The Project Gutenberg EBook of The History and Romance of Crime; Spanish
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Title: The History and Romance of Crime; Spanish Prisons
Author: Arthur Griffiths
Release Date: May 21, 2016 [EBook #52114]
Language: English
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The History and Romance of Crime
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE PRESENT DAY
[Illustration]
THE GROLIER SOCIETY
LONDON
[Illustration]
Spanish Prisons
THE INQUISITION AT HOME AND ABROAD
PRISONS PAST AND PRESENT
_by_
MAJOR ARTHUR GRIFFITHS
_Late Inspector of Prisons in Great Britain_
_Author of
"The Mysteries of Police and Crime
"Fifty Years of Public Service," etc._
_The Inquisitor-General and the Catholic Sovereigns_
The mandate of expulsion of the Jews from Spain was
issued by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492. This edict no doubt
originated with Torquemada, who was very bitter against the
Jews. When he learned that a number of their leaders were
in conference with the King and Queen, and offering an immense
ransom, Torquemada rushed into the presence bearing
a crucifix on high and crying in stentorian tones that the
sovereigns were about to act the part of Judas Iscariot.
"Here He is!" he exclaimed. "Sell Him again, not for
thirty pieces of silver, but for thirty thousand!" and flinging
the crucifix on the table he ran out in a frenzy. This turned
the tables and the decree for expulsion was confirmed.
THE GROLIER SOCIETY
Spanish Prisons
THE INQUISITION AT HOME AND ABROAD
PRISONS PAST AND PRESENT
_by_
MAJOR ARTHUR GRIFFITHS _Late Inspector of Prisons in Great Britain_
_Author of "The Mysteries of Police and Crime
"Fifty Years of Public Service," etc._
[Illustration]
THE GROLIER SOCIETY
EDITION NATIONALE
Limited to one thousand registered and numbered sets.
NUMBER 307
INTRODUCTION
A considerable portion of this volume is devoted to the Spanish
Inquisition, which was, for three centuries, the most important force
in Spain. Thousands were condemned by its tribunals, and its prisons
and punishments make up a large part of the penal history of that
country. Much exaggeration has crept into the popular accounts, but the
simple truth must cause a shudder, when read to-day.
The institution was created to deal with heresy, that is, with a
departure from the accepted canons. The idea that there can be unity
in diversity was not understood. The spiritual and the temporal powers
were closely related, and bishop and king, pope and emperor, all
believed that uniformity was necessary. Hence, heresy was everywhere
treated as high treason not only to the Church but to the State
as well. The Spanish Inquisition was a state affair as well as an
ecclesiastical court.
We shall see that the jurisdiction of the Inquisition was not confined
to the suppression of heresy. Many crimes which to-day are purely
state concerns, were then punished by it, including bigamy, blasphemy,
perjury, unnatural crimes, and witchcraft. The Spanish Inquisition
deserves credit for discouraging persecution of the last named offence,
and thereby saved the lives of thousands, who, in any other state would
have been executed.
The adaptation to penal purposes of ancient buildings, to be found
throughout the length and breadth of Spain, was very common, as these
were immediately available although generally unsuitable. Chief among
them are the many monastic buildings vacated when the laws broke up
religious houses in Spain and which were mostly converted into prisons,
but little deserving the name. Some of these houses have been utilised
as gaols pure and simple; some have served two or more purposes as at
Huelva, where the convent-prison was also a barrack.
Spain has been slow in conforming to the movements towards prison
reform. She could not afford to spend money on new constructions
along modern lines, and the introduction of the cellular system is
only of recent date. The model prison of Madrid, which has replaced
the hideous Saladero, was only begun in 1887. But a few separate
prisons had already been created, such as those of Loja, Pontevedra,
Barcelona, Vittoria and Naval Carnero. These establishments are new to
Spain but their methods and aims are too well known to call for fresh
description. More interest attaches to the older forms that have so
long served as places of durance.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION 5
I. THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN 11
II. PERSECUTION OF JEWS AND MOORS 32
III. PRISONS AND PUNISHMENTS 63
IV. THE INQUISITION ABROAD 91
V. THE INQUISITION IN PORTUGAL AND INDIA 110
VI. EARLY PRISONS AND PRISONERS 123
VII. PRESIDIOS AT HOME AND ABROAD 150
VIII. LIFE IN CEUTA 182
IX. BRIGANDS AND BRIGANDAGE 212
X. A BRIGHT PAGE IN PRISON HISTORY 236
List of Illustrations
THE GRAND INQUISITOR AND THE CATHOLIC
SOVEREIGNS _Frontispiece_
THE ALHAMBRA PALACE, GRANADA _Page_ 52
THE QUESTION " 116
CASTEL DELL' OVO " 150
SPANISH PRISONS
CHAPTER I
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN
Beginning and growth of religious persecution--Temporal power of the
Papacy--Pope Innocent III creates the first "Inquisitors"--Domingo de
Guzman founder of the Inquisition--Founder of the Dominican Order of
Friars--The "ancient" Inquisition--Penances inflicted--Persecution
of the Jews in Spain--Institution of the "modern" Inquisition under
Ferdinand and Isabella--Headquarters at Seville--Frequent _autos da
fé_--Thomas de Torquemada the first Inquisitor-General--The privileges
of the office--Torquemada's life and character--Sufferings of accused
persons.
The record of religious persecution furnishes some of the saddest
pages in the world's history. It began with the immediate successors
of Constantine the Great, the first Christian prince. They promulgated
severe edicts against heretics with such penalties as confiscation,
banishment and death against breaches of Catholic unity. In this
present tolerant age when every one may worship God after his own
fashion, it is difficult to realise how recent a growth is toleration.
For more than six centuries the flames of persecution burned fiercely
throughout Christendom, lighted by the strong arm of the law, and
soldiers were constantly engaged to extirpate dissent from the accepted
dogmas with fire and sword. The growth of the papacy and the assumption
of the temporal power exalted heresy into treason; independence of
thought was deemed opposition to authority and resistance to the
universal supremacy of the Church. The popes fighting in self-defence
stimulated the zeal of their followers unceasingly to stamp out heresy.
Alexander III in the 12th century solemnly declared that every secular
prince who spared heretics should be classed as a heretic himself and
involved in the one common curse.
When the temporal power of the popes was fully established and
acknowledged, the papacy claimed universal sovereignty over all
countries and peoples and was in a position to enforce it by systematic
procedure against its foes. Pope Innocent III, consumed with the
fervour of his intolerant faith, determined to crush heresy. His
first step was to appoint two "inquisitors" (the first use of the
name) and two learned and devout friars, who were really travelling
commissioners, were sent to perambulate Christendom to discover heresy.
They were commended to all bishops, who were strictly charged to
receive them with kindness, treat them with affection, and "help them
to turn heretics from the error of their way or else drive them out
of the country." The same assistance was expected from the rulers of
states who were to aid the inquisitors with equal kindness.
The mission began in the south of France and a crusade was undertaken
against the Albigensians and Waldensians, those early dissidents from
the Church of Rome, who drew down on themselves the unappeasable
animosity of the orthodox. The campaign against these original heretics
raged fiercely, but persecution slackened and might have died out
but for the appearance of one devoted zealot whose intense hatred of
heresy, backed by his uncompromising energy, revived the illiberal
spirit and organised fresh methods of attack. This was Domingo de
Guzman, a Spanish monk who accompanied Foulques, Bishop of Toulouse,
when he left his desolated diocese to take part in the fourth Lateran
Council, assembled at Rome in 1215. This Domingo, historically known as
St. Dominic, was the founder of the Dominican order of friars.
Though generally accepted as such by Church historians, it is
now argued that St. Dominic was not really the founder of the
Inquisition[1] and that although he spent the best years of his life
in combating heresy he took no more prominent part in persecution than
hundreds of others. His eulogistic biographer describes him as "a man
of earnest, resolute purpose, of deep and unalterable convictions, full
of burning zeal for the propagation of the faith, yet kindly in heart,
cheerful in temper and winning in manner.... He was as severe with
himself as with his fellows.... His endless scourgings, his tireless
vigils, his almost uninterrupted prayer, his superhuman fasts, are
probably only harmless exaggerations of the truth." The Dominicans
boasted that their founder exhaled "an odour of sanctity" and, when his
tomb was opened, a delicious scent issued forth, so penetrating that it
permeated the whole land, and so persistent that those who touched the
holy relics had their hands perfumed for years.
[1] Lea. History of the Inquisition. Vol. I. p. 299.
Whatever the personal character of Dominic and whether or no he
laboured to carry out the work himself, there can be no doubt that
his Order was closely identified with the Inquisition from the first.
Its members were appointed inquisitors, they served in the prisons as
confessors, they assisted the tribunals as "qualificators," or persons
appointed to seek out proof of guilt, or estimate the extent or quality
of the heretical opinions charged against the accused; the great
ceremonials and _autos da fé_ were organised by them; they worked the
"censure" and prepared the "Index" of prohibited books. The Dominicans
were undoubtedly the most active agents in the Inquisition and they
owed their existence to him, even if he did not personally take part in
its proceedings.
The following quotation from Prescott's "History of Ferdinand and
Isabella" may well be inserted here. "Some Catholic writers would
fain excuse St. Dominic from the imputation of having founded
the Inquisition. It is true he died some years before the perfect
organisation of that tribunal; but as he established the principles
on which, and the monkish militia by whom it was administered, it is
doing him no injustice to regard him as its real author." The Sicilian
writer, Paramo, indeed, in his heavy quarto, traces it up to a much
more remote antiquity. According to him God was the first inquisitor
and his condemnation of Adam and Eve furnished the models of the
judicial forms observed in the trials of the Holy Office. The sentence
of Adam was the type of the Inquisitional "reconciliation," his
subsequent raiment of skins of animals was the type of the _sanbenito_,
and the expulsion from Paradise, the precedent for the confiscation of
the goods of heretics. This learned personage deduces a succession of
inquisitors through the patriarchs, Moses, Nebuchadnezzar, and King
David, down to John the Baptist, and he even includes our Saviour in
whose precepts and conduct he finds abundant authority for the tribunal.
The "Ancient Inquisition," as that first established in Spain is
generally called, had many of the features of the "modern" which dates
from the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, and which will presently be
described at some length. Its proceedings were shrouded in the same
impenetrable secrecy, it used the same insidious modes of accusation,
supported them by similar tortures, and punished them with similar
penalties. A manual drawn up in the fourteenth century for the guidance
of judges of the Holy Office prescribes the familiar forms of artful
interrogation employed to catch the unwary, and sometimes innocent
victim. The ancient Inquisition worked on principles less repugnant to
justice than the better known, but equally cruel modern institution,
but was less extensive in its operations because in the earlier days
there were fewer heretics to persecute.
The ancient Inquisition was so unsparing in its actions that it almost
extirpated the Albigensian heresy. The punishments it inflicted were
even more severe than in the modern. Upon such as escaped the stake
and were "reconciled," as it was styled, a terrible "penance" was
imposed. One is cited by Llorente[2] as laid down in the ordinances of
St. Dominic. The penitent, it was commanded, should be stripped of his
clothes and beaten by a priest three Sundays in succession from the
gate of the city to the door of the church; he must not eat any kind of
meat during his whole life; must abstain from fish, oil and wine three
days in the week during life, except in case of sickness or excessive
labour; must wear a religious dress with a small cross embroidered on
each breast; must attend mass every day, if he has the means of doing
so, and vespers on Sundays and festivals; must recite the service for
the day and night and repeat the paternoster seven times in the day,
ten times in the evening, and twenty times at midnight. If he failed in
any of these requirements, he was to be burned as a "relapsed heretic."
[2] History of the Inquisition.
Chief among the causes that produced the new or "modern" Inquisition
was the envy and hatred of the Jews in Spain. Fresh material was
supplied by the unfortunate race of Israel, long established in the
country, and greatly prosperous. They had come in great numbers after
the Saracenic invasion, which indeed they are said to have facilitated,
and were accepted by some of the Moorish rulers on nearly equal terms,
and were treated with a tolerance seldom seen among Mahometans, though
occasional outbursts of fanaticism rendered their position not quite
secure. Under these generally favourable auspices the Jews developed
in numbers and importance. Their remarkable instinct for money making
and their unstinting diligence brought them great wealth. Their love of
letters and high intelligence gave them preëminence in the schools of
the Moorish cities of Cordova, Toledo and Granada, where they helped
to keep the flame of learning bright and shining through the darkest
ages. They became noted mathematicians, learned astronomers, devoted
labourers in the fields of practical and experimental science. Their
shrewdness in public affairs and their financial abilities commended
them to the service of the state, and many rose to the highest civic
dignities at both Christian and Moorish courts. Often, despite
prohibitory laws, they collected the revenues and supervised the
treasuries of the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, while in private life
they had nearly unlimited control of commerce and owned most of the
capital in use.
After the Christian conquest, their success drew down upon them the
envy and hatred of their less flourishing fellow subjects, who resented
also that profuse ostentation of apparel and equipage to which the
Jewish character has always inclined. Their widespread practice of
usury was a still more fruitful cause for detestation. Often large sums
were loaned, for which exorbitant rates of interest were charged, owing
to the scarcity of specie and the great risk of loss inherent to the
business. As much as twenty, thirty-three, and even forty per cent.
per annum was exacted and paid. The general animosity was such that a
fanatical populace, smarting under a sense of wrong, and urged on by a
no less fanatical clergy broke out at times into violence, and fiercely
attacked the Jews in the principal cities. The _Juderías_, or Jewish
quarters, were sacked, the houses robbed of their valuable contents,
precious collections, jewels and furniture were scattered abroad, and
the wretched proprietors were massacred wholesale, irrespective of sex
and age. According to the historian, Mariana, fifty thousand Jews were
sacrificed to the popular fury in one year, 1391, alone.
This was the turning point in Spanish history. Fanaticism once aroused,
did not die until all Jews were driven out of Spain. It brought into
being another class also, the _Conversos_, or "New Christians," _i. e._
Jews who accepted Christian baptism, though generally without any
spiritual change. At heart and in habits they remained Jews.
The law was invoked, too, to aggravate their condition. Legislative
enactments of a cruel and oppressive kind were passed. Jews were
forbidden to mix freely with Christians, their residence restricted
to certain limited quarters, they were subject to irksome, sumptuary
regulations, debarred from all display in dress, forbidden to carry
valuable ornaments or wear expensive clothes, and they were held up to
public scorn by being compelled to appear in a distinctive, unbecoming
garb, the badge or emblem of their social inferiority. They were also
interdicted from following certain professions and callings. They might
not study or practise medicine, might not be apothecaries, nurses,
vintners, grocers or tavern keepers, were forbidden to act as stewards
to the nobility or as farmers or collectors of the public revenues,
although judging from repeated re-enactments, these laws were evidently
not strictly enforced, and often in some districts were not enforced at
all.
Fresh fuel was added to the fiery passions vented on the Jews by the
unceasing denunciation of their heresy and dangerous irreligion, and
public feeling was further inflamed by grossly exaggerated stories
of their hideous and unchristian malpractices. The curate of Los
Palacios has detailed some of these in his "Chronicle," and they
will serve, when quoted, to show what charges were brought against
the Jew in his time. "This accursed race (the Israelites)," he says,
speaking of the proceedings taken to bring about their conversion,
"were either unwilling to bring their children to be baptised, or if
they did, they washed away the stain on the way home. They dressed
their stews and other dishes with oil instead of lard, abstained from
pork, kept the passover, ate meat in Lent, and sent oil to replenish
the lamps of their synagogues, with many other abominable ceremonies
of their religion. They entertained no respect for monastic life, and
frequently profaned the sanctity of religious houses by the violation
or seduction of their inmates. They were an exceedingly politic and
ambitious people, engrossing the most lucrative municipal offices, and
preferring to gain their livelihood by traffic, in which they made
exorbitant gains, rather than by manual labour or mechanical arts. They
considered themselves in the hands of the Egyptians whom it was a merit
to deceive and rob. By their wicked contrivances they amassed great
wealth, and thus were able often to ally themselves by marriage with
noble Christian families."
The outcry against the Jews steadily increased in volume. The clergy
were the loudest in their protests against the alleged abominations,
and one Dominican priest, Alonso de Hojeda, prior of the monastery of
San Pablo in Seville, with another priest, Diego de Merlo, vigorously
denounced the "Jewish leprosy" so alarmingly on the increase and
besought the Catholic sovereigns to revive the Holy Office with
extended powers as the only effective means of healing it. The appeal
was strongly supported by the papal nuncio at the Court of Castile.
Ferdinand and Isabella, as devout Catholics, deplored the prevalence
of heresy, which they acknowledged to be rampant, and yet they
hesitated to surrender any of their independence. No other state in
Europe was so free from papal control or interference. Some of the
Conversos held high places about the court and they, of course, used
every effort to strengthen the reluctance of the queen, particularly.
On the other hand, the Dominican monk, Thomas de Torquemada, her
confessor in her youth, strove to instil the same spirit of unyielding
fanaticism that possessed himself, and earnestly entreated her to
devote herself to the "extirpation of heresy for the glory of God and
the glorification of the Catholic faith." She long resisted but yielded
at last to the unceasing importunities of the priests around her, and
consented to solicit a bull from the pope, Sixtus IV, to introduce
the Modern Inquisition into Castile. It was issued, under the date of
November 1st, 1478, and authorised the appointment of two or three
ecclesiastical inquisitors for the detection and suppression of heresy
throughout Spain.
One difference from the usual form establishing such tribunals was the
location of the power of appointment of inquisitors, which was vested
in the king and queen instead of in Provincials of the Dominican or
Franciscan Orders. Heretofore the appointment of inquisitors had been
considered a delegation of the authority of the Holy See, something
entirely independent of the secular power. But so jealous of outside
interference were the Spanish rulers and the Spanish people, that the
pope was forced to give way. Though he and his successors vainly strove
to recover the power thus granted, they were never entirely successful,
and the Spanish Inquisition remained to a large extent a state affair,
and this fact explains much which otherwise is inexplicable. For
example the confiscations passed into the royal instead of into the
papal treasury.
At first mild measures were to be tried. Cardinal Mendoza, Archbishop
of Seville, had drawn up a catechism instructing his clergy to spare no
pains in illuminating the benighted Israelites by a candid exposition
of the true principles of Christianity. Progress was slow, and after
two years the results were so meagre that it was thought necessary to
proceed to the nomination of inquisitors, and two Dominican monks, Fra
Miguel de Morillo, and Juan de San Martin, were appointed with full
powers, assisted by an assessor and a procurator fiscal.
The Jews played into the hands of their tormentors. Great numbers
had been terrified into apostasy by the unrelenting hostility of the
people. Their only escape from the furious attacks made upon them had
been conversion to Christianity, often quite feigned and unreal. The
proselytising priests, however, claimed to have done wonders; one, St.
Vincent Ferrer, a Dominican of Valencia, had by means of his eloquence
and the miraculous power vouchsafed him, "changed the hearts of no less
than thirty-five thousand of house of Judah." These numerous converts
were of course unlikely to be very tenacious in their profession of
the new faith, and not strangely laid themselves open to constant
suspicion. Many were denounced and charged with backsliding, many more
boldly reverted to Judaism, or secretly performed their old rites.
Now uncompromising war was to be waged against the backsliding "new
Christians" or Conversos.
The inquisitors installed themselves in Seville, and made the Dominican
convent of San Pablo their first headquarters, but this soon proved
quite insufficient in size and they were allowed to occupy the fortress
of the Triana, the great fortress of Seville, on the right bank of
the Guadalquivir, the immense size and gloomy dungeons of which were
especially suitable. This part of the city was much exposed to
inundations, and when, in 1626, it was threatened with destruction by
an unusually high flood, the seat of the tribunal was removed to the
palace of the Caballeros Tellos Taveros in the parish of San Marco. In
1639 it returned to the Triana which had been repaired, and remained
there till 1789, when further encroachments of the river caused it to
be finally transferred to the College of Las Beccas. The Triana is now
a low suburb, inhabited principally by gipsies and the lower classes.
It was at one time the potters' quarter where the famous _azulejo_
tiles were made, and its factories to-day produce the well known
majolica vases and plates with surface of metallic lustre.
One of the first steps of the Inquisition was to put a summary check to
the exodus of the Jews who had been fast deserting the country. All the
magnates of Castile, dukes, counts, hidalgos and persons in authority,
were commanded to arrest all fugitives, to sequestrate their property
and send them prisoners to Seville. Any who disobeyed or failed to
execute this order were to be excommunicated as abettors of heresy, to
be deposed from their dignities and deprived of their estates. Such
orders were strange to the ears of the turbulent nobles who had been
accustomed to pay little heed to pope or king. A new force had arisen
in the land.
On the Castle of the Triana,[3] already described, a tablet was
erected over the portals with an inscription, celebrating the
inauguration of the first "modern Inquisition" in Western Europe.
The concluding words were:--"God grant that for the protection and
augmentation of the faith it may abide unto the end of time. Arise oh
Lord, judge Thy cause! Catch yet the foxes (heretics)!"
[3] The counts of San Lucar were hereditary alcaldes of Triana, and in
return for surrendering the castle, they were granted the dignity of
Alguazil Mayor of the Inquisition. It was worth 150,000 maravedis a
year and the holder of the office provided a deputy. The maravedi, once
a gold coin of some value, latterly represented only 3/8 of a cent.
Just now, by an ill-advised move, the Conversos lost the sympathy of
all. Diego de Susan, one of the richest citizens of Seville, called
a meeting of the "New Christians" in the church of San Salvador. It
was attended by many high officials, and even ecclesiastics of Jewish
blood. Susan suggested that they collect a store of arms, and that at
the first arrest, they rise and slay the inquisitors. The plan was
adopted but was betrayed by a daughter of Susan, who had a Christian
lover. The plotters were arrested at once, and on February sixth, 1481,
six men and women were burned and others were severely punished.
The hunt was cunningly organised. An "Edict of Grace" was published
promising pardon to all backsliders if they would come voluntarily
and confess their sins. Many sought indulgence and were plied with
questions by the inquisitors to extract evidence against others. On
the information thus obtained the suspected were marked down, seized
and carried off to the prisons. Any adherence to Jewish customs gave
opportunity for denunciation, and the severe measures rapidly reduced
the numbers of the backsliding Jewish-Christians. In Seville alone,
according to Llorente, two hundred and ninety-eight persons were burnt
in less than a year, and seventy-nine were condemned to perpetual
imprisonment. Great sums ought to have passed into the treasury, then
and afterwards, from the confiscated property of rich people who
perished at the stake or were subjected to fine and forfeiture. But the
great engine of the Inquisition was excessively costly. The pageants
at the frequent _autos da fé_ were lavishly expensive, a great staff
of officials, experts, familiars and guards was maintained, and, in
addition, the outlay on the place of execution, the "_quemadero_" or
burning place, a great pavement on a raised platform adorned with fine
pillars and statues of the prophets, was very considerable, while the
yearly bill for fuel, for faggots and brush wood rose to a high figure.
