History of the Inquisition of Spain. Henry Charles Lea
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For some days the Conversos continued to flatter themselves that with money they would disarm Ferdinand’s wrath; they had, they said, the whole court with them and the sympathies of all the magnates of the land,[657] but they miscalculated his shrewd resolve to profit to the utmost by their blunder and the consequent weakness of their friends. The royal anger, indeed, was much dreaded and the Diputados, a few days later, wrote to the king reporting what had been done; the criminals had already scattered in flight; the city had offered a reward of five hundred ducats; the judges had written to foreign lands to invoke aid in intercepting the fugitives and both city and kingdom would willingly undergo all labor and expense necessary to avenge the crime. A proclamation was also issued excommunicating all having knowledge of the conspiracy who should not within a given time come forward and reveal what they knew.[658]
It was probably in consequence of the murder that Ferdinand and Isabella succeeded in obtaining, from Innocent VIII, papal letters of April 3, 1487, ordering all princes and rulers and magistrates to seize and deliver to the Inquisition of Spain all fugitives who should be designated to them, thus extending its arms everywhere throughout Christendom and practically outlawing all refugees; no proof was to be required, simple requisition sufficed, the surrender was to be made within thirty days and safe-conduct assured to the frontier, under pain of excommunication and the penalties for fautorship of heresy. Fortunately for humanity this atrocious attempt to establish a new international law by papal absolutism was practically ignored.[659]
THE INQUISITION AT WORK
There was one case however in which its punitive clauses seem to have been invoked. Several of the accomplices in the assassination found refuge in Tudela, a frontier city of Navarre and on January 27, 1486, Ferdinand wrote to the magistrates there affectionately requesting that, if the inquisitors should send for the accused, all aid should be rendered, seeing that he had given orders to obey such requisitions throughout his own kingdoms. This application was unsuccessful and in May he repeated it imperiously, threatening war upon them as defenders of heretics.[660] The condition of the perishing kingdom of Navarre, under the youthful Catherine and Jean d’Albret, was not such as to protect it from the insults of a sovereign like Ferdinand and the inquisitors presumed so far as to instruct Don Juan de Ribera, then in command of the frontier, to carry the royal threats into execution. That prudent officer refused to make war upon a friendly state without the protection of an express order bearing the signatures of Ferdinand and Isabella, whereupon, on June 30th, the inquisitors complained of him to the king. He was in Galicia, suppressing a rising of the Count of Lemos and reducing the lawless nobles to order and from Viso, July 22d, he replied that he would at once have sent the order but that he had brought with him all the frontier troops; as soon as his task was accomplished he would send back forces with orders to Don Juan to make war on Tudela in such fashion as to compel it to do what was requisite for the service of God.[661] A letter of the same date to Torquemada states that the inquisitors have asked for letters of marque and reprisal against Tudela on account of Luis de Santangel, but this must be preceded by a carta requisitoria, which he instructs Torquemada to prepare and send to him when he will execute it.[662] It was not until the end of November that the sovereigns returned to Salamanca and it is presumable that the campaign against Tudela was postponed until the Spring. Of course the fugitives had long before sought some safer asylum, but the papal brief of April 3, 1487, could be enforced against the magistrates and they endured the humiliation of submitting to the tribunal of Saragossa. At an auto de fe held March 2, 1488, the alcalde and eight of the citizens appeared and performed penance.[663]
Ferdinand recognized the opportunity afforded by the assassination of Arbués and was resolved to make the most of it. Prominent among the means for this was the stimulation of the popular veneration of the martyr. On September 29, 1486, his solemn exequies were celebrated with as much solemnity as those of the holiest saint; a splendid tomb was built to which his remains were translated, December 8, 1487; a statue was erected with an inscription by the sovereigns and over it a bas-relief representing the scene of the murder. During a pestilence, in 1490, the city ordered a silver lamp, fifty ounces in weight, to be placed before the tomb and another silver lamp to burn day and night.[664] His cult as a saint was not allowed to await the tardy recognition of the Holy See.
