarded, 
 but upon insufficient grounds, as a production of the same author.^ 
 Finally, I may mention a preface which Perez wrote to Judn Valdes' 
 Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, which has been well 
 translated by Mr. Betts, and prefixed to his recent edition of that 
 valuable work. Perez mentions the difficulty he had in deciphering 
 Valdes' manuscript, and in "restoring it to its pristine integrity 
 and purity ;" he justly remarks respecting that author's character, 
 he was a cavalier both noble and wealthy, "but he piously and 
 wisely considered that true nobility consisted, not in holding himself 
 to be de sangre azurra, of purer blood than others, but in being an 
 imitator of Christ, and in obeying the laws of Christian chivalry." ^ 
 
 "Valeria de Seville, Cyprien, 1558, traducteur de la Bible," is 
 another entry found in the Genevan register, and proves that De 
 Valera, as he is called in Spanish, was amongst the exiles in 
 Geneva at the date specified. He was born at Seville in 1532 ; he 
 was acquainted there with those who adopted the Reformed faith, 
 and became himself a decided Protestant. Whilst in Geneva he 
 employed himself in translating Calvin's ' Institutes,' and in writing 
 treatises on the papacy and the mass. He afterwards signalized 
 himself as a Scripture translator. This will appear presently. 
 
 One more Spanish name on the list ought to be introduced — 
 
 ' It is published in the ' Reformistas Antiguos Espanoles,' No. xviii. In my account 
 of Perez, I have used the volume now mentioned, and especially the ' Bibliotheca 
 Wiffeniana,' ii. 51-100. 
 
 ^ ' A Brief and compendious Commentary of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans.' 
 Perez's preface to the ' Christian Reader,' p. xvi. 
 
SPANISH EXILES. 287 
 
 "Galezio (Galesius) Pierre, docteur en philosophic, 1582, professeur 
 de philosophic, 1 583." He must have reached the City of Refuge at 
 a later date than the others I have described. He appears to have 
 been in Italy for some time, and is said to have taught the Greek 
 language and the science of jurisprudence in that country. He 
 was suspected of heresy, came under the notice of the Inquisition, 
 and lost the sight of one eye, we are told, from his sufferings under 
 torture. He escaped from prison in 1580, and at Geneva filled the 
 chair of philosophy jointly with Julio Paci, an Italian professor. 
 He was a Protestant at that time ; but Tiraboschi, as M'Crie 
 remarks, labours to show that he returned to the Roman faith in 
 his latter days, but his arguments are inconclusive.^ 
 
 It adds to the interest of what we can gather in relation to 
 these Spanish refugees, when we connect them with other Protest- 
 ants in Geneva at the same time. The English exiles who 
 sojourned there in the reign of Queen Mary were numerous. 
 Their church book, from 1555 to 1560, is preserved in the archives 
 of the H6tel-de-Ville, and it discloses much information i-especting 
 the persons who formed the little Anglican colony. They had the 
 Church of Marie la Neuve. In 1559, after Elizabeth's accession 
 to the throne, several of them left the Lake City, and exchanged 
 glimpses of Mont Blanc in its glory at eventide, for the woods 
 and vales of dear old England ; but they did not all depart until 
 1560, when William Whittingham, who had so much to do with 
 our Genevan New Testament and Bible, took his departure. The 
 earliest of the Spaniards arrived in 1557, three years before the 
 disappearance of the English congregation, and presently after- 
 wards others arrived — so that Perez and Valera, both Biblical 
 scholars and translators, would be contemporary with Whittingham 
 and his brethren, and all would be associates with the great John 
 Calvin. That they had much intercourse with each other cannot 
 be doutted ; and as Englishmen told of the Smithfield fires, 
 
 ' ' Reformation in Spain,' 364. 
 
THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 Spaniards would tell of Seville and Valladolid autos defi. They 
 would hear of friends and relatives trying to escape from persecu- 
 tion ; they would rejoice in that escape, and welcome the arrival 
 of some ; they would lament the failure, the imprisonment, and 
 martyrdom of others. We can picture them pacing the water-side, 
 interchanging news, now sad, then encouraging — and afterward 
 repairing to the house of God to intercede for loved ones far 
 away. Nor would Calvin fail to sympathise in their varied 
 feelings, and to cheer their hearts with the promises of God, 
 firm as the everlasting hills round about their pilgrim home. 
 
 From Geneva we enter France, and there we find Juan Perez, 
 after leaving Geneva, engaged as preacher in the picturesque city 
 of Blois, and afterwards as chaplain to the godly Renee, Duchess 
 of Ferrara, in her old castle of Montargis, whither she repaired 
 after the , death of her husband. Perez died in Paris, after 
 bequeathing all his property to the printing of the Bible in his 
 native language. Some Spaniards sought refuge in the city of 
 Lyons, where Protestantism was strong. " The French Protestants 
 showed themselves uniformly disposed to sympathise with the 
 Spanish refugees, contributed to their support, shared with them 
 that degree of religious liberty which they happened at the time 
 to enjoy, and admitted several of them to be pastors of their 
 churches." ^ 
 
 Gaspar Olaxa, minister at Castres, was a Spaniard, but he was 
 deposed in 1594 for "fomenting dissensions," whatever that may 
 mean ; also Vincent Solera, minister of St. Lo, in Normandy, was 
 a Spaniard. Juan de Luna and Lorenzo Fernandez, two monks 
 who abjured popery, were likewise Spaniards. These all shared 
 in the liberality of French brethren. Geronimo Quevodo, who 
 escaped out of the fangs of the Inquisition, received a pension 
 from the synod of Alez, at the discretion of Montpellier Protestants.^ 
 
 In the South of France we come again on the track of De 
 ' M'Crle, 350. ^ Ibid., 351. 
 
SPANISH EXILES. 
 
 Reyna. The year 1564 found him there. He had left the 
 Netherlands, Philip II. having set a price on the good man's head. 
 He was said to be in Antwerp, but nobody could find him ; people 
 in search of the exile were foiled as they watched the streets, 
 and laid wait in holes and corners. In the Belgian archives, 
 there is notice by the chief police officer, that De Reyna was 
 concealed somewhere in the city, on the 4th of January, 1563 ; and 
 that his wife from England had landed in sailor's clothes at the 
 ■port of Flushing. After that, he appears at Montargis, with 
 Juan Perez and Antonio del Corro ; and from a long intercepted 
 letter sent by the latter, relative to the Spanish Bible, it seems 
 Perez thought of printing it at a castle in Navarre.^ 
 
 Another Spanish refugee we meet with in France at a later 
 period. Judn Nicolas Secharles, Librarian in the Escorial, had 
 opened one day Cyprian de Valera's books, and from them had 
 discovered how far Rome had departed from Scripture. He left 
 Spain, and visited Italy, and in the papal' city had his convictions 
 respecting the apostasy confirmed. He removed to Fi-ance, and 
 took up his abode in Montpellier to study medicine ; alarmed at 
 the xiesigns against him of a Jesuit living in the place, he removed 
 to London, where he translated a book entitled the ' Shield of Faith,' 
 and dedicated it to Charles 11.^ 
 
 If the grand old city of Bale cannot vie with Geneva in natural 
 charms, it rivals the latter as a centre of Reforming influence, and as 
 a hospitable refuge for exiled Protestants. Erasmus and CEcolam- 
 padius had lived and laboured there. Romanism had been swept 
 out of the place. English exiles, Hooper the martyr, and Foxe the 
 martyrolgist, had been kindly entertained by the citizens, and all 
 this would make Bale attractive to wandering Spaniards. A 
 further attraction to Bdle presented itself to De Reyna in the fact 
 of its fame for skilful printing. A succession of adepts in the 
 
 1 ' Wiffeniana,' ii. 172, and ' The Brothers Wiffen,' by S. R. Pattison, 134. 
 ^ Droin, ii. 167. 
 