Undoubtedly there was considerable embezzlement also.
There was evidently too much work for two men, so in February, 1482,
seven additional inquisitors were commissioned by the pope on the
nomination of the sovereigns, and some of these were exceedingly
zealous. There was, however, much confusion because of the lack
of a unifying authority. The sovereigns were determined that the
institution must be kept under the control of the state, and so a
council of administration usually called _la Suprema_ was added to
those already existing, and was charged with jurisdiction over all
measures concerning the faith. At the head was placed a new officer,
later called the inquisitor-general. The inquisitor-general was hardly
a subject. He had direct access to the sovereign and exercised absolute
and unlimited power over the whole population and was superior to
all human law. No rank, high or low escaped his jurisdiction. Royal
personages were not exempt from his control, for the Holy Office
invaded the prince's palace as well as the pauper's hovel. There was
no sanctity in the grave, for corpses of heretics were ruthlessly
disinterred, mutilated and burned.
The first inquisitor-general under the new organisation was Thomas
de Torquemada, who has won for himself dreadful immortality from the
signal part he played in the great tragedy of the Inquisition. He was
a Dominican monk, a native of old Castile, who had been confessor and
keeper of the Queen's conscience to Isabella in her early days and
constantly sought to instil his fiery spirit into her youthful mind.
"This man," says Prescott, "who concealed more pride under his monastic
weeds than might have furnished forth a convent of his order, was one
of that class with whom zeal passes for religion and who testify their
zeal by a fiery persecution of those whose creed differs from their
own; who compensate for their abstinence from sensual indulgence by
giving scope to those deadlier vices of the heart, pride, bigotry
and intolerance which are no less opposed to virtue and are far more
extensively mischievous to society." The cruelties which he perpetrated
grew out of a pitiless fanaticism, more cruel than the grave. He was
rigid and unbending and knew no compromise. Absolutely fearless,
he directed his terrible engine against the suspect no matter how
high-born or influential.
Torquemada was appointed in 1483 and was authorised from Rome to frame
a new constitution for the Holy Office. He had been empowered to create
permanent provincial tribunals under chief inquisitors which sat at
Toledo, Valladolid, Madrid and other important cities, and his first
act was to summon some of these to Seville to assist him in drawing
up rules for the governance of the great and terrible engine that
was to terrorise all Spain for centuries to come. The principles of
action, the methods of procedure, the steps taken to hunt up victims
and bring them under the jurisdiction of the court, secure conviction
and enforce penalties, are all set out at length in the record of the
times. "A bloody page of history," says the historian, "attests the
fact that fanaticism armed with power is the sorest evil that can
befall a nation." For generations the Spanish people, first the Jews,
then the Moriscos, lastly the whole native born community lay helpless
in the grip of this irresponsible despotism. Few, once accused,
escaped without censure of some sort. Llorente declares with his usual
exaggeration that out of a couple of thousand cases, hardly one ended
in acquittal and the saying became proverbial that people if not
actually roasted by the Inquisition were at least singed.
In order to appreciate fully the harshness of the Spanish Inquisition
and the cruelties perpetrated for several centuries, under the guise of
religion, we must trace the steps taken by the Holy Office, its guiding
principles and its methods of procedure.
The great aim at the outset was to hunt up heretics and encourage the
denunciation of presumed offenders. Good Catholics were commanded by
edicts published from the pulpits of all churches to give information
against every person they knew or suspected of being guilty of heresy,
and priests were ordered to withhold absolution from any one who
hesitated to speak, even when the suspected person was a near relation,
parent, child, husband or wife. All accusations whether signed or
anonymous were accepted, but the names of witnesses were also required.
On this sometimes meagre inculpation victims might be at once arrested,
though in some cases, censors must first pass upon the evidence. Often
not a whisper of trouble reached the accused until the blow actually
fell.
Kept thus in solitary imprisonment, cut off entirely from his friends
outside, denied the sympathy or support he might derive from their
visits or communications, he was left to brood despairingly, a prey
to agonised doubts, in ignorance even of the charges brought against
him. A few brief extracts from the depositions of witnesses might be
read to him, but the statements were so garbled that he could get no
clue to names or identities. If there were any facts favourable to him
in the testimony they were withheld from him. If he could, however,
name as mortal enemies some of the witnesses, their testimony was
much weakened. Facts of time, place and circumstance in the charges
preferred were withheld from him and he was so confused and embarrassed
that unless a man of acuteness and presence of mind he might become
involved in inextricable contradictions when he attempted to explain
himself.
On the other hand judges were guided and supported by the most minute
instructions. "It is the high and peculiar privilege of the tribunal
that its officers are not required to act with formality; they need
observe no strict forensic rules and therefore the omission of what
ordinary justice might exact does not invalidate its actions, provided
only that nothing essential to the proof be wanting." The first
essential of justice, as we understand it, was ignored. An accused
person arraigned for heresy was expected to incriminate himself, to
furnish all necessary particulars for conviction. Testimony could
be received from persons of any class or character. "They might be
excommunicate, infamous, actual accomplices, or previously convicted
of any crime." The evidence of Jews and infidels might be taken also,
even in a question of heretical doctrine. Wife, children, relatives,
servants, might depose against a heretic. "A brother may declare
against a brother and a son against a father." The witnesses met with
no mercy. If any one did not say all he could, or seemed reluctant to
speak, the examiners occasionally ruled that torture should be applied.
CHAPTER II
PERSECUTION OF JEWS AND MOORS
Increased persecution of the Jews--Accusations made against
them--Ferdinand introduces the modern Inquisition into the Kingdom
of Aragon in 1484--Fray Gaspar Juglar and Pedro Arbués appointed
Inquisitors--Assassination of Pedro Arbués--Punishment of his
murderers--Increased opposition against the Holy Office--Arrest of the
Infante Don Jaime for sheltering a heretic--Expulsion of the Jews from
Spain--Appeal to the King to revoke this edict--Ferdinand inclined
to yield, but Torquemada over-rules him--Sufferings of the Jews on
the journey--Death of Torquemada--Hernando de Talavera appointed
archbishop of Granada--His success with the Moors--Don Diego Deza new
Inquisitor-General--Succeeded by Ximenes de Cisneros--His character
and life--Appointed Primate of all Spain--His severity with the
Moors--University of Alcalá founded by Ximenes--Accession of Charles
V--Persecution of Moors--Expulsion.
The fires of the modern Inquisition, it was said, had been lighted
exclusively for the Jews. The fiery zeal of Torquemada and his
coadjutors was first directed against the Spanish children of Israel.
The Jews constantly offered themselves to be harassed and despoiled.
They were always fair game for avaricious greed. The inquisitors
availed themselves of both lines of attack. Jewish wealth steadily
increased as their financial operations and their industrial
activities extended and flourished. When the Catholic Kings embarked
upon the conquest of Granada, the Jews found the sinews of war; Jewish
victuallers purveyed rations to the armies in the field; Jewish
brokers advanced the cash needed for the payments of troops; Jewish
armourers repaired the weapons used and furnished new tools and warlike
implements.
At the same time the passions of the populace were more and more
inflamed against the Jews by the dissemination of scandalous stories
of their blasphemous proceedings. It was seriously asserted by certain
monks that some Jews had stolen a consecrated wafer with the intention
of working it into a paste with the warm blood of a newly killed
Christian child and so produce a deadly poison to be administered to
the hated chief inquisitor. Another report was to the effect that
crumbs from the holy wafer had been detected between the leaves of
a Hebrew prayer book in a synagogue. One witness declared that this
substance emitted a bright effulgence which gave clear proof of its
sanctity and betrayed the act of sacrilege committed. Other tales were
circulated of the diabolical practices of these wicked Jewish heretics.
Ferdinand in 1484 proceeded to give the modern Inquisition to the
Kingdom of Aragon, where the "ancient" had once existed but had lost
much of its rigour. It was a comparatively free country and the Holy
Office had become little more than an ordinary ecclesiastical court.
But King Ferdinand was resolved to reëstablish it on the wider basis it
had assumed in Castile and imposed it upon his people by a royal order
which directed all constituted authorities to support it in carrying
out its new extended functions. A Dominican monk, Fray Gaspar Juglar,
and a canon of the church, Pedro Arbués, were appointed by Torquemada
to be inquisitors for the diocese of Saragossa. The new institution
was most distasteful to the Aragonese, a hardy and independent people.
Among the higher orders were numbers of Jewish descent, filling
important offices and likely to come under the ban of the Inquisition.
The result was a deputation to the pope and another to the king
representing the general repugnance of the Aragonese to the institution
and praying that its action might be suspended. Neither pope nor king
would listen to the appeal and the Holy Office began its work. Two
_autos da fé_ were celebrated in Saragossa, the capital, in 1484, when
two men were executed.
Horror and consternation seized the Conversos and a fierce desire for
reprisals developed. They were resolved to intimidate their oppressors
by some appalling act of retaliation and a plot was hatched to make
away with one of the inquisitors. The conspirators included many of
the principal "New Christians," some of whom were persons of note in
the district. A considerable sum was subscribed to meet expenses and
pay the assassins. Pedro Arbués was marked down for destruction but,
conscious of his danger, continually managed to evade his enemies. He
wore always a coat of mail beneath his robes when he attended mass in
the Cathedral, and every avenue by which he could be approached in his
house was also carefully guarded.
At length he was taken by surprise when at his devotions. He was on his
knees before the high altar saying his prayers at midnight, when two
men crept up behind him unobserved and attacked him. One struck him
with a dagger in the left arm, the other felled him with a violent blow
on the back of the neck by which he was laid prostrate and carried off
dying. With his last breath he thanked God for being selected to seal
so good a cause with his blood. His death was deemed a martyrdom and
caused a reaction in favour of the Inquisition as a general rising of
the New Christians was feared. The storm was appeased by the archbishop
of Saragossa who gave out publicly that the murderers should be
rigorously pursued and should suffer condign punishment. The promise
was abundantly fulfilled. A stern recompense was exacted from all who
were identified with the conspiracy. The scent was followed up with
unrelenting pertinacity, several persons were taken and put to death,
and a larger number perished in the dungeons of the Inquisition. All
the perpetrators of the murder were hanged after their right hands had
been amputated. The sentence of one who had given evidence against the
rest was commuted in that his hand was not cut off till after his death.
A native of Saragossa had taken refuge in Tudela where he found
shelter and concealment in the house of the Infante, Don Jaime, the
illegitimate son of the Queen of Navarre, and nephew of King Ferdinand
himself. The generous young prince could not reject the claims of
hospitality and helped the fugitive to escape into France. But the
Infante was himself arrested by the inquisitors and imprisoned as
an "impeder" of the Holy Office. His trial took place in Saragossa,
although Navarre was outside its jurisdiction, and he was sentenced
to do open penance in the cathedral in the presence of a great
congregation at High Mass. The ceremony was carried out before the
Archbishop of Saragossa, a boy of seventeen, the illegitimate son
of King Ferdinand, and this callow stripling in his primate's robes
ordered his father's nephew to be flogged round the church with rods.
The second story is much more horrible. One Gaspar de Santa Cruz of
Saragossa had been concerned in the rebellion, but escaped to Toulouse
where he died. He had been aided in his flight by a son who remained
in Saragossa, and who was arrested as an "impeder" of the Holy Office.
He was tried and condemned to appear at an _auto da fé_, where he was
made to read an act which held up his father to public ignominy. Then
the son was transferred to the custody of the inquisitor of Toulouse
who took him to his father's grave, forced him to exhume the corpse and
burn it with his own hands.
The bitter hatred of the Jews culminated in the determination of the
king and queen, urged on by Torquemada, to expel them entirely from
Spain. The germ of this idea may be found in the capitulation of
Granada by the Moors, when it was agreed that every Jew found in the
city was to be shipped off forthwith to Barbary. It was now argued
that since all attempts to convert them had failed, Spain should be
altogether rid of them. The Catholic King and Queen were induced to
sign an edict dated March 30th, 1492, by which it was decreed that
every Jew should be banished from Spain within three months, save and
except those who chose to apostasise and who, on surrendering the faith
of their fathers, might be suffered to remain in the land of their
adoption, with leave to enjoy the goods they had inherited or earned.
No doubt this edict originated with Torquemada.
Dismay and deep sorrow fell upon the Spanish Jews. The whole country
was filled with tribulation. All alike cried for mercy and offered
to submit to any laws and ordinances however oppressive, to accept
any terms, to pay any penalties if only they might escape this cruel
exile. Leading Jews appeared before King Ferdinand and pleaded abjectly
for mercy for their co-religionists, offering an immediate ransom
of six hundred thousand crowns in gold. The king was inclined to
clemency, but the queen was firm. He saw the present advantage, the
ready money, and doubted whether he would get as much from the fines
and confiscations promised by the inquisitors. But at that moment, so
the story goes, Torquemada rushed into the presence bearing a crucifix
on high and cried in stentorian tones that the sovereigns were about
to act the part of Judas Iscariot. "Here he is! Sell Him again, not
for thirty pieces of silver, but for thirty thousand!" and flinging
the crucifix on to the table, he ran out in a frenzy. This turned the
tables, and the decree for expulsion was confirmed.
The terms of the edict were extremely harsh and peremptory. As a
preamble the crimes of the Jews were recited and the small effect
produced hitherto by the most severe penalties. It was asserted that
they still conspired to overturn Christianity in Spain and recourse
to the last remedy, the decree of expulsion, under which all Jews and
Jewesses were commanded to leave Spain and never return, even for a
passing visit, on pain of death, was therefore necessary. The last day
of July, 1492, or four months later, was fixed for the last day of
their sojourn in Spain. After that date they would remain at the peril
of their lives, while any person of whatever rank or quality who should
presume to receive, shelter, protect or defend a Jew or Jewess should
forfeit all his property and be discharged from his office, dignity
or calling. During the four months, the law allowed the Jews to sell
their estates, or barter them for heavy goods, but they were forbidden
to remove gold or silver or take out of the kingdom other portable
property which was already prohibited by law from exportation.
During the preparation for, and execution of this modern exodus, the
condition of the wretched Israelites was heart-rending. Torquemada had
tried hard to proselytise, had sent out preachers offering baptism and
reconciliation, but at first few listened to the terms proposed. All
owners of property and valuables suffered the heaviest losses. Enforced
sales were so numerous that purchasers were not to be easily found.
Fine estates were sold for a song. A house was exchanged for an ass
or beast of burden; a vineyard for a scrap of cloth or linen. Despite
the prohibition much gold and silver were carried away concealed in
the stuffing of saddles and among horse furniture. Some exiles at
the moment of departure swallowed gold pieces, as many as twenty and
thirty, and thus evaded to some extent the strict search instituted at
the sea ports and frontier towns.
At last in the first week of July, all took to the roads travelling
to the coast on foot, on horse or ass-back or were conveyed in
country carts. According to an eye-witness, "they suffered incredible
misfortunes by the way, some walking feebly, some struggling manfully,
some fainting, many attacked with illness, some dying, others coming
into the world, so that there was not a Christian who did not feel
for them and entreat them to be baptised." Here and there under the
pressure of accumulated miseries a few professed to be converted, but
such cases were very rare. The rabbis encouraged the people as they
went and exhorted the young ones to raise their voices and the women to
sing and play on pipes and timbrels to enliven them and keep up their
spirits.
Ships were provided by the Spanish authorities at Cadiz, Gibraltar,
Carthagena, Valencia and Barcelona on which fifteen hundred of the
wealthy families embarked and started for Africa, Italy and the Levant,
taking with them their dialect of the Spanish language, such as is
still talked at the places where they landed. Of those who joined in
the general exodus some perished at sea, by wreck, disease, violence
or fire, and some by famine, exhaustion or murder on inhospitable
shores. Many were sold for slaves, many thrown overboard by savage
ship captains, while parents parted with their children for money
to buy food. On board one crowded ship a pestilence broke out, and
the whole company was landed and marooned on a desert island. Other
infected ships carried disease into the port of Naples, where it grew
into a terrible epidemic, by which twenty thousand native Neapolitans
perished. Those who reached the city found it in the throes of famine,
but were met in landing by a procession of priests, led by one who
carried a crucifix and a loaf of bread, and who intimated that only
those who would adore the first would receive the other. In papal
dominions alone was a hospitable reception accorded. The pope of the
time, Alexander VI, was more tolerant than other rulers.
The total loss of population is now difficult to ascertain, but
undoubtedly it has been greatly exaggerated. The most trustworthy
estimate fixes the number of emigrants at one hundred and sixty-five
thousand, and the number dying of hardships and grief before leaving at
about twenty thousand. Probably fifty thousand more accepted baptism
as a consequence of the edict. The loss entailed in actual value was
incalculable and a vast amount of potential earnings was sacrificed by
the disappearance of so large a part of the most industrious members
of the population. The king and queen greatly impoverished Spain in
purging it of Hebrew heresy. Their action however was greeted with
applause by other rulers who did not go to the same lengths on account
of economic considerations. They were praised because they were willing
to sacrifice revenue for the sake of the faith.
Open Judaism no longer existed in Spain. There were left only the
apostates, or New Christians. That many of these were Christians in
name and kept the Mosaic law in every detail is undoubted. As Jews they
were not subject to the Inquisition. As professing Christians, any
departure from the established faith subjected them to the penalties
imposed upon heretics. In spite of the high positions which many
achieved, they were objects of suspicion, and with the increasing
authority of the Inquisition their lot grew harder.
Torquemada had been active not only against the Jews, but against
all suspected of any heresy, no matter how influential. The odium he
incurred raised up constant accusations against him, and he was obliged
on three occasions to send an agent to Rome to defend his character.
Later his arbitrary power was curtailed by the appointment of four
coadjutors, nominally, to share the burthens of office, but really to
check his action. On the whole he may be said to take rank among those
who have been the authors of evil to their species. "His zeal was of
such an extravagant character that it may almost shelter itself under
the name of insanity." His later days were filled with constant dread
of assassination, and when he moved to and fro his person was protected
by a formidable escort, a bodyguard of fifty familiars of the Holy
Office mounted as dragoons and a body of two hundred infantry soldiers.
Yet he reached a very old age and died quietly in his bed.
Estimates of the numbers convicted and punished during his
administration differ widely. Llorente, who is, however, much given
to exaggeration, states that eight thousand eight hundred were burned
alive, and that the total number condemned was more than one hundred
and five thousand. On the other hand Langlois,[4] whose estimate is
accepted by Vancandard, and other Catholic writers, thinks that the
number put to death was about two thousand.
[4] Langlois, L'Inquisition d'après des tableaux recénts (1902), quoted
by Vancandard (Conway's translation, 1908).
Death overtook him when a fresh campaign against heresy was imminent.
The conquest of the Kingdom of Granada by Ferdinand and Isabella opened
up a new field for the proselytising fervour of the Inquisition, which
was now resolved to convert all Mahometan subjects to the Christian
faith. A friar of the order of St. Jerome, Hernando de Talavera, a
man of blameless life, a ripe scholar, a persuasive preacher, deeply
read in sacred literature and moral philosophy, had been one of the
confessors to Royalty, and had been raised to the bishopric of Avila.
But he had begged to be allowed to resign it and devote himself
entirely to the conversion of the Moors. The pope granted his request
and appointed him archbishop of Granada with a smaller revenue than
that of the diocese he left, but he was humble minded, had no craving
to exhibit the pomp and display of a great prelate and devoted himself
with all diligence to the duties of his new charge.
He soon won the hearts of the Moors who loved and venerated him. He
proceeded with great caution, made no open show of his desire to
convert them, and strictly refrained from any coercive measures,
trusting rather to reason them out of their heterodox belief. He
caused a translation to be made of the Bible into Arabic, distributed
it, encouraged the Moors to attend conferences, and come to him in
private to listen to his arguments. Being thus busily engaged, he
withdrew to a great extent from the court of Ferdinand and Isabella,
who came more and more under the influence of fiery bigots, to whom
the mild measures of the archbishop became profoundly displeasing.
The inquisitors, with Don Diego Deza who had succeeded Torquemada, at
their head, incessantly entreated the sovereigns to proceed with more
severity, and went the length of advising the immediate expulsion of
all Moors who hesitated to accept conversion and baptism forthwith.
They urged that it was for the good of their souls to draw them into
the fold and insisted that it would be utterly impossible for Christian
and Moslem to live peacefully and happily side by side. The king and
queen demurred, temporising as they had done with the revival of the
Inquisition. It might be dangerous, they argued, to enforce penalties
that were too harsh. Their supremacy was hardly as yet consolidated
in Granada; the Moors had not yet entirely laid aside their arms and
unwise oppression might bring about a resumption of hostilities. They
hoped that the Moors, like other conquered peoples, would in due course
freely adopt the religion of their new masters. Loving kindliness and
gentle persuasion would more surely gain ground than fierce threats and
arbitrary decrees.
So for seven or more years the conciliatory methods of Archbishop
Talavera prevailed and met with the approval of Ferdinand and Isabella.
But now a remarkable man of very different character appeared upon the
scene and began to advocate sterner measures. This was a Franciscan
monk, Ximenes de Cisneros, one of the most notable figures in Spanish
history, who became in due course inquisitor-general and regent of
Spain. A sketch of his life may well be given to enable us better to
understand the times.
Ximenes de Cisneros better known, perhaps, under his first name alone,
was the scion of an ancient but decayed family and destined from his
youth for the Church. He studied at the University of Salamanca and
evinced marked ability. After a stay in Rome, the best field for
preferment, he returned to Spain with the papal promise of the first
vacant benefice in the See of Toledo. The archbishop had other views,
however, and when Ximenes claimed the cure of Uceda, he was sent to
prison in its fortress and not to the presbytery. For six years Ximenes
asserted his pretensions unflinchingly and was at last nominated, when
he exchanged to a chaplaincy in another diocese, that of Siguenza,
where he continued his theological studies and acquired Hebrew and
Chaldee. Here he came under the observation of the Bishop Mendoza,
who afterwards became Cardinal Primate of Spain, and who enjoyed the
unbounded confidence of Queen Isabella. Mendoza when invited to
recommend to her a new confessor, in succession to Talavera on his
translation to the See of Granada, fixed upon Ximenes of whom he had
never lost sight since their first acquaintance at Siguenza.
Ximenes, meanwhile, had become more and more devoted to his sacred
calling. His marked business aptitudes had gained for him the post
of steward to a great nobleman, the Conde de Cifuentes, who had been
taken prisoner by the Moors. But secular concerns were distasteful
to him and Ximenes resigned his charge. His naturally austere and
contemplative disposition had deepened into stern fanatical enthusiasm
and he resolved to devote himself more absolutely to the service of the
Church. He entered the Franciscan order, threw up all his benefices
and employments, and became a simple novice in the monastery of San
Juan de los Reyes in Toledo, where his cloister life was signalised
by extreme severity and self-mortification. He wore haircloth next
his skin, slept on the stone floor with a wooden pillow under his
head, tortured himself with continual fasts and vigils, and flogged
himself perpetually. At last he became a professed monk, and because
of the fame of his exemplary piety, great crowds were attracted to
his confessional. He shrank now from the popular favour and retired
to a lonely convent in a far off forest, where he built himself a
small hermitage with his own hands and where he passed days and
nights in solemn abstraction and unceasing prayer, living like
the ancient anchorites on the green herbs he gathered and drinking
water from the running streams. Self centred and pondering deeply on
spiritual concerns, constantly in a state of mental exaltation and
ecstasy, he saw visions and dreamed dreams, believing himself to be
in close communication with celestial agencies and was no doubt on
the eve of going mad, when his superiors ordered him to reside in the
convent of Salceda, where he became charged with its administration
and management, and was forced to exercise his powerful mind for the
benefit of others.
