5. Bearing Faithful Testimony
Various Protestant prisoners were kept in prison until Philip II returned from the Netherlands. He and other royalty attended the second auto-da-fé2 in Valladolid, which was held in 1559. When the Inquisitor General administered the oath to him, the King rose from his seat and drew his sword, indicating his readiness to use it in support of the Inquisition. There were 29 prisoners, of whom 16 could be identified as penitents, including two men who were not Lutherans but were guilty of other offences.
One of those condemned to be burnt was Don Carlos de Seso, a distinguished nobleman who had served Charles V. Later he served the cause of the Reformation by circulating books and giving instruction about the true faith. When, the night before his death, he was told his sentence, he asked for a pen, ink and paper and proceeded to write down a confession of his faith which filled two sheets of paper.
He then gave it to an official, saying, “This is the true faith of the gospel, as opposed to that of the Church of Rome, which has been corrupted for ages. In this faith I wish to die and in the remembrance and lively belief of the sufferings of Jesus Christ, to offer to God my body now reduced so low” (p 294). Friars spent that night and the next morning trying to persuade him to recant, but without the least success. At the stake, the gag was removed from his mouth and the friars again attempted to make him confess that he was wrong. He replied, loudly and firmly, “I could demonstrate to you that you ruin yourselves by not imitating my example, but there is no time. Executioners, light the pile which is to consume me” (p 294). He was 42.
Domingo de Roxas, the pastor of Valladolid, was arrested as he sought to flee the country. He was repeatedly examined by the Inquisition, who then ordered him to be tortured in the hope of discovering some information they were anxious to possess. He was more afraid of torture than of death and, deceived by the prospect of a merciful sentence which was offered him, he made some profession of sorrow, but was soon undeceived. Being led past the King on the day of the auto-da-fé, he appealed to Philip: “Can you, Sir, thus witness the torments of your innocent subjects? Save us from so cruel a death.” The cold-hearted monarch replied, “No, I would myself carry wood to burn my own son, if he was such a wretch as you” (p 296).
At the beginning of the persecution of Protestants in Valladolid, a Juan Sanchez fled to the Netherlands, then under Spanish rule. From there he wrote to a Spanish lady who, unknown to him, had been arrested as a suspected Lutheran. The letters fell into the hands of the Inquisition, and Sanchez was arrested and sent back to Valladolid. He was condemned as an impenitent heretic. When the fire had consumed the ropes which tied him to the stake, he ran, no doubt unthinkingly, onto the platform where the confessions of those who had recanted were heard. Recollecting himself, he saw on one side some prisoners on their knees doing penance; on the other side he saw Don Carlos de Seso standing in the midst of the flames. He said, “I will die like de Seso”, and walked deliberately back to the fire. He was just 32.
A nun, Dona Marina Guevara, was denounced to the Inquisition. She acknowledged that she had thought about some Lutheran teachings, but only with hesitation and not realising their meaning. She asked to be reconciled to the Church, but this was refused because she would not acknowledge other matters which had been reported to the Inquisition and because she persisted in claiming that she had not yielded a cordial and complete assent to the heresies which she had considered. She pointed out that it seemed as if they wished to put into her mind errors of which was ignorant rather than persuade her to abandon those to which she had listened. She pointed out that the oath she had taken prevented her from adding to her previous confession and from acknowledging things of which was not conscious and facts that she did not remember. She was related to the Grand Inquisitor, who tried to rescue her, but in vain.
Since she would not tell lies to save her life, she was strangled and then burnt. M’Crie comments, “This act proclaimed . . . that there was no safety in Spain for any who harboured a thought at variance with the Roman faith, or who was not prepared to yield the most implicit and absolute obedience to the dictates of the Inquisition” (p 300).
The autos-da-fé which took place in Seville saw even more prisoners paraded before the crowds than in Valladolid. Among these prisoners was Don Pedro Ponce de Leon. No one was more obviously attached to the Reformation cause; for years he had avoided giving any place to superstition and had tried to prepare himself for suffering by visiting the sites where others had been punished. But in the day of testing he failed. As he was a member of the nobility, the inquisitors were particularly anxious to have him recant. Under torture, they had him confess to some of the charges against him. With their customary deceit, they persuaded him that he would not only save himself but others if he confessed everything. He agreed to do so, but very quickly changed his mind and, as a result, he was martyred.
Among others who suffered were four monks from the San Isidro monastery. One of them was Garcia de Arias. After being imprisoned, he gave up the cautious policy that had left the monks continuing to say mass while embracing much scriptural doctrine and practice. He made an explicit confession of his faith and offered to prove that the Roman beliefs were highly erroneous and superstitious. At his trial he pointed out the ignorance of the inquisitors and of the theologians who gave them assistance, for they had been forced to admit that they were unable to interpret the Bible. An old man, he went to the stake leaning on a staff, but the expression on his face indicated happiness.
Another monk from San Isidro had followed his previous companions to Geneva and, after Elizabeth came to the throne, was on his way to England along with some of the English exiles who had fled during the reign of Mary. However, at Strasbourg he was betrayed to a spy and he was arrested while boarding a ship bound for England. Brought back to Spain, he was tortured and he also developed consumption. But, however weak he now was physically, he was sent to the stake. There, briefly but emphatically, he confessed the faith for which he was about to suffer.