 U 
 
^9° THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 -art and mystery industriously worked the Bale presses for the 
 production of Protestant books ; and ingeniously contrived devices, 
 placed on their title-pages, are in our time the bibliographer's 
 <ielight. The celebrity of the city as a printing emporium was, I 
 apprehend, the chief reason for De Reyna's going there, and there, 
 ~we know, the publication of his Bible was accomplished. On that 
 Bible he had worked year after year, and the aid of the Senate 
 promoted the publication.^ A copy of the book is preserved 
 in the public library ; and in it may be found a note by the 
 author, which acknowledges his obligation to the magistrates ; 
 he also informs us that the printing had been executed by Thomas 
 Guarinus, successor to the Frobens and Brylingers of former days.^ 
 This Bible, a large quarto, is arranged like the Vulgate, and omits 
 a part of the Apocrypha. In the title-page is a bear plundering a 
 bee-hive, whence it has got the name of the Bear's Bible.* I am 
 glad to be able to introduce a facsimile of the title-page. 
 
 Pushing northward, we meet at Heidelberg another Spanish 
 
 ' Before the publication of De Reyna's Bible, there had been one printed in 1553, 
 ■with this title-page : "Biblia en Lengua Espaiiola, traduzida palabra por palabra de la 
 verdad Hebrayca por muy excelentes letrados, vista y examinada por el officio de la 
 Inquisicion. Con privillegio del yllustrissimo Senor Duque de Ferrara. Con yndustria 
 y deligencia de Duarte Pinel Portugues : estampada en Farrara a costa y despesa de 
 Jeronimo de Vargas Espanol : en primero de Marco de 1533." This word for word 
 translation from the Hebrew, examined by the Inquisition and printed at Ferrara, was 
 for the use of Christians : the only difference between this and that intended for Jews 
 is in Isaiah vii. 14. A copy of this Bible, lent by Earl Spencer, was exhibited at the 
 Caxton Celebration. See Catalogue, p. 140. 
 
 ^ M'Crie, 349. 
 
 ' The following inscription is found in a copy of the Bible preserved at the Library 
 at Bile : — " Cassiodorus Reinius Hispanus Hispalensis, enclytse hujus Academise 
 -alumnus, hujus sacrorum librorum versionis Hispanic^ author, quam per integrum 
 decennlum elaboravit, et auxilio pientissimorum ministrorum hujus Ecclesise Basileensis 
 -ex decreto prudentissimi Senatus typis ab honesto viro Thoma Guarino cive Basileensi 
 excusam demum emisit in lucem, in perpetuum gratitudinis et observantiae monumentum 
 hunc librum inclytaa huic Academise supplex dicabat a. 1570 mense Junio." The Bible 
 was published in 1569. 
 
L A BIBLIA, 
 
 aVE ES> LOS SA- 
 
 CRO S LIBRO S DEL 
 
 VIEIO Y NVEVO TE- 
 STAMENT o. 
 
 TrAiUAida en E^anol. 
 
 
 La'PttUyadelDmnttejlropermanecefaraJiem^re. IJk. 40. 
 
 M' D. LXIX* 
 
 u 2 
 
SPANISH EXILES. 393 
 
 exile, who wrote a memorable work on the Inquisition, and pub- 
 lished it in that picturesque city.* 
 
 This author is often called by the Latin name of Montanus, and 
 that name must be carefully distinguished from Arius Montanus, a 
 celebrated Hebrew scholar, who became involved with Inquisitorial 
 censors on account of his Biblical labours. In the work on the 
 Inquisition are detailed with agonising minuteness the torments from 
 which the author had escaped, and which were afterwards endured 
 by his persecuted brethren. The chapters relate the manner of 
 proceeding in the Holy Office, the examination of witnesses, the 
 employment of torture, the visitation of the. prisons, the treatment 
 of prisoners, and the penalties inflicted on them, together with some 
 account of the martyrs at Seville. To read accounts given of 
 the rack and of the cord which crushed the limbs of the accused 
 makes one shudder. The book is trustworthy on the whole, as 
 appears from Llorente's statement, that, having compared it with 
 official records, he found it correct.^ 
 
 This work is attributed to a person called Montanus, or 
 De Montes, who is described by Llorente as having escaped from 
 the prison of the Holy Office at Seville, and as being there burnt 
 in effigy, and further by De Castro as visiting England. Dr. 
 Boehmer, whose learning and judgment are of the highest value, 
 thinks that such statements are mere suppositions, founded simply 
 upon a perusal of the volume. He considers the name is a 
 
 ' The following is the title : — " Sanctse Inquisitionis Hispanicae artes aliquot detectse, 
 ac palam traductse, exempla aliquot prseter ea quse suo quoeque loco in ipso opere sparsa 
 sunt, seorsum reposita, in quibus easdem Inquisitorias artes veluti in tabulis quibusdam 
 in ipso porro exercitio intueri licet. Addidimus appendicis vice piorum quorumdam 
 martyrum Christi elogia qui cum mortis supplicium ob fidei confessionem Christiana 
 constantia tulerint, Inquisitores eos suis artibus perfidiae ac defectionis infamarint. Exurge 
 Deus, judica causam tuam, Psal. 74. Reginaldo Gonsalvio Montano authore Heidelberg^ 
 MDLXVII." The book has been reprinted in the thirteenth volume of the ' Reformistas.' 
 The edition was secretly prepared at Madrid. It is also translated into Spanish. 
 
 '^ Llorente, ii. 242. 
 
294 THE SPANISH REFORMERS, 
 
 pseudonym, and may really allude to more persons than one ; and 
 he concludes that the editor, who certainly was a Spaniard, 
 translated from Spanish materials furnished him by others, and 
 that he made additions drawn from his own knowledge and 
 experience.* I question, however, this conclusion, 
 
 Following again the track of Cassiodorus de Reyna, we find 
 him at Antwerp — after the peace c5f 1578, which brought for a 
 while liberty to Netherland Protestants — publishing a Catechism in 
 French, Dutch and Latin, dated 1580. He was afterwards engaged 
 in the silk trade at Frankfort, in 1593, and became pastor of the 
 Netherland church of that city, only eight months before his death, 
 in March, 1594. 
 
 Now let us turn to our own country. Numerous Spaniards 
 visited England in the reign of Queen Mary; and Strype says, " It 
 is certain that in Queen Mary's days many of those Spaniards who 
 came over in the retinue of Philip, the Spanish prince, or after, for- 
 sook popery, and became professors of the Reformed religion, which 
 one cannot well tell how it should come to pass, unless it were by 
 the hearing of the Gospel preached in their own language here. 
 And it is observable, that among these many had been sent for 
 over, in that queen's time, to convert our nation from heresy, as 
 they termed it, and to reduce it to the Roman Church." ^ There 
 were other ways, more probable than that suggested by Stiype, in 
 which Protestant truth may have reached the hearts of London 
 Spaniards ; conversation with Protestants and the reading of Pro- 
 testant books were powerful instrumentalities. 
 
