Instantly, the troops seized the gates and avenues of the city, and, placing guards
in all the passages, entered with sword in hand, crying, Die, or be Catholics!
In short, they practised every wickedness and horror they could devise to force them
to change their religion.
They hanged both men and women by their hair or their feet, and smoked them with
hay until they were nearly dead, and if they still refused to sign a
recantation, then they hung them up again and repeated their barbarities,
until, wearied out with torments without death, they forced many to yield to them.
Others they plucked off all the hair of their heads and beards with pincers.
Others they threw on great fires and pulled them out again, repeating it until
they extorted a promise to recant.
Some they stripped naked, and after offering them the most infamous insults,
they stuck them with pins from head to foot and lanced them with pen-knives,
and sometimes with red-hot pincers they dragged them by the nose until they
promised to turn.
Sometimes they tied fathers and husbands while they ravished their wives and
daughters before their eyes.
Multitudes they imprisoned in the most noisome dungeons, where they practised all
sorts of torments in secret.
Their wives and children they shut up in monasteries.
Such as endeavoured to escape by flight, were pursued in the woods and hunted in
the fields and shot at like wild beasts, nor did any condition or quality screen
them from the ferocity of these infernal dragoons.
Even the members of Parliament and military officers, though on actual
service, were ordered to quit their posts and repair directly to their houses to
suffer the like storm.
Such as complained to the King were sent to the Bastille, where they drank the same
cup.
The bishops and the contendants marched at the head of the dragoons with a troop of
missionaries, monks and other ecclesiastics to animate the soldiers to
an execution so agreeable to their holy Church and so glorious to their demon God
and their tyrant King.
In forming the Edict to repeal the Edict of Nantes, the Council were divided.
Some would have all the ministers detained and forced into potpourri, as well as the
laity.
Others were for banishing them, because their presence would strengthen
the Protestants in perseverance, and if they were forced to turn,
they would ever be secret and powerful enemies in the bosom of the Church,
by their great knowledge and experience in controversial matters.
This reason prevailing, they were sentenced to banishment, and only fifteen
days allowed them to depart the Kingdom.
On the same day that the Edict for revoking the Protestants' charter was
published, they demolished their churches and banished their ministers, whom they
allowed but twenty-four hours to leave Paris.
The Papists would not suffer them to dispose of their effects, and threw every
obstacle in their way to delay their escape until the limited time was expired,
which subjected them to condemnation for life to the galleys.
The guards were doubled at the seaports, and the prisons were filled with the
victims who endured torments and wants at which human nature must shudder.
The sufferings of the ministers and others who were sent to the galleys seemed to
exceed all.
Chained to the oar, they were exposed to the open air night and day, at all seasons
and in all weathers.
And when through weakness of body they fainted under the oar, instead of a
cordial to revive them or viands to refresh them, they received only the
lashes of a scourge or the blows of a cane or rope's end.
For the want of sufficient clothing and necessary cleanliness, they were most
grievously tormented with vermin, and cruelly pinched with a cold,
which removed by night the executioners who beat and tormented them by day.
Instead of a bed, they were allowed, sick or well, only a hard board,
eighteen inches broad, to sleep on, without any covering but their wretched
apparel, which was a shirt of the coarsest canvas, a little jerkin of red serge,
slit on each side up to the arm-holes, with open sleeves that reached not to the
elbow.
And once in three years they had a coarse frock and a little cap to cover their
heads, which were always kept close shaved as a mark of their infamy.
The allowance of provision was as narrow as the sentiments of those who condemned
them to such miseries, and their treatment when sick is too shocking to relate,
doomed to die upon the boards of a dark hold covered with vermin, and without the
least convenience for the cause of nature.
Nor was it among the least of the horrors they endured, that as ministers of Christ
and honest men, they were chained side by side to felons and the most execrable
villains, whose blasphemous tongues were never idle.
If they refused to hear mass, they were sentenced to the bastinado, of which
dreadful punishment the following is a description.
Preparatory to it, the chains are taken off, and the victims delivered into the
hands of the Turks that preside at the oars, who strip them quite naked,
and stretching them upon a great gun, they are held so that they cannot stir,
during which there reigns an awful silence throughout the galley.
The Turk who is appointed the executioner, and who thinks the sacrifice acceptable to
his Prophet Muhammad, most cruelly beats the wretched victim with a rough cudgel or
knotty rope's end, until the skin is flayed off his bones and he is near the
point of expiring.
Then they apply a most tormenting mixture of vinegar and salt, and consign him to
that most intolerable hospital where thousands under their cruelties have
expired.
Martyrdom of John Calas We pass over many other individual martyrdoms, to insert
that of John Calas, which took place as recently as 1761, and is an indubitable
proof of the bigotry of potpourri, and shows that neither experience nor
improvement can root out the inveterate prejudices of the Roman Catholics or
render them less cruel or inexorable to Protestants.
John Calas was a merchant of the city of Toulouse, where he had been settled and
lived in good repute and had married an Englishwoman of French extraction.
Calas and his wife were Protestants and had five sons whom they educated in the
same religion, but Louis, one of the sons, became a Roman Catholic, having been
converted by a maidservant who had lived in the family about thirty years.
The father, however, did not express any resentment or ill will upon the occasion,
but kept the maid in the family and settled an annuity upon the son.
In October 1761, the family consisted of John Calas and his wife, one woman
servant, Mark Antony Calas, the eldest son, and Peter Calas, the second son.
Mark Antony was bred to the law, but could not be admitted to practice on
account of his being a Protestant.
Hence he grew melancholy, read all the books he could procure relative to
suicide, and seemed determined to destroy himself.
To this may be added that he led a dissipated life, was greatly addicted to
gaming, and did all which could constitute the character of a libertine, on which
account his father frequently reprehended him, and sometimes in terms of severity,
which considerably added to the gloom that seemed to oppress him.
On the 13th of October 1761, Mr. Gobert Lavesse, a young gentleman about nineteen
years of age, the son of Lavesse, a celebrated advocate of Toulouse,
about five o'clock in the evening was met by John Calas the father and the eldest
son Mark Antony, who was his friend.
Calas the father invited him to supper, and the family and their guests sat down
in a room up one pair of stairs, the whole company consisting of Calas the
father and his wife, Antony and Peter Calas the sons, and Lavesse the guest,
no other person being in the house except the maid-servant, who has been already
mentioned.
It was now about seven o'clock.
The supper was not long, but before it was over Antony left the table and went into
the kitchen, which was on the same floor as he was accustomed to do.
The maid asked him if he was cold.
He answered, quite the contrary, I burn, and then left her.
In the meantime his friend and family left the room they had supped in and went into
a bed-chamber.
The father and Lavesse sat down together on a sofa, the younger son Peter in an
elbow-chair, and the mother in another chair, and without making any enquiry
after Antony, continued in conversation together until between nine and ten o
'clock, when Lavesse took his leave, and Peter, who had fallen asleep,
was awakened to attend him with a light.
On the ground floor of Calasse's house was a shop and a warehouse, the latter of
which was divided from the shop by a pair of folding doors.
When Peter Calasse and Lavesse came downstairs into the shop, they were
extremely shocked to see Antony hanging in his shirt from a bar which he had laid
across the top of the two folding doors, having half opened them for that purpose.
On discovery of this horrid spectacle, they shrieked out, which brought down
Calasse the father, the mother being seized with such terror as kept her
trembling in the passage above.
When the maid discovered what had happened, she continued below,
either because she feared to carry an account of it to her mistress,
or because she busied herself in doing some good office to her master,
who was embracing the body of his son and bathing it in his tears.
The mother, therefore, being thus left alone, went down and mixed in the scene
that has been already described, with such emotions as it must naturally
produce.