Among the women who suffered was Dona Isabel de Baena. Just 20, she was well educated and so was able to read the Bible, and expositions of it, in Latin. M’Crie describes her steadfastness before the Inquisition: “She avowed her faith, defended it as the ancient truth, which Luther and his associates had recovered from the rubbish by which it had been hid for ages, and told her judges that it was their duty to embrace it instead of punishing her and others for maintaining it” (p 309). She was severely tortured because she would not answer questions which were intended to implicate her friends.
Some clerics visited her the night before she was to suffer martyrdom, in the hope of turning her back to her childhood faith. She was very polite to them but told them plainly that she had more concern about her salvation than they could possibly have, and that she would have given up her beliefs if she had been in any doubt of their truth. Indeed she was now more convinced about them because of how easily she had been able to answer the arguments of all the Roman clerics who had so often come to visit her. On the day of the auto-da-fé, when she was to be burnt, she looked cheerful. She was given an opportunity to confess that she was in error but she replied clearly: “I neither can nor will recant” (p 310). As she was being tied to the stake, a priest asked her merely to repeat the Apostles’ Creed, presumably as a sign of submission to Rome. She began to do so, but explained some of its statements in the Protestant sense. She was not allowed to continue and was at once strangled and burnt.
The second large auto-da-fé in Seville was held in December 1560. Julian Hernandez, who had brought Bibles into Spain, was one of those who suffered that day. When being brought out to the auto-da-fé, he encouraged his fellow sufferers: “Courage, comrades. This is the hour in which we must show ourselves valiant soldiers of Jesus Christ. Let us now bear faithful testimony to His truth before men, and within a few hours we will receive the testimony of His approbation before angels and triumph with Him in heaven” (p 313).
Eight women were burnt the day; among them was Maria Gomez, who had betrayed the congregation in Seville when she was suffering from a mental disorder. She had recovered and had been received back into fellowship with the congregation, before falling into the hands of the Inquisition. Along with her at the stake were her three daughters and her sister. One of the nieces specially thanked Maria for the religious teaching she had given her. In response, Maria encouraged her by reminding her of the support which Christ had promised them in the hour of trial and of the joys which they would immediately have after their brief sufferings.
These autos-da-fé continued for many years. From 1560 to 1570 at least one of these cruel events took place each year in all 12 cities where provincial tribunals of the Spanish Inquisition had been established. At each of them, condemned Protestants appeared. At an auto-da-fé in Madrid in 1571 two Protestants were burnt alive, as was the effigy of another. One of those who suffered was Dr Sigismond Archel, a Sardinian who had been arrested in 1562. After several years’ imprisonment in Toledo, he had escaped but was re-arrested at the French border. He acknowledged the charges laid against him but pleaded that he was a better catholic than the Romanists, meaning no doubt that his was the faith of the universal Church as found in Scripture. He pointed out also the ignorance of the priests who were sent to turn him back to Rome.
A great part of the work of inquisitors in eastern Spain was to search for Protestant books, which came into the country either by sea or across the border from France. In 1568 the Spanish ambassador in London reported that the English were boasting of the converts which their (Protestant) doctrine was making in Spain. And reports from France indicated that large quantities of literature were to be sent to Spain; some of the books were placed in wine casks and got past customs officers without being discovered.
In the end, the Inquisition’s brutal methods were, in their own terms, successful. After 1570 the Inquisition was still discovering some Protestants and bringing them to autos-da-fé, but the numbers were much less. So when 57 prisoners were brought out at an auto in 1654 at Cuenca, a town in central Spain, only one of them was charged with being a Lutheran. And among 118 condemned at a similar event at Madrid in 1680, only one was a Protestant, and he had already died in prison, but his effigy and bones were cast into the flames. Effectively the Reformation in Spain had been ground into the dust. It may be that the fact that the Church in Spain was no longer characterised by outward scandal meant that it was more difficult for the average Spaniard to recognise that there was a problem with it, in contrast with the situation in other countries where the Reformation took hold. Yet the main point to recognise is the sovereignty of God, when one country is taken and another is left in its superstitions.
It is worth noting that some Spaniards were able to practice the true religion in other lands – for instance, the former monks who reached Geneva – and there was a Spanish congregation in London from 1559. Yet, sadly, among those who fled Spain for religious reasons were some who denied the doctrine of the Trinity. The most famous of these was Michael Servetus, who himself was burnt to death by the Genevan authorities because of his heresies.
We are used to hearing that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. That was indeed so, for instance, in the early centuries of Christianity, but certainly not in sixteenth-century Spain. In M’Crie’s words, “Persecution may be carried to such a pitch as will, without a miracle,3 crush the best of causes; for, though it cannot eradicate the truth from the minds of those by whom it has been cordially embraced, it may cut off all the ordinary means of communication by which it is propagated” (p 344).
1Last month’s article told about some of those persecuted by the Inquisition for their Protestant faith and the cruel burnings they suffered. This is the final article in the series. Page references in the text are to Thomas M’Crie, The Reformation in Spain, 1824.
2A ritual of public penance by heretics; those who did not recant might be burnt to death.
3Perhaps more accurately, a special providence.