 Soon after Elizabeth's accession, the Spanish government de- 
 manded that two refugees then in this country should be delivered 
 up for trial in Spain. Their names were " Franciscus Farias and 
 Nicholaus Molinus." Theyappealed for help to the Bishop of London, 
 telling their sorrowful story, how they had been banished, how 
 money had been spent by the Inquisitor to secure their detection, 
 ' ' Bibliotheca Wiffeniana,' ii. 116. ''■ 'Memorials of Cranmer,' vol. i. 246. 
 
SPANISH EXILES. 
 
 and that false charges were brought against them. They intreated 
 his lordship to let them know whether it was likely the queen 
 would leave them to their enemies.-^ 
 
 These Spaniards complained of hard and unjust methods, " used 
 by the pope's creatures to bring the professors of the Gospel into 
 jeopardy ; " they related " how liberal the Spanish Inquisition was. 
 of her money to get into their clutches such as were out of their 
 reach ; " what a harvest of men professing the truth there were 
 even then in Spain, and what a "seasonable harbour" England 
 afforded " to pious strangers." ^ 
 
 It is necessary here to notice what, in my topographical arrange- 
 ment, I passed over in the sketch of De Reyna's wanderings. He 
 came to London after Elizabeth ascended the throne, in 1558. 
 This was eleven years before the publication of his Bible at Bale. 
 Converted Spaniards begged her majesty to give them protection,, 
 and grant them a public place for Divine worship ; and some of the 
 Reformed clergy were willing to allow for that purpose the use of 
 parish churches. Not only did Roman Catholic citizens eye these: 
 foreigners with jealousy and hatred, but relations between the 
 courts of England and Spain increased the difficulty of the situation. 
 Alvaro, ambassador of Philip II., was ready to pounce upon the 
 worshippers, if he knew where he could find them at worship, 
 though he professed no enmity, and it was thought by the govern- 
 ment best that they should meet in private, which De Reyna did 
 not like. A despatch from the ambassador complains of the 
 reception given to the family of Cassiodorus de Reyna, " I under- 
 stand," he says, " that they have granted to the Spanish heretics- 
 a large house belonging to the Bishop of London, in which they 
 preach three times a week, and they are favoured by the queen."' 
 He further mentions a remittance of money to Cassiodorus to assist 
 him in travelling.* 
 
 ' Strype's ' Life of Grindal,' 109. '' Ibid., 109. 
 
 ' Siinancas Archives, quoted in Droin, ii. 157. 
 
296 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 Troubles arose between the Spanish and French refugees. A 
 man named Corranus, born at Seville, who strikes me as having been 
 an ill-tempered person, and who said sharp and ungrateful things 
 to his English hosts, was accused of heterodoxy by the ministers 
 of the French and Italian congregations. The parties appealed to 
 Theodore Beza ; the controversy was referred to Grindal, then Bishop 
 of London. Secretary Cecil, however, was friendly to Corranus, 
 honouring him because of his learning, and he not only removed 
 the suspension of Corranus' ministry, which Grindal had pronounced, 
 but made him Reader of Divinity at the Temple. He went to 
 Oxford, and though coldly treated there by some, he was allowed 
 by the authorities to lecture in the university, and, what is remark- 
 able, he was appointed to a prebend in St. Paul's Cathedral. He 
 died in London about 1591. At the time of the dispute about 
 Corranus, charges of immorality were brought against Cassiodorus. 
 Defamation of character apart from proof was a common thing 
 in those days. He solemnly denied the charge. A royal com- 
 mission, presided over by Archbishop Grindal, pronounced him 
 innocent.^ 
 
 The Spanish Protestants in London published a confession of 
 faith, with a view to the defence of their orthodoxy, which had been 
 impeached. They professed doctrines common to all Protestants, 
 but as to the eucharist the confession sided with the Reformed, not 
 the Lutherans. Philip was indignant at the favour shown to his 
 heretical subjects, and, backed by the pope, he made no secret of his 
 sentiments and designs. Jewel, whose apology was so popular a 
 book in the days of Elizabeth, stepped forward in defence of the 
 strangers, saying, " Thanks be to God, this realm is able to receive 
 them. Why may not Queen Elizabeth receive a few afflicted 
 members of Christ which are compelled to carry His cross, whom, 
 when He thought good to bring safely by the dangers of the 
 sea, and to set in at our havens, should we cruelly have driven 
 ' See Strype's ' Life of Grindal,' and Boehmer's sketch of De Reyna, ' Wiffeniana,' ii. 
 
LA BIBLIA. 
 
 Quces, 
 
 LOS SACROS LIBROS 
 
 DEL V I E I O Y N V E V O 
 TESTAMENT O. 
 
 Segundu Edicion, 
 
 Revifta y conferida con los textos Hebreos y Gtiegos 
 y con diveifas tranflaciones. 
 
 PorCYPRIANO ie VALERA. 
 
 tafakhra de Titos imMnece pra fiim^e. Ifeyas /o. 8. 
 
 En Amfterdanij En Cafi. ds Xorenqo lacobi. 
 
 M. DC. II. 
 
SPANISH EXILES. 299 
 
 them back again, or drowned them, or hanged them or starved 
 them ? " 1 
 
 I have noticed Cypriano de Valera amongst Spanish refugees at 
 Geneva. He reached England soon after Elizabeth ascended the 
 throne. An Act of Incorporation at Oxford in February, 1 565, 
 shows that he had a B.A. degree at Cambridge in 1559-60, and 
 that he was now M.A. of three years' standing. No doubt he 
 worked hard in England on the great task of his life — a new trans- 
 lation of the Spanish Bible, a large folio of nearly 900 pages. In 
 preparing this, he availed himself of what had been done by his 
 countrymen already. He made much use of De Reyna's version ; 
 the New Testament by Francisco de Enzinas, 1 543 ; the Jews' 
 Bible, 1553; and the version by Perez, printed in 1556, without 
 his name. He also " enjoyed the great lights of the Complutensian 
 and Antwerp Polyglots, to both of which he refers with the honour 
 they so richly deserve." ^ Two editions of De Valera's Bible were 
 issued in the same year, 1602 ; and a facsimile of the second 
 edition is now presented to the reader. It is taken from the copy 
 in the library of the British and Foreign Bible Society. The 
 volume contains the Apocrypha as well as the Old and New 
 Testaments. 
 
 De Valera's translation, according to the testimony of Diodati, 
 the Italian translator of the Bible, " produced incredible effects in 
 Spain, no less than three thousand copies having penetrated by secret 
 ways and conveyances into the very bowels of that kingdom." * 
 Perhaps this statement refers to a New Testament, printed by 
 itself in England, 1596. De Valera appears at Leyden, from a 
 letter written by the famous James Arminius, who applied to the 
 States-General for assistance on his behalf, saying, he deserved 
 repose, and to spend free from trouble what little of life remained.* 
 He died at' the age of seventy. 
 
 ' 'View of a seditious Bull. Jewel's Works. ^ Ticknor's ' Spanish Literature,' i. 425. 
 ' Quick's ' Synodicon,' ii. 418. ■* Droin, ii. 163. 
 
300 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 De Valera translated Calvin's Catechism, and published it in 
 1596, under the title of 'El Catholico Reformado.' His Spanish 
 translation of Calvin's ' Institutes ' appeared in 1597. 
 