It was here that the call to court found him and he was summoned to
Valladolid and unexpectedly brought into the presence of the queen.
Isabella was greatly prepossessed in his favour by his simple dignity
of manner, his discretion, his unembarrassed self-possession and
above all his fervent piety in discussing religious questions. Yet he
hesitated to accept the office of her confessor, and only did so on
the condition that he should be allowed to conform to the rules of his
order and remain at his monastery except when officially on duty at the
court.
Soon afterwards, he was appointed Provincial of the Franciscans
in Castile and set himself to reform their religious houses,
the discipline of which was greatly relaxed. Sloth, luxury and
licentiousness prevailed and especially in his own order, which was
wealthy and richly endowed with estates in the country, and stately
dwellings in the towns. These monks, styled "conventuals," wasted large
sums in prodigal expenditure, and were often guilty of scandalous
misconduct which Ximenes, as an Observantine, one of a small section
pledged to rigid observance of monastic rules, strongly condemned. He
was encouraged and supported in the work of reform by Isabella and a
special bull from Rome armed him with full authority. His rigorous and
unsparing action met with fierce opposition, but he triumphed in the
end and won a notable reward. When the archbishop of Toledo died, in
1495, Ximenes, unknown to himself, was selected for the great post of
primate of all Spain and Lord High Chancellor of Castile.
The right to nominate was vested in the Queen, and Ferdinand in this
instance begged her to appoint his natural son, Alfonso, already
archbishop of Saragossa, but a child almost in years. She firmly and
unhesitatingly refused and recommended her confessor to the pope as
the most worthy recipient of the honour. When the bull making the
appointment arrived from Rome, the queen summoned Ximenes to her
presence handed him the letter and desired him to open it before her.
On reading the address, "To our venerable brother, Francisco Ximenes
de Cisneros, Archbishop of Toledo," he changed colour, dropped the
letter, and crying, "There must be some mistake," ran out of the room.
The queen, in surprise, waited, but he did not return and it was found
that he had taken horse and fled to his monastery. Two grandees were
despatched in hot haste to ride after him, overtake him and bring him
back to Madrid. He returned but still resisted all the entreaties of
his friends and the clearly expressed wishes of his sovereign. Finally
his persistent refusal was overborne, but only by the direct command of
the pope, who ordered him to accept the post for which his sovereigns
had chosen him. He has been sharply criticised for his apparent
humility, but it is generally admitted that he was sincere in his
refusal. He was already advanced in years, ambition was dying in him,
he had become habituated to monastic seclusion and his thoughts were
already turned from the busy turmoil of this world to the life beyond
the grave.
However reluctant to accept high office, Ximenes was by no means slow
to exercise the power it gave him. He ruled the Spanish Church with
a rod of iron, bending all his energies to the work of reforming the
practices of the clergy, enforcing discipline and insisting upon the
maintenance of the strictest morality. He trod heavily, made many
enemies, and stirred so much ill feeling that the malcontents combined
to despatch a messenger to lay their grievances before the pope. The
officious advocate, however, got no audience but went home to Spain,
where twenty months' imprisonment taught him not to offend again the
masterful archbishop of Toledo.
Ximenes in insisting upon a strict observance of propriety and
the adoption of an exemplary life, was in himself a model to the
priesthood. He never relaxed the personal mortifications which had
been his rule when a simple monk. He kept no state and made no
show, regulating his domestic expenditure with the strictest and
most parsimonious economy, until reminded by the Holy See that the
dignity of his great office demanded more magnificence. Still, when he
increased his display and the general style of living in household,
equipages and the number of his retainers, he continued to be as harsh
as ever to himself.
In spite of all opposition and discontent he pursued his course with
inflexible purpose. His spirit was unyielding, and his energetic
proceedings were unremittingly directed to the amelioration and
improvement in the morals of the clergy with marked success. And now
he set himself with the same uncompromising zeal to extirpate heresy.
Having begged Archbishop Talavera to allow him to join in the good work
at Granada, he took immediate advantage of the consent given and began
to attack the Moorish unbelievers in his own vigorous fashion. His
first step was to call together a great conference of learned Mussulman
doctors, to whom he expounded with all the eloquence he had at his
command, the true doctrines of the Catholic faith and their superiority
to the law of Mahomet. He accompanied his teaching with liberal gifts,
chiefly of costly articles of apparel, a specious though irresistible
bribery, which had the desired effect. Great numbers of the Moorish
doctors came over at once and their example was speedily followed by
many of their illiterate disciples. So great was the number of converts
that no less than three thousand presented themselves for baptism in
one day, and as the rite could not be administered individually, they
were christened wholesale by sprinkling them from a mop or hyssop which
had been dipped in holy water, and from which the drops fell upon the
proselytes as it was twirled over the heads of the multitude. These
early successes stimulated the primate's zeal and he next adopted more
violent measures by proceeding to imprison and impose penalties upon
all Moors who still stood out against conversion. He was resolved
not merely to exterminate heresy, but to destroy the basis of belief
contained in the most famous Arabic manuscripts, large quantities of
which were collected into great piles and burned publicly in the great
squares of the city. Many of these were beautifully executed copies
of the Koran; others, treasured theological and scientific works, and
their indiscriminate destruction is a blot upon the reputation of the
cultivated prelate who had created the most learned university in Spain.
More temperate and cautious people besought Ximenes to hold his hand.
But he proceeded pertinaciously, declaring that a tamer policy might
serve in temporal matters, but not where the interests of the soul were
at stake. If the unbeliever could not be drawn he must be driven into
the way of salvation, and he continued with unflinching resolution
to arrest all recusants, and throw them into the prisons which were
filled to overflowing. Discontent grew rapidly and soon broke into
open violence. When an _alguazil_ in Granada was leading a woman away
as a prisoner, the people rose and released her from custody. The
insurrection became general in the city and assumed a threatening
aspect. Granada was full of warlike Moors and a mob besieged Ximenes in
his house until he was rescued by the garrison of the Alhambra.
The king and queen were much annoyed with Ximenes and condemned his
zealous precipitancy, but he was clever enough to vindicate his action
and bring the sovereigns to believe that it was imperative that the
rebellious Moors must be sharply repressed. Now a long conflict began.
Forcible conversion became the order of the day; baptism continued to
be performed in the gross upon thousands, the alternative being exile,
and numbers were actually deported to Barbary in the royal ships. A
fierce civil conflict broke out in the Alpujarras beyond Granada, which
required a royal army to quell. The object sought was the welfare of
the state by producing uniformity of faith.
[Illustration: _Peint par Benjamin Constant_
_Photogravure Goupil & C^{ie}._
_The Alhambra Palace, Granada_
The beautiful Moorish stronghold during the time of the supremacy
of the Moors was often made the home of slaves captured in near-by
frontier towns of Andalusia, who endured hateful bondage under the
rule of the Mohammedan monarch. Granada and its palace were finally
captured by Ferdinand and Isabella, and the Alhambra is to-day the
finest example of Moorish architecture, with its delicate elaboration
of detail.]
Ximenes found a strenuous supporter in Diego Deza, the
inquisitor-general, who was eager to emulate the strictness of
his predecessor, Torquemada. Deza was a Dominican who had been at
one time professor of theology and confessor to the queen. He was by
nature and predilection exactly fitted for his new office upon which he
entered with extensive powers. A bull from Pope Alexander VI dated 1499
invested him with the title of "Conservator of the Faith" in Spain.
Deza gave a new constitution to the Holy Office and prescribed that
there should be a general "Inquest" in places not yet visited, and
that edicts should be republished requiring all persons to lay
information against suspected heretics. He stirred up the zeal of
all subordinate inquisitors and was well served by them, especially
by one, Lucero, commonly called _el Tenebroso_, "the gloomy," whose
savage and ruthless proceedings terrorised Cordova where he presided.
He made a general attack upon the most respectable inhabitants and
arrested great numbers, many of whom were condemned and executed.
Informers crowded Lucero's ante-chamber bringing monstrous tales of
heretical conspiracies to reëstablish Judaism and subvert the Church.
His familiars dragged the accused from their beds to answer to these
charges and the prisons overflowed. Cordova was up in arms and many
would have offered armed resistance to the Inquisition, but the more
circumspect people, the Bishop and Chapter, some of the nobility and
the municipal council appealed to Deza praying him to remove Lucero.
The inquisitor-general however turned furiously upon the complainants
and caused them to be arrested as abettors of heresy. Philip I, acting
for his wife Juana, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, was
inclined to listen to the complainants, and suspended both Deza and
Lucero from their functions. But his sudden death stayed the relief
he had promised, and the tormenting officials returned to renew their
oppression.
The Cordovese would not tamely submit and appealed to force. A strong
body of men under the Marques de Priego attacked the "Holy House,"
broke open the prison and liberated many of those detained, shutting up
the officers of the Inquisition in their place. Lucero took to flight
upon a swift mule and escaped. Though for a time Deza continued to
keep his influence, he was shortly forced to resign and Cordova became
tranquil. Deza's persecution had spared no one. In the eight years
during which he held office, one account, probably greatly exaggerated,
says that 2,592 persons were burned alive, some nine hundred were
burned in effigy, and thirty-five thousand were punished by penance,
fines and confiscations.
The fall of Deza and the hostile attitude of the people warned the
authorities that the affairs of the Inquisition must be managed
more adroitly. New inquisitors must be appointed and choice fell
upon Ximenes de Cisneros, who had already played a foremost part
in proselytising, but who now was willing to adopt more moderate
measures. The Pope in giving his approval sent him a cardinal's hat
as a recompense for past services, and as an encouragement to act
wisely in the future. He had a difficult task. Disaffection, strongly
pronounced, prevailed through the kingdom and the Inquisition was
everywhere cordially detested. Ximenes strove to appease the bitter
feeling by instituting a searching inquiry into the conduct of his
immediate predecessor, Deza, and promising to hear all complaints and
redress all grievances. He created a "Catholic Congregation" as a
special court to investigate the actions of Lucero in the proceedings
growing out of the charges against Archbishop Talavera and his
family. This court in due course pronounced a verdict of acquittal
and rehabilitation of the Talaveras. Ruined houses were rebuilt, the
memory of the dead restored to honour and fame, and this act of grace
was published at Valladolid with great solemnity in the presence of the
kings, bishops and grandees.
Nevertheless Ximenes had no desire to remodel the Holy Office or
limit its operations to any considerable extent. On the contrary,
he bent all his efforts to develop its influence and make it an
engine of government, utilising it as a political as well as a
religious agency. It was as rigorous as ever but he set his face
like a flint against dishonesty. He systematised the division of the
realm into inquisitorial provinces, each under its own inquisitor
with headquarters in the principal cities, such as Seville, Toledo,
Valladolid, Murcia, and in Sardinia and Sicily beyond the seas. His
personal ascendancy became extraordinary. He enjoyed the unbounded
confidence and favour of the sovereign. He had been created Cardinal of
Spain, a title rarely conferred. As archbishop of Toledo, he was the
supreme head of the Spanish clergy, and as inquisitor-general, he was
the terror of every priest and every layman within his jurisdiction.
He had, in fact, reached the highest ecclesiastical rank, short of the
papacy and as he rose higher and higher he wielded powers little short
of an independent absolute monarch, and his zeal in the cause of his
religion grew more and more fervent and far-reaching. No doubt in an
earlier age he would have turned crusader, but now he sought to crush
the fugitive Moors who had escaped into Northern Africa, whence they
made constant descents upon the south of Spain, burning to avenge the
wrongs of their co-religionists, and were a constant scourge and source
of grievous trouble.
The evils centred in the province of Oran, a fortified stronghold--the
most considerable of the Moslem possessions on the shores of the
Mediterranean--whence issued a swarm of pirate cruisers, manned by the
exiles driven out of Spain, who had sought and found a welcome refuge
in Oran. Ximenes was resolved to seize and sweep out this hornets'
nest and undertook its conquest on his own account. Much ridicule
was levelled at this "monk about to fight the battles of Spain," but
he went forth undeterred at the head of a powerful army, conveyed by
a strong fleet from Cartagena, which he landed at the African port of
Mazalquivir, and after some desperate fighting made himself master of
Oran. After his successful African campaign he resumed his duties of
chief inquisitor, and the Holy Office under his fierce and vigorous
rule became more than ever oppressive. Ximenes pursued his unwavering
course and encouraged his inquisitors in their unceasing activity.
He desired to extend the power and influence of the Inquisition, and
established it in the new countries recently added to the Spanish
dominion. A branch was set up in the newly conquered province of Oran,
and another farther afield in the recently discovered new world beyond
the Atlantic. On the initiative of Ximenes Fray Juan Quevedo, Bishop of
Cuba, was appointed chief inquisitor in the kingdom of Terrafirma, as
the territories of the new world were styled.
The energetic pursuit of heresy did not monopolise the exertions of
Ximenes. He founded the great University of Alcalá, a vast design, a
noble seat of learning richly endowed with magnificent buildings and
a remarkable scheme of education, which produced the ablest and most
eminent scholars. Another great monument is the well known polyglot
Bible, designed to exhibit the scriptures in their various ancient
languages, a work of singular erudition upon which the munificent
cardinal expended vast sums.
Ximenes lived to the advanced age of eighty-one, long enough to act as
regent of Spain during the interregnum preceding the arrival of Charles
I, better known as the Emperor Charles V. The immediate cause of his
death was said to have been the receipt of a letter from the Emperor in
which he was coldly thanked for his services and desired to retire to
his diocese, to "seek from heaven that reward which heaven alone could
adequately bestow." In his last moments he is reported to have said,
"that he had never intentionally wronged any man; but had rendered to
every one his due, without being swayed, as far as he was conscious, by
fear or affection."
He combined a versatility of talent usually found only in softer and
more flexible characters. Though bred in the cloister, he distinguished
himself both in the cabinet and the camp. For the latter, indeed, so
repugnant to his regular profession, he had a natural genius, according
to the testimony of his biographer; and he evinced his relish for it
by declaring that "the smell of gunpowder was more grateful to him
than the sweetest perfume of Arabia!" In every situation, however, he
exhibited the stamp of his peculiar calling; and the stern lineaments
of the monk were never wholly concealed under the mask of the statesman
or the visor of the warrior. He had a full measure of the religious
bigotry which belonged to the age; and he had melancholy scope for
displaying it, as chief of that dread tribunal over which he presided
during the last ten years of his life.
The accession of the grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella to the Spanish
throne as Charles I (better known as the Emperor Charles V), seemed
to foreshadow a change in the relations of the Inquisition and the
state. The young sovereign was born in Ghent and was more Fleming than
Spaniard. Though his grandfather left in his will solemn injunctions
"to labour with all his strength to destroy and extirpate heresy" and
to appoint ministers "who will conduct the Inquisition justly and
properly for the service of God and the exaltation of the Catholic
faith, and who will also have great zeal for the destruction of the
sect of Mahomet," it was reported that he sympathised with the critics
of the Inquisition and was disposed to curtail its activity. The
influence of his old tutor, Adrian of Utrecht, whom he commissioned
inquisitor-general, first of Aragon, and, after the death of Ximenes,
of Castile also, changed him however into a strong friend and staunch
supporter of the institution.
Cardinal Manrique, who followed as inquisitor-general, was a man of
more kindly disposition, charitable and a benefactor to the poor.
He was inclined to relax the severities of the Holy Office but it
was urged upon him that heresy was on the increase on account of the
appearance of Lutheran opinions and the bitterest persecution was
more than ever essential. Protestants began to appear sporadically and
called for uncompromising repression. The writings of Luther, Erasmus,
Melancthon, Zwingli, and the rest of the early reformers were brought
into Spain, but the circulation was adjudged a crime, though Erasmus
had once been a favourite author.
The Inquisition later prepared an _Index Expurgandorum_, or list of
condemned and prohibited literature. All books named on it were put
under the ban of the law. Possession of a translation of the Bible in
the vulgar tongues was forbidden in 1551, and the prohibition was not
lifted until 1782. By that time there was no longer such keen interest
in its contents, and the Book was little circulated. In 1825 the
British and Foreign Bible Society sent one of its agents into Spain to
distribute it, and his adventures are described autobiographically in
that interesting work, George Borrow's "Bible in Spain."
In spite of all the efforts to make good Catholics and good Spaniards
of the Moriscos, little real progress was made. They had accepted
baptism under compulsion, not realising that thereby they were brought
under control of the Church. Little effort was made to instruct them,
moreover, and as a result thousands, nominally Christians, observed
scrupulously the whole Moslem ritual, used the old language, and kept
their old costume. Some, to be sure, were hardly to be distinguished
from the Spaniards with whom they had intermarried, but, on the whole,
they seemed an unassimilable element in the population.
When Philip II succeeded his father, Charles V, in 1556, he determined
to take strong measures. A decree proclaimed in Granada in 1566 forbade
the use of the distinctive dress and of the Moorish names. The old
customs were to be abandoned, and all the baths were to be destroyed.
Rebellion followed this edict, and, for a time, it was doubtful whether
it could be crushed. Finally open resistance was overcome, and several
thousand were transferred to the mountains of Northern Spain. Meanwhile
the Inquisition was active, and thousands were brought to trial for
pagan practices.
Prejudice continued to grow, and fanatics declared that Spain could
never prosper until the "evil seed" was destroyed or expelled from
the Christian land. Jealousy of the prosperity of the Moriscos led
the populace to agree with the bigots, and finally expulsion was
unanimously decreed by the Council of State, in 1609, during the
reign of Philip III. Valencia was first purged, and next Murcia,
Granada, Andalusia, Old and New Castile and Aragon. Afterward vigorous
attempts to root out individuals of Moorish blood, who had become
indistinguishable because of their strict conformity, were made. Great
suffering was incurred by the unfortunate exiles and many died. Those
who reached Africa carried with them a hatred which persists to the
present.
The number driven out is uncertain. The estimates vary from three
hundred thousand to three million. Probably the most accurate estimate
is that of six hundred thousand. In this number were included the most
skilful artisans, and the most industrious and most thrifty portion of
the population. It was a mistake from which Spain has never recovered.
CHAPTER III
PRISONS AND PUNISHMENTS
Prisons, usually, a part of the building occupied by court--Better
than civil prisons--Torture inflicted--No new methods
invented--Description of various kinds--Two Lutheran congregations
broken up--Description of some famous _autos da fé_--Famous
victims--Englishmen punished--Archbishop Carranza's trial.
The prisons of the Inquisition fall under two great heads, the
"secret prisons" in which those awaiting trial were confined, and the
"penitential prisons" where sentences were served. Generally there were
also _cárceles de familiares_ where officers of the institution charged
with wrong-doing were confined. In some tribunals there were others
variously called _cárceles medias_, _cárceles comunes_, and _cárceles
públicas_, where offenders not charged with heresy might be confined.
The secret prisons, however, have most fired the imagination. A
man might disappear from his accustomed haunts, and for years his
family and friends be ignorant of his condition, or even of his very
existence, until one day he might appear at an _auto da fé_. What
went on within the walls was a mystery. Seldom did any hint of the
proceedings leak out. Everyone was sworn to secrecy, and the arm of the
Inquisition was long, if the luckless witness or attendant failed to
heed his instructions.
These prisons were almost invariably a part of the building occupied
by the tribunal. In Valencia, it was the archbishop's palace; in
Saragossa, the royal castle; in Seville, the Triana; in Cordova, the
Alcázar, and so on. In some, there were cells and dungeons already
prepared, in others, they were constructed. There was no common
standard of convenience or sanitation. In many cases, generally,
perhaps, they were superior to the common jails in which ordinary
prisoners were confined. Yet we know that some were entirely dark and
very damp. Others were so small that a cramped position was necessary,
and were hardly ventilated at all. Sometimes they were poorly cared
for, and loathsome filth and vermin made them unendurable. Many
places were used for prisons during the three hundred years of the
Inquisition, and no statement is broad enough to cover them all. The
mortality was high, yet not so high as in the prisons generally. Since
many were unsuitable and often unsafe, the wearing of fetters was
common. Prisoners often, incidentally, speak of their chains.
Occasionally more than one prisoner occupied the same room, and much
evidence was secured in this way, as each hoped to lighten his own
punishment by inculpating others. Writing materials were permitted,
though every sheet of paper must be accounted for and delivered into an
official's hands. Lights were not permitted however.
Yet entire secrecy was not always secured. Attendants were sometimes
bribed, and by various ingenious methods, communications occasionally
found their way in or out. Again in cases of severe sickness, the
prisoner might be transferred to a hospital, which however must account
for him if he recovered. Cardinal Adrian, the inquisitor-general,
reminded the tribunals that the prison was for detention, not for
punishment, that prisoners must not be defrauded of their food, and
that the cells must be carefully inspected.
These and similar instructions issued at intervals were not always
obeyed, for inquisitors were often negligent. According to Lea, "no
general judgment can be formed as to the condition of so many prisons
during three centuries, except that their average standard was
considerably higher than that in other jurisdictions, and that, if
there were abodes of horror, such as have been described by imaginative
writers they were wholly exceptional."[5] Again the same author quotes
instances where prisoners speak of improved health, due to better
food in prison than they were accustomed to at home, and in summing
up declares that the general management was more humane than could be
found elsewhere, either in or out of Spain.
[5] Lea. History of the Inquisition in Spain. Vol. II. p. 526.
We may briefly recapitulate the various processes of the Inquisition
in order, as they obtained. First came the denunciation, followed
by seizure and the commencement of an inquiry. The several offences
imputed were next submitted to those logical experts named "qualifiers"
who decided, so to speak, "whether there was a true bill," in which
case the procurator fiscal committed the accused to durance. Three
audiences were given him, and the time was fully taken up with cautions
and monitions. The charges were next formulated but with much prolixity
and reduplication. They were not reduced to writing and delivered to
the accused for slow perusal and reply, but were only read over to him,
hurriedly. On arraignment he was called upon to reply, then and there,
to each article, to state at once whether it was true or false. The
charges were usually originated by an informer and resort was had, if
necessary, to "inquiry," the hunting up of suspicious or damaging facts
on which evidence was sought, in any quarter and from any one good or
bad. If the accused persisted in denial he was allowed counsel, but
later the counsel became an official of the Inquisition and naturally
made only a perfunctory defence. An appeal to torture was had if the
prisoner persisted in denying his guilt, in the face of plausible
testimony, or if he confessed only partially to the charges against
him, or if he refused to name his accomplices. A witness who had
retracted his testimony or had contradicted himself, might be tortured
in order that the truth might be made known.