In the meantime Peter had been sent for Lamois, a surgeon in the neighbourhood.
Lamois was not at home, but his apprentice, Mr. Groll, came instantly.
Upon examination he found the body quite dead, and by this time a papistical crowd
of people were gathered about the house, and having by some means heard that Antony
Calas was suddenly dead, and that the surgeon who had examined the body declared
that he had been strangled, they took it into their heads he had been murdered,
and as the family was Protestant, they presently supposed that the young man
was about to change his religion and had been put to death for that reason.
The poor father, overwhelmed with grief for the loss of his child, was advised by
his friends to send for the officers of justice to prevent his being torn to
pieces by the Catholic multitude who supposed he had murdered his son.
This was accordingly done, and David, the Chief Magistrate or Capitol,
took the father, Peter the son, the mother, Lavesse, and the maid all into
custody, and set a guard over them.
He sent for Monsieur de Latour, a physician, and Monsieurs Lamarque and
Peronet, surgeons, who examined the body for marks of violence, but found none
except the mark of the ligature on the neck.
They found also the hair of the deceased, done up in the usual manner, perfectly
smooth, and without the least disorder.
His clothes were also regularly folded up and laid upon the counter, nor was his
shirt either torn or unbuttoned.
Notwithstanding these innocent appearances, the Capitol thought proper to
agree with the opinion of the mob, and took it into his head that old Calas
had sent for Lavesse, telling him that he had a son to be hanged, that Lavesse had
come to perform the office of executioner, and that he had received assistance from
the father and brother.
As no proof of the supposed fact could be procured, the Capitol had recourse to a
monetary or general information, in which the crime was taken for granted,
and persons were required to give such testimony against it as they were able.
This recites that Lavesse was commissioned by the Protestants to be their executioner
in ordinary, when any of their children were to be hanged for changing their
religion.
It recites also that when the Protestants thus hanged their children, they compelled
them to kneel, and one of the interrogatories was whether any person had
seen Antony Calas kneel before his father when he strangled him.
It recites likewise that Antony died a Roman Catholic, and requires evidence of
his Catholicism.
But before this monetary was published, the mob had got a notion that Antony Calas
was the next day to have entered into the fraternity of the White Penitents.
The Capitol therefore caused his body to be buried in the middle of St. Stephen's
Church.
A few days after the interment of the deceased, the White Penitents performed a
solemn service for him in their chapel.
The church was hung with white, and a tomb was raised in the middle of it,
on the top of which was placed a human skeleton, holding in one hand a paper on
which was written abjuration of heresy, and in the other a palm, the emblem of
martyrdom.
The next day the Franciscans performed a service of the same kind for him.
The Capitol continued the persecution with unrelenting severity, and without the
least proof coming in, thought fit to condemn the unhappy father, mother,
brother, friend and servant to the torture, and put them all into irons on
the 18th of November.
From these dreadful proceedings the sufferers appealed to the Parliament,
which immediately took cognizance of the affair, and annulled the sentence of the
Capitol as irregular.
But they continued the prosecution, and upon the hangman deposing it was
impossible Antony should hang himself as was pretended, the majority of the
Parliament were of the opinion that the prisoners were guilty, and therefore
ordered them to be tried by the criminal court of Toulouse.
One voted him innocent, but after long debates the majority was for the torture
and wheel, and probably condemned the father by way of experiment whether he was
guilty or not, hoping he would in the agony confess the crime and accuse the
other prisoners, whose fate therefore they suspended.
Poor Calas, however, an old man of sixty-eight, was condemned to this
dreadful punishment alone.
He suffered the torture with great constancy, and was led to execution in a
frame of mind which excited the admiration of all that saw him, and particularly of
the two Dominicans, Father Bourges and Father Koldag, who attended him in his
last moments, and declared that they thought him not only innocent of the crime
laid to his charge, but also an exemplary instance of true Christian patience,
fortitude, and charity.
When he saw the executioner prepared to give him the last stroke, he made a fresh
declaration to Father Bourges.
But while the words were still in his mouth, the Capitol, the author of this
catastrophe, who came upon the scaffold merely to gratify his desire of being a
witness of his punishment and death, ran up to him and bawled out, Wretch,
there are faggots which are to reduce your body to ashes.
Speak the truth.
Monsieur Calas made no reply, but turned his head a little aside, and that moment
the executioner did his office.
The popular outcry against this family was so violent in Languedoc that everybody
expected to see the children of Calas broke upon the wheel and the mother burnt
alive.
Young Donut Calas was advised of flying to Switzerland.
He went, and found a gentleman who at first could only pity and relieve him,
without daring to judge of the rigour exercised against the father, mother,
and brothers.
Soon after, one of the brothers, who was only banished, likewise threw
himself into the arms of the same person, who for more than a month took every
possible precaution to be assured of the innocence of the family.
Once convinced, he thought himself obliged, in conscience, to employ his
friends, his purse, his pen, and his credit, to repair the fatal mistake of the
seven judges of Toulouse, and to have the proceedings revised by the King's Council.
This revision lasted three years, and it is well known what honour Messrs.
de Grone and Bacancourt acquired by investigating this memorable cause.
Fifty masters of the Court of Requests unanimously declared the whole family of
Calas innocent, and recommended them to the benevolent justice of His Majesty.
The Duke de Choiseul, who never let slip an opportunity of signalizing the
greatness of his character, not only assisted this unfortunate family with
money, but obtained for them a gratuity of 36,000 livres from the King.
On the 9th of March, 1765, the Arrêté was signed, which justified the family of
Calas, and changed their fate.
The 9th of March, 1762, was the very day on which the innocent and virtuous father
of that family had been executed.
All Paris ran in crowds to see them come out of prison, and clapped their hands for
joy while the tears streamed from their eyes.
This dreadful example of bigotry employed the pen of Voltaire in deprecation of the
horrors of superstition, and though an infidel himself, his essay on toleration
does honour to his pen, and has been a blessed means of abating the rigour of
persecution in most European states.
Gospel purity will equally shun superstition and cruelty, as the mildness
of Christ's tenets teaches only to comfort in this world, and to procure salvation in
the next.
To persecute for being of a different opinion is as absurd as to persecute for
having a different countenance.
If we honour God, keep sacred the pure doctrines of Christ, put a full confidence
in the promises contained in the Holy Scriptures, and obey the political laws of
the state in which we reside, we have an undoubted right to protection instead of
persecution, and to serve heaven as our consciences, regulated by the Gospel
rules, may direct.
Chapter 5 An Account of the Inquisition When the Reformed religion began to
diffuse the Gospel light throughout Europe, Pope Innocent III entertained
great fear for the Romish Church.
He accordingly instituted a number of inquisitors, or persons who were to make
inquiry after, apprehend, and punish, heretics, as the Reformed were called by
the Papists.
At the head of these inquisitors was one Dominic, who had been canonised by the
Pope in order to render his authority the more respectable.
Dominic and the other inquisitors spread themselves into various Roman Catholic
countries, and treated the Protestants with the utmost severity.
In process of time, the Pope, not finding these roving inquisitors so useful as he
had imagined, resolved upon the establishment of fixed and regular courts
of inquisition.
After the order for these regular courts, the first office of inquisition was
established in the city of Toulouse, and Dominic became the first regular
inquisitor, as he had before been the first roving inquisitor.
Courts of inquisition were now erected in several countries, but the Spanish
inquisition became the most powerful and the most dreaded of any.
Even the kings of Spain themselves, though arbitrary in all other respects,
were taught to dread the power of the lords of the inquisition, and the horrid
cruelties they exercised compelled multitudes, who differed in opinion from
the Roman Catholics, carefully to conceal their sentiments.