 In the early part of the seventeenth century there was a Spaniard 
 named Ferdinando de Texeda, who was a canon of Hereford, 
 appointed to that preferment by James I. for having translated the 
 English Liturgy into the Spanish language. He wrote a book 
 entitled ' Carrascon/ which has been printed by Don Luis/ as the 
 first volume of the series named, ' Reformistas Antiguos Espaiioles.' 
 It is a treatise on several subjects connected with the Protestant 
 controversy. The study of Holy Scriptures occupies a large part 
 of the volume, and the author dwells upon the canonical books, 
 the Latin Vulgate and the integrity of the Hebrew text. He 
 discusses the doctrine of implicit faith, the worship of images, the 
 use of Latin in the Divine Office, and the practice of monachism. 
 
 ' To him we are indebted for the discovery of the author's name. Mr. Ticknor 
 had confounded it with the title of the little volume, and calls him Thomas Corrascon, 
 ' Hist, of Spanish Lit.,' i. 429. Carrascon is a Spanish word, which, according to the 
 dictionary, means a large evergreen oak ; but Mr. Borrow says it is used to denote " a 
 species of brushwood " (' Bible in Spain,' chapter ix.). 
 
( 301 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 MODERN EVANGELISATION EFFORTS IN SPAIN. 
 
 A MOVEMENT in Spain has commenced during the present century, 
 for the revival of Evangelical religion among the people, in a form 
 more decidedly Protestant than it assumed in that country three 
 hundred years ago. There is an obvious difference between the 
 past and the present in this respect, that whereas then persons 
 engaged in maintaining and propagating Reformed doctrines were 
 themselves Spaniards) now agencies of a similar kind are mainly in 
 the hands of foreign Christians. Protestantism, more antagonistic 
 to Rome than what existed in the Peninsula at that period, is 
 certainly in our day rather an importation than a home growth ; 
 yet a much larger number of the children of the soil are being 
 touched by missionaries from other lands employed amongst them, 
 than were reached by their countrymen of old; whilst the lower 
 classes yield now more converts than they did in Seville and 
 Valladolid, in the days of Ponce de Leon and the Cazallas. Any 
 criticism of different methods now adopted in Spain for the 
 conversion of Roman Catholics would be out of place in these 
 pages ; but a brief statement of what is going on will be a fitting 
 conclusion to this volume. I shall therefore first describe what I 
 saw myself, and then furnish some account of what is reported 
 by others. 
 
 For historical reasons, I have noticed certain parts of Northern 
 Spain in a different order from that in which I visited them ; but 
 
302 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 for the purpose now before me it is better to follow exactly the 
 route which I took in my journey, 
 
 I shall therefore begin with Figueras, my first halting-place after 
 crossing the border at Portbou. A mission exists at Figueras, 
 commenced by Don Francisco Previ, who became a Protestant 
 whilst at an English ophthalmic hospital in 1875. After his death 
 in 1880, the work was undertaken by Don Luis L. Rodriguez, who 
 has since married Miss Murray ; that lady and her husband are 
 now employed in promoting the spiritual welfare of the population. 
 They are aided by two Spanish brothers, and three English friends. 
 During three days spent in the town, I was indebted to them for 
 kindness and hospitality, and had ample opportunities of estimating 
 the value of their self-denying labours. They have a large 
 commodious hall, neatly fitted up for Divine worship — the 
 painting outside and in, together with the decorations on the walls, 
 having been executed by their own hands. From one hundred to 
 one hundred and fifty people are accommodated in this little chapel, 
 the gospel being preached to them by Don Rodriguez and one of 
 his brothers. There is a Sunday school of one hundred and thirty- 
 five boys and girls, divided into eight classes — showing an increase 
 of forty-nine during the last year. Added to these are day schools 
 for children and evening schools for adults, the number of the 
 instructed altogether amounting to one hundred and twenty-seven. 
 At a small village called Vilabertran, there is, in a dismantled 
 monastery of Knights Templars, once the scene of a royal wedding, 
 a large room fitted up for worship and preaching ; at the other end 
 an old Romish chapel is used as a parish church.^ The Sunday 
 school numbers one hundred and sixteen scholars. We drove over 
 to the spot, and met there, amongst the ruins, with several persons 
 interested in the enterprise. Some rustic families, turned out of 
 employment by the land-holder, remain, notwithstanding, quite 
 steadfast in their Christian profession. Dona Rodriguez informed 
 ' The monastery I have noticed in Chapter XIV. 
 
MODERN EVANGELISATION EFFORTS IN SPAIN. 303 
 
 me that, " Circling around the town of Figueras lie sixty-two 
 villages, giving ample scope, not only for preaching the Gospel, but 
 also for distributing the Scriptures. We go forth," she says, " very 
 hopefully to sow the seed in this vii-gin soil, and have met with 
 several instances of encouragement which make us look forward ' to 
 the reaping by-and-by.' It was not a little cheering on one occasion 
 to see written in large characters on a cottage door, those blessed 
 words, so unfamiliar to the Romanist, ' Dios es Amor,' ' God is 
 Love.' Who could be the writer ? A boy who attended our 
 Sunday school in Figueras, and in his simple way was thus a 
 missionary in the village." 
 
 These indefatigable missionaries in Figueras and the neighbour- 
 hood attend to the temporal as well as the spiritual wants of the 
 people, and have established a provident society with printed 
 regulations. Without expressing any opinion on the subject, I feel 
 I ought to state that, six months' probation is necessary before a 
 member is admitted, and in case of improper conduct he is 
 expelled after a third trial. On entering, the members promise 
 not to go to mass, nor to confession, nor to admit a priest into the 
 house in case of illness. It is understood that the members attend 
 the gospel services. 
 
 There are such restrictions on religious activity that our friends 
 are under the necessity of procuring the governor's permission to 
 •circulate tracts. At first he refused, but afterwards he sent to 
 request Don Rodriguez to go to his office, which he did. He was 
 kindly received, which constrasted forcibly with the former discour- 
 teous reception. " Were you aware," said the commanding officer, 
 " that you left some of your papers on the table ? " " Yes, I did 
 so, hoping that some one would read them." " I have done so," 
 replied the governor, " and think they are very good ; you may 
 distribute as many as you like;" on which he put his seal to a 
 specimen tract and text, thereby giving power to distribute copies 
 in future. A governor's seal is valid, should another take his office. 
 
304 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 From Figueras my daughter and I proceeded to Barcelona, 
 and there called on a Wesleyan missionary, but unfortunately 
 did not find him at home; we understand that he is sedulously 
 employed in evangelistic labours. There is iia the same city a 
 Swiss church with chapel and schools. 
 
 Gracia is a large straggling suburb, which was crowded with 
 excursionists the Easter Monday we were there. In Gracia are 
 several halls, mostly supplied by Plymouth Brethren. Around 
 Barcelona are self-supporting mission schools. 
 
 We passed Reus near Tarragona, but were unable to stop 
 at that interesting seat of industrial enterprise and political excite- 
 ment, where we should have found a Protestant pastor, who is 
 doing good, and whom we had been kindly requested to visit. 
 