It was admitted, however, that torture was by no means an infallible
method for bringing out the truth. "Weak-hearted men, impatient of the
first pain, will confess crimes they never committed and criminate
others at the same time. Bold and strong ones will bear the most severe
torments. Those who have been already on the rack are likely to bear
it with greater courage, for they know how to adapt their limbs to it
and can resist more powerfully." It may be admitted that the system
was so far humane that the torture was not applied until every other
effort had been tried and had failed. The instruments of torture
were first exhibited with threats, but when once in use, it might be
repeated day after day, "in continuation," as it was called, and if any
"irregularity" occurred, such as the death of a victim, the inquisitors
were empowered to absolve one another. Nobles were supposedly exempted
from torture, and it was not permissible by the civil laws in Aragon,
but the Holy Office was nevertheless authorised to torture without
restriction all persons of all classes.
Torture was not inflicted as a punishment by the Inquisition, nor was
it peculiar to its trials. Until a comparatively recent date it was
a recognised method of securing testimony, accepted in nearly all
courts of Europe as a matter of course. The Inquisition seems to have
invented no new methods, and seldom used the extreme forms commonly
practised. In fact in nearly every case, torture was inflicted by the
regular public executioner who was called in for the purpose and sworn
to secrecy. The list of tortures practised on civil prisoners was
long, and they seem to us now fiendish in their ingenuity. A complete
course would require many hours, and included apparently the infliction
of pain to every organ or limb and to almost every separate muscle
and nerve. The records of the Inquisition show almost invariably the
infliction of a few well known sorts.
Some sorts were abandoned because of the danger of permanent harm, and
others less violent, but probably no less painful, were substituted.
Often the record states that the prisoner "overcame the torture,"
_i. e._ was not moved to confess. Evidently, though the whole idea is
abhorrent to us to-day, torture as inflicted was less awful than some
writers would have us believe.[6]
[6] Lea. History of the Inquisition in Spain. Vol. III.
A curious memento of the methods employed by the Holy Office has been
preserved in an ancient "Manual of the Inquisition of Seville," a
thin quarto volume bound in vellum, with pages partly printed, partly
in manuscript. It bears the date 1628, and purports to be compiled
from ancient and modern instructions for the order of procedure. It
was found in the Palace of the Inquisition at Seville, when it was
sacked in the year 1820. One part of this manual details the steps to
be taken, "when torture has to be performed." The criminal having
been brought into the audience, was warned that he had not told the
entire truth, and as he was believed to have kept back and hidden many
things, he was about to be "tormented" to compel him to speak out.
Formal sentence to the torture chamber was then passed, after "invoking
the name of Christ." It was announced that the "question" would be
administered. The method of infliction was detailed whether by pulleys
or by water or cords, or by all, to be continued for "as long a time as
may appear well," with the proviso that if in the said torment, "he (or
she) should die or be wounded, or if there be any effusion of blood or
mutilation of member, the blame should be his (or hers) not ours."
Here follows in manuscript the description of the torments applied to
one unfortunate female whose name is not given.
"On this she was ordered to be taken to the chamber of Torment whither
went the Lords Inquisitors, and when they were there she was admonished
to tell the truth and not to let herself be brought into such great
trouble.
"Her answer is not recorded.
"Carlos Felipe, the executor of Justice, was called and his oath taken
that he would do his business well and faithfully and that he would
keep the secret. All of which he promised.
"She was told to tell the truth or orders would be given to strip her.
She was commanded to be stripped naked.
"She was told to tell the truth or orders would be given to cut off her
hair. It was taken off and she was examined by the doctor and surgeon
who certified that there was no reason why she should not be put to the
torture.
"She was commanded to mount the rack and to tell the truth or her
body should be bound; and she was bound. She was commanded to tell
the truth, or they would order her right foot to be made fast to the
_trampazo_."[7]
[7] _Trampazo_ means, exactly, an "extreme tightening of cords": _La
ultima de las vueltas que se dan en el tormento de las cuerdas_.
After the _trampazo_ of the right foot that of the left followed. Then
came the binding and stretching of the right arm, then that of the
left. After that the _garrote_ or the compression of the fleshy parts
of the arms and thighs with fine cords, a plan used to revive any
person who had fainted under the torture. Last of all the _mancuerda_
was inflicted, a simultaneous tension of all the cords on all the limbs
and parts.
The water torture was used to extort confession. The patient was
tightly bound to the _potro_, or ladder, the rungs of which were
sharp-edged. The head was immovably fastened lower than the body, and
the mouth was held open by an iron prong. A strip of linen slowly
conducted water into the mouth, causing the victim to strangle and
choke. Sometimes six or eight jars, each holding about a quart, were
necessary to bring the desired result. This is the "water-cure" found
in the Philippines by American soldiers when the islands were captured.
If these persuasions still failed of effect, or if the hour was late,
or "for other considerations" the torment might be suspended with the
explanation that it had been insufficiently tried and the victim was
taken back to his prison to be brought out again after a respite. If,
on the other hand, a confession was secured, it was written down word
for word and submitted to the victim for ratification after at least
twenty-four hours had elapsed. If he revoked the confession, he might
be tortured again.
When a number of cases had been decided, the Suprema appointed a day,
usually a Sunday or a feast day, for pronouncing sentence. This was
an _auto da fé_, literally an "act of faith." The greater festivals,
Easter day, Christmas day, or Sundays in Advent or Lent were excepted
because these holy days had their own special musical or dramatic
entertainments in the churches. The day fixed was announced from all
the pulpits in the city (Seville or Madrid or Cordova as the case might
be) and notice given that a representative of the Inquisition would
deliver a "sermon of the faith" and that no other preacher might raise
his voice. The civil authorities were warned to be ready to receive
their victims. At the same time officials unfurled a banner and
made public proclamation to the effect that "no person whatever his
station or quality from that hour until the completion of the _auto_
should carry arms offensive or defensive, under pain of the greater
excommunication and the forfeiture of such arms; nor during the same
period should any one ride in coach, or sedan chair, or on horseback,
through the streets in the route of the procession, nor enter the
enclosure in which the place of execution (_quemadero_) was erected,"
which was usually beyond the walls.
On the eve of the great day a gorgeous procession was organised, for
which all the communities of friars in the city and neighbourhood
assembled at the Holy House of the Inquisition, together with the
commissaries and familiars of the Holy Office. They sallied forth in
triumphal array, followed by the "qualifiers" and experts, all carrying
large white tapers, lighted. In their midst a bier was borne covered
with a black pall, and, bringing up the rear, was a band, instrumental
and vocal, performing hymns. In this order the procession reached the
public square, when the pall was removed from the bier and a green
cross disclosed which was carried to the altar on the platform, and
there erected surrounded by a dozen candles. The white cross was
carried to the burning place. Now a strong body of horse and a number
of Dominican friars took post to watch through the night and the rest
of the actors dispersed. At the same time those who were to suffer
were prepared for the fatal event. All were shaved close, both head
and beard, so that they might present an appearance of nakedness and
humiliation suitable to their forlorn condition. At sunrise on their
last day they were arrayed in the prescribed garb and brought from
their cells into the chapel or great hall. The least heinous offenders
were in coarse black blouses and pantaloons, and were bare-footed and
bare-headed. The worst culprits were in the _sanbenito_ or penitential
sack of yellow canvas, adorned with a St. Andrew's cross in bright red
paint, and they often carried a halter round their necks as a badge
of ignominy. Those to die at the stake were distinguished by black
_sanbenitos_ with painted flames and wore on their heads a conical
paper headdress in the shape of a bishop's mitre, but also resembling
somewhat a fool's cap. This was called the _coroza_, a contemptuous
form of _corona_ or crown. To make the clothing more hideous, it was
decorated by coarse pictures of devils in flames. The condemned as
they passed on their way were assailed to the last with importunate
exhortations to repent, and a promise was held out to them that if
they yielded they would be rewarded by a less painful death, and would
be strangled before the flames reached them. All the penitents were
obliged to sit upon the ground in profound silence and without so much
as moving a limb, while the slow hours dragged themselves along. In the
morning a sumptuous meal was set before them, and they were suffered
to eat their fill. All the officials and visitors were also regaled
before the day's business began.
After the sermon, the secretary read to all the people the oath
pledging them to support the Inquisition. Then sentences were
pronounced, beginning with the lesser offenders and proceeding to the
graver. The punishments ranged from a reprimand, through abjuration,
fines, exile, for a longer or shorter period, destruction of residence,
penance, scourging, the galleys, imprisonment, wearing the _sanbenito_
or penitential garment, up to "relaxation to the secular arm;" _i. e._
death by fire. These penalties carried with them civil disability, and
tainted the blood of the descendants of the condemned as well.
Penance might be inflicted in various forms. The condemned, perhaps,
might be required to fast one day in every week, to recite a specified
number of prayers on appointed days, or to appear at the church door
with a halter around his neck on successive Sundays. When scourging was
inflicted, the penitent, naked to the waist, was placed astride an ass,
and paraded through the principal streets preceded by the town crier.
Meanwhile the executioner, accompanied by a clerk to keep tally, plied
the _penca_ or leather strap, but was charged most solemnly not to draw
blood. Usually two hundred lashes was the limit.
Theoretically a heretic who escaped the stake by confession was
sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. This penalty might be served in
a prison, a monastery, or in a private house. As a matter of fact,
comparatively few were kept in prisons as the expense of maintenance
was a heavy burden, and the sentences were usually changed to
deportation to the colonies, or assignment to the galleys, or else the
sentence was shortened.
The trial and sentence of the bodies of the dead was common, but it
was not peculiar to the Inquisition. As late as 1600, in Scotland, the
bodies of the Earl of Gowrie and his brother were brought into court,
and sentenced to be hanged, quartered and gibbeted. Logan of Restalrig,
in 1609, three years after his death, was tried on the charge of being
concerned in the same conspiracy, was found guilty and his property was
confiscated.
In recounting the punishments imposed by the Inquisition, we must not
forget that it assumed jurisdiction over many crimes which to-day
are tried by the civil courts. Bigamy was punished as, by a second
marriage, the criminal denied the authority of the Church which makes
marriage a sacrament. Certain forms of blasphemy also were brought
before it, and perjury as well. Personation of the priesthood, or
of officials of the Inquisition, was punished, and later it gained
jurisdiction over unnatural crimes. Sorcery and witchcraft, which in
other states, including the American colonies, were considered subjects
for the secular courts, were within the jurisdiction of the Spanish
Inquisition.
Strange as it may appear at first thought, the attitude of the
Inquisition toward the witchcraft delusion was one of skepticism almost
from the beginning. Individual inquisitors, influenced by the well nigh
universal belief, were occasionally active, but the Suprema moderated
their zeal. In 1610 an _auto_ was held at Logroño, which was the centre
of wild excitement. Twenty-nine witches were punished, six of whom were
burned, and the bones of five others who had died in prison were also
consumed. The eighteen remaining were "reconciled." In 1614, however,
the Suprema drew up an elaborate code of instructions to the tribunals.
While not denying the existence of witchcraft, these instructions
treated it as a delusion and practically made proof impossible. As a
result of this policy the victims of the craze in Spain can be counted
almost by the score, while in almost every other country of Europe,
they are numbered by the thousand. In Great Britain the best estimate
fixes the number of victims at thirty thousand, and as late as 1775
the great legal author, Sir William Blackstone, says that to deny
"the actual existence of witchcraft and sorcery is at once flatly to
contradict the revealed word of God."[8]
[8] Lea. History of the Inquisition in Spain. Vol. IV.
Heresy, of course, according to the views not only of Catholics but
of Protestants, deserved death as a form of treason. Tolerance is a
modern idea. Calvin burned Servetus at Geneva and was applauded for
it. Protestants in England persecuted other Protestants as well as
Catholics. The impenitent heretic in Spain was burned alive. That
one, who after conviction, expressed his repentance, and his desire
to die in the Church was usually strangled before the flames touched
him. Before going on to describe some famous _autos da fé_ and the
subsequent infliction of the death penalty, a word of explanation is in
order.
Protestant doctrines were introduced into Spain either by foreigners
or by natives who travelled or studied in foreign lands, but made slow
headway. In 1557 a secret organisation, comprising about one hundred
and twenty members, was discovered in Seville. The next year another
little band of about sixty was found in Valladolid.
The almost simultaneous exposure of these two heretical organisations,
both of which included some prominent people, created great commotion.
Charles V, then living at San Yuste, whither he had retired after his
abdication, wrote to his daughter Juana, who was acting as regent
in the absence of Philip II, urging the most stringent measures and
advocating that the heretics be pursued mercilessly. Little stimulation
of the Inquisition was necessary, and the two little congregations were
destroyed.
A part of those condemned at Valladolid were sentenced at a great
_auto da fé_ held on Trinity Sunday, May 21st, 1559, in Valladolid,
not before Philip II, who was abroad, but his sister, Princess
Juana, presided and with her was the unhappy Prince, Don Carlos.
It was a brilliant gathering, a great number of grandees of Spain,
titled noblemen and gentlemen untitled, ladies of high rank in
gorgeous apparel, all seated in great state to watch the arrival of
the penitential procession. Fourteen heretics were to die, sixteen
more to be "reconciled" but to be branded with infamy and suffer
lesser punishments. Among the sufferers were many persons of rank
and consideration such as the two brothers Cazalla and their sister,
children of the king's comptroller, one of them a canon of the Church,
the other a presbyter, and all three members of the little Lutheran
congregation. Their mother had died in heresy and on this occasion her
effigy, clad in her widow's weeds and wearing a mitre with flames, was
paraded through the streets and then burned publicly. Her house, where
Lutherans had met for prayer, was razed to the ground and a pillar
erected with an inscription setting forth her offence and sentence.
Another victim was the licentiate, Antonio Herrezuelo, an impenitent
Lutheran, the only one who went to the stake unmoved, singing psalms by
the way, and reciting passages of scripture. They gagged him at last
and a soldier in his zeal stabbed him with his halberd, but the wound
was not mortal and bleeding and burning, he slowly expired.
The sixteen who survived the horrors of the day were haled back to
the prison of the Inquisition to spend one more night in the cells.
Next morning they were again taken before the inquisitors who exhorted
them afresh, and their sentences were finally read to them. Some
destined to the galleys were transferred first to the civil prison to
await removal, after they had been flogged through the streets and
market places. Others clad in the _sanbenito_ and carrying ropes were
exposed to the hoots and indignities of the ribald crowd. All who
passed through the hands of the Holy Office were sworn to seal up in
everlasting silence whatever they had seen, heard or suffered, on peril
of a renewed prosecution.
Philip II was present at the second great _auto_ in Valladolid in
October of the same year, when the remainder of the Protestants were
sentenced. His wife, Queen Mary of England, was dead, and he returned
to Spain by way of the Netherlands, embarking at Flushing for Laredo.
Rough weather and bad seamanship all but wrecked his fleet in sight of
port, and Philip vowed if he were permitted to set foot on shore, to
prosecute the heretics of Spain unceasingly. He was saved from drowning
and went at once to Valladolid to carry out his vow.
The ceremony was organised with unprecedented pomp and splendour. The
king came in state, rejoicing that several notable heretics had been
reserved to die in torments, for his especial delectation. His heir,
Don Carlos, Prince of Asturias, was also present but under compulsion;
he was, at that time, no more than fourteen years of age and had
writhed with agony at the sight of the suffering at the former _auto_.
Moreover, when called upon to swear fidelity to the Inquisition, he
had taken the oath with great reluctance. Not so King Philip, who when
called upon to take the same oath at the second _auto da fé_, rose in
his place, drew his sword and brandished it as he swore to show every
favour to the Holy Office and support its ministers against whomsoever
might directly or indirectly impede its efforts or affairs. "_Asi lo
juro_," he said with deep feeling. "Thus I swear."
The victims at this great _auto da fé_ were many and illustrious.
One was Don Carlos de Seso, an Italian of noble family, the son of
a bishop, a scholar who had long been in the service of the Emperor
Charles V, and was chief magistrate of Toro. He had married a Spanish
lady and resided at Logroño, where he became an object of suspicion
as a professor of Lutheranism, and was arrested. They took him to the
prison of Valladolid, where he was charged, tortured and condemned to
die. When called upon to make confession, he wrote two full sheets
denouncing the Catholic teaching, claiming that it was at variance with
the true faith of the gospel. The priests argued with him in vain,
and he was brought into church next morning, gagged, and so taken to
the burning place, "lest he should speak heresy in the hearing of the
people." At the stake the gag was removed and he was again exhorted to
recant but he stoutly refused and bade them light up the fire speedily
so that he might die in his belief.
Much grief was felt by the Dominicans at the lapse of one of their
order, Fray Domingo de Rojas, who was undoubtedly a Lutheran. On his
way to the stake he strove to appeal to the king who drove him away
and ordered him to be gagged. More than a hundred monks of his order
followed him close entreating him to recant, but he persisted in a
determined although inarticulate refusal until in sight of the flames.
He then recanted and was strangled before being burned. One Juan
Sanchez, a native of Valladolid, had fled to Flanders, but was pursued,
captured and brought back to Spain to die on this day. When the cords
which had bound him snapped in the fire, he bounded into the air with
his agony but still repelled the priests and called for more fire. Nine
more were burned in the presence of the king, who was no merely passive
spectator, but visited the various stakes and ordered his personal
guard to assist in piling up the fuel.
The congregation at Seville were sentenced at _autos_ held in 1559 and
1560. On December 22d of the latter year, there were fourteen burned in
the flesh and three in effigy. The last were notable people. One was
Doctor Egidio, who had been a leading canon of Seville Cathedral, and
who had been tried and forced to recant his heresies in 1552. After
release he renewed his connection with the Lutherans, but soon died
and was buried at Seville. His corpse was exhumed, brought to trial,
and burnt with his effigy; all his property was confiscated and his
memory declared infamous. Another was Doctor Ponce de la Fuente, a man
of deep learning and extraordinary eloquence who had been chaplain and
preacher to the emperor. He followed the Imperial Court into Germany,
then returned to charm vast congregations in Seville, but his sermons
were reported by spies to be tainted with the Reformed doctrines. He
was seized by the Inquisition and many incriminating papers were also
taken. When cast into a secret dungeon and confronted with these proofs
of his heresy, he would make no confession, nor would he betray any
of his friends. He was transferred to a subterranean cell, damp and
pestiferous, so narrow he could barely move himself, and was deprived
of the commonest necessaries of life. Existence became impossible under
such conditions, and he died, proclaiming with his last breath that
neither Scythians nor cannibals could be more cruel and inhuman than
the barbarians of the Holy Office. The third effigy consumed was that
of Doctor Juan Pérez de Pineda, then a fugitive in Geneva.
Chief among the living victims was Julian Hernandez, commonly called
_el Chico_, "the little," from his diminutive stature. Yet his heart
was of the largest and his courage extraordinary. He was a deacon
in the Reformed Church and dared to penetrate the interior of Spain,
disguised as a muleteer, carrying merchandise in which Lutheran
literature was concealed. Being exceedingly shrewd and daring he
travelled far and wide, beyond Castile into Andalusia, distributing his
books among persons of rank and education in all the chief cities. His
learning, skill in argument, and piety, were not less remarkable than
the diligence and activity by which he baffled all efforts to lay hold
of him. At last he was caught and imprisoned. Relays of priests were
told off to controvert his opinions, and he was repeatedly tortured to
extract the names of those who had aided him in his long and dangerous
pilgrimage through the Peninsula, but he was staunch and silent to the
last.
A citizen of London, one Nicholas Burton, was a shipmaster who traded
to Cadiz in his own vessel. He was arrested on the information of a
"familiar" of the Inquisition, charged with having spoken in slighting
terms of the religion of the country. No reason was given him, and
when he protested indignantly, he was thrown into the common gaol
and detained there for a fortnight, during which he was moved to
administer comfort and preach the gospel to his fellow-prisoners.
This gave a handle to his persecutors and he was removed on a further
charge of heresy to Seville, where he was imprisoned, heavily ironed
in the secret gaol of the Inquisition in the Triana. At the end he was
condemned as a contumacious Lutheran, and was brought out, clad in
the _sanbenito_ and exposed in the great hall of the Holy Office with
his tongue forced out of his mouth. Last of all, being obdurate in his
heresy, he was burned and his ship with its cargo was taken possession
of by his persecutors.
The story does not end here. Another Englishman, John Frampton, an
attorney of Bristol, was sent to Cadiz by a part-owner to demand
restoration of the ship. He became involved in a tedious law suit and
was at last obliged to return to England for enlarged powers. Bye and
bye he went out a second time to Spain, and on landing at Cadiz was
seized by the servants of the Inquisition and carried to Seville. He
travelled on mule back "tied by a chain that came three times under its
belly and the end whereof was fastened in an iron padlock made fast to
the saddle bow." Two armed familiars rode beside him, and thus escorted
and secured, he was conveyed to the old prison and lodged in a noisome
dungeon. The usual interrogatories were put to him and it was proved
to the satisfaction of the Holy Office that he was an English heretic.
The same evidence sufficed to place him on the rack, and after fourteen
months, he was taken to be present as a penitent at the same _auto da
fé_ which saw Burton, the ship's captain, done to death. Frampton went
back to prison for another year and was forbidden to leave Spain. He
managed to escape and returned to England to make full revelation of
his wrongs, but the ship was never surrendered and no indemnity was
obtained.
Other Englishmen fell from time to time into the hands of the
Inquisition. Hakluyt preserved the simple narratives of two English
sailors, who were brought by their Spanish captors from the Indies as
a sacrifice to the "Holy House" of Seville, though the authenticity of
the statement has been attacked. One, a happy-go-lucky fellow, Miles
Phillips, who had been too well acquainted in Mexico with the dungeons
of the Inquisition, slipped over the ship's side at San Lucar, near
Cadiz, made his way to shore, and boldly went to Seville, where he
lived a hidden life as a silk-weaver, until he found his chance to
steal away and board a Devon merchantman. The other, Job Hortop, added
to his two years of Mexican imprisonment, two more years in Seville.
Then "they brought us out in procession," as he tells us, "every one of
us having a candle in his hand and the coat with S. Andrew's cross on
our backs; they brought us up on an high scaffold, that was set up in
the place of S. Francis, which is in the chief street in Seville; there
they set us down upon benches, every one in his degree and against
us on another scaffold sate all the Judges and the Clergy on their
benches. The people wondered and gazed on us, some pitying our case,
others said, 'Burn those heretics.' When we had sat there two hours, we
had a sermon made to us, after which one called Bresina, secretary to
the Inquisition, went up into the pulpit with the process and called
on Robert Barret, shipmaster, and John Gilbert, whom two familiars of
the Inquisition brought from the scaffold in front of the Judges, and
the secretary read the sentence, which was that they should be burnt,
and so they returned to the scaffold and were burnt.