The most zealous of all the Popish monks, and those who most implicitly obeyed the
Church of Rome, were the Dominicans and Franciscans.
These, therefore, the Pope thought proper to invest with an exclusive right of
presiding over the different courts of inquisition, and gave them the most
unlimited powers, as judges delegated by him, and immediately representing his
person.
They were permitted to excommunicate or sentence to death whom they thought
proper, upon the most slight information of heresy.
They were allowed to publish crusades against all whom they deemed heretics,
and enter into leagues with sovereign princes to join their crusades with their
forces.
In 1244 their power was further increased by the Emperor Frederick II, who declared
himself the protector and friend of all the inquisitors, and published the cruel
edicts, first, that all heretics who continue obstinate should be burnt,
second, that all heretics who repented should be imprisoned for life.
This zeal in the Emperor for the inquisitors of the Roman Catholic
persuasion arose from a report which had been propagated throughout Europe that he
intended to renounce Christianity and turn Mohammedan.
The Emperor therefore attempted, by the height of bigotry, to contradict
the report, and to show his attachment to Popery by cruelty.
The officers of the Inquisition are three inquisitors or judges, a fiscal proctor,
two secretaries, a magistrate, a messenger, a receiver, a jailer,
an agent of confiscated possessions, several assessors, counsellors,
executioners, physicians, surgeons, doorkeepers, familiars, and visitors,
who are sworn to secrecy.
The principal accusation against those who are subject to this tribunal is heresy,
which comprises all that is spoken or written against any of the articles of the
Creed or the traditions of the Roman Church.
The Inquisition likewise takes cognizance of such as are accused of being magicians,
and of such who read the Bible in the common language, the Talmud of the Jews,
or the Al-Quran of the Mohammedans.
Upon all occasions the inquisitors carry on their processes with the utmost
severity, and punish those who offend them with the most unparalleled cruelty.
A Protestant has seldom any mercy shown him, and a Jew who turns Christian is far
from being secure.
A defence in the Inquisition is of little use to the prisoner, for a suspicion only
is deemed sufficient cause of condemnation, and the greater his wealth,
the greater his danger.
The principal part of the inquisitor's cruelties is owing to their rapacity.
They destroy the life to possess the property, and under the pretense of zeal,
plunder each obnoxious individual.
A prisoner in the Inquisition is never allowed to see the face of his accuser or
of the witnesses against him, but every method is taken, by threats and tortures,
to oblige him to accuse himself, and by that means corroborate their
evidence.
If the jurisdiction of the Inquisition is not fully allowed, vengeance is denounced
against such as call it in question, for if any of its officers are opposed,
those who oppose them are almost certain to be sufferers for the temerity,
the maxim of the Inquisition being to strike terror and all those who are the
objects of its power into obedience.
High birth, distinguished rank, great dignity or eminent employments are
no protection from its severities, and the lowest officers of the Inquisition
can make the highest characters tremble.
When the person impeached is condemned, he is either severely whipped,
violently tortured, sent to the galleys or sentenced to death, and in either case the
effects are confiscated.
After judgment, a procession is performed at the place of execution, which ceremony
is called an hauteur de fait, or act of faith.
The following is an account of an hauteur de fait performed at Madrid in the year
1682.
The officers of the Inquisition, preceded by trumpets, kettledrums and
their banner, marched on the 30th of May in cavalcade to the Palace of the Great
Square, where they declared by proclamation that on the 30th of June the
sentence of the prisoners would be put in execution.
Of these prisoners, twenty men and women, with one renegade Mohammedan, were ordered
to be burned.
Fifty Jews and Jewesses, having never before been imprisoned and repenting of
their crimes, were sentenced to a long confinement and to wear a yellow cap.
The whole Court of Spain was present on this occasion.
The Grand Inquisitor's Chair was placed in a sort of tribunal far above that of the
King.
Among those who were to suffer was a young Jewess of exquisite beauty and but
seventeen years of age.
Being on the same side of the scaffold where the Queen was seated, she addressed
her in hopes of obtaining a pardon in the following pathetic speech.
Great Queen, will not your royal presence be of some service to me in my miserable
condition?
Have regard to my youth, and, oh, consider that I am about to die for
professing a religion imbibed from my earliest infancy.
Her Majesty seemed greatly to pity her distress, but turned away her eyes as she
did not dare to speak a word in behalf of a person who had been declared a heretic.
Now Mass began, in the midst of which the priest came from the altar, placed himself
near the scaffold, and seated himself in a chair prepared for that purpose.
The Chief Inquisitor then descended from the amphitheatre dressed in his cope and
having a mitre on his head.
After having bowed to the altar, he advanced towards the King's balcony and
went up to it, attended by some of his officers, carrying a cross and the
Gospels, with a book containing the oath by which the Kings of Spain obliged
themselves to protect the Catholic faith, to extirpate heretics, and to support with
all their power and force the prosecutions and decrees of the Inquisition.
A like oath was administered to the councillors and whole assembly.
The Mass was begun about twelve at noon and did not end until nine in the evening,
being protracted by a proclamation of the sentence of the several criminals which
were already separately rehearsed aloud, one after the other.
After this followed the burnings of the twenty-one men and women whose intrepidity
in suffering that horrid death was truly astonishing.
The King's near situation to the criminals rendered their dying groans very audible
to him.
He could not, however, be absent from this dreadful scene as it is esteemed a
religious one, and his coronation oath obliged him to give a sanction by his
presence to all the acts of the tribunal.
What we have already said may be applied to Inquisitions in general, as well as to
that of Spain in particular.
The Inquisition belonging to Portugal is exactly upon a similar plan to that of
Spain, having been instituted much about the same time, and put under the same
regulations.
The Inquisitors allow the torture to be used only three times, but during those
times it is so severely inflicted that the prisoner either dies under it,
or continues always after a cripple, and suffers the severest pains upon every
change of weather.
We shall give an ample description of the severe torment occasioned by the torture,
from the account of one who suffered it the three respective times, but happily
survived the cruelties he underwent.
At the first time of torturing, six executioners entered, stripped him
naked to his drawers, and laid him upon his back on a kind of stand elevated a few
feet from the floor.
The operation commenced by putting an iron collar round his neck, and a ring to each
foot, which fastened him to the stand.
His limits being thus stretched out, they wound two ropes round each thigh,
which ropes being passed under the scaffold through holes made for that
purpose, were all drawn tight at the same instant of time by four of the men on a
given signal.
It is easy to conceive that the pains which immediately succeeded were
intolerable.
The ropes, which were of a small size, cut through the prisoner's flesh to the
bone, making the blood to gush out at eight different places, thus bound at a
time.
As the prisoner persisted in not making any confession of what the inquisitors
required, the ropes were drawn in this manner four times successively.
The manner of inflicting the second torture was as follows.
They forced his arms backwards so that the palms of his hands were turned outward
behind him, when by means of a rope that fastened them together at the wrists,
and which was turned by an engine, they drew them by degrees nearer each
other in such a manner that the back of each hand touched and stood exactly
parallel to each other.
In consequence of this violent contortion, both his shoulders became dislocated,
and a considerable quantity of blood issued from his mouth.
This torture was repeated thrice, after which he was again taken to the
dungeon, and the surgeon set the dislocated bones.
Two months after the second torture, the prisoner being a little recovered,
was again ordered to the torture-room, and there for the last time made to
undergo another kind of punishment, which was inflicted twice without any
intermission.
The executioners fastened a thick iron chain round his body, which, crossing at
the breast, terminated at the wrists.
They then placed him with his back against a thick board, at each extremity whereof
was a pulley, through which they ran a rope that caught the end of the chain at
his wrists.