 On reaching Cordova, by the circuitous railway route from 
 Valencia, we were welcomed at the station by the Rev. Henry 
 Duncan, who insisted upon our being his guests during our stay in 
 the old Moorish city. He is a Presbyterian clergyman, son of the 
 saintly Mary Lundy Duncan, who with her husband Dr. Duncan 
 were great ornaments of the Scottish Church, and made a lasting 
 mark on its history. Our friend suffered during last winter (i 882-3) 
 a severe illness, which partially interrupted his work ; and now, after 
 hopes had been entertained of his continued mission in Spain, he 
 has been obliged to relinquish his interesting station. The premises 
 occupied by him, as agent of. the Spanish Evangelisation Society, 
 form a characteristic specimen of a Moorish-Spanish house, with its 
 patio in the middle, and its colonnade all round ; and in a long 
 narrow room, fitted up as a church, we had the pleasure of 
 worshipping with him on a Sunday evening. There were about 
 fifty people present, all Spaniards, except his family and ourselves ; 
 and it was interesting to hear Spanish hymns translated from 
 Moody and Sankey's book, sung to the tunes which are now familiar 
 to Protestants all over Europe as well as America. The subject 
 of Mr. Duncan's earnest sermon was most suitable to Spanish 
 
MODERN EVANGELISATION EFFORTS IN SPAIN. 305 
 
 converts, exposed to much persecution — ^the text being, "Let us 
 hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for He is 
 faithful that promised." Mr. Duncan, assisted by the Rev. Don 
 Jose Pauly, of the Irish Presbyterian Church, has been general 
 pastor and superintendent of the work carried on in Villafranca, 
 Seville, Cadiz, Utrera, Huelva, Escoi-nar, Las Lineas, and Lorca, 
 and in some minor stations besides. A gratuitous monthly supply 
 of the ' Christian Messenger ' and ' Commentary ' is sent through 
 book post to the upper classes, by means of this wide-spreading 
 agency ; it also furnishes tracts to Spaniards and Portuguese who 
 visit English ports. The humble methods, the local difficulties, and 
 the increasing encouragements of these Evangelical labourers are 
 illustrated by Mr. Duncan, who, speaking of Villafranca, where Don 
 Jose Pauly preached, relates : " The place was packed full, and 
 greatly overflowing. We have only secured four or five benches as 
 yet ; a lamp was lent, and those who could not sit had to stand. Be- 
 tween the room, I hope, that is to be used as a school-room (when we 
 can send a teacher there), and the street door our landlord counted 
 eighty. Nearly as many more would be packed into the room, 
 and those in the street, who could easily hear, were not counted. 
 Many came and brought their children, who would not go to the 
 private house. Many went away confessing that they liked us and 
 our doctrines." 
 
 Again, to show how the work advances, Mr. Duncan says of a 
 place called Escornar : — 
 
 "The news from this place is as enthusiastic as ever. It is 
 true that some of the children, having finished their education, so 
 far as Ruiz (the master) could carry it, have left to gain their 
 living ; but there are seldom fewer than thirty present, and the 
 night school for youths and men is very full. Ruiz' only son 
 died on the ist November, and was buried by the side of his sister, 
 by the dung-heap outside the cemetery of an adjacent village, 
 which serves for Escornar." 
 
 X 
 
3o6 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 Our next glimpse of Protestant woi-k was caught in the charming 
 city of Seville. There we had the advantage of visiting Miss 
 Butcher and her sister, whose ciceroneship I have gratefully acknow- 
 ledged in Chapter VIII. These excellent ladies are carrying on 
 their own independent work in the Calle San Vicente, not far 
 from the church in which Francisco Zafra preached as vicar of 
 the parish. We found a company of bright Spanish girls gathered 
 round their teacher, who examined them as to what they had learnt, 
 and who conducted them through musical exercises, much to our 
 gratification. Again Moody and Sankey's hymns were laid under 
 contribution. Under the guidance of Miss Butchei", we saw two of the 
 four churches occupied by Protestant worshippers. The first is the 
 Church of the Assumption, in the Plaza del Museo, where English 
 service is conducted by the Rev. Mri Tugwell every Sunday during 
 the season. The second is the Church of San Basilio, Calle Relator. 
 The third is the Church of the Marineros (sailors), in the Triana 
 suburb, on the right side of the river, and the fourth is the Church 
 of the Holy Trinity, in the Calle de las Palmas. This, which was 
 foi^merly the Church of San Francisco de Paula, is a handsome 
 edifice, fitted up in 1871 by the Spanish Evangelisation Society. 
 The following woodcut shows it as it was when in the possession 
 of Spanish Catholics. 
 
 Don Manrique Alonso is the present minister, and he relates 
 the following incident : — 
 
 " I was walking early one night in one of the most crowded 
 streets of the town, and they called me into one of the commercial 
 establishments, begging me to pass into a room close by, where 
 there. were some friends of the owner met, who desired to consult 
 me on a doctrinal point. When I entered I was surprised to find an 
 open Bible on a table, round which there were some seven persons 
 of respectable appearance. The point which they were discussing 
 was Luke v. 14, which some had presented as proof of the power 
 of the priests to forgive sins. The conversation was long; many 
 
MODERN EVANGELISATION EFFORTS IN SPAIN. 207 
 
 passages of the Bible were read to prove that the cleansing from 
 sin is solely by the blood of Christ ; and hence originated othel- 
 
 \> 
 
 -»■- »»?. 
 
 
 fe^sj!<rTa'^ 
 
 1^' 
 
 
 
 OLD JESUIT CHURCH, SAN FRANCISCO DE. PAULA,' SEVILLE, 
 NOW USED FOR PROTESTANT WORSHIP. 
 
 matters of doctrine, which also were treated. All those present, 
 except one, had the Bible in their houses, and he who had none 
 
 X 2 
 
3o8 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 expressed to me his wish to obtain one, as he has since done. On 
 other nights I have returned to speak in this meeting of friends." 
 
 At Rio Tinto, in the south of Spain, where there are rich copper 
 mines, mission work is efficiently carried on, largely supported by 
 the Messrs. Matheson ; and in the north of Spain, agents of the 
 American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions are 
 employed at Bilbao, San Sebastian, Pamplona and Zaragoza. 
 
 Madrid is the scene of manifold Protestant operations, with 
 some of which I had special opportunities of becoming acquainted. 
 
 At Leganitos, within a building I have already mentioned in 
 the chapter on Madrid, as having been once connected with the 
 offices of the Inquisition, there are two chapels — as I have said, 
 one Episcopalian, the other Presbyterian. The latter is a mission 
 station with schools, supported by the United Presbyterian Church 
 of Scotland. I visited the schools and attended Divine service on 
 the Sunday evening, when there was an attendance of between 
 one and two hundred people — not so large as usual ; and after Mr. 
 Jameson had preached in Spanish, I was permitted to speak in 
 English, what I said being translated by him into the language 
 of the congregation. The kind reciprocations of Christian love on 
 the part of some present affected me greatly ; and we exchanged 
 greetings in the words of the Apostle Paul, " we being many, are 
 one body in Christ." 
 