"Then, I, Job Hortop and John Bone, were called and brought to the same
place, as the others and likewise heard our sentence, which was, that
we should go to the galleys there to row at the oar's end ten years
and then to be brought back to the Inquisition House, to have the coat
with St. Andrew's cross put on our backs and from thence to go to the
everlasting prison remediless.
"I, with the rest were sent to the Galleys, where we were chained
four and four together.... Hunger, thirst, cold and stripes we lacked
none, till our several times expired; and after the time of twelve
years, for I served two years above my sentence, I was sent back to
the Inquisition House in Seville and there having put on the above
mentioned coat with St. Andrew's cross, I was sent to the everlasting
prison remediless, where I wore the coat four years and then, upon
great suit, I had it taken off for fifty duckets, which Hernandez de
Soria, treasurer of the king's mint, lent me, whom I was to serve for
it as a drudge seven years." This victim, too, escaped in a fly-boat at
last and reached England.
The records of the Inquisition of this period contain the name of an
eminent Spanish ecclesiastic who offended the Holy Office and felt
the weight of its arm. This was Bartolome de Carranza, Archbishop of
Toledo, Primate of Spain, a Dominican,--whose rise had been rapid and
who was charged with leanings toward Lutheranism. In early life he
had passed through the hands of the Inquisition and was censured for
expressing approval of the writings of Erasmus, but no other action
was taken. His profound theological knowledge indeed commended him to
the Councils of the Church, for which he often acted as examiner of
suspected books.
Carranza's connection with English history is interesting. At the
time of Queen Mary's marriage with Philip II, he came to London to
arrange, in conjunction with Cardinal Pole, for the reconciliation
of England to Rome. He laboured incessantly to win over British
Protestants, "preached continually, convinced and converted heretics
without number, ... guided the Queen and Councils and assisted in
framing rules for the governance of the English Universities." He
was particularly anxious for the persecution of obstinate heretics,
and was in a measure responsible for the burning of Thomas Cranmer,
Archbishop of Canterbury. His zeal and his great merits marked him down
as the natural successor to the archbishopric of Toledo, when it became
vacant, and he was esteemed as a chief pillar of the Catholic Church,
destined in due course to the very highest preferment. He might indeed
become cardinal and even supreme pontiff before he died.
Yet when nearing the topmost pinnacle he was on the verge of falling
to the lowest depths. He had many enemies. His stern views on Church
discipline, enunciated before the Council of Trent, alienated many of
the bishops, who planned his ruin and secretly watched his discourses
and writings for symptoms of unsoundness. Valdés, the chief inquisitor,
was a leading opponent and industriously collected a mass of evidence
tending to inculpate Carranza. He had used "perilous language" when
preaching in England, especially in the hearing of heretics, and one
witness deposed that some of his sermons might have been delivered
by Melancthon himself. He had affirmed that mercy might be shown to
Lutherans who abjured their errors, and had frequently manifested
scandalous indulgence to heretics. Valdés easily framed a case against
Carranza, strong enough to back up an application to the pope to
authorise the Inquisition to arrest and imprison the primate of Spain.
Paul IV, the new pope, permitted the arrest. Great circumspection was
shown in making it because of the prisoner's rank. Carranza was invited
to come to Valladolid to have an interview with the king, and, with
some misgivings, the archbishop set out. A considerable force of men
was gathered together by the way--all loyal to the Inquisition--and at
the town of Torrelaguna, the arrest was made with great formality and
respect.
On reaching Valladolid the prisoner begged he might be lodged in the
house of a friend. The Holy Office consented but hired the building.
The trial presented many serious difficulties. Here was no ordinary
prisoner; Carranza was widely popular, and the Supreme Council of the
Kingdom was divided as to the evidences of his guilt. Nearly a hundred
witnesses were examined, but proof was not easily to be secured.
Besides, Carranza had appealed to the Supreme Pontiff. Year after year
was spent in tiresome litigation and a fierce contest ensued between
Rome and the Spanish court which backed up the Inquisition. At length,
after eight years' confinement, the primate was sent to Cartagena to
take ship for Rome, accompanied by several inquisitors and the Duke of
Alva, that most notorious nobleman, the scourge and oppressor of the
Netherlands. All landed at Civita Vecchia and the party proceeded to
the Holy City, when Carranza was at once lodged in the Castle of St.
Angelo, the well known State prison. He was detained there nine years,
until released by Pope Gregory XIII. He was censured for his errors,
and required to abjure the Lutheran principles found in his writings,
and was relieved from his functions as archbishop, to which, however,
his strength, impaired by age and suffering, was no longer equal. While
visiting the seven churches as a penance, he was taken ill, April 23d,
1576, and soon died. Before his death, however, the pope gave him full
indulgence.
Those who saw him in his last days record that he bore his trials with
dignity and patience. But this learned priest who had been called to
the highest rank of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, only to be himself
assailed and thrown down, was the same who had sat in cruel judgment
upon Thomas Cranmer and compassed his martyrdom.
CHAPTER IV
THE INQUISITION ABROAD
Fresh field for the Inquisition in Spanish America--Operations begun
by Ximenes and more firmly established by Charles V--Spanish Viceroys'
complaints--Zeal of the Inquisitors checked for a while--Revived
under Philip II--Royal Edict forbidding heretics to emigrate to
Spanish America--Inquisition extended to the Low Countries--Dutch
rebellion proceedings--The Inquisition of the Galleys instituted by
Philip--Growing dislike of the Inquisition--Experiences of Carcel, a
goldsmith--His account of an _auto da fé_--Decline of the powers of
the Inquisition.
The acquisition of Spanish America opened a fresh field for the
activity of the Inquisition. Besides the natives there were the New
Christians who had fled across the seas seeking refuge from intolerance
in the old country. Although the emigration of heretics was forbidden
after a time, lest they should spread the hateful doctrines, Cardinal
Ximenes, when inquisitor-general, resolved that the New World should
have its own Holy Office, and appointed Fray Juan de Quevedo, then
Bishop of Cuba, as inquisitor-general of the "Tierra Firma" as the
Spanish mainland was commonly called. The Inquisition was more broadly
established by Charles V, who empowered Cardinal Adrian to organise
it and appoint new chiefs. The Dominicans were supreme, as in the
old country, and proceeded with their usual fiery vigour, wandering
at large through the new territories and spreading dismay among the
native population. The Indians retreated in crowds into the interior,
abandoned the Christianity they had never really embraced, and joined
the other native tribes still unsubdued. The Spanish viceroys alarmed
at the general desertion complained to the king at home and the
excessive zeal of the inquisitors was checked for a time. But when
Philip II came into power he would not agree with this milder policy,
and although the inquisitors were no longer permitted to perambulate
the country districts hunting up heretics, the Holy Office was
established with its palaces and prisons in the principal cities and
acted with great vigour. Three great central tribunals were created at
Panama, Lima, and at Cartagena de las Indias, and persecution raged
unceasingly, chiefly directed against Jews and Moors. In the city of
Mexico also there was an inquisitor-general. A royal edict proclaimed
that "no one newly converted to our Holy Faith from being Moor or Jew
nor his child shall pass over into our Indies without our express
license." At the same time the prohibition was extended to any who had
been "reconciled," and to the child or grandchild of anyone who had
worn the _sanbenito_ or of any person burnt or condemned as a heretic
... "all, under penalty of loss of goods and peril of his person, shall
be perpetually banished from the Indies, and if he have no property
let them give him a hundred lashes, publicly."
The emperor, Charles V, is responsible for the extension of the
Inquisition from Spain to the Low Countries, by which he repaid the
loyal service and devotion the Dutch people had long rendered him.
This Inquisition was headed at first however by a layman, and then
four inquisitors chosen from the secular clergy were named. The
Netherlanders resisted stoutly its establishment and its operation,
and in 1646 it was provided that no sentence should go into effect
unless approved by some member of the provincial council. Heretics
were condemned of course, but the number was not large, though in some
way grossly exaggerated reports of the numbers of victims have gained
credence. Finally, on the application of the people of Brabant, who
declared that the name would injure commercial prosperity in their
district, the name was dropped altogether. At best it was a faint and
feeble copy of the Spanish institution, and during the reign of Charles
was little feared. In proof we may cite the fact that eleven successive
edicts were necessary to keep the Inquisition at work between 1620 and
1650.
Philip II, on his accession, attempted to increase the power of the
institution, with the hope of uprooting the reformed doctrines. The
assertion, often made, however, that the Inquisition is responsible for
the revolt of the Netherlands is entirely too broad. Other factors than
religious differences entered into the complex situation. The terrible
war which finally resulted in the independence of the Protestant
Netherlands, falls outside the plan of this volume.
Philip wished to extend the sway of the Inquisition and planned a
naval tribunal to take cognisance of heresy afloat. He created the
Inquisition of the Galleys, or, as it was afterwards styled, of the
Army and Navy. In every sea port a commissary general visited the
shipping to search for prohibited books and make sure of the orthodoxy
of crews and passengers. Even cargoes and bales of merchandise were
examined, lest the taint of heresy should infect them. This marine
inspection was most active in Cadiz, at that time the great centre
of traffic with the far West. A visitor from the Holy Office with a
staff of assistants and familiars boarded every ship on arrival and
departure and claimed that their authority should be respected, so that
nothing might be landed or embarked without their certificate. The
merchants resented this system which brought substantial commercial
disadvantages, and the ships' captains disliked priestly interference
with their crews, whose regular duties were neglected. The men were
kept below under examination, when they were wanted on deck to make or
shorten sail or take advantage of a change in the wind or a turn in the
tide. By degrees the marine Inquisition was thought to impede business
on the High Seas and fell into disuse.
Under succeeding sovereigns the Holy Office was still favoured and
supported, but the reign of Philip III witnessed loud and frequent
remonstrances against its operation. The Cortes of Castile implored
the king to put some restraint upon the too zealous inquisitors, but
they still wielded their arbitrary powers unchecked, and Philip sought
further encouragement for them from Rome. The accession of Philip IV to
the throne was celebrated by an _auto da fé_, but no victim was put to
death, and the only corporal punishment inflicted was the flogging of
an immoral nun who professed to have made a compact with the devil. She
was led out gagged, and, wearing the _sanbenito_, received two hundred
lashes followed by perpetual imprisonment. Philip IV strove for a time
to check the activity of the Inquisition, but he was too weak and
wavering to make permanent headway against an institution, the leaders
of which knew precisely what they were striving for, and pertinaciously
pursued it.
A graphic account of what purport to have been the painful experiences
of a poor soul who fell at a later date into the clutches of the
inquisitors is related by himself in a curious pamphlet printed in
Seville, by one Carcel, who was a goldsmith in that city. Evidently
there is the work of another hand in it, however, as it is written with
too much regard for the dramatic to have been his own composition. The
description of the _auto_ is also unusual, and not according to the
usual procedure.
He says that he was arrested on the 2nd of April, 1680, at ten o'clock
in the evening, as he was finishing a gold necklace for one of the
queen's maids of honour. A week after his first arrest Carcel was
examined. We will quote his own words:--
"In an ante-room," he says, "a smith frees me of my irons and I pass
from the ante-chamber to the 'Inquisitor's table,' as the small inner
room is called. It is hung with blue and citron-coloured taffety.
At one end, between the two grated windows, is a gigantic crucifix
and on the central estrade (a table fifteen feet long surrounded by
arm-chairs), with his back to the crucifix, sits the secretary, and on
my right, Francisco Delgado Ganados, the Grand Inquisitor, who is a
secular priest. The other inquisitors had just left, but the ink was
still wet in their quills, and I saw on papers before their chairs some
names marked with red ink. I am seated on a low stool opposite the
secretary. The inquisitor asks my name and profession and why I come
there, exhorting me to confess as the only means of quickly regaining
my liberty. He hears me, but when I fling myself weeping at his knees,
he says coolly there is no hurry about my case; that he has more
pressing business than mine waiting, (the secretary smiles), and he
rings a little silver bell which stands beside him on the black cloth,
for the alcaide who leads me off down a long gallery, where my chest is
brought in and an inventory taken by the secretary. They cut my hair
off and strip me of everything, even to my ring and gold buttons;
but they leave me my beads, my handkerchief and some money I had
fortunately sewn in my garters. I am then led bareheaded into a cell,
and left to think and despair till evening when they bring me supper.
"The prisoners are seldom put together. Silence perpetual and strict is
maintained in all the cells. If any prisoner should moan, complain or
even pray too loud, the gaolers who watch the corridors night and day
warn them through the grating. If the offence is repeated, they storm
in and load you with blows to intimidate the other prisoners, who, in
the deep grave-like silence, hear your every cry and every blow.
"Once every two months the inquisitor, accompanied by his secretary
and interpreter, visits the prisoners and asks them if their food is
brought them at regular hours, or if they have any complaint to make
against the gaolers. But this is only a parade of justice, for if a
prisoner dares to utter a complaint, it is treated as mere fanciful
ravings and never attended to.
"After two months' imprisonment," goes on Carcel, "one Saturday,
when, after my meagre prison dinner, I give my linen, as usual, to
the gaolers to send to the wash, they will not take it and a great
cold breath whispers at my heart--to-morrow is the _auto da fé_. When,
immediately after the vespers at the cathedral, they ring for matins,
which they never do but when rejoicing on the eve of a great feast,
I know that my horrid suspicions are right. Was I glad at my escape
from this living tomb, or was I paralysed by fear, at the pile perhaps
already hewn and stacked for my wretched body? I know not. I was torn
in pieces by the devils that rack the brains of unhappy men. I refused
my next meal, but, contrary to their wont, they pressed it more than
usual. Was it to give me strength to bear my torture? Do God's eyes not
reach to the prisons of the Inquisition?
"I am just falling into a sickly, fitful sleep, worn out with
conjecturing, when, about eleven o'clock at night, the great bolts of
my cell grind and jolt back and a party of gaolers in black, in a flood
of light, so that they looked like demons on the borders of heaven,
come in.
"The alcaide throws down by my pallet a heap of clothes, tells me to
put them on and hold myself ready for a second summons. I have no
tongue to answer, as they light my lamp, leave me and lock the door
behind them. Such a trembling seizes me for half an hour, that I cannot
rise and look at the clothes which seem to me shrouds and winding
sheets. I rise at last, throw myself down before the black cross I had
smeared with charcoal on the wall, and commit myself, as a miserable
sinner, into God's hands. I then put on the dress, which consists of a
tunic with long, loose sleeves and hose drawers, all of black serge,
striped with white.
"At two o'clock in the morning the wretches came and led me into a long
gallery where nearly two hundred men, brought from their various cells,
all dressed in black, stood in a long silent line against the wall of
the long, plain vaulted, cold corridor where, over every two dozen
heads, swung a high brass lamp. We stood silent as a funeral train.
The women, also in black, were in a neighbouring gallery, far out of
our sight. By sad glimpses down a neighbouring dormitory I could see
more men dressed in black, who, from time to time, paced backwards and
forwards. These I afterwards found were men doomed also to be burnt,
not for murder--no, but for having a creed unlike that of the Jesuits.
Whether I was to be burnt or not I did not know, but I took courage,
because my dress was like that of the rest and the monsters could not
dare to put two hundred men at once into one fire, though they did hate
all who love doll-idols and lying miracles.
"Presently, as we waited sad and silent, gaolers came round and handed
us each a long yellow taper and a yellow scapular, or tabard, crossed
behind and before with red crosses of Saint Andrew. These are the
_sanbenitos_ that Jews, Turks, sorcerers, witches, heathen or perverts
from the Roman Catholic Church are compelled to wear. Now came the
gradation of our ranks--those who have relapsed, or who were obstinate
during their accusations, wear the _zamarra_, which is gray, with
a man's head burning on red faggots painted at the bottom and all
round reversed flames and winged and armed black devils horrible to
behold. I, and seventy others, wear these, and I lose all hope. My
blood turns to ice; I can scarcely keep myself from swooning. After
this distribution they bring us, with hard, mechanical regularity,
pasteboard conical mitres (_corozas_) painted with flames and devils
with the words '_sorcerer_' and '_heretic_' written round the rim. Our
feet are all bare. The condemned men, pale as death, now begin to weep
and keep their faces covered with their hands, round which the beads
are twisted. God only--by speaking from heaven--could save them. A
rough, hard voice now tells us we may sit on the ground till our next
orders come. The old men and boys smile as they eagerly sit down, for
this small relief comes to them with the refreshment of a pleasure.
"At four o'clock they bring us bread and figs, which some drop by their
sides and others languidly eat. I refuse mine, but a guard prays me to
put it in my pocket for I may yet need it. It is as if an angel had
comforted me. At five o'clock, at daybreak, it was a ghastly sight to
see shame, fear, grief, despair, written on our pale livid faces. Yet
not one but felt an undercurrent of joy at the prospect of any release,
even by death.
"Suddenly, as we look at each other with ghastly eyes, the great bell
of the Giralda begins to boom with a funeral knell, long and slow. It
was the signal of the gala day of the Holy Office, it was the signal
for the people to come to the show. We are filed out one by one. As
I pass the gallery in the great hall, I see the inquisitor, solemn
and stern, in his black robes, throned at the gate. Beneath him is
his secretary, with a list of the citizens of Seville in his wiry
twitching hands. The room is full of the anxious frightened burghers,
who, as their names are called and a prisoner passes through, move
to his trembling side to serve as his godfather in the Act of Faith.
The honest men shudder as they take their place in the horrible death
procession. The time-serving smile at the inquisitor, and bustle
forward. This is thought an honourable office and is sought after by
hypocrites and suspected men afraid of the Church's sword.
"The procession commences with the Dominicans. Before them flaunts the
banner of the order in glistening embroidery that burns in the sun
and shines like a mirror, the frocked saint, holding a threatening
sword in one hand, and in the other, an olive branch with the motto,
'Justitia et misericordia' (Justice and mercy). Behind the banner
come the prisoners in their yellow scapulars, holding their lighted
torches, their feet bleeding with the stones and their less frightened
godfathers, gay in cloak and sword and ruff tripping along by their
side, holding their plumed hats in their hands. The street and windows
are crowded with careless eyes, and children are held up to execrate
us as we pass to our torturing death. The _auto da fé_ was always a
holiday sight to the craftsmen and apprentices; it drew more than even
a bull fight, because of the touch of tragedy about it. Our procession,
like a long black snake, winds on, with its banners and crosses, its
shaven monks and mitred bare-footed prisoners, through street after
street, heralded by soldiers who run before to clear a way for us--to
stop mules and clear away fruit-stalls, street-performers and their
laughing audiences. We at last reach the Church of All the Saints,
where, tired, dusty, bleeding and faint we are to hear mass.
"The church has a grave-vault aspect and is dreadfully like a charnel
house. The great altar is veiled in black, and is lit with six silver
candlesticks, whose flames shine like yellow stars with clear twinkle
and a soft halo round each black, fire-tipped wick. On each side of
the altar, that seems to bar out God and his mercy from us and to
wrap the very sun in a grave cloak, are two thrones, one for the
grand-inquisitor and his counsel, another for the king and his court.
The one is filled with sexton-like lawyers, the other with jewelled and
feathered men.
"In front of the great altar and near the door where the blessed
daylight shines with hope and joy, but not for us, is another altar,
on which six gilded and illuminated missals lie open; those books of
the Gospels, too, in which I had once read such texts as--God is love;
Forgive as ye would be forgiven; Faith, hope, charity: these three,
but the greatest of these is charity. Near this lesser altar the monks
had raised a balustraded gallery, with bare benches, on which sat
the criminals in their yellow and flame-striped tabards with their
godfathers. The doomed ones came last, the more innocent first. Those
who entered the black-hung church first, passing up nearest to the
altar sat there, either praying or in a frightened trance of horrid
expectancy. The trembling living corpses wearing the mitres, yellow and
red, came last, preceded by a gigantic crucifix, the face turned from
them.
"Immediately following these poor mitred men came servitors of the
Inquisition, carrying four human effigies fastened to long staves,
and four chests containing the bones of those men who had died before
the fire could be got ready. The coffers were painted with flames and
demons and the effigies wore the dreadful mitre and the crimson and
yellow shirt all a-flame with paint. The effigies sometimes represented
men tried for heresy since their death and whose estates had since been
confiscated and their effigies doomed to be burnt as a warning; for no
one within their reach may escape if they differ in opinion with the
Inquisition.
"Every prisoner being now in his place--godfathers, torchmen, pikemen,
musketeers, inquisitors, and flaunting court--the Provincial of the
Augustins mounted the pulpit, followed by his ministrant and preached
a stormy, denouncing, exulting sermon, half an hour long (it seemed
a month of anguish), in which he compared the Church with burning
eloquence to Noah's ark; but with this difference, that those animals
who entered it before the deluge came out of it unaltered, but the
blessed Inquisition had, by God's blessing, the power of changing those
whom its walls once enclosed, turning them out meek as the lambs he saw
around him so tranquil and devout, all of whom had once been cruel as
wolves and savage and daring as lions.
"This sermon over, two readers mounted the pulpit to shout the list of
names of the condemned, their crimes (now, for the first time, known to
them) and their sentences. We grew all ears and trembled as each name
was read.
"As each name was called the alcaide led out the prisoner from his pen
to the middle of the gallery opposite the pulpit, where he remained
standing, taper in hand. After the sentence he was led to the altar
where he had to put his hand on one of the missals and to remain there
on his knees.
"At the end of each sentence, the reader stopped to pronounce in a
loud, angry voice, a full confession of faith, which he exhorted us,
the guilty, to join with heart and voice. Then we all returned to
our places. My offence, I found, was having spoken bitterly of the
Inquisition, and having called a crucifix a mere bit of cut ivory. I
was therefore declared excommunicated, my goods confiscated to the
king, I was banished Spain and condemned to the Havana galleys for
five years with the following penances: I must renounce all friendship
with heretics and suspected persons; I must, for three years, confess
and communicate three times a month; I must recite five times a day,
for three years, the Pater and Ave Maria in honour of the Five Wounds;
I must hear mass and sermon every Sunday and feast day; and above all,
I must guard carefully the secret of all I had said, heard, or seen
in the Holy Office (which oath, as the reader will observe, I have
carefully kept).
"The inquisitor then quitted his seat, resumed his robes and followed
by twenty priests, each with a staff in his hand, passed into the
middle of the church and with divers prayers some of us were relieved
from excommunication, each of us receiving a blow from a priest.
Once, such an insult would have sent the blood in a rush to my head,
and I had died but I had given a return buffet; now, so weak and
broken-spirited was I, I burst into tears.
"Now, one by one, those condemned to the stake, faint and staggering,
were brought in to hear their sentences, which they did with a
frightened vacancy, inconceivably touching, but the inquisitors were
gossiping among themselves and scarcely looked at them. Every sentence
ended with the same cold mechanical formula: That the Holy Office being
unhappily unable to pardon the prisoners present, on account of their
relapse and impenitence, found itself obliged to punish them with all
the rigour of earthly law, and therefore delivered them with regret
to the hands of secular justice, praying it to use clemency and mercy
towards the wretched men, saving their souls by the punishment of
their bodies and recommending death, but not effusion of blood. Cruel
hypocrites!