The executioner then, stretching the end of his rope by means of a roller placed at
a distance behind him, pressed or bruised his stomach in proportion as the ends of
the chains were drawn tighter.
They tortured him in this manner to such a degree that his wrists, as well as his
shoulders, were quite dislocated.
They were, however, soon set by the surgeons, but the barbarians, not yet
satisfied with this species of cruelty, made him immediately undergo the like
torture a second time, which he sustained, though if possible attended with keener
pains, with equal constancy and resolution.
After this he was again remanded to the dungeon, attended by the surgeon to dress
his bruises and adjust the part dislocated, and here he continued until
their hauteur de fait, or jail delivery, when he was discharged, crippled and
diseased for life.
An account of the cruel handling and burning of Nicholas Burton, an English
Merchant in Spain.
The fifth day of November, about the year of our Lord, 1560, Mr. Nicholas Burton,
citizen sometime of London, and merchant, dwelling in the parish of Little St.
Bartholomew, peaceably and quietly following his traffic in the trade of
merchandise, and being in the city of Cadiz, in the party of Andalusia in Spain,
there came into his lodging a Judas, or as they termed them, a Familiar of the
Fathers of Inquisition, who, asking for the said Nicholas Burton, feigned that he
had a letter to deliver into his own hands, by which means he spake with him
immediately.
And having no letter to deliver to him, then the said promoter or Familiar,
at the motion of the devil his master, whose messenger he was, invented another
lie, and said he would take lading for London in such ships as the said Nicholas
Burton had freighted to Lade, if he would let any.
Which was partly to know where he loaded his goods, that they might attach them,
and chiefly to protract the time until the sergeant of the Inquisition might come and
apprehend the body of the said Nicholas Burton, which they did incontinently.
He then, well perceiving that they were not able to burden or charge him that he
had written, spoken, or done anything there in that country against the
ecclesiastical or temporal laws of the same realm, boldly asked them what they
had to lay to his charge that they did so arrest him, and bade them to declare the
cause, and he would answer them.
Notwithstanding they answered nothing, but commanded him with threatening words
to hold his peace, and not speak one word to them.
And so they carried him to the filthy common prison of the town of Cadiz,
where he remained in irons fourteen days among thieves.
All which time he so instructed the poor prisoners in the word of God, according to
the good talent which God had given him in that behalf, and also in the Spanish
tongue to utter the same, that in that short space he had well reclaimed several
of those superstitious and ignorant Spaniards to embrace the word of God and
to reject their Popish traditions, which being known unto the officers of the
Inquisition, they conveyed him laden with irons from thence to a city called
Seville, into a more cruel and straighter prison called Triana, where the said
fathers of the Inquisition proceeded against him secretly, according to their
accustomable cruel tyranny, that never after he could be suffered to write or
speak to any of his nation, so that to this day it is unknown who was his
accuser.
Afterward, the 20th of December, they brought the said Nicholas Burton,
with a great number of other prisoners, for professing the true Christian
religion, into the city of Seville, to a place where the said Inquisitors sat
in judgment, which they called Otto, with a canvas coat, whereupon in divers'
parts was painted the figure of a huge devil, tormenting a soul in a flame of
fire, and on his head a copping tank of the same work.
His tongue was forced out of his mouth with a cloven stick fastened upon it,
that he should not utter his conscience and faith to the people.
And so he was set, with another Englishman of Southampton and divers' other condemned
men for religion, as well Frenchmen as Spaniards, upon a scaffold over against
the said Inquisition, where their sentences and judgments were read and
pronounced against them.
And immediately after the said sentences given, they were carried from there to the
place of execution without the city, where they most cruelly burned them,
for whose constant faith God is praised.
This Nicholas Burton, by the way, and in the flames of fire, had so cheerful
a countenance, embracing death with all patience and gladness, that the tormentors
and enemies which stood by said that the devil had his soul before he came to the
fire, and therefore, they said, his senses of feeling were past him.
It happened that after the arrest of Nicholas Burton aforesaid, immediately all
the goods and merchandise which he brought with him into Spain by the way of traffic,
were, according to their common usage, seized and taken into the sequester,
among which they also rolled up much that appertained to another English merchant
wherewith he was credited as factor.
Whereof, as soon as news was brought to the merchant, as well of the imprisonment
of his factor as of the arrest made upon his goods, he sent his attorney into Spain
with authority from him to make claim to his goods, and to demand them,
whose name was John Fronton, citizen of Bristol.
When his attorney was landed at Seville, and had shown all his letters and writings
to the Holy House, requiring them that such goods might be delivered into his
possession, answer was made to him that he must sue by bill, and retain an advocate,
but all was doubtless to delay him, and they forsooth of courtesy assigned him
one to frame his supplication for him, and other such bills of petition as he had
to exhibit into their holy court, demanding for each bill eight reals,
albeit they stood him in no more stead than if he had put up none at all.
And for the space of three or four months this fellow missed not twice a day
attending every morning and afternoon at the Inquisitor's Palace, suing unto them
upon his knees for his dispatch, but especially to the Bishop of Tarragon,
who was at that very time Chief of the Inquisition at Seville, that he of his
absolute authority would command restitution to be made thereof.
But the booty was so good and great that it was very hard to come by it again.
At length, after he had spent four whole months in suits and requests, and also to
no purpose, he received this answer from them, that he must show better evidence,
and bring more sufficient certificates out of England for proof of this matter,
than those which he had already presented to the court.
Whereupon the party forthwest posted to London, and with all speed returned to
Seville again, with more ample and large letters testimonial and certificates,
according to their requests, and exhibited them to the court.
Notwithstanding, the Inquisitor still shifted him off, excusing themselves by
lack of leisure, and for that they were occupied in more weighty affairs,
and with such answers put him off four months after.
At last, when the party had well nigh spent all his money, and therefore sued
the more earnestly for his dispatch, they referred the matter wholly to the
Bishop, of whom, when he repaired unto him, he made answer, that for himself he
knew what he had to do, howbeit he was but one man, and the determination appertained
to the other Commissioners as well as unto him.
And thus, by posting and passing it from one to another, the party could obtain no
end of his suit.
Yet for his importunities' sake, they were resolved to dispatch him.
It was on this sort.
One of the Inquisitors, called Gasco, a man very well experienced in these
practices, willed the party to resort unto him after dinner.
The fellow being glad to hear this news, and supposing that his good should be
restored unto him, and that he was called in for that purpose to talk with the other
that was in prison, to confer with him about their accounts, rather through a
little misunderstanding, hearing the Inquisitors cast out a word that it should
be needful for him to talk with the prisoner, and being thereupon more than
half persuaded that at length they meant good faith, did so, and repaired thither
about the evening.
Immediately upon his coming, the jailer was forthwith charged with him to shut him
up close in such a prison where they appointed him.
The party, hoping at the first that he had been called for about some other matter,
and seeing himself contrary to his expectations cast into a dark dungeon,
perceived at length that the world went with him far otherwise than he supposed it
would have done.
But within two or three days after, he was brought into court, where he began
to demand his goods, and because it was a device that well served their turn without
any more circumstance, they bid him say his Ave Maria.
Ave Maria, gratia plena, dominus tecum, benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus
fructus ventris tui, Jesus, amen.
The same was written word by word as he spake it.
And without any more talk of claiming his goods, because it was needless,
they commanded him to prison again, and entered an action against him as a
heretic, forasmuch as he did not say his Ave Maria after the Romis fashion,
but ended it very suspiciously, for he should have added, moreover,
Sancta Maria mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus.
By abbreviating whereof it was evident enough, said they, that he did not allow
the mediation of saints.