 Near the royal palace, and overlooking the Guadarrama 
 Mountains, in spring covered with snow, is a huge rambling old 
 house of several stories. It was once occupied by the Princess 
 Eboli, and in the hall near the threshold, Juin Escobeda, who had 
 been a favourite of Philip II., was stabbed by order of that iron- 
 hearted monarqh. In this building there lives at present the 
 well-known pastor Fliedner, son of Fliedner who founded the 
 famous Deaconess Institution at Kaiserwerth, on the Rhine. The 
 pastor's wife is a descendant of the Rev. John Brown, of 
 Haddington, whose ' Self-interpreting Bible ' . years ago obtained a 
 
MODERN EVANGELISATION EFFORTS IN SPAIN. 309 
 
 wide popularity. We had abundant opportunities for learning what 
 Pastor Fliedner is doing in many ways. He acts as chaplain to 
 the German Embassy, and is indefatigable as a missionary and 
 jphilanthropist amongst the Spanish people. He conducted us 
 to Calle Calatrava, 27, which is- the centre of his activities. No 
 designating inscription on the outside wall of a Protestant insti- 
 tution is allowed in Spain, but after proceeding through a passage, 
 over a coloured glass door, we saw in golden letters, the name 
 Jestis Chitrch. Above the entrance are the words, " The Lord is my 
 Shepherd." Many inscriptions adorn the walls, and the place of 
 worship altogether is very convenient and inviting. On one side 
 of the passage which leads to the chapel, is a book room, where 
 are sold Mr. Fliedner's periodicals, entitled ' Christiano,' and 
 ' Amigo de la infancia.' School-rooms occupy the right of the 
 chapel, and upstairs we were conducted by the enthusiastic 
 president through apartments used for an orphanage and a 
 hospital. With regard to outside work, I shall leave him to speak 
 for himself. - - - 
 
 " We are now in possession of three houses for schools and 
 places of worship, that in Madrid, one in Granada, and another in 
 Camunus, a little village in La Mancha. Three congregations, two 
 in Madrid, and one in Camunus, with their respective schools, are 
 under our direct supervision. Four colporteurs are at present 
 employed by us, onejn Madrid, one in Malaga, another in Cuenca, 
 and a fourth in Algiers. 
 
 " In connection with our mission there are employed two German 
 and three Spanish pastors, one German and seven Spanish male 
 teachers, and six female teachers, two German booksellers, with 
 two assistants in Madrid, and one Spanish bookseller in Barcelona, 
 four colporteurs, a governor, and a matron. in the orphanage, two 
 church officers and a nurse in the .hospital ; in all, thirty-three 
 labourers." 
 
 Besides these different stations which we visited, are others 
 
3IO THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 which we had no opportunity of inspecting. They include chapels 
 and schools supported by the Episcopal Society in aid of Missions 
 in Spain, Portugal and Mexico, under the charge of ex-Padre 
 Cabrera, Bishop Elect of the Episcopal Church of Spain. Lord 
 Plunket, Bishop of Meath, takes a deep interest in this movement, 
 and I heard him preach a sermon on the subject at Cannes on my 
 way to Spain. Liturgies, in the preparation of which, I believe, the 
 Mozarabic ritual has been used, were circulated last year (that is, 
 1882), and met, it is said, "with a glad reception in all the congre- 
 gations," contributing to form "a bond of union and sympathy." 
 But the question of the Spanish episcopate, under consideration for 
 four years, did not seem near a settlement this last spring. 
 
 I may add to this notice of Protestant work in the Spanish 
 ■capital, that there are services held at a place called Glorieta de 
 ■Quevedo Chamberi, " supported by English Christians, chiefly by 
 Mr. George Miiller of Bristol." A small meeting-room is engaged 
 by the American Baptist Society ; and besides these minor instru- 
 mentalities is another superintended by the wife and helper of Mr. 
 Corfield, for so many years the effective and successful agent of the 
 British and Foreign Bible Society. This brings me to the operations 
 of that institute, which takes the lead in diffusing Scripture know- 
 ledge throughout the kingdom of Spain. 
 
 The society did not effect much in that country until the year 
 183 5) when two gentlemen, Lieut. Graydon, R.N., and Mr. George 
 Borrow, visited it, apart from each other. The lieutenant largely 
 distributed the Scriptures between the date just given and 1837. 
 Mr. Borrow, a very remarkable person, possessing an almost unrivalled 
 gift for the acquisition of languages, was an agent of the society 
 from 1833 to 1839, commencing his labours at Petersburg ; and 
 when asked how long it would take him to prepare for the journey 
 replied, that the only preparation he needed was to buy a new 
 pair of shoes. At Petersburg, he edited the New Testament in 
 Manchu ; and after a short time spent in Russia, he in 1835 under- 
 
MODERN EVANGELISATION EFFORTS IN SPAIN. 311 
 
 took an agency in Spain, where he printed a fresh edition of the 
 Spanish New Testament, and also translated St. Luke's Gospel into 
 the dialect of the Zincali, or Gipsies, with whose character, customs 
 and speech he had become perfectly familiar. He projected plans 
 for circulating the Scriptures, which he was unable fully to carry out, 
 and for his zealous endeavours in that good cause he was twice 
 imprisoned. His ' Bible in Spain,' — a book as extraordinary as the 
 author himself — excited immense interest in 1842, and was warmly 
 praised by Sir Robert Peel in the House of Commons. Mr. 
 Sorrow's experiences amongst the Spaniards were unequalled, and 
 no fiction can surpass his narrative in the wonders he relates. An 
 unprecedented impulse was given to Bible circulation in Spain by 
 the events of 1 870 ; and-^though the demand since has not kept 
 up to the mark it reached then — altogether nearly two million copies 
 of the Scriptures, entire or in part, were reported in 1882 as having 
 been distributed down to that date. 
 
 A Christian gentleman at Barcelona remarked to me that if the 
 choice were between giving up the Bible work and giving up all 
 other missionary organisations, there could be no doubt about 
 retaining the former in preference to the latter. The Annual 
 Reports of the Society abound in gratifying instances of usefulness. 
 
 The National Bible Society of Scotland has a dep6t in Madrid, 
 at 4 Leganitos, where the Rev. Mr. Jameson's operations are 
 carried on. 
 
 Another efficient helper in Spanish evangelisation is found in 
 the ' Religious Tract Society.' 
 
 "About 8,000 tracts," in 1823, we are told in the Jubilee Me- 
 morial, " were sent from Gibraltar ; " and the information received 
 led the committee to hope that " difficulties were passing away." 
 A minister remarked : " Many of the Spaniards begin to suspect 
 that they have been misled, which has resulted from their reading 
 the Holy Scriptures and religious books. They willingly receive 
 tracts, and as willingly converse on the subject of religion." He 
 
312 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 added : "I am acquainted with a Spanish priest who begins to 
 enjoy Divine truth through the reading of some tracts.'' 
 
 It is stated in the same volume, in reference to 1836: "The 
 Spanish journals occasionally ventured to speak kindly of the 
 labours of the foreigners. The editor of a Malaga newspaper, when 
 referring to the gratuitous distribution of religious tracts, both to 
 the young and to heads of families, remarked, " It appears to me to 
 be due to such an act of genuine philanthropy, to present thanks 
 to the distributor on behalf of the public at large, who are indebted 
 to him for a benefit, which may be slighted, indeed, by ignorance 
 and ingratitude, but which must be highly appreciated by every 
 man of good sense. Eternal praise to so beneficent a stranger ! 
 Oh, that there were a few imitators of such actions. If there were, 
 the evils which now afflict us would be soon diminished." 
 