"At the word blood the hangmen stepped forward and took possession of
the bodies, the alcaide first striking each of them on the chest to
show that they were now abandoned to the rope and fire." Then he goes
on to describe the scene at the _quemadero_, which, however, included
nothing of importance not already mentioned elsewhere.
After the death of Philip IV, and during the minority of his son,
Charles II, Father Nithard, a Jesuit, who combined the two forces
long in opposition, the disciples of Loyola and the descendants of
Torquemada, was for a time inquisitor-general. The Holy Office was
hotly opposed by Don John of Austria, a natural son of Philip IV,
who rose to political power and would have fallen a victim to the
Inquisition had not popular indignation sided with him against Nithard,
who fled from Spain to Rome. He was stripped of all his offices but
still kept the favour of the queen-mother who finally secured for him
from Pope Clement X the coveted cardinal's hat. Don John was unequal
to the task of curbing the power of the Inquisition, however, and the
institution claimed wider and wider jurisdiction.
Growing dissatisfaction prevailed, and in 1696, the king, Charles II,
summoned a conference or Grand Junta to enquire into the complaints
that poured in from all quarters against the Inquisition. It was
composed of two councillors of state from Castile, Aragon, the Indies,
and the Spanish provinces in Italy, with two members of the religious
orders. It reported that the Holy Office exercised illegal powers,
still arrogated the right to throw persons of rank into prison and
cover their families with disgrace. It punished with merciless severity
the slightest opposition or disrespect shown to dependents or familiars
who had come to enjoy extensive and exorbitant privileges. They claimed
secular jurisdiction in matters nowise appertaining to religion,
and set aside restrictions contained in their own canon law. The
Junta strongly recommended that these restrictions should be rigidly
enforced, and that no one should be thrown into the prisons of the
Inquisition, save on charges of an heretical nature. It urged the right
of appeal to the throne, and the removal of all causes to the royal
courts for trial. It detailed the privileges granted to the servants
of the Holy Office. Even a coachman or a lackey demanded reverence and
might conduct himself with unbounded insolence. If a servant girl were
not treated obsequiously in a shop she might complain and the offender
was liable to be cast into the dungeons of the Inquisition. So great
was the discontent, so many tumults arose, that the Junta would have
all such unrighteous privileges curtailed, and would authorise the
civil courts to keep the encroachments of the Holy Office in check.
With the eighteenth century the authority of the Holy Office visibly
waned. Philip V, a French prince, and a grandson of Louis XIV, whose
succession produced the long protracted war of the Spanish Succession,
declined to be honoured with an _auto da fé_ at his coronation, but he
maintained the Inquisition as an instrument of despotic government,
and actually used it to punish as heretics those who had any doubt
concerning his title to the crown. Yet he rather used the Inquisition
than supported it; for he deprived of his office an inquisitor-general
who had presumed to proceed for heresy against a high officer. The
Cortes of Castile again, (1714), recorded their condemnation, but
without any further benefit than that which must eventually result
from the disclosure of a truth. The same body reiterated their
disapproval a few years afterwards, (1720). But while Philip V used the
Inquisition for his own service, and the heretical doctrine which had
prevailed two centuries before no longer left a trace behind, there
were multitudes of persons accused of attempting to revive Judaism and
others gave offence by their efforts to promote Freemasonry. This gave
the inquisitors abundant pretext for the discharge of their political
mission.
During the reigns of Charles III and Charles IV, a revival of
literature and an advance in political science guided the attention
of the clergy and the government to the position of the court of Rome,
as well as to the proceedings of the inquisitors. The former of these
monarchs nearly yielded to the advice of his councillors to suppress
the Inquisition, as well as to expel the Jesuits. He banished the
Society, but, in regard to the Inquisition, said: "The Spaniards want
it and it gives me no trouble."
Meanwhile death sentences nearly ceased, and once when a good man was
sentenced to be delivered to the secular arm, in compliance with the
letter of the law, the inquisitors let him go free. By this contrivance
Don Miguel Solano, priest of Esco, a town in Aragon, walked out of
the prison of the Inquisition in Saragossa, as a maniac, forgiven his
heresy, and lived on as a maniac, exempted from priestly ministrations,
while every one knew him to be a reasonable man and treated him
accordingly. In the end he died, refusing Extreme Unction, and was
buried in unconsecrated ground within the walls of the Inquisition on
the banks of the Ebro.
CHAPTER V
THE INQUISITION IN PORTUGAL AND INDIA
The Inquisition in Spain abolished by Napoleon's invasion--Its
revival--Persecution of the Freemasons--The "Tribunal of Faith"
established--Inquisition in Portugal--The case of an Englishman
who is arrested, tortured and burnt alive--Difference between
the Inquisitions of Spain and Portugal--The supreme power of the
Holy Office in Portugal in the eighteenth century--The terrible
earthquake at Lisbon--Establishment of the Holy Office in India at
Goa--Description of the Inquisition prison at Goa by M. Dellon--Case
of Father Ephrem--His arrest and rescue by the English from the hands
of the inquisitors.
Napoleon's invasion of Spain and the removal of the young king,
Ferdinand VII, to France, put an end to the Inquisition. When the
Emperor took possession of Madrid, he called upon all public bodies
to submit to his authority, but the Holy Office refused. Whereupon he
issued an order to arrest the inquisitors, abolish the Inquisition,
and sequestrate its revenues. All Spain did not readily yield to the
French conqueror, and when the Cortes met in Cadiz they empowered one
of the inquisitors, who had escaped, to reconstitute the tribunal, but
it was never really restored. At the same time, the governing powers
appointed a special commission to enquire into the legal status of the
ancient body, and to decide whether the Inquisition had any legal right
to exist. A report was published in 1812, reviewing its whole history
and condemning it as incompatible with the liberties of the country.
The indictment against it was couched in very vigorous language. It was
held to have been guilty of the most harsh and oppressive measures; to
have inflicted the most cruel and illegal punishments; "in the darkness
of the night it had dragged the husband from the side of his wife, the
father from the children, the children from their parents, and none may
see the other again until they are absolved or condemned without having
had the means of contributing to their defence or knowing whether they
had been fairly tried." The result was a law passed by the Cortes to
suppress the Inquisition in Spain.
The restoration of Ferdinand VII, at the termination of the war in
1814, gave the Inquisition fresh life. He resented the action taken by
the Cortes, arrested its members, and cast them into prison, declaring
them to be infidels and rebels, and forthwith issued a decree reviving
the tribunal of the Holy Office. Its supreme council met in Seville and
persecution was renewed under the new inquisitor-general, Xavier Mier y
Campillo, who put out a fresh list of prohibited books, tried to raise
revenues and issued a new Edict of Faith. There might have been another
_auto da fé_ even in the nineteenth century, but informers would
not come forward and latter-day victims could not be found. Dread,
nevertheless, prevailed, and numbers fled for refuge into foreign
lands. Fierce energy was directed against the Freemasons, for during
the French occupation, the palace of the Inquisition at Seville had
been used, partly as a common gaol and partly as a Freemasons' lodge.
The members of the craft who were found in Spain were dealt with as
heretics, and all Freemasons were excommunicated.
For a time the Inquisition languished, although favoured by the
arbitrary régime introduced by Ferdinand VII, who sought to reinstate
it on its former lines. It was destroyed or at least suspended by
the Revolution of 1820, and on his restoration, the king did not
reëstablish it, though the officials still hoped for a better day and
continued to draw their salaries. Some of the bishops established
_juntas de fé_, which took up much the same work, and July 26th, 1826,
a poor schoolmaster Cayetano Ripoll, was hanged for heresy--the last
execution for this crime in Spain. Finally, January 4th, 1834, the
Inquisition was definitely abolished, and the _juntas de fé_ were
abolished the next year.
The Inquisition extended its influence into the neighbouring country of
Portugal, which was an independent kingdom until conquered by Philip
II in 1580. Here persecution prevailed from the fifteenth century,
chiefly of the Jews and new Christians, who flocked into the country
from Spain, and were treated with great severity. The Holy Office
was set up in Lisbon under an inquisitor-general, Diego de Silva, and
Portugal was divided into inquisitional districts. _Autos da fé_ were
frequent, and on a scale hardly known in Spain, though the records are
fragmentary.
From among the cases reported, we may quote that of an Englishman, a
native of Bristol, engaged in commerce in Lisbon, who boldly assaulted
the cardinal archbishop in the act of performing mass. Gardiner,
as fiercely intolerant as those of the dominant religion who were
worshipping according to their own rites, attacked the priest when he
elevated the host, "snatched away the cake with one hand, trod it under
his feet, and with the other overthrew the chalice." The congregation,
at first utterly astounded, raised one great cry and fell bodily upon
the sacrilegious wretch, who was promptly stabbed in the shoulder and
haled before the king, who was present in the cathedral, and forthwith
interrogated. It was thought that he had been instigated by the English
Protestants to this outrageous insult, but he declared that he had been
solely moved by his abhorrence of the idolatry he had witnessed. He was
imprisoned and with him all the English in Lisbon. So soon as his wound
was healed, he was examined by the Holy Office, tortured and condemned.
Then he was carried to the market place on an ass and his left hand
was cut off; thence he was taken to the river side and by a rope and
pulley hoisted over a pile of wood which was set on fire. "In spite
of the great torment he continued in a constant spirit and the more
terribly he burned the more vehemently he prayed." He was in the act of
reciting a psalm, when by the use of exceeding violence, the burning
rope broke and he was precipitated into the devouring flames.
A fellow lodger of Gardiner was detained in the Inquisition for two
years, and was frequently tortured to elicit evidence against other
Englishmen, but without avail. A Scotch professor of Greek in the
university of Coimbra was charged with Lutheranism, and imprisoned for
a year and a half, after which he was committed to a monastery so that
he might be instructed by the monks in the true religion. They did not
change his views and he was presently set free. Another, an English
shipmaster, was less fortunate and was burned alive as a heretic at
Lisbon.
It has been observed that, on comparison of the Inquisitions of Spain
and Portugal, a certain marked difference was disclosed between them.
The same precise rigour of the Spanish inquisitors was not exhibited
by the Portuguese. In Portugal the discipline was more savage yet
more feeble. Yet in the latter country there was a brutal and more
wanton excess in inflicting pain at the _autos da fé_. When convicts
were about to suffer they were taken before the Lord Chief Justice to
answer the enquiry as to what religion they intended to die in. If
the answer was "in the Roman Catholic Apostolic," the order was given
that they should be strangled before burning. If in the Protestant, or
in any other religion, death in the flames was decreed. At Lisbon the
place of execution, as has been said, was at the waterside. A thick
stake was erected for each person condemned, with a wide crosspiece
at the top against which a crosspiece was nailed to receive the tops
of two ladders. In the centre the victim was secured by a chain, with
a Jesuit priest on either side, seated on a ladder, who proceeded to
exhort him to repentance. If they failed they declared they left him
to the devil and the mob roared, "Let the dog's beard be trimmed," in
other words, "his face scorched." This was effected by applying an
ignited furze bush at the end of a long pole till his face was burned
and blackened. The record of the Portuguese Inquisition to 1794 shows a
total of one thousand, one hundred and seventy-five relaxed in person,
_i. e._ executed, six hundred and thirty-three relaxed in effigy, and
twenty-nine thousand, five hundred and ninety penanced.
The Portuguese were the first Europeans to trade with the Far East
and, after Vasco de Gama had discovered India, Albuquerque annexed and
occupied Goa, which might have become the seat and centre of the great
empire which fell at length into British hands.
Portugal sacrificed all power and prosperity to the extirpation of
heresy in its new possessions and was chiefly concerned in the
establishment of the Holy Office in India. The early Portuguese
settlers in the East clamoured loudly for the Inquisition; the Jesuit
fathers who were zealous in their propaganda in India declared that
the tribunal was most necessary in Goa, owing to the prevailing
licentiousness and the medley of all nations and superstitions. It
was accordingly established in 1560, and soon commenced its active
operations with terrific vigour. General baptisms were frequent in
this the ecclesiastical metropolis of India, and so were _autos da fé_
conducted with great pomp with many victims.
A light upon the proceedings of the Holy Office in Goa is afforded by
the story told by a French traveller, M. Dellon, who was arrested at
the instance of the Portuguese governor at Damaum, and imprisoned at
Goa in the private prison of the archbishop. "The most filthy," says
Dellon, "the darkest and most horrible of any I had ever seen.... It
is a kind of cave wherein there is no day seen but by a very little
hole. The most subtle rays of the sun cannot enter it and there is
never any true light in it. The stench is extreme...." M. Dellon
was dragged before the Board of the Holy Office, seated in the Holy
House, which is described as a great and magnificent building, "one
side of a great space before the church of St. Catherine." There were
three gates. The prisoners entered by the central or largest, and
ascending a stately flight of steps, reached the great hall. Behind the
principal building was another very spacious, two stories high
and consisting of a double row of cells. Those on the ground floor
were the smallest, due to the greater thickness of the walls, and
had no apertures for light or air. The upper cells were vaulted and
whitewashed, and each had a small strongly grated window without glass.
The cells had double doors, the outer of which was kept constantly
open, an indispensable plan in this climate or the occupant must have
died of suffocation.
[Illustration: _Peint par D. F. Laugée_
_Photogravure Goupil & C^{ie}._
_The Question_
One of the forms of torture before a tribunal of the Inquisition, used
in the examination of the accused. Lighted charcoal was placed under
the victim's feet, which were greased over with lard, so that the heat
of the fire might more quickly become effective.]
The régime was, to some extent, humane. Water for ablutions was
provided and for drinking purposes, food was given sparingly in three
daily meals, but was wholesome in quality. Physicians were at hand
to attend the sick and confessors to wait on the dying, but they
administered no unction, gave no viaticum, said no mass. If any died,
as many did, his death was unknown to all without. He was buried within
the walls with no sacred ceremony, and if it was decided that he had
died in heresy, his bones were exhumed to be burnt at the next act of
Faith. While alive he lived apart in all the strictness of the modern
solitary cell. Alone and silent, for the prisoner was forbidden to
speak, he was not allowed even to groan or sob or sigh aloud.
The Holy Office in Goa was worked on the same lines as that of Spain as
already described and by the same officers. There was the _Inquisidor
Mor_ or grand-inquisitor, a secular priest, a second or assistant
inquisitor, a Dominican monk, with many deputies; "qualifiers," to
examine books and writings; a fiscal and a procurator; notaries and
familiars. The authority of the tribunal was absolute in Goa except
that the great officials, archbishop and his grand-vicar, the viceroy
and the governor, could not be arrested without the sanction of the
supreme council in Lisbon. The procedure, the examination and use of
torture was exactly as in other places.
M. Dellon was taxed with having spoken ill of the Inquisition, and
was called upon to confess his sins, being constantly brought out and
again relegated to his cell and continually harassed to make him accuse
himself, until in a frenzy of despair he resolved to commit suicide
by refusing food. The physician bled him and treated him for fever,
but he tore off the bandages hoping to bleed to death. He was taken up
insensible, restored by cordials, and carried before the inquisitor,
where he lay on the floor and was assailed with bitter reproaches,
heavily ironed and sent back to languish in his cell in a wild access
of fury approaching madness.
At last the great day of the Act of Faith approached, and Dellon heard
on every side the agonised cries of both men and women. During the
night the alcaide and warders came into his cell with lights bringing
a suit of clothes, linen, best trousers, black striped with white. He
was marched to join a couple of hundred other penitents squatted on
the floor along the sides of a spacious gallery, all motionless but
in an agony of apprehension, for none knew his doom. A large company
of women were collected in a neighbouring chamber and a third lot in
_sanbenitos_, among whom the priests moved seeking confessions and if
made the boon of strangulation was conceded before "tasting the fire."
Shortly before sunrise the great bell of the Cathedral tolled and
roused the city into life. People filled the chief streets, lined the
thoroughfares and crowded into places whence they might best see the
procession. With daylight Dellon saw from the faces of his companions
that they were mostly Indians with but a dozen white men among them. M.
Dellon went barefoot with the rest over the loose flints of the badly
paved streets, and, at length, cut and bleeding, entered the church of
St. Francisco, for the ceremony could not be performed under the fierce
sky of this torrid climate. Dellon's punishment was confiscation of all
his property, and banishment from India, with five years' service in
the galleys of Portugal.
The rest of his sad adventures may be told briefly. He was brought
back to Lisbon and worked at the oar with other convicts for some
years, when at the intercession of friends in France the Portuguese
government consented to release him. There is no record that the French
authorities made any claim or reclamation for the ill-usage of a French
subject.
It was otherwise with their neighbours, the English, who even before
their power in India was established, would not suffer the Portuguese
authorities in Goa to ill-treat a person who could claim British
protection. A French Capuchin, named Father Ephrem, had visited Madras
when on his way to join the Catholic mission in Pegu. He was invited to
remain in Madras and was promised entire liberty with respect to his
religion, and permitted to minister to the Catholics already settled
in the factory. In the course of his preaching he laid down a dogma
offensive, as it was asserted, to the Mother of God, and information
thereof was laid with the inquisitors at Goa, who made their plans to
kidnap Father Ephrem and carry him off to Goa, some six hundred miles
distant from Madras. The plot succeeded and the French Capuchin was
lodged in the prison of the Holy Office at Goa. This was not to be
brooked by the English in Madras. An English ship forthwith proceeded
to Goa and a party of ten determined men, well-armed, landed and
appeared at the gates of the Inquisition and demanded admittance.
Leaving a couple of men on guard at the gate, the rest entered the gaol
and insisted at the point of the sword that Father Ephrem should be
forthwith surrendered to them. An order thus enforced was irresistible,
and the prisoner was released, taken down to the ship's boat,
reëmbarked and carried back in safety to Madras.
The aims of the Inquisition are no longer those of modern communities.
So widely has the idea of toleration extended, that we often forget
how recent it is. The relations of Church and State are so changed in
the last two centuries, that it is difficult to understand the times
of the Spanish Inquisition. Then it was universally believed that
orthodoxy in faith was intimately connected with loyalty to the state.
As a matter of fact, nearly all the earlier heretical movements were
also social or political revolts. It is, therefore, easy to see how
heresy and high treason came to appear identical.
Some of the inquisitors were corrupt, others were naturally cruel,
others, drunk with power, were more zealous in exerting that power
than they were in deciding between guilt and innocence. On the other
hand many were zealous because of their honesty. If a man believes
that he knows the only hope of salvation, it is perfectly logical
to compel another by force, if necessary, to follow that hope. Any
physical punishment is slight compared with the great reward which
reconciliation brings. On the other hand, if he is firm in his heresy,
he is as dangerous as a wild beast. We are more tolerant now, less
certain, perhaps, of our ground, but three or four hundred years ago
these points were a stern reality.
That many inquisitors were more concerned with the Church as an
institution than as a means of salvation is also true. They punished
disrespect to an officer or to a law more severely than they did
a doctrinal error, but that was, perhaps, inevitable. The Spanish
Inquisition, which, as has been said, was to some extent a state
affair, punished many for what we might call trifling offences, or,
indeed, no offence at all, but it was an intolerant age, in and out of
Spain.
The number punished has been grossly exaggerated, but it was enough to
injure Spain permanently, to crush out freedom of thought and action to
an unwarrantable extent. The historian must attribute much of Spain's
decadence to the work of the mistaken advocate of absolute uniformity.
CHAPTER VI
EARLY PRISONS AND PRISONERS
Slow development of Prison Reform in Spain--Description of the old
Saladero--George Borrow's account of his arrest and imprisonment
there--Balseiro's escape and subsequent escapades--He seizes the two
sons of a wealthy Basque and holds them for ransom--His capture and
execution--The _valientes_ or bullies--The cruelties they practised
upon their weaker fellow prisoners--Don Rafael Salillas' description
of the Seville prison.
The prisons in Spain have been generally divided into three categories:
First, the _depositos correcionales_, the _cárceles_ or common gaols,
one in the capital of each province, to which were sent accused persons
and all sentenced to two years or less; second, the _presidios_ of
the Peninsula for convicts between two years and eight years; and
third, the African penal settlements for terms beyond eight years.
The character and condition of the bulk of these places of durance
long continued most unsatisfactory. In 1888 in an official report, the
Minister of Grace and Justice said, "The present state of the Spanish
prisons is not enchanting. They are neither safe nor wholesome, nor
adapted to the ends in view." This criticism was fully borne out by
the result of a general inquiry instituted. It was found that of a
total of four hundred and fifty-six of the correctional prisons only
one hundred and sixty-six were really fit for the purpose intended and
the remainder were installed in any buildings available. Some were very
ancient, dating back to the 16th century; and had once been palaces,
religious houses, castles or fortresses.
Many of these buildings were ancient monuments which suffered much
injury from the ignoble rôle to which they were put. A protest was
published by a learned society of Madrid against the misuse of the
superb ex-convents of San Gregorio in Valladolid and San Isidro del
Campo near Seville, and the mutilation by its convict lodgers of the
very beautiful gateway of the Templo de la Piedad in Guadalajara. The
installation of the prison at Palma de Mallorca all but hopelessly
impaired the magnificent cloisters of the convent of San Francisco, a
thirteenth century architectural masterpiece, and a perfect specimen of
the ogival form, like nothing else in Spain. Within a short period of
ten years several of these interesting old buildings were ruined. The
entire convent prison at Coruña sank, causing many casualties, loss of
life and serious wounds.
Sometimes the authorities hired private dwellings to serve as prisons,
or laid hands on whatever they could find. At Granada a slice of the
Court House was used, a dark triangle to which air came only from the
interior yard. The prison of Allariz at Orense was on the ground floor
of a house in the street, having two windows looking directly on to
it, guarded by a grating with bars so far apart that a reasonably thin
man could slip through. One of the worst features of many of these
ancient prisons was their location in the very heart of the towns with
communication to the street. Friends gathered at the _rejas_ outside,
and the well known picture of flirtation at the prison window was
drawn from life. A common sight also was the outstretched hand of the
starving prisoner imploring alms from the charitable, for there was no
regular or sufficient supply of provisions within. Free access was also
possible when the domestic needs of the interior took the prisoners to
the public well in the street.
The Carmona gaol in Seville was for years half in ruins; no sunlight
reached any part of it with the exception of two of the yards; the
dungeons had no ventilation except by a hole in their doors; an open
sewer ran through the gaol, the floors were always wet, fleas abounded,
as also rats, beetles and cockroaches; cooking was done in one corner
of the exercising yard and clothes were washed in the other. The
removal of the gaol was ordered and plans for a new building prepared
in 1864, but they were pigeon-holed until 1883, then sent back to be
revised, and the project is still delayed. The Colmenar prison of
Malaga was always under water in heavy rain, and although simple
repairs would have rectified this, nothing was done. The prison of Leon
was condemned in 1878 as unfit for human habitation, and its alcalde
(governor) stated that it had been reported for a century or more that
it wanted light, air and sanitary arrangements; typhoid was endemic
and three alcaldes had died of zymotic disease in a few years. It
was generally denounced as "a poisonous pesthouse, a judicial burial
ground." The Totana prison of Murcia was not properly a prison, but
only a range of warehouses and shops fit for the storage of grain
and herbs, but wholly unsuitable to lodge human beings. The district
governor speaking of the Infiesto prison at Oviedo in 1853 wrote:
"Humanity shudders at the horrible aspect of this detestable place."