Thus they picked a quarrel to detain him in prison a longer season, and afterward
brought him forth upon their stage, disguised after their manner, where
sentence was given that he should lose all the goods which he sued for, though they
were not his own, and besides this suffer a year's imprisonment.
Mark Brugges, an Englishman, master of an English ship called the Minion,
was burned in a city in Portugal.
William Hawker, a young man about the age of sixteen years, being an Englishman,
was stoned to death by certain young men in the city of Seville, for the same
righteous cause.
Some private enormities of the Inquisition laid open by a very singular occurrence.
When the crown of Spain was contested for, in the beginning of the present century,
by two princes who equally pretended to the sovereignty, France espoused the cause
of one competitor and England of the other.
The Duke of Berwick, a natural son of James II, who abdicated England,
commanded the Spanish and French forces and defeated the English at the celebrated
Battle of Almanza.
The army was then divided into two parts, the one consisting of Spaniards and
French, headed by the Duke of Berwick, advanced towards Catalonia, the other body
consisting of French troops only, commanded by the Duke of Orléans,
proceeded to the conquest of Aragon.
As the troops drew near to the city of Aragon, the magistrates came to offer the
keys to the Duke of Orléans, but he told them haughtily that they were rebels and
that he would not accept the keys, for he had orders to enter the city
through a breach.
He accordingly made a breach in the walls with his cannon, and then entered the city
through it, together with his whole army.
When he had made every necessary regulation here, he departed to subdue
other places, leaving a strong garrison, at once to overawe and defend,
under the command of his lieutenant general, M.
de Légal.
This gentleman, though brought up a Roman Catholic, was totally free from
superstition.
He united great talents with great bravery, and was the skilful officer and
accomplished gentleman.
The Duke, before his departure, had ordered that heavy contributions
should be levied upon the city, in the following manner.
First, that the magistrates and principal inhabitants should pay a thousand crowns
per month for the Duke's table.
Second, that every house should pay one pistole, which would monthly amount to
eighteen thousand pistoles.
Third, that every convent and monastery should pay a donative, proportional to its
riches and rents.
The two last contributions to be appropriated to the maintenance of the
army.
The money levied upon the magistrates and principal inhabitants, and upon every
house, was paid as soon as demanded, but when the persons applied to the heads
of convents and monasteries, they found that the ecclesiastics were not so willing
as other people to part with their cash.
Of the donatives to be raised by the clergy, the College of Jesuits was to pay
two thousand pistoles, the Carmelites one thousand pistoles, the Augustines one
thousand pistoles, and the Dominicans one thousand pistoles.
Monsieur de l'Egal sent to the Jesuits a pereptory order to pay the money
immediately.
The Superior of the Jesuits returned for answer that for the clergy to pay money
for the army was against all ecclesiastical immunities, and that he
knew of no argument which could authorize such a procedure.
Monsieur de l'Egal then sent four companies of dragoons to quarter
themselves in the College with this sarcastic message.
To convince you of the necessity of paying the money, I have sent four substantial
arguments to your College drawn from the system of military logic, and therefore
hope you will not need any further admonition to direct your conduct.
These proceedings greatly perplexed the Jesuits, who dispatched an express to
court to the King's confessor who was of their order, but the dragoons were much
more expeditious in plundering and doing mischief than the courier in his journey,
so that the Jesuits, seeing everything going to wreck and ruin, thought proper to
adjust the matter amicably, and paid the money before the return of their
messenger.
The Augustines and Carmelites, taking warning by what had happened to the
Jesuits, prudently went and paid the money, and by that means escaped the study
of military arguments and of being taught logic by dragoons.
But the Dominicans, who were all familiars of or agents dependent on the Inquisition,
imagined that that very circumstance would be their protection, but they were
mistaken, for Monsieur de l'Egal neither feared nor respected the Inquisition.
The chief of the order was poor, and had not any money whatever to pay the
donative, for, says he, the whole wealth of the Dominicans consists only in the
silver images of the apostles and saints as large as life, which are placed in our
church, and which it would be sacrilege to remove.
This insinuation was meant to terrify the French commander, whom the Inquisitors
imagined would not dare to be so profane as to wish for the possession of the
precious idols.
He, however, sent word that the silver images would make admirable substitutes
for money, and would be more in character in his possession than in that of the
Dominicans themselves.
For, said he, while you possess them in the manner you do at present, they stand
up in niches, useless and motionless, without being of the least benefit to
mankind in general, or even to yourselves.
But when they come into my possession they shall be useful.
I will put them in motion, for I intend to have them coined, when they may travel
like the apostles, be beneficial in various places, and circulate for the
universal service of mankind.
The Inquisitors were astonished at this treatment, which they never expected to
receive even from crowned heads.
They therefore determined to deliver their precious images in a solemn procession,
that they might excite the people to an insurrection.
The Dominican Friars were accordingly ordered to march to Delegal's house,
with the silver apostles and saints, in a mournful manner, having lighted
tapers with them, and bitterly crying all the way, Heresy!
Heresy!
M.
Delegal, hearing these proceedings, ordered four companies of grenadiers to
line the street which led to his house.
Each grenadier was ordered to have his loaded fusee in one hand, and a lighted
taper in the other, so that the troops might either repel force with force,
or do honour to the farcical solemnity.
The Friars did all they could to raise the tumult, but the common people were too
much afraid of the troops under arms to obey them.
The silver images were therefore of necessity delivered up to M.
Delegal, who sent them to the mint, and ordered them to be coined immediately.
The project of raising an insurrection having failed, the Inquisitors determined
to excommunicate M.
Delegal unless he would release their precious silver saints from imprisonment
in the mint, before they were melted down or otherwise mutilated.
The French commander absolutely refused to release the images, but said they should
certainly travel and do good, upon which the Inquisitors drew up the form of
excommunication, and ordered their secretary to go and read it to M.
Delegal.
The secretary punctually performed his commission, and read the excommunication
deliberately and distinctly.
The French commander heard it with great patience, and politely told the secretary
that he would answer it the next day.
When the secretary of the Inquisition was gone, M.
Delegal ordered his own secretary to prepare a form of excommunication exactly
like that sent by the Inquisition, but to make this alteration, instead of
his name, to put in those of the Inquisitors.
The next morning he ordered four regiments under arms, and commanded them to
accompany his secretary and act as he directed.
The secretary went to the Inquisition and insisted upon admittance, which after a
great deal of altercation was granted.
As soon as he entered, he read in an audible voice the excommunication sent by
M.
Delegal against the Inquisitors.
The Inquisitors were all present, and heard it with astonishment,
never having before met with any individual who dared to behave so boldly.
They loudly cried out against Delegal as a heretic, and said this was a most daring
insult against the Catholic faith.
But to surprise them still more, the French secretary told them that they
must remove from their present lodgings, for the French commander wanted to quarter
the troops in the Inquisition, as it was the most commodious place in the
whole city.
The Inquisitors exclaimed loudly upon this occasion, when the secretary put them
under a strong guard, and sent them to a place appointed by M.
Delegal to receive them.
The Inquisitors, finding how things went, begged that they might be permitted to
take their private property, which was granted, and they immediately set out for
Madrid, where they made the most bitter complaints to the king.
But the monarch told them that he could not grant them any redress, as the
injuries they had received were from his grandfather the King of France's troops,
by whose assistance alone he could be firmly established in his kingdom.
Had it been my own troops, said he, I would have punished them, but,
as it is, I cannot pretend to exert any authority.
In the meantime, M.
Delegal's secretary set open all the doors of the Inquisition, and released the
prisoners, who amounted in the whole to four hundred, and among these were sixty
beautiful young women, who appeared to form a seraglio for the three principal
inquisitors.