 Testimony was borne by the Rev. W. H. Gulick, of Santander, 
 at the annual meeting, 1882, to the continued usefulness of the 
 Society's tracts. " To the question, is the Gospel really making way 
 in Spain } he was disposed to answer. Yes. Some ten years ago 
 he said, when my wife and I were there, strangers in a strange land, 
 we found things looking very gloomy ; we received no letters of 
 introduction from Madrid, from the simple fact that there was no 
 one in Santander to whom to present such letters. We had taken 
 with us some boxes of tracts and books from the Religious Tract 
 Society's enthusiastic agent, Mr. Armstrong, and these became our 
 letters of introduction to the place. He commenced preaching in a 
 private parlour, a hundred steps above the level of the street, which 
 after three weeks was filled with people, some of whom came to 
 listen, and others to enjoy the freedom they had never before 
 known. Men who had received tracts from colporteurs, and who had 
 heard something of the Gospel message from them, came desiring 
 the word of life." 
 
 The Religious Tract Society has a dep6t in Madrid, Jacome- 
 trezo, 59. 
 
MODERN EVANGELISATION EFFORTS IN SPAIN.. 313 
 
 This sketch of Protestantism in Spain of late years ought to 
 be supplemented by a reference to the religious literary enterprises 
 of Don Luis de Usoz y Rio, a Spanish nobleman, whose name has 
 been mentioned in my account of the early Reformers. Through 
 his labours, we obtain a correct knowledge, such as never appeared 
 before, of the writings of Spanish Reformers, which are calcu- 
 lated to advance in Spain the interest of that great cause for 
 which they endured death or exile. He is described by Mr. 
 B. B. Wiffen, with whom he formed a memorable friendship, as 
 "erect and rather tall in person, with thick black hair, closely 
 cropped according to the Spanish mode ; his countenance was 
 grave and dark complexioned, yet mild in expression. His eyes 
 were dark and animated ; in figure and in features he was spare. 
 He was modest, and had an air of polite reserve." He attained 
 his fourteenth year before he saw a Bible, but under the professor- 
 ship of Don Antonio Puigblanch, at the Madrid University, he 
 devoted himself to the study of Hebrew, and became critically 
 acquainted with the Old Testament. The Holy Scriptures won 
 upon his best affections the more he read them ; and he imbibed 
 spiritual views of Christianity in harmony with those of the Society 
 of Friends, with whose history he was unacquainted. He was at 
 a later period elected to the professor's chair of Hebrew in the 
 Valladolid University, and to the close of life remained a devout 
 student of the Word of God. In 1836 he visited England, and was 
 taken by Mr. Borrow to a Committee Meeting of the British and 
 Foreign Bible Society, in whose operations to the time of his death 
 he was deeply interested ; there he met with " a Friend " who in- 
 troduced him to Mr. Wiffen. In 1839 Mr. Wiffen visited Spain 
 on a deputation to promote the abolition of the slave trade, and 
 then renewed intercourse with Don Luis, who in 1841 revisited 
 England. Here, with Mr. Wiffen's assistance, he commenced 
 his researches into the Spanish literature of the Reformation. 
 "Benjamin Wiffen," he says, "was at once made a literary 
 
314 THE SPANISH REFORMERS. 
 
 proselyte as unexpectedly to himself as to me." "The con- 
 sequence of our conversation at Seville was that it concentrated 
 his thoughts and studies on the search for the works of those 
 Spanish writers who were persecuted for their attachment to 
 Christian liberty." The two friends now began their united career 
 of Spanish investigation and editorship, and in 1847, Don Luis 
 printed, privately, I conclude, the curious and witty book called 
 ' Carrascon/ which he had bought of a Spanish priest in the 
 country, prefixing to it an introduction of seventy-two pages. 
 This formed the first volume of the 'Reformistas Antiguos 
 Espanoles.' There followed the ' Epistola Consolatoria' of Juan 
 Perez, printed from the only copy Don Luis then knew to be in 
 existence. He picked up a mean " dirty copy " of the ' Sanctae In- 
 quisitionis,' part of the margin deeply burnt, and proceeded to 
 translate the Latin original into Spanish. To this he prefixed 
 an introduction of eighteen pages, dated 1851. A copy of the 
 work, handsomely printed, but with no name of the editor or 
 of the place of printing on the title-page, now lies before me. Next 
 he discovered a work by Judn Valdes, and this led to the opening 
 up of the spiritual wealth in the ' CX. Considerations,' and other 
 writings I have indicated in the present volume. Whilst Don 
 Luis worked in Spain Mr. Wiffen worked in England, and this 
 unity of purpose and love resulted in the series of the 'Antiguos 
 Espaiioles,' twenty in number, all printed under the superin- 
 tendence of the Spanish nobleman. He took care to have copies 
 of the series deposited in certain public libraries — one set is 
 preserved in the Bible House, Queen Victoria Street — but now, 
 from the 'Revista Christiana,' a Spanish .periodical (No. 76, for 
 February, 1883), I find three volumes of the seventeenth century 
 are published under the titles of 'Doctrina Util' (1560), by Juan 
 Perez; 'Epistola Consolatoria' (1560), by the same author; and 
 ' Tratado para confirmar en la F6 d los Cautivos de Beberia (1594), 
 by Cipfi'^iio de Valera. 
 
MODERN EVANGELISATION EFFORTS IN SPAIN. 315 
 
 Don Luis died in 1865, and Mr. Wiffen in 1867. A beautiful 
 letter written by Mr. Theodore Harris, of Leighton Buzzard, gives 
 an account of his death and funeral. 
 
 Mr. Wiffen commenced arranging a " detailed catalogue of all 
 the ascertained works of the early Spanish Reformers, with brief 
 biographical sketches, in order to serve as a manual for scholarly 
 reference, and to establish them as a class of writers, of whom their 
 countrymen are almost entirely ignorant, through the successful 
 suppression of their works by the Inquisition." ^ Mr. Wiffen's death 
 prevented the accomplishment of this purpose, but Dr. Edward 
 Boehmer, at the time Professor of Romance Languages and Librarian 
 at the University of Halle, a valued friend and correspondent 
 of Mr. Wiffen, undertook to complete the work, under the title 
 of 'Bibliotheca Wiffeniana.' Two portly volumes are already 
 published, full of curious bibliographical learning, and to them 
 we are largely indebted for some information we have attempted to 
 convey. The second volume, the author tells us, is not intended 
 to be the last. 
 
 Whilst Dr. Boehmer is working in Germany on the curiosities 
 of Spanish literature, touching the Reformation, Mr. Betts is working 
 at Pembury, near Tunbridge Wells, upon the translation of Valdes' 
 writings into our own language. He is a translator worthy of the 
 highest praise, for he seems to catch the spirit of, as well as to 
 convey in excellent English, the original author's most admirable 
 thoughts. 
 