At Cartagena the common gaol was on the ground floor of the _presidio_
or convict prison. Here the innocent, still untried prisoners occupied
a dark, damp den, enduring torments of discomfort, speedily losing
health and strength, and exposed by its ruinous condition to the
extremes of heat and cold in the varying seasons. Females were lodged
on a lower floor, darker and closer and even exposed to the worst
temptations. The convicts of the _presidio_ had free access to their
prison and immorality could not be prevented; no amount of supervision
(and there was really none) could have checked the moral contamination
more easily conveyed than the physical. These painful facts may be
read in an official report dated October, 1877, and are practically the
same as those detailed in the famous indictment of John Howard just a
century earlier.[9]
[9] "Vida Penal en Espana," by Rafael Salillas, Madrid, 1888.
Many of the makeshift prisons mentioned above were located in the very
heart of towns and were without boundary walls or means of separation
from the public, and two hundred and sixty-four had windows giving upon
the streets. It was impossible to ensure safe custody so limited was
the supervision, so insecure and ruinous the state of these imperfect
prisons. Escapes had been of very frequent occurrence, but the total
number could not be stated owing to the absence of accurate records
from year to year. One authority gave the annual average of escapes
as thirty-four, ranging over five successive years. They were greatly
facilitated by the slack, slipshod system of discipline and the
careless guard kept at the gates through which crowds constantly passed
in and out. Friends admitted wholesale to visit prisoners brought in
disguises and easily helped them to evade the vigilance of warders and
keepers. Escapes were most numerous in the small gaols,--about three
to one when compared to those from the _presidios_,--and were often
effected on the way to gaol through the neglect or connivance of the
escort, especially when the journey was made on foot and officers in
charge willingly consented to linger on the road in order to enjoy
themselves in the taverns and drinking shops. They even allowed their
prisoners to pay lengthened visits to their own homes if situated
anywhere near.
A famous escape took place, _en masse_, in one of the prisons on the
occasion of a theatrical performance given by the prisoners in honour
of the governor's birthday. Permission had been duly accorded and the
function was organised on an imposing scale. The stage was erected in
an open space, scenery provided and a fine curtain or act drop behind
which the usual preparations were made. These had not gone beyond
rehearsal, however. All was ready to "ring up," the prison audience all
seated, enduring with increased impatience and dissatisfaction the long
wait which seemed and was actually endless. At last the authorities
interposed and the governor sent a messenger behind the curtain with
a peremptory order to begin. There was no company. Every single soul,
manager and actors had disappeared under cover of the curtain. A great
hole or gap had been made in the outer wall, through which all of the
performers had passed out to freedom.
Numerous as are the escapes, recaptures are also frequent. That fine
corps, the _guardias civiles_, which constitutes the rural police of
Spain, always so active in the prevention and suppression of crime, has
been highly successful in the pursuit of fugitives, few of whom remain
at large for any length of time. Travellers in Spain, especially in
the country districts, must have been struck with the fine appearance
of these stalwart champions of the law. They are all old soldiers, well
trained and disciplined, ever on the side of order, never mixing in
politics, and conspicuous for their loyalty to the existing régime.
The most disgraceful of the old prisons were in Madrid. The Saladero
which survived until very recently had been once an abattoir and
salting place of pigs. But it replaced one more ancient and even worse
in every aspect. The earlier construction is described by a Spanish
writer, Don Francisco Lastres, as the most meagre, the darkest,
dirtiest place imaginable. It had yet a deeper depth, an underground
dungeon, commonly called "el Infierno," hell itself, in which light was
so scarce that when new comers arrived, the old occupants could only
make out their faces by striking matches, manufactured from scraps of
linen steeped in grease saved from their soup or salad oil. When the
gaol was emptied it was so encrusted with abominable filth that to
clean it was out of the question and the whole place was swept bodily
out of existence.
This must have been the prison in which George Borrow was confined when
that enterprising Englishman was arrested for endeavouring to circulate
the Bible in Spain, as the agent and representative of the British
Bible Society in 1835 and the following years. His experiences as told
by himself constitute one of the most thrilling books of adventure in
the English language, and his strangely interesting personality will
long be remembered and admired. He had led a very varied life, had
wandered the world over as the friend and associate of those curious
people, the gipsies, whose "crabbed" language he spoke with fluency
and to whose ways and customs he readily conformed. Readers whom his
"Lavengro" and "The Romany Rye" have delighted will bear witness to the
daring and intrepid character which carried him safely through many
difficult and dangerous situations. He was a man of great stature, well
trained in the art of self defence, as he proved by his successful
contest with the "Flaming Tinker" described in "Lavengro." The bigoted
Spanish authorities caught a Tartar in Borrow. It was easy to arrest
him as he was nothing loth to go to gaol; he had long been thinking, as
he tells us, "of paying a visit to the prison, partly in the hope of
being able to say a few words of Christian instruction to the criminals
and partly with a view to making certain investigations in the robber
language of Spain." But, once in, he refused to come out. He took
high ground; his arrest had been unlawful; he had never been tried
or condemned and nothing would satisfy him but a full and complete
apology from the Spanish government. He was strongly backed up by the
British Ambassador and he was gratified in the end by the almost abject
surrender of the authorities. But he spent three weeks within the
walls and we have to thank his indomitable spirit for a glimpse into
the gloomy recesses of the Carcel de la Corte, the chief prison, at
that time, of the capital of Spain.
The arrest was made openly in one of the principal streets of Madrid by
a couple of _alguazils_ who carried their prisoner to the office of the
_corregidor_, or chief magistrate, where he was abruptly informed that
he was to be forthwith committed to gaol. He was led across the Plaza
Mayor, the great square so often the scene in times past of the _autos
da fé_. Borrow, as he went, cast his eyes at the balcony of the city
hall where, on one occasion, "the last of the Austrian line in Spain
(Philip II) sat, and, after some thirty heretics of both sexes had been
burnt by fours and fives, wiped his face perspiring with heat and black
with smoke and calmly inquired, '_No hay mas?_'" (No more to come?) for
which exemplary proof of patience he was much applauded by his priests
and confessors, who subsequently poisoned him.
"We arrived at the prison," Borrow goes on, "which stands in a narrow
street not far from the great square. We entered a dusty passage at
the end of which was a wicket. There was an exchange of words and in a
few moments I found myself within the prison of Madrid, in a kind of
corridor which overlooked at a considerable altitude what appeared to
be a court from which arose a hubbub of voices and occasional wild
shouts and cries...." Several people sat here, one of whom received the
warrant of committal, perused it with attention and, rising, advanced
towards Borrow.
"What a figure! He was about forty years of age and ... in height might
have been some six feet two inches had his body not been curved much
after the fashion of the letter S. No weasel ever appeared lanker;
his face might have been called handsome, had it not been for his
extraordinary and portentous meagreness; his nose was like an eagle's
bill, his teeth white as ivory, his eyes black (oh, how black!) and
fraught with a strange expression; his skin was dark and the hair
of his head like the plumage of a raven. A deep quiet smile dwelt
continually on his features, but with all the quiet it was a cruel
smile, such a one as would have graced the countenance of a Nero.
"'_Caballero_,' he said, 'allow me to introduce myself as the alcaide
of this prison.... I am to have the honour of your company for a time,
a short time doubtless, beneath this roof; I hope you will banish
every apprehension from your mind. I am charged to treat you with all
respect, a needless charge and _Caballero_, you will rather consider
yourself here as a guest than as a prisoner. Pray issue whatever
commands you may think fit to the turnkeys and officials as if they
were your own servants. I will now conduct you to your apartment. We
invariably reserve it for cavaliers of distinction. No charge will be
made for it although the daily hire is not unfrequently an ounce of
gold.'
"This speech was delivered in pure sonorous Castilian with calmness,
gravity and almost dignity and would have done honour to a gentleman
of high birth. Now, who in the name of wonder, was this alcaide? One
of the greatest rascals in all Spain. A fellow who more than once by
his grasping cupidity and his curtailment of the miserable rations of
the prisoners caused an insurrection in the court below only to be
repressed by bloodshed and the summoning of military aid; a fellow of
low birth who five years previously had been a drummer to a band of
Royalist volunteers."
The room allotted to Borrow was large and lofty, but totally destitute
of any kind of furniture except a huge wooden pitcher containing
the day's allowance of water. But no objection was made to Borrow's
providing for himself and a messenger was forthwith despatched to his
lodgings to fetch bed and bedding and all necessaries, with which
came a supply of food, and the new prisoner soon made himself fairly
comfortable. He ate heartily, slept soundly and rejoiced next day to
hear that this illegal arrest and confinement of a British subject
was already causing the high-handed minister who had ordered it, much
uneasiness and embarrassment. Borrow steadfastly refused to go free
without full and ample reparation for the violence and injustice
done to him. "Take notice," he declared, "that I will not quit this
prison till I have received full satisfaction for having been sent
hither uncondemned. You may expel me if you please, but any attempt
to do so shall be resisted with all the bodily strength of which I am
possessed." In the end the _amende_ was made in an official document
admitting that he had been imprisoned on insufficient grounds, and
Borrow went out after three weeks' incarceration, during which he
learned much concerning the prison and the people it contained.
He refrains from a particular description of the place. "It would
be impossible," he says, "to describe so irregular and rambling an
edifice. Its principal features consisted of two courts, the one
behind the other, in which the great body of the prisoners took air
and recreation. Three large vaulted dungeons or _calabozos_ occupied
the three sides of the (first) court ... roomy enough to contain
respectively from one hundred to one hundred and fifty prisoners who
were at night secured with lock and bar, but during the day were
permitted to roam about the courts as they thought fit. The second
court was considerably larger than the first, though it contained but
two dungeons, horribly filthy and disgusting, used for the reception of
the lower grades of thieves. Of the two dungeons one was if possible
yet more horrible than the other. It was called the _gallinería_ or
'chicken coop' because within it every night were pent up the young
fry of the prison, wretched boys from seven to fifteen years of age,
the greater part almost in a state of nudity. The common bed of all
the inmates of these dungeons was the ground, between which and their
bodies nothing intervened save occasionally a _manta_ or horse cloth or
perhaps a small mattress; this latter luxury was however of exceedingly
rare occurrence.
"Besides the _calabozos_ connected with the courts were other dungeons
in various parts of the prison, some of them quite dark, intended for
the reception of those whom it might be deemed expedient to treat with
peculiar severity. There was likewise a ward set apart for females.
Connected with the principal corridor were many small apartments where
resided prisoners confined for debt or for political offences, and,
lastly, there was a small _capilla_ or chapel in which prisoners cast
for death passed the last three days of their existence in the company
of their ghostly advisers.
"I shall not forget my first Sunday in prison. Sunday is the gala
day ... and whatever robber finery is to be found in it is sure to
be exhibited on that day of holiness. There is not a set of people
in the world more vain than robbers in general, more fond of cutting
a figure whenever they have an opportunity. The famous Jack Sheppard
delighted in sporting a suit of Genoese velvet and when he appeared in
public generally wore a silver hilted sword by his side.... Many of the
Italian bandits go splendidly decorated, the cap alone of the Haram
Pacha, the head of the cannibal gipsy band which infested Hungary at
the conclusion of the 18th century, was adorned with gold and jewels to
the value of several thousand guilders.... The Spanish robbers are as
fond of display as their brethren of other lands, and whether in prison
or out are never so happy as when decked out in a profusion of white
linen in which they can loll in the sun or walk jauntily up and down."
To this day, snow-white linen is an especial mark of foppery in the
Spanish peasant. To put on a clean shirt is considered a sufficient
and satisfactory substitute for a bath and in the humblest house a
white table cloth is provided for meals and clean sheets for the
beds. Borrow gives a graphic picture of the "tip-top thieves" he came
across. "Neither coat nor jacket was worn over the shirt, the sleeves
of which were wide and flowing, only a waistcoat of green or blue silk
with an abundance of silver buttons which are intended more for show
than use, as the waistcoat is seldom buttoned. Then there are wide
trousers something after the Turkish fashion; around the waist is a
crimson _faja_ or girdle and about the head is tied a gaudily coloured
handkerchief from the loom of Barcelona. Light pumps and silk stockings
complete the robber's array.
"Amongst those who particularly attracted my attention were a father
and son; the former a tall athletic figure, of about thirty, by
profession a housebreaker and celebrated through Madrid for the
peculiar dexterity he exhibited in his calling. He was in prison for
an atrocious murder committed in the dead of night in a house in
Carabanchel (a suburb of Madrid), in which his only accomplice was his
son, a child under seven years of age. The imp was in every respect the
counterpart of his father though in miniature. He too wore the robber
shirt sleeves, the robber waistcoat with the silver buttons, the robber
kerchief round his brow and, ridiculously enough, a long Manchegan
knife in the crimson faja. He was evidently the pride of the ruffian
father who took all imaginable care of him, would dandle him on his
knee, and would occasionally take the cigar from his own mustachioed
lips and insert it in the urchin's mouth. The boy was the pet of the
court, for the father was one of the 'bullies' of the prison and those
who feared his prowess and wished to pay their court to him were always
fondling the child."
Borrow when in the "Carcel de la Corte" renewed his acquaintance with
one, Balseiro, whom he had met in a low tavern frequented by thieves
and bull fighters on a previous visit to Madrid. One of these, Sevilla
by name, professed deep admiration for the Englishman and backed him to
know more than most people of the "crabbed" Gitano language. A match
was made with this Balseiro who claimed to have been in prison half
his life and to be on most intimate terms with the gipsies. When Borrow
came across him for the second time he was confined in an upper story
of the prison in a strong room with other malefactors. There was no
mistaking this champion criminal with his small, slight, active figure
and his handsome features, "but they were those of a demon." He had
recently been found guilty of aiding and abetting a celebrated thief,
Pepe Candelas, in a desperate robbery perpetrated in open daylight on
no less a person than the Queen's milliner, a Frenchwoman, whom they
bound in her own shop, from which they took goods to the amount of five
or six thousand dollars. Candelas had already suffered for his crime,
but Balseiro, whose reputation was the worse of the two, had saved his
life by the plentiful use of money, and the capital sentence had in his
case been commuted to twenty years' hard labour in the _presidio_ of
Malaga.
When Borrow condoled with him, Balseiro laughed it off, saying that
within a few weeks he would be transferred and could at any time escape
by bribing his guards. But he was not content to wait and joined with
several fellow convicts who succeeded in breaking through the roof of
the prison and getting away. He returned forthwith to his evil courses
and soon committed a number of fresh and very daring robberies in and
around Madrid. At length dissatisfied with the meagre results and the
smallness of the plunder he secured, Balseiro planned a great stroke
to provide himself with sufficient funds to leave the country and live
elsewhere in luxurious idleness.
A Basque named Gabira, a man of great wealth, held the post of
comptroller of the Queen's household. He had two sons, handsome boys
of twelve and fourteen years of age respectively, who were being
educated at a school in Madrid. Balseiro, well aware of the father's
strong affection for his children, resolved to make it subservient
to his rapacity. He planned to carry off the boys and hold them for
ransom at an enormous price. Two of his confederates, well-dressed and
of respectable appearance, drove up to the school and presenting a
forged letter, purporting to be written by the father, persuaded the
schoolmaster to let them go out for a jaunt in the country. They were
carried off to a hiding place of Balseiro's in a cave some five miles
from Madrid in a wild unfrequented spot between the Escorial and the
village of Torre Lodones. Here the two children were sequestered in
the safekeeping of their captors, while Balseiro remained in Madrid to
conduct negotiations with the bereaved father. But Gabira was a man
of great energy and determination and altogether declined to agree to
the terms proposed. He invoked the power of the authorities instead,
and, at his request, parties of horse and foot soldiers were sent to
scour the country and the cave was soon discovered, with the children,
who had been deserted by their guards in terror at the news of the
rigorous search instituted. Further search secured the capture of the
accomplices and they were identified by their young victims. Balseiro,
when his part in the plot became known, fled from the capital but was
speedily caught, tried, and with his associates suffered death on the
scaffold. Gabira with his two children was present at the execution.
A brief description of the old Saladero, which has at last disappeared
off the face of the earth, may be of interest. It stood at the top
of the Santa Barbara hill on the left hand side, in external aspect
a half-ruined edifice tottering to its fall, propped and buttressed,
at one corner quite past mending, at another showing rotten cement
and plaster with its aged weather-worn walls stained with great black
patches of moisture and decay. A poor and wretched place outside with
no architectural pretensions, its interior was infinitely worse. It
was entered by a wide entrance not unlike that of an ancient country
inn or hostelry with a broken-down wooden staircase, leading to a
battered doorway of rotten timbers. The portals passed, the prison
itself was reached, a series of underground cellars with vaulted roofs
purposely constructed, as it seemed, to exclude light and prevent
ventilation, permeated constantly with fetid odours and abominable
foul exhalations from the perpetual want of change of atmosphere or
circulation of fresh air. Yet human beings were left to rot in these
nauseous and pestiferous holes for two or three years continuously. At
times the detention lasted five years on account of the disgracefully
slow procedure in the law courts and this although trials often ended
in acquittal or a verdict of non-responsibility for the criminal
act charged. Many of the unfortunate wretches subjected to these
interminable delays and waiting judgment, therefore still innocent in
the eyes of the law, were yet herded with those already convicted of
the most heinous offences.
This neglect of the rules, generally accepted as binding upon civilised
governments in the treatment of those whom the law lays by the heels,
produced deplorable results. The gaol fever, that ancient scourge which
once ravaged ill-kept prisons and swept away thousands, but long ago
eliminated from proper places of durance, survived in the Saladero
of Madrid until quite a recent date. Forty cases occurred as late as
1876 and zymotic disease was endemic in the prison. It was also a
hotbed of vice, where indiscriminate association of all categories,
good, bad and indifferent--the worst always in the ascendent, fostered
and developed criminal instincts and multiplied criminals of the
most daring and accomplished kind. When, with a storm of indignant
eloquence, an eminent Spanish deputy, Don Manuel Silvela, denounced
the Saladero in the Cortes and took the lead in insisting upon its
demolition, he pointed out its many shortcomings. It was in the last
degree unhealthy; it was nearly useless as a place of detention, for
the bold or ingenious prisoner laughed at its restraints and escapes
took place daily to the number of fourteen and sixteen at a time. If,
however, with increased precautions it was possible to keep prisoners
secure within the walls, nothing could save them from one another.
Contamination was widespread and unceasing in a mass of men left
entirely to themselves without regular occupation, without industrial
labour or improving education and with no outlet for their energies but
demoralising talk and vicious practices. Not strangely the Saladero
became a great criminal centre, a workshop and manufactory of false
money, where strange frauds were devised, such as the _entierro_[10] or
suggested revelation of hidden treasure, the well known Spanish swindle
which has had ramifications almost all over the world.
[10] See _post_, p. 161.
An independent witness, nevertheless, speaking from experience, the
same George Borrow already quoted, has a good word to say for the
inmates of Spanish gaols. He was greatly surprised at their orderly
conduct and quiet demeanour. "They had their occasional bursts of
wild gaiety; their occasional quarrels which they were in the habit
of settling in a corner of the interior court with their long knives,
the result not infrequently being death or a dreadful gash in the face
or abdomen; but upon the whole their conduct was infinitely superior
to what might have been expected from the inmates of such a place.
Yet this was not the result of coercion or any particular care which
was exercised over them; for perhaps in no part of the world are
prisoners so left to themselves and so utterly neglected as in Spain,
the authorities having no further anxiety about them than to prevent
their escape, not the slightest attention being paid to their moral
conduct,--not a thought bestowed on their health, comfort or mental
improvement whilst within the walls. Yet in this prison of Madrid, and
I may say in Spanish prisons in general (for I have been an inmate
of more than one), the ears of the visitor are never shocked with
horrid blasphemy and obscenity as in those of some other countries and
more particularly in civilised France, nor are his eyes outraged or
himself insulted as he would assuredly be were he to look down upon the
courts from the galleries of the Bicêtre (in Paris)." And yet in this
prison of Madrid were some of the most desperate characters in Spain;
ruffians who had committed acts of cruelty and atrocity sufficient to
make one shudder with horror. Gravity and sedateness are the leading
characteristics of the Spaniards, and the worst robber, except in those
moments when he is engaged in his occupation, (and then no one is
more sanguinary, pitiless and wolfishly eager for booty), is a being
who can be courteous and affable and who takes pleasure in conducting
himself with sobriety and decorum. Borrow thought so well of these
fellow-prisoners that he was willing to entertain them at dinner in his
own private apartment in the gaol, and the governor made no objection
to knocking off their irons temporarily so that they might enjoy the
meal in comfort and convenience.
A more intimate acquaintance with the inner life of the Spanish
gaols has been accorded by a modern writer, Don Rafael Salillas. He
summarises all its evils in the single word "money." All disorders
and shortcomings, the corruption, the absence of discipline, the
cruelties perpetrated, the prevailing license, the shameful immorality
constantly winked at or openly permitted, have had one and the same
origin, the use and misuse of the private funds the prisoners have at
their disposal. Until quite a recent date, everything, even temporary
liberty, had its price in Spanish prisons. This vicious system dated
from the times when the "alcaide" or head of an establishment, the
primary purpose of which was the safe custody of offenders, bought
his place and was permitted to recoup himself as best he could out
of his charges. The same abominable practice was at one time almost
a world-wide practice, but nowhere has it flourished so largely as
in Spain. No attempt was made to check it; it was acknowledged and
practically deemed lawful.
In an ancient work on the prison of Seville, dating from the sixteenth
century, the writer, Christobal de Chaves, classifies the interior
under three heads; the spaces entered respectively by three doors
of gold, silver or copper, each metal corresponding to the profits
drawn from each. Imprisonment might be made more tolerable by payment
regulated according to a fixed tariff. For a certain sum any prisoner
might go home to sleep, he might purchase food where little, if any,
was provided, he might escape fetters or purchase "easement of irons,"
as in the old English prisons. To enhance the value of the relief
afforded worse hardships were inflicted at the outset. Restraint was
made most irksome in the beginning of imprisonment. The fetters were
then the heaviest and most varied, the deepest and vilest dungeons were
the first quarters allotted. A plain hint of relaxation and alleviation
was given, to be obtained at a price and the converse made equally
certain. Increased pain and discomfort were the penalty for those who
would not, or, worse still, who could not produce the extortionate sums
demanded. Tasks imposed were rendered more difficult; it was a common
practice to oil or grease the rope by which water was raised from a
well, so that it should slip through the fingers and intensify the
labour.