This discovery, which laid the enormity of the inquisitors so open, greatly alarmed
the archbishop, who desired M.
Delegal to send the women to his palace, and he would take proper care of them,
and at the same time he published an ecclesiastical censure against all such as
should ridicule or blame the holy office of the Inquisition.
The French commander sent word to the archbishop that the prisoners had either
run away, or were so securely concealed by their friends, or even by his own
officers, that it was impossible for him to send them back again, and therefore the
Inquisition, having committed such atrocious actions, must now put up with
their exposure.
Some may suggest that it is strange crowned heads and eminent nobles did not
attempt to crush the power of the Inquisition, and reduce the authority of
those ecclesiastical tyrants, from whose merciless fangs neither their families nor
themselves were secure.
But astonishing as it is, superstition hath in this case always overcome common
sense, and custom operated against reason.
One prince indeed intended to abolish the Inquisition, but he lost his life before
he became king, and consequently before he had the power so to do, for the very
intimation of his design procured his destruction.
This was that amiable Prince Don Carlos, son of Philip II, King of Spain and
grandson of the celebrated Emperor Charles V.
Don Carlos possessed all the good qualities of his grandfather without any
of the bad ones of his father, and was a prince of great vivacity,
admirable learning, and the most amiable disposition.
He had sense enough to see into the errors of potpourri, and abhorred the very name
of the Inquisition.
He invade publicly against the institution, ridiculed the affected piety
of the Inquisitors, did all he could to expose their atrocious deeds, and even
declared that if he ever came to the crown he would abolish the Inquisition and
exterminate its agents.
These things were sufficient to irritate the Inquisitors against the Prince.
They accordingly bent their minds to vengeance and determined on his
destruction.
The Inquisitors now employed all their agents and emissaries to spread abroad the
most artful insinuations against the Prince, and at length raised such a spirit
of discontent among the people that the King was under the necessity of removing
Don Carlos from court.
Not content with this, they pursued even his friends, and obliged the King likewise
to banish Don John, Duke of Austria, his own brother and consequently uncle to
the Prince, together with the Prince of Palma, nephew to the King and cousin to
the Prince, because they well knew that both the Duke of Austria and the Prince of
Palma had a most sincere and inviolable attachment to Don Carlos.
Some few years after, the Prince having shown great lenity and favour to the
Protestants in the Netherlands, the Inquisition loudly exclaimed against
him, declaring that as the persons in question were heretics, the Prince himself
must necessarily be one, since he gave them countenance.
In short, they gained so great an ascendancy over the mind of the King,
who was absolutely a slave to superstition, that, shocking to relate,
he sacrificed the feelings of nature to the force of bigotry, and for fear of
incurring the anger of the Inquisition, gave up his only son, passing the sentence
of death on him himself.
The Prince indeed had what was termed an indulgence, that is, he was permitted to
choose the manner of his death.
Roman-like, the unfortunate young hero chose bleeding and the hot bath.
When the veins of his arms and legs were opened, he expired gradually, falling a
martyr to the malice of the Inquisitors and the stupid bigotry of his father.
The Persecution of Dr. Egidio Dr. Egidio was educated at the University of Alcalá,
where he took his several degrees, and particularly applied himself to the
study of the sacred scriptures and school divinity.
When the Professor of Theology died, he was elected into his place,
and acted so much to the satisfaction of everyone that his reputation for learning
and piety was circulated throughout Europe.
Egidio, however, had his enemies, and these laid a complaint against him to
the Inquisitors, who sent him a citation, and when he appeared to it, cast him into
a dungeon.
As the greatest part of those who belonged to the Cathedral Church at Seville,
and many persons belonging to the Bishopric of D'Hortoire, highly approved
of the doctrines of Egidio, which they thought perfectly consonant with true
religion, they petitioned the Emperor in his behalf.
Though the monarch had been educated a Roman Catholic, he had too much sense to
be a bigot, and therefore sent an immediate order for his enlargement.
He soon after visited the Church of Valladolid, and did everything he could to
promote the cause of religion.
Returning home, he soon after fell sick, and died in an extreme old age.
The Inquisitors, having been disappointed of gratifying their malice against him
while living, determined, as the Emperor's whole sorts were engrossed by a military
expedition, to wreak their vengeance on him when dead.
Therefore, soon after he was buried, they ordered his remains to be dug out of
the grave, and a legal process being carried on, they were condemned to be
burnt, which was executed accordingly.
The Persecution of Dr. Constantine Dr. Constantine, an intimate acquaintance of
the already mentioned Dr. Rigidio, was a man of uncommon natural abilities
and profound learning.
Exclusive of several modern tongues, he was acquainted with the Latin,
Greek, and Hebrew languages, and perfectly well knew not only the sciences called
abstruse, but those arts which come under the denomination of polite literature.
His eloquence rendered him pleasing, and the soundness of his doctrines a
profitable preacher, and he was so popular that he never preached but to a crowded
audience.
He had many opportunities of rising in the Church, but never would take advantage of
them, for if a living of greater value than his own was offered him, he would
refuse it, saying, I am content with what I have, and he frequently preached so
forcibly against simony that many of his superiors, who were not so delicate upon
the subject, took umbrage at his doctrines upon that head.
Having been fully confirmed in Protestantism by Dr. Rigidio, he preached
boldly such doctrines only as were agreeable to gospel purity, and
uncontaminated by the errors which had at various times crept into the Romish
Church.
For these reasons he had many enemies among the Roman Catholics, and some of
them were fully determined on his destruction.
A worthy gentleman named Scobaria, having erected a school for divinity
lectures, appointed Dr. Constantine to be reader therein.
He immediately undertook the task, and read lectures by portions on the
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Canticles, and was beginning to expound the Book of
Job, when he was seized by the Inquisitors.
Being brought to examination, he answered with such precaution that they could not
find any explicit charge against him, but remained doubtful in what manner to
proceed when the following circumstances occurred to determine them.
Dr. Constantine had deposited with a woman named Isabella Martin several books which
to him were very valuable, but which he knew in the eyes of the Inquisition were
exceptionable.
This woman, having been informed against as a Protestant, was apprehended,
and after a small process her goods were ordered to be confiscated.
Previous however to the officers coming to her house, the woman's son had removed
away several chests full of the most valuable articles, among these were Dr.
Constantine's books.
A treacherous servant gave intelligence of this to the Inquisitors, and an officer
was dispatched to the son to demand the chests.
The son, supposing the officer only came for Constantine's books, said,
I know what you come for, and I will fetch them to you immediately.
He then fetched Dr. Constantine's books and papers, when the officer was greatly
surprised to find what he did not look for.
He however told the young man that he was glad these books and papers were produced,
but nevertheless he must fulfil the end of his commission, which was to carry him and
the goods he had embezzled before the Inquisitors, which he did accordingly,
for the young man knew it would be in vain to expostulate or resist, and therefore
quietly submitted to his fate.
The Inquisitors, being thus possessed of Constantine's books and writings,
now found matter sufficient to form charges against him.
When he was brought to a re-examination, they presented one of his papers and asked
him if he knew the handwriting.
Perceiving it was his own, he guessed the whole matter, confessed the writing,
and justified the doctrine it contained.
Saying, In that and all my other writings I have never departed from the truth of
the Gospel, but have always kept in view the pure precepts of Christ as he
delivered them to mankind.
After being detained upwards of two years in prison, Dr. Constantine was seized with
a bloody flux, which put an end to his miseries in this world.
The process, however, was carried on against his body, which at the ensuing
hauteur d'affaires was publicly burned.
The Life of William Gardiner William Gardiner was born at Bristol, received a
tolerable education, and was at a proper age placed under the care of a merchant
named Paget.