 ' ' Bibliotheca Wiffeniana,' i. £. For interesting details of Mr. Wiffen's labours, 
 see 'The Brothers Wiffen,' edited by S. R. Pattison. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Adoptionism, 2 
 
 AlcaM de Henares, 21 
 
 Alhambra, the, 115 
 
 Anelier, Guillaume, 276 
 
 Angelo, Luis de, 127 
 
 Arabic books, 32 
 
 Archel, Dr. Sigismund, 198 
 
 Arias, Garcia de, 147 
 
 Auto at Barcelona, 269 ; at Cordova, 
 113; at Cuenca, 75 ; at Granada, 124 ; 
 at Logrono, 251 ; at Madrid, 227, 
 244 ; at Murcia, 127 ; at Toledo, 
 197 ; at Valladolid, 213 ; at Zara- 
 goza, 257 ; at Seville, 156 
 
 Averroes, 107 
 
 Barcelona, 266 
 
 Bdates, 208 
 
 Beghards, 92 
 
 Berceo, 8 
 
 Bible of De Reyna, 290 
 
 Bible of Valera, 299 
 
 Bible Society's work in Spain, 310 
 
 Bible translated into Castilian and Va- 
 
 lencian, 6 
 Blanco, Dr., 147 
 Bohorques, Donas, 149, 165 
 Books smuggled into Spain, 44 
 Burgos, 21 
 Burning of books, 43 
 
 Cadena, Luis de, 28 
 
 Carlos, Don, 236 
 
 Carraciolo, Marquis Galeazzo, 283 
 
 Carranza, Bartolomeo, 185 
 
 Castro, Inez de, 224 
 
 Catholic Congregation, 112 
 
 Cazalla, Augustus, 204 
 
 Cazalla, Pedro, 206, 213 
 
 ' Celestial Chivahy,' 8 
 
 Cervantes, 29 
 
 Charles V., 168 
 
 ' Christian Alphabet,' 62 
 
 Cid, the, 91 
 
 Cisneros, Francisco Ximenes de, 21, 
 
 121 
 Cisneros, Leanor de, 207 
 Clergy, demoralisation of, 16 
 Commentaries of Judn de Valddz, 
 
 68 
 Complutensian Polyglot, 29 
 Comuneros, 199 
 ' Confession of a Sinner,' 143 
 Cordova, 102 
 Councils of Toledo, 3 
 ' Crazy Jane,' 116 
 Cruelty, Spanish, 15 
 Cuenca, 50 
 ' ex. Considerations,', 64 
 
 De Reyna, 288 
 Deza, Pedro Diego, 123 
 Diaz, Alfonso, 74 
 Diaz, Judn, 73 
 
3i8 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Egidius, 136 
 
 England, refugees in, 294 
 
 Enzinas, Franzisco de, 83 
 
 Enzinas, Jayme de, 83 
 
 Erasmus, 39 
 
 Escorial, 235 
 
 Evangelisation at Figueras, 302 ; at 
 
 Barcelona, 304; at Cordova, 304 ; at 
 
 Escornar, 305 ; at Seville, 306 ; at 
 
 Madrid, 309 
 
 I. 
 Farias, Franciscus, 294 
 Ferdinand and Isabella, 8 
 Fernandez, Juin, i6o 
 Ferres, Thomas, 243 
 Figueras, 276 
 Fuente, Constantino Ponce de. la, 
 
 139 
 
 Geneva, Spanish refugees in, 283 
 Gil, Dr., 136 
 Gomez, Maria, 164 
 Gonzales^ Donas, 149- 
 Gonzalez, Judn, 160 
 Granada, 114 
 
 Guevara, Doiia Marine de, 207 
 Guzman, Don Domingo de, 149 
 
 Herezuelo, Antonio, 207 
 Hernandez, Julian, 47 
 
 Illiberis, Council at, 125 
 Illuminati, 38 
 
 ' Index Purgatoiius,' Spanish, 43 
 Inquisition founded, 12 
 Isabel, Doila, 76 
 
 Jean d'AIbret, 258 
 Jews, persecution of, 108 
 Juin I., 6 
 Jucin, San, 124 
 Juste, Jayme, 92 
 
 ' Las Siete Partidas,' 35 
 
 Leon, Don Judn Ponce de, 149, 
 
 Leon, Judn de, 160 
 
 Lerma, Pedro de, 28 
 
 Liturgies, rival, 5 
 
 Logrqno, 251 
 
 Losada, Cristobal, 148, 152 
 
 Loyalty, Spanish, 14 
 
 Loyola, Ignatius, 271 
 
 Lucero, 108 
 
 Luis, Ponce de, 209 
 
 Luther, opinions of, 37 
 
 Madrid, 226 ^ , 
 Manuel, Judn de, 38 
 Mariolatry at Zaragoza, 255 
 Molinus, Nicholaus, 294 
 Montanus, or DeTMontes, 293 
 Moors at Cordova, 103 
 Moriscos, treatment of, 13 
 Mosque of Cordova, 103 
 Mozarabic office, 5, 24 . " ' ■■ 
 Murcia-, 126 ■ '< ■ 
 
 Oidores, 36 
 Olaxa, Gaspar, 288 
 
 Padilla, Don Judn de, 199 
 
 Pedro Martir, 52 
 
 Pereira, Don Judn de Ulloa, 223 
 
 Perez, Juin, 283 - 
 
 Philip II., 229. '^' 
 
 Pierre, Galezio, 287 
 
 Poblet, loo — 
 
 Priscillian, 2 
 
 Punishments for heresy, 155 
 
 Regla, Judn de, 256 
 
 Reinoso, Dona Catherine de; 207 
 
 ReUgious Tract j Sbciety's work 
 
 Spain, 307 
 Ribera, Archbishop Jtidn,'93 ' 
 
INDEX. 
 
 319 
 
 Ribera, Manuel Guerra, Sermon of, 262 
 
 Rio, Don Luis de Usoz y, 313 
 
 Rios, Dona Euphrosine, 207 
 
 Roxas, Don Luis de, 207 
 
 Roxas, Dona Ana Henriquez de, 207 
 
 Roxas, Dona Maria de, 207 
 
 Roxas, Don Pedro Sarmiento de, 207 
 
 Ruiz, Gregorio, 145 
 
 Ruiz, Judn, 7 
 
 St. Etienne, Dona Marguerita de, 207 
 
 Sanbenito, 156 
 
 Sanchez, Jeanne, 208 
 
 San Isidoro, 146 
 
 San Juste, 168 
 
 San Romano, Franzisco de, 76 
 
 Santa F6, 129 
 
 Santiago, Legend of, 252 
 
 Secharles, Juin Nicolas, 289 
 
 Servetus, Michael, 283 
 
 Seso, Don Carlos de, 207, 220 
 
 Seville, 130 
 
 Solano, Don Miguel JuAn Antonio, 
 
 263 
 Spanish characteristics, 16 
 Spreng, James, 79 
 ' Sum of Christian Doctrine,' 144 
 Superstition, Spanish, 7 
 Suspectus de levi, 127 
 
 Talavera, Fernando de, 118 
 
 Tenebrero, 108 
 
 Teresa, St., 275 
 
 Tobar, Bernardin, 28 
 
 Toledo, 181 
 
 Torralva, 75 
 
 Tracts, Spanish, 36 
 
 Translations of Judn de Valdds, 67 
 
 Translations, Spanish, 36 
 
 Triana, Seville, 153 
 
 Valdds, Alfonso de, 5 1 
 
 Vald^s, Hernando, 52 
 
 Valdds, Judn de, 51 ; works of, 71 
 
 Valencia, 91 
 
 Valer, Don Rodrigo de, 131 
 
 Valera, Cypriano de, 299 
 
 Valladolid, 21, 203 
 
 Vergara, Judn de, 28 
 
 Vibero, Dona Leanor de, 206 
 
 Vibero, Francesco, -206, 215 
 
 Vibero, Judn, 206 
 
 Vigilantius, i 
 
 Vincent, St., 254 
 
 Ximenes, 21, 121 
 
 Zafra, Francisco, 145 
 Zaragoza, 252 
 
LONDON : 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, Limited, 
 
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