The conspirators miscalculated when they imagined that his murder would deter others from taking his place. There was no danger for inquisitors now in Aragon and the tribunal of Saragossa was promptly remanned and enlarged for the abundant harvest that was expected.[665] It was not long in getting to work and on December 28, 1485, an auto was celebrated in which a man and a woman were burnt.[666] The tribunal was removed to the royal palace-fortress outside of the walls, known as the Aljafería, as an evidence that it was under the royal safeguard and Ferdinand proclaimed that he and his successors took it under their special protection.[667] Strict orders were sent to the Estates of the kingdom and to the local officials to suppress summarily all resistance to the confiscations, which were becoming so extensive that the receiver at Saragossa had his hands full and was empowered to appoint deputies throughout the land to attend to the work in their respective districts.[668]
In the prevailing temper pursuit was hot after the murderers of Arbués and the avengers were soon upon their track. There were some hair-breadth escapes, and much curious detail, for which space fails us here, will be found in the Memoria de diversos Autos in the Appendix, some of it showing that there were powerful secret influences in favor of individuals. One party, consisting of the chief contriver of the plot, Juan de Pedro Sánchez and his wife, Gaspar de Santa Cruz and his wife, Martin de Santangel, García de Moras, Mossen Pedro Mañas and the two Pedro de Almazan, effected their escape by way of Tudela, for which, as we have seen, that city was held responsible, and the Lord of Cadreyta, an ancestor of the Dukes of Alburquerque, was penanced for giving them shelter and receiving sixty florins in payment.[669]
PUNISHMENT OF THE ASSASSINS
Although by decree both secular and ecclesiastical courts were empowered to punish the guilty, the prosecutions seem to have been left altogether to the Inquisition and it had the satisfaction of burning the effigies of the fugitives. Many, however, paid the penalty in their persons. Vidau Durango was soon caught at Lérida, when he made no difficulty in revealing the details of the plot and the names of the accomplices. The work of retribution followed and was continued for years. In the auto of June 30, 1486, Juan de Pedro Sánchez was burnt in effigy; Vidau Durango was treated mercifully, doubtless in consideration of his communicativeness; his hands were cut off and nailed to the door of the Diputacion, or House of Diputados, and it was not until he was dead that he was dragged to the market-place when he was beheaded and quartered and the fragments were suspended in the streets. The punishment of Juan de Esperandeu was more harsh; he was dragged while living to the portal of the cathedral when his hands were cut off; he was then dragged to the market-place, beheaded and quartered, as in the case of Durango. On July 28th Caspar de Santa Cruz and Martin de Santangel were burnt in effigy and Pedro de Exea, who had contributed to the fund, was burnt alive. On October 21st, Maria de la Badía was burnt as an accessory. On December 15th an auto was hastily arranged; Francisco de Santa Fe, assessor of the Governor of Aragon and son of the great Converso Jeronimo de Santa Fe, was fatally compromised in the conspiracy; hopeless of escape he threw himself from the battlement of the tower in which he was confined and was dashed to pieces and the same day his remains were burnt and his bones, enclosed in a box, were cast into the Tagus as though it was feared that they would be venerated as those of a martyr. Juan de la Badía eluded his tormentors in even more desperate fashion. An auto was arranged for January 21, 1487, in which he was to suffer; in his cell the day before he broke in pieces a glass lamp and swallowed the fragments, which speedily brought the death he craved; the next day his corpse was dragged and quartered and the hands were cut off and on the same occasion there were burnt in effigy as accomplices Pedro de Almazan the elder, Anton Pérez and Pedro de Vera. On March 15th Mateo Ram, who superintended the murder, had his hands cut off and was then burnt, with Joan Francés, who was suspected of complicity and the effigies of three accomplices, Juan Ram, Alonso Sánchez and García de Moras. August 8th, Luis de Santangel, who was one of the chief conspirators, was beheaded in the market-place, his head was set upon a pole and his body was burnt.[670]
Thus the ghastly tragedy went on for years,