At the age of twenty-six years, he was by his master sent to Lisbon to act
as factor.
Here he applied himself to the study of the Portuguese language, executed his
business with assiduity and dispatch, and behaved with the most engaging
affability to all persons with whom he had the least concern.
He conversed privately with a few, whom he knew to be zealous Protestants,
and at the same time cautiously avoided giving the least offence to any who were
Roman Catholics.
He had not, however, hitherto gone into any of the Popish churches.
A marriage being concluded between the King of Portugal's son and the Infanta of
Spain, upon the wedding day the bridegroom, bride and the whole court,
went to the Cathedral Church, attended by multitudes of all ranks of people,
and among the rest William Gardner, who stayed during the whole ceremony and
was greatly shocked at the superstitions he saw.
The erroneous worship which he had seen ran strongly in his mind.
He was miserable to see a whole country sunk into such idolatry when the truth of
the gospel might be so easily obtained.
He therefore took the inconsiderate though laudable design into his head of making a
reform in Portugal, or perishing in the attempt, and determined to sacrifice his
prudence to his zeal, though he became a martyr upon the occasion.
To this end he settled all his worldly affairs, paid his debts, closed his books,
and consigned over his merchandise.
On the ensuing Sunday he went again to the Cathedral Church with a New Testament in
his hand, and placed himself near the altar.
The King and the court soon appeared, and a cardinal began mass, at that part of
the ceremony in which the people adore the wafer.
Gardner could hold out no longer, but springing towards the cardinal he
snatched the host from him and trampled it under his feet.
This action amazed the whole congregation, and one person, drawing a dagger,
wounded Gardner in the shoulder, and would by repeating the blow have
finished him had not the King called to him to desist.
Gardner being carried before the King, the monarch asked him what countryman he
was, to which he replied, I am an Englishman by birth, a Protestant by
religion, and a merchant by occupation.
What I have done is not out of contempt to your royal person, God forbid it should,
but out of an honest indignation to see the ridiculous superstitious and gross
idolatries practised here.
The King, thinking that he had been stimulated by some other person to act as
he had done, demanded who was his abettor, to which he replied, My own conscience
alone.
I would not hazard what I have done for any man living, but I owe that and all
other services to God.
Gardner was sent to prison, and a general order issued to apprehend all Englishmen
in Lisbon.
This order was in a great measure put into execution, some few escaping, and many
innocent persons were tortured to make them confess if they knew anything of the
matter.
In particular, a person who resided in the same house with Gardner was treated with
unparalleled barbarity, to make him confess something which might throw a
light upon the affair.
Gardner himself was then tormented in the most excruciating manner, but in the midst
of all his torments he gloried in the deed.
Being ordered for death, a large fire was kindled near a gibbet, Gardner was drawn
up to the gibbet by pulleys, and then let down near the fire, but not so close as to
touch it, for they burnt or rather roasted him by slow degrees.
Yet he bore his sufferings patiently, and resigned his soul to the Lord
cheerfully.
It is observable that some of the sparks that were blown from the fire which
consumed Gardner towards the haven burnt one of the King's ships of war,
and did other considerable damage.
The Englishmen who were taken up on this occasion were, soon after Gardner's death,
all discharged, except the person who resided in the same house with him,
who was detained two years before he could procure his liberty.
An account of the life and sufferings of Mr. William Lithgow, a native of Scotland.
This gentleman was descended from a good family, and having a natural propensity
for travelling, he rambled when very young over the northern western islands,
after which he visited France, Germany, Switzerland, and Spain.
He set out on his travels in the month of March, 1609, and the first place he went
to was Paris, where he stayed for some time.
He then prosecuted his travels through Germany and other parts, and at length
arrived at Málaga, in Spain, the seat of all his misfortunes.
During his residence here, he contracted with the master of a French ship for his
passage to Alexandria, but was prevented from going by the following circumstances.
In the evening of the 17th of October, 1620, the English fleet, at that time on a
cruise against the Algerian rovers, came to anchor before Málaga, which threw
the people of the town into the greatest consternation as they imagined them to be
Turks.
The morning, however, discovered the mistake, and the governor of Málaga,
perceiving the Cross of England in their colours, went on board Sir Robert
Mansell's ship, who commanded on that expedition, and after staying some time
returned and silenced the fears of the people.
The next day many persons from on board the fleet came ashore.
Among these were several well known by Mr. Lithgow, who after reciprocal compliments
spent some days together in festivity and the amusements of the town.
They then invited Mr. Lithgow to go on board and pay his respects to the Admiral.
He accordingly accepted the invitation, was kindly received by him, and detained
till the next day when the fleet sailed.
The Admiral would willingly have taken Mr. Lithgow with him to Algiers, but having
contracted for his passage to Alexandria, and his baggage, etc., being in the town,
he could not accept the offer.
As soon as Mr. Lithgow got on shore, he proceeded towards his lodgings by a
private way, being to embark the same night for Alexandria, when in passing
through a narrow uninhabited street, he found himself suddenly surrounded by
nine sergeants or officers, who threw a black cloak over him and forcibly
conducted him to the Governor's house.
After some little time the Governor appeared, when Mr. Lithgow earnestly
begged he might be informed of the cause of such violent treatment.
The Governor only answered by shaking his head, and gave orders that the prisoner
should be strictly watched until he, the Governor, returned from his devotions,
directing at the same time that the Captain of the town, the Alcalde Major and
Town Notary, should be summoned to appear at his examination, and that all this
should be done with the greatest secrecy, to prevent the knowledge reaching the ears
of the English merchants then residing in the town.
These orders were strictly discharged, and on the Governor's return he,
with the officers having seated themselves, Mr. Lithgow was brought before
them for examination.
The Governor began by asking several questions, namely, of what country he was,
with abound, and how long he had been in Spain.
The prisoner, after answering these and other questions, was conducted to a
closet, where in a short space of time he was visited by the Town Captain,
who inquired whether he had ever been at Seville, or was lately come from thence,
and patting his cheeks with an air of friendship, conjured him to tell the
truth.
For, said he, your very countenance shows there is some hidden matter in your mind
which prudence should direct you to disclose.
Finding himself, however, unable to extort anything from the prisoner, he left him
and reported the same to the Governor and the other officers, on which Mr. Lithgow
was again brought before them, a general accusation was laid against him,
and he was compelled to swear that he would give true answers to such questions
as should be asked him.
The Governor proceeded to inquire the quality of the English Commander and the
prisoner's opinion what were the motives that prevented his accepting an invitation
from him to come on shore.
He demanded likewise the names of the English Captains in the squadron,
and what knowledge he had of the embarkation or preparation for it before
his departure from England.
The answers given to the several questions asked were set down in writing by the
notary, but the Junto seemed surprised at his denying any knowledge of the fitting
out of the fleet, particularly the Governor, who said he lied, that he was a
traitor and a spy and came directly from England to favour and assist the designs
that were projected against Spain, and that he had been for that purpose nine
months in Seville in order to procure intelligence of the time the Spanish Navy
was expected from the Indies.
They exclaimed against his familiarity with the officers of the fleet,
and many other English gentlemen, between whom they said unusual civilities
had passed, that all these transactions had been carefully noticed.
Besides, to sum up the whole and put the truth past all doubt, they said he came
from a council of war held that morning on board the Admiral's ship in order to put
in execution the orders assigned him.
They upbraided him with being accessory to the burning of the island of St. Thomas in
the West Indies.
Wherefore, said they, these Lutherans and Sons of the Devil ought to have no credit
given to what they say or swear.
In vain did Mr. Lithgow endeavour to obviate every accusation laid against him
and to obtain belief from his prejudiced judges.
He begged permission to send for his cloak bag which contained his papers and might
serve to show his innocence.
This request they complied with, thinking it would discover some things of
which they were ignorant.
The cloak bag was accordingly brought, and being opened, among other things was
found a licence from King James I, under the sign manual, setting forth the
bearer's intention to travel into Egypt, which was treated by the haughty Spaniards
with great contempt.
The other papers consisted of passports, testimonials, etc., of persons of quality.
All these credentials, however, seemed rather to confirm than abate the
suspicions of these prejudiced judges, who, after seizing all the prisoners'
papers, ordered him again to withdraw.
In the meantime, a consultation was held to fix the place where the prisoner should
be confined.
The alcalde, or chief judge, was for putting him into the town prison,
but this was objected to, particularly by the corregidor, who said in Spanish,
In order to prevent the knowledge of his confinement from reaching his countrymen,
I will take the matter on myself and be answerable for the consequences,
upon which it was agreed that he should be confined in the governor's house with the
greatest secrecy.
This matter being determined, one of the sergeants went to Mr. Lithgow,
and begged his money with liberty to search him, as it was needless to make any
resistance, the prisoner quietly complied, when the sergeant, after rifling his
pockets of eleven ducatoons, stripped him to his shirt, and, searching his breeches,
he found, enclosed in the waistband, two canvas bags, containing one hundred
and thirty-seven pieces of gold.
The sergeant immediately took the money to the corregidor, who, after having told it
over, ordered him to clothe the prisoner, and shut him up close, until after supper.
About midnight, the sergeant and two Turkish slaves released Mr. Lithgow from
his then confinement, but it was to introduce him to one much more horrible.
They conducted him through several passages, to a chamber in a remote part of
the palace, towards the garden, where they loaded him with irons,
and extended his legs by means of an iron bar above a yard long, the weight of which
was so great that he could neither stand nor sit, but was obliged to lie
continually on his back.
They left him in this condition for some time, when they returned with a
refreshment of food, of a pound of boiled mutton and a loaf, together with a small
quantity of wine, which was not only the first, but the best and last of the kind,
during his confinement in this place.
After delivering these articles, the sergeant locked the door, and left Mr.
Lithgow to his own private contemplations.
The next day he received a visit from the governor, who promised him his liberty,
with many other advantages, if he would confess being a spy, but on his protesting
that he was entirely innocent, the governor left him in a rage,
saying he should see him no more until further torments constrained him to
confess.
Commanding the keeper to whose care he was committed, that he should permit no person
whatever to have access to or commune with him, that his sustenance should not exceed
three ounces of musty bread and a pint of water every second day, that he shall be
allowed neither bed, pillow, nor coverlid.
Close up, said he, this window in his room with lime and stone, stop up the holes of
the door with double mats, let him have nothing that bears any likeness to
comfort.
These and several orders of the like severity were given to render it
impossible for his condition to be known to those of the English nation.
In this wretched and melancholy state did Paul Lithgow continue without seeing any
person for several days, in which time the Governor received an answer to a letter he
had written relative to the prisoner from Madrid, and, pursuant to the instructions
given him, began to put in practice the cruelties devised which were hastened
because Christmas Holy Days approached, it being then the forty-seventh day since
his imprisonment.
About two o'clock in the morning he heard the noise of a coach in the street,
and some time after heard the opening of the prison doors, not having had any sleep
for two nights, hunger, pain, and melancholy reflections having prevented
him from taking any repose.
Soon after the prison doors were opened, the nine sergeants who had first seized
him entered the place where he lay, and without uttering a word conducted him
in his irons through the house into the street, where a coach waited, and into
which they laid him at the bottom on his back, not being able to sit.
Two of the sergeants rode with him, and the rest walked by the coach's side,
but all observed the most profound silence.
They drove him to a vine-press house about a league from the town, to which a rack
had been privately conveyed before, and here they shut him up for that night.
At daybreak the next morning arrived the Governor and the Alcalde, into whose
presence Mr. Lithgow was immediately brought to undergo another examination.
The prisoner desired he might have an interpreter, which was allowed to
strangers by the laws of that country, but this was refused, nor would they
permit him to appeal to Madrid, the superior court of judicature.
After a long examination, which lasted from morning until night, there appeared
in all his answers so exact a conformity with what he had before said, that they
declared he had learned them by heart, there not being the least prevarication.
They, however, pressed him again to make a full discovery, that is to accuse himself
of crimes never committed, the Governor adding, you are still in my power,
I can set you free if you comply, if not I must deliver you to the Alcalde.
Mr. Lithgow still persisting in his innocence, the Governor ordered the notary
to draw up a warrant for delivering him to the Alcalde to be tortured.
In consequence of this he was conducted by the sergeants to the end of a stone
gallery, where the rack was placed.
The encaruador, or executioner, immediately struck off his irons,
which put him to very great pain, the bolts being so closely riveted,
that the sledgehammer tore away half an inch of his heel in forcing off the bolt,
the anguish of which, together with his weak condition, not having the least
sustenance for three days, occasioned him to groan bitterly, upon which the
merciless Alcalde said, Villain, traitor, this is but the earnest of what
you shall endure.
When his irons were off he fell on his knees, uttering a short prayer that God
would be pleased to enable him to be steadfast, and undergo courageously the
grievous trial he had to encounter.
The Alcalde and notary having placed themselves in chairs, he was stripped
naked and fixed upon the rack, the office of these gentlemen being to
witness of and set down the confessions and tortures endured by the delinquent.
It is impossible to describe all the various tortures inflicted upon him.
Suffice it to say that he lay on the rack for above five hours, during which time he
received above sixty different tortures of the most hellish nature, and had they
continued them a few minutes longer he must have inevitably perished.
These cruel persecutors being satisfied for the present, the prisoner was taken
from the rack, and his irons being again put on, he was conducted to his former
dungeon, having received no other nourishment than a little warm wine,
which was given him rather to prevent his dying and reserve him for future
punishments than from any principle of charity or compassion.
As a confirmation of this, orders were given for a coach to pass every morning
before day by the prison, that the noise made by it might give fresh terrors and
alarms to the unhappy prisoner, and deprive him of all possibility of
obtaining the least repose.
He continued in this horrid situation, almost starved for want of the common
necessaries to preserve his wretched existence, until Christmas Day,
when he received some relief from Marianne, waiting woman to the Governor's
Lady.
This woman, having obtained leave to visit him, carried with her some refreshments,
consisting of honey, sugar, raisins, and other articles, and so affected was
she at beholding his situation that she wept bitterly, and at her departure
expressed the greatest concern at not being able to give him further assistance.
In this loathsome prison was poor Mr. Lithgow kept until he was almost devoured
by vermin.
They crawled about his beard, lips, eyebrows, etc., so that he could scarce
open his eyes, and his mortification was increased by not having the use of his
hands or legs to defend himself from his being so miserably maimed by the tortures.
So cruel was the Governor that he even ordered the vermin to be swept on him
twice in every eight days.
He, however, obtained some little mitigation of this part of his punishment
from the humanity of a Turkish slave that attended him, who, when he could do it
with safety, destroyed the vermin, and contributed every refreshment to him
that laid in his power.
From this slave Mr. Lithgow at length received information which gave him little
hopes of ever being released, but on the contrary that he should finish his life
under new tortures.
The substance of this information was that an English seminary priest and a Scotch
cooper had been for some time employed by the Governor to translate from the English
into the Spanish language all his books and observations, and that it was commonly
said in the Governor's house that he was an arch-heretic.
This information greatly alarmed him, and he began, not without reason,
to fear that they would soon finish him, more especially as they could neither by
torture or any other means bring him to vary from what he had all along said at
his different examinations.
End