When authority had sold its good will or wrung the life blood from its
victims they were handed over to the tender mercies of their fellow
prisoners, the self-constituted masters and irresponsible tyrants in
the place. The most brutal and overbearing ruled supreme within the
walls and levied taxes by the right of the strongest. The "garnish" of
the old British prisons, the enforced payments to gain a first footing,
was exacted to the last in Spain from all new arrivals and was called
"_cobrar el patente_," _i. e._ collecting the dues. To hesitate or
refuse payment was promptly punished by cruel blows; the defaulters
were flogged; they got the _culebrazo_ (whipping) with a rope kept for
the purpose. The quite penniless were despoiled of their clothing and
consoled with the remark that it was better for them to take to their
beds because they were naked, than on account of injuries and wounds,
or they wrapped themselves up in some ragged cloak infested with fleas.
The bullies or _valientes_ were not interfered with by the authorities
but rather supported by them. In fact they played into each other's
hands. Both worked their wicked will upon their victims and in their
own way,--the authorities by right of the legal powers they wielded,
the master-prisoners by force of character and the strength of their
muscles. Both squeezed out money like juice from a lemon, robbed,
swindled or stole all that came in their way.
Guzman de Alfarache, the typical thief of the time of Philip II, whose
life and adventures are told by the author of the most famous of the
picaresque novels, describes his journey from Seville to Cadiz to
embark upon one of the galleys which made up the naval power of Spain.
"As we started on the road, we came upon a swine-herd with a number of
young pigs, which we surrounded and captured, each of us taking one.
The man howled to our commissary that he should make us restore them,
but he turned a deaf ear and we stuck to our plunder. At the first
halt we laid hands on other goods and concealed them inside one of the
pigs when the commissary interposed, discovered the things and took
possession of them himself."
The alcaide of the prison turned everything to profit. He sold the
Government stores, bedding and clothing to the prison bullies who
retailed the pieces to individual prisoners. He trafficked in the
disciplinary processes, accepting bribes to overlook misconduct, and
pandered to the worst vices of the inmates by allowing visitors of
both sexes to have free access to them and to bring in all manner of
prohibited articles, unlimited drink, and dangerous weapons, knives and
daggers and other arms for use in attack and defence in the quarrels
and murderous conflicts continually occurring.
A fruitful source of profit was the sale of privileged offices, permits
to hawk goods and to trade within the precincts of the prison. Salillas
when he visited the Seville prison not many years ago, saw numbers of
prisoners selling cigars and cigarettes in the yards, various articles
of food, such as _gazpacho_, the popular salad of Andalusia, compounded
of oil and bread soaked in water, and drinks including _aguardiente_,
that powerful Spanish spirit akin to Hollands. Some kept gaming tables
and paid a tax on each game and its profits and especially when the
"King" was turned up at "Monte."
Salillas publishes a list of prices that ruled for places, privileges
and boons conceded to the prisoners. To become a "_cabo de vara_," a
"corporal carrying the stick" or wand of office, cost from eight to
sixteen dollars. "Who and what was the _Cabo de Vara_?" he asks and
answers the question. "A hybrid creature the offspring of such diverse
parents as the law and crime; half murderer, half robber, who after
living in defiance of the law is at least prevented from doing further
harm in freedom, is locked up and entrusted with executive authority
over companions who have passed through the same evil conditions and
are now at his mercy. He is half galley-slave chained to the oar, half
public functionary wearing the badge of officialdom and armed with a
stick to enforce his authority. He represents two very opposite sets of
ideas; on the one hand that of good order and the maintenance of penal
discipline, on the other that of a natural inclination towards the
wrong doing in which he has been a practitioner and for which he is, in
a way, enduring the penalty. To succeed he must possess some strongly
marked personal qualities; he should be able to bully and impose his
will upon those subjected to his influence, overbearing, masterful,
swaggering, ready to take the law into his own hands and insist upon
its observance as he chooses to interpret its dictates."
The post of hospital orderly or cook or laundry-man could be secured
for about the same price, while a small fee to the prison surgeon
gained a perfectly sound man admission to hospital for treatment he
did not need, but in which he was much more comfortable than in the
ordinary prison. The place of prison barber was to be bought for
four dollars; employment as a shoemaker two dollars; relief from a
punishment ordered three dollars; permission to pay a visit home, four
dollars. These prices were not definitely settled and unchangeable.
Where a certain profit could be extracted from a particular post such
as the charge of the canteen it was put up to auction and knocked down
to the highest bidder.
CHAPTER VII
PRESIDIOS AT HOME AND ABROAD
The presidio or convict prison--Stations at home and in
Northern Africa--Convict labour--Cruelties inflicted on the
presidiarios employed in road making--Severity of the régime at
Valladolid--Evils of overcrowding--Ceuta--Its fortifications--Early
history--The _entierro_ or "Spanish swindle"--Several interesting
instances--Monsignor X--Armand Carron--M. Elked--Credulity of the
victims--Boldness of the swindlers--Attempt to dupe a Yorkshire
squire--Discovery of the fraud.
The Spanish "presidios" or penal establishments for offenders sentenced
to long terms are the counterpart of the English convict prisons.
They are of two classes, those at home in provincial capitals or in
fortresses and strongholds, and those abroad installed in North Africa,
as the alternative or substitute for the penal colonies beyond the
sea established by Italy and France. Home presidios are at Burgos,
Cartagena, Granada, Ocana, Santona, Valladolid and Saragossa. There are
two at Valencia, one at Tarragona and two more at Alcalá de Henares.
Of the foregoing that of Cartagena was especially constructed to meet
the needs of the arsenal and dockyard and is spoken of as deplorably
deficient by those who visited it. Four hundred convicts were
lodged miserably in one dormitory; their bedding consisted of a rough
mattress and one brown rug; clothing was issued only every two years;
the dietaries were supplied by a thievish contractor who supplied
a soup consisting of beans boiled in water, abstracting the ration
of oil and bacon. A presidio of ancient date was installed in the
arsenal of La Carraca near Cadiz, a survival really of the _galera_ or
galleys planted on shore when human motive power ceased to be used in
propelling warships.
[Illustration: _Castel dell' Ovo_
Situated on a high rocky island near the shore of Naples, it was a
place of great security. A number of the islands in the bay of Naples
have been utilised as prisons and as penal settlements.]
A terrible story is preserved of the cruelties inflicted on a number
of these _presidiarios_ employed to make the road between San Lucar de
Barrameda and Puerto Santa Maria. Their labour was leased to an inhuman
contractor who worked them literally to death. They were half-starved,
over-burthened with chains and continually flogged so that within one
year half their whole number of one thousand had disappeared; they had
died "of privation, of blows, hunger, cold, insufficient clothing and
continuous neglect." The contractor cleared a large profit, but lost it
and died in extreme poverty after having been arraigned and tried for
his life as a murderer.
The presidio of Valladolid was also condemned for the severity of
its régime. The climate alternated between great summer heat and
extreme cold in winter, but the convicts worked in the quarries in
all weathers. The death record rose in this prison to such a high
figure that a third of the average total population of three thousand
perished within eighteen months. The general average of the presidios
was low but as a rule the death rate was not high. Even when twenty
per cent. of males and twenty-five per cent. of the females were sick
and hospital accommodation was scarce and imperfect, the deaths did
not exceed two and a half per cent. per annum and this included the
fatal results of quarrels ending in duels to the death. One of the
most serious evils was overcrowding. Official figures give the prison
population as about nineteen thousand and the available house-room was
for not more than twelve thousand. Salillas puts it at a much lower
total, asserting there was barely room for three thousand.
While the prisons of Cuba are not strictly within the scope of this
work, one of historic and particular interest may be mentioned. This is
Morro Castle, which still guards the Harbour of Havana. It was begun
in 1589, soon after the unsuccessful attack on Havana by Drake, and
was finished in 1597. In 1862 it was partly destroyed by the English
who captured it and remained in possession of the city for a year. The
arms of the city, granted by royal decree, were appropriately three
castles of silver on a blue field, and a golden key. The castles were
La Fuerza, El Morro and La Punta, guarding the harbour.
The ancient fortress has been described as a "great mass of dun
coloured rock and tower and battlement and steep, of which the various
parts seem to have grown into one another." It contains cells as
damp, dark and unwholesome as those in the notorious dungeons of the
old world. This is testified to by a California journalist, Charles
Michelson, who was arrested by mistake and thrown into a cell in the
castle just before the Spanish-American War. Although he was liberated
in two days, his experience was not soon forgotten. The cell was an
arch of heavy masonry, damp with the moisture of years. The only window
was high up in the arch, and there was no furniture--no bed, blanket or
chair. He was not without company of a kind, however, for the place was
full of cockroaches and rats. When he clambered up and tried to look
out of the window, which commands a fine view of the harbour, a guard
outside poked at him with a bayonet. The soup brought him was, he said,
"strong and scummy, and the can had been so recently emptied of its
original contents that there was a film of oil over the top of it." His
interpreter, who was arrested at the same time, fared worse, for he was
bound and kept in even a fouler cell.
In the days of Spanish sovereignty, many Cuban prisoners were shot
and their bodies were hurled from the outer wall of the castle to the
sharks of the so-called "shark's nest," forty feet below, on the gulf
side.
There are said to be many caverns in the castle through which the rush
and noise of the waves make music, but this is probably due to the
winds rather than the tides.
Spain maintains several presidios beyond sea, chiefly on the North
African coast, and there is one also at Palma de Mallorca, one of
the Balearic islands. Those in Africa are Alhucemas, Melilla, Peñon
de Velez de la Gomera, Chaferinas and Ceuta, immediately opposite
Gibraltar, which is no doubt the first and original of all Spanish
presidios. The expression when first used was taken to convey the
meaning of a penal settlement, established within a fortress under
military rule and guardianship, with its personnel constantly employed
on the fortifications, constructing, repairing and making good wear
and tear, and answering, if need be, the call to arms in reinforcement
of the regular garrison. The early records of Ceuta prove this. This
stronghold, on one side rising out of the sea, with its landward
defences ever confronting a fierce hostile power, was exposed at all
times to siege and incursion. When the Moorish warriors became too
bold the Spanish general sallied forth to beat up their quarters,
destroy their batteries and drive them back into the mountains. Working
parties of _presidiarios_, armed, accompanied the troops and did
excellent service, eager, as the old chronicler puts it, to clear their
characters by their heroism, "always supposing that blood may wash out
crime."
Ceuta was a type of the military colony beyond sea, held by a strong
garrison against warlike natives who resisted the invasion and would
have driven out the intruders. The settlement was secured by continual
fortification in which the abundant penal labour was constantly
employed. Its social conditions were precisely similar to those which
obtained in the early days of Australian transportation and such
as prevail to-day in the French penal colony of New Caledonia. The
population is made up of two principal classes, bond and free. The
first are convicts serving their sentences and the second the officials
who guard them. Ordinary colonists have not settled to any large extent
in these North African possessions. A few traders and agriculturists
have come seeking such fortune as offers and the number of residents is
increased by released convicts, the counterpart of the emancipist class
in the Antipodes, who remain with the prospect of earning a livelihood
honestly, instead of lapsing into evil courses on their return to the
mother country.
Ceuta is essentially a convict city, not exactly founded by penal
labour but enlarged and improved by it and served by it in all the
needs of daily domestic life. The first period of close confinement
on arrival is comparatively brief and is spent in the prison proper
outside the city at hard labour in association on the fortifications,
in the workshops and quarries. In the second period the convicts
are permitted to enter the city and are employed under supervision
in warehouses, offices and in water carrying. In the third period,
commonly called from "gun to gun," extending daily from the morning
gun fire until the evening, the convicts are allowed to go freely into
the city and work there on their own account. The fourth and last,
entered when two thirds of the whole sentence has been completed, is
called "under conditions," that is to say, in conditional freedom, and
the convicts are let out to private employers precisely as they were
"assigned" in old Australian days. They may live with their masters,
sleep out, and are only obliged to report at the prison once a month
for muster. More than a third of the total number are thus employed.
The result is that Ceuta offers the singular spectacle that it is
nominally a prison, but the bulk of the prisoners live beyond the
walls, quite unguarded and really in the streets forming part of the
ordinary population. Convicts are to be met with at every corner, they
go in and out through the front doors of houses, no one looks at them
in surprise, no one draws aside to let them pass. The situation is
described graphically by Salillas. "Who is the coachman on the box? A
convict. Who is the man who waits at table? A convict. The cook in the
kitchen? A convict. The nursemaid in charge of the children? A convict
(male). Are their employers afraid of being robbed or murdered? Not in
the least."
Another eye witness[11] writes:--
[11] Relosillas, "Four Months in Ceuta."
"Could this happen in any other city in Spain? If the inhabitants found
themselves rubbing shoulders with the scum of the earth, with the worst
malefactors, with criminals guilty of the most heinous offences, would
they have enjoyed one moment's peace? Could they overcome the natural
repugnance felt by honest and respectable people for those whom the law
has condemned to live apart? The fact is that at Ceuta no one objects.
The existing state of things is deemed the most natural thing in the
world. It has been too long the rule and it is claimed seriously that
no evil consequences have resulted. The utmost confidence is reposed
in these ex-criminals whose nature has been seemingly quite changed
by relegation to the African presidio. They wash and get up linen
without losing more pieces than a first class washerwoman, they wait
on the children with the tenderest concern, they perform all sorts of
household service, go to market, run messages, polish the floors and
the furniture with all the zeal and industry of the best servants in
the world. The most cordial relations exist between employers and their
convict attendants and cases have been known where the former have
carried the latter back to Spain to continue their service. One was a
Chinese cook who was excused ten years' supervision to go back with his
master."
It is claimed by the champions of Ceuta that despite the freedom
accorded to the convicts their conduct is exemplary. "I can certify,"
says Relosillas[12] "that during a whole year there were but three
or four instances of crime amongst the convicts employed in domestic
service." Others however are not so laudatory. An independent witness,
Doña Concepcion Arenal, has little good to say of the prisons. "In
them justice is punished or rather crucified," she wrote, "and with
it hygiene, morality, decency, humanity, all, in a word, which every
one who is not himself hateful and contemptible, respects. It is
impossible to give any idea of the _cuartel principal_ or chief convict
barrack in the place. We can only refer to its terrible and revolting
demoralisation." Yet she is inclined to contradict herself and argues
that the convict when trusted will behave well. His life on the whole
is light and easy; he has sufficient food, congenial company, and can
better his position by steady industry; he wears no chains, performs no
rude or laborious tasks and is driven neither into insubordination nor
crime.
[12] "Four Months in Ceuta."
The statements just quoted are hardly credible and cannot be reconciled
with the reports of others, from personal experience. Mr. Cook, an
English evangelist, who has devoted himself to extensive prison
visitation, has drawn a dark picture of this ideal penal settlement as
he saw it in 1892. At that date general idleness was the rule. Hundreds
hung about with no work to do. Criminals with the worst antecedents
were included in the prison population. One had been a _bandido_ or
brigand who had been guilty of seven murders; another had four murders
to his credit and one assassin was in a totally dark cell, confined
hand and foot, condemned to death and daily expecting to be shot. No
fewer than one hundred and twelve slept in one large room without
more supervision than that exercised by their fellows discharging the
functions of warders. Mr. Cook expresses his wonder that they did not
break out oftener into rebellion. As a matter of fact and as against
the statement given above, outbreaks were not uncommon with fierce
attacks upon officers and murderous affrays among the prisoners. Crime
and misconduct are certainly not unknown in Ceuta.
A gruesome description was given by a correspondent writing to the
_London Times_ in the year 1876. When he visited the citadel prison he
found from eight hundred to one thousand convicts lodged there in a
wretched condition, clad only in tattered rags, the cast off uniforms
of soldiers, generally insufficient for decency. They tottered in and
out of the ruinous sheds supposed to shelter them, quarrelled like
hyenas over their meagre and repulsive rations, which were always short
through the dishonesty of the thieving contractor, and fought to the
death with the knives which every one carried. Each shed contained
from one to two hundred where they lay like beasts upon the ground.
Vermin crept up the wall and dirt abounded on all sides. "No words of
mine," said this outspoken eye-witness, "can paint the darkness, the
filth, the seething corruption of these dens of convicts, dens into
which no streak of sunlight, divine or human, ever finds its way, and
where nothing is seen or heard but outrage and cruelty on the one hand,
misery and starvation and obscenity on the other." There was a worse
place, the "Presidio del Campo," or field prison in which the hard
labour gangs[13] employed on the fortifications were housed in still
filthier hovels, with less food and more demoralisation. This same
correspondent when he enquired his way to the presidio was told by a
Spanish officer: "They are not presidios but the haunts of wild beasts
and nurseries of thieves." Obviously there is much discrepancy in the
various accounts published.
[13] Irons are not carried by the convicts, not even by those sentenced
to imprisonment "in chains," _con la cadena_. They were considered an
interference with the efforts and strength of the labourer.
The true state of the case may best be judged by examining and setting
forth the conditions prevailing. On the surface the convicts may seem
to abstain from serious misconduct, but even this may be doubted from
the facts in evidence. "It is a wild beasts' cage," writes one well
informed authority. It may be to some extent a cage without bars, or
in which the wild beasts are so tamed that they may be allowed to go
at large and do but little harm, but evil instincts are at times in
the ascendancy as shown in the quarrels and disorders that occur, but
to no greater extent says the apologist than in any of the prisons on
the Spanish mainland. It may be that the régime is so mild that the
convicts yield willingly to it without a murmur and seldom rise against
it. But the very atmosphere of the place is criminal. There may be few
prison offences where rules are easy but if serious offences against
discipline are but rarely committed within the limits, others against
society are constantly prepared for execution beyond. Ceuta is a hot
bed of crime, the seed is sown there, nourished and developed to bear
baleful fruit afterwards. It is a first class school for the education
of thieves, swindlers, coiners, and forgers who graduate and take
honours in the open world of evil doing. It is the original home, some
say, of the famous fraud, peculiarly Spanish, called the _entierro_,
which still flourishes and draws profit as ever, not from Spain alone,
but from far and wide in nearly all civilised countries.
The _entierro_, or the "burial" literally translated, means an artful
and specious proposal to reveal the whereabouts of a buried treasure.
It is another form of the well known "confidence trick" or, as the
French call it, the "_vol à l'americaine_," and we cannot but admire
the ingenuity and inventiveness so often displayed in its practice,
while expressing surprise at the credulity and gullibility of those
who are deluded by it. It originates as a rule in a letter addressed
from the prison to some prominent person in Spain or elsewhere, for the
astute practitioner is well provided with lists of names likely to be
useful to him in his business. It is on record that a seizure was made
in the presidio of Granada of a whole stock in trade, a great mass of
information secretly collected from all parts of the world to serve in
carrying out the fraud of the _entierro_, and with it a number of forms
of letters in various European languages. The invitation is marked
"very private and confidential" and conveys with extreme caution and
mystery the suggestion that for a sufficient consideration the secret
hiding place of a very valuable treasure will be confided to the person
addressed. Colour is given to the proposal by some plausible but not
always probable story on which it is based.
In one case the writer pretended to be a Spanish officer who had
received from the hands of Napoleon III himself, when flying to England
in September, 1870, a casket of jewels which he was charged to convey
to the Countess of Montijo, mother of the Empress Eugenie, in Madrid.
The messenger had however become involved in a Carlist or revolutionary
movement and was now in prison, but he had succeeded before arrest
in burying the jewels in a remote spot so cleverly concealed that he
alone possessed the secret. The liberal offer was made to the person
addressed of a fourth share of the total value provided he would
transmit to the prisoner correspondent through a sure hand, indicated,
the sum of three hundred pounds in cash by means of which he could
secure release and proceed to unearth the treasure.
Another story is as follows:
One day the regular mail boat brought to Ceuta an Italian ecclesiastic,
a high dignitary of the Church, of grave and venerable appearance, who
proceeded at once to make a formal call upon the commandant or general
commanding for the time being. He was in search of certain information
and he more particularly desired to be directed to an address he
sought, that of a small house in a retired spot in one of the small
little-frequented streets in the hilly town. He carried with him a
heavy and rather bulky handbag which when he started from the general's
he begged he might leave in his charge on the plea that its contents
were valuable.
After the lapse of two or three hours the Monsignor returned with
terrified aspect and evidently in the greatest distress of mind. He
entreated that a priest might be summoned to whom he might confess, and
his wish was forthwith gratified. The moment he had unbosomed himself
to his ghostly adviser, he seized his handbag and ran down to the port
just in time to catch the return mail boat to Algeciras. The priest who
had heard his confession was to be released from the secret confided
to him and reveal it to the authorities as soon as the safe arrival of
the mail boat at the mainland was signalled across to Ceuta. Then the
whole story came out.
Monsignor X was one of the most trusted and confidential chaplains of
his Holiness the Pope and he had gone to Ceuta in the interests of an
ex-Carlist general who had the misfortune to be detained there as a
political prisoner. A sum of money was needed to compass his escape
from the presidio and help him to reach in safety the burying place
of a vast treasure, to disinter it and apply it to the furtherance of
the civil war in progress. This general seems to have satisfied the
papal dignitaries of his identity and good faith; his communication
was endorsed with plans and statements pointing to the whereabouts of
the hidden treasure, and the method by which the money he needed for
his enterprise was to be used, was minutely described. He said he was
too closely watched to allow any messenger to reach him direct, but he
had friends in Ceuta, two titled ladies, near relatives who had been
permitted to live in the prison town and to visit him from time to time
and who would pass the money to him when it was brought to Ceuta.
Monsignor X landed as we have seen and learned where he was to go,
but with commendable caution he hesitated to take his money with him.
He would hand it over when he had made the personal acquaintance of
the general's aristocratic friends. They did not prove very desirable
acquaintances. He found the house he was to visit, was admitted
without question, but then the door was shut behind him and he was
murderously assailed by half a dozen convicts, knife in hand. He was
ordered to give up the money he had brought, and when on searching him
it was found missing, he was rifled of everything he carried in his
pockets, both his watch and a considerable sum in cash. His life was
spared because it was certain that his prolonged absence would lead to
a hue and cry, but he was obliged to swear that he would not attempt
to leave the house for one clear hour so that the robbers might make
good their escape. Moreover he was warned if he gave the alarm he
would certainly be assassinated. Hence his desire to pass beyond the
Straits of Gibraltar before the outrage became known. When the house
was visited it was found empty and unfurnished with not a sign of life
on the premises. The most interesting feature in the story is that the
swindlers should fly at such high game, but it is founded on undoubted
fact. The Carlist insurrection was often used to father the attempt to
defraud.
In another case a letter conveyed to the proprietor of a vineyard at
Maestrazgo the alluring news that a large sum in gold was hidden on
his ground, the accumulated contributions of Carlist supporters in
the neighbourhood. The exact position would be revealed and a plan
forwarded in exchange for a sum of four thousand dollars in hard
cash, which was to be forwarded to Ceuta according to certain precise
instructions. The money was sent but no reply came. Days and weeks
passed and at last, weary of waiting and a little unhappy, the easily
duped victim made up his mind to cross to Ceuta in person and bring his
disappointing correspondent to book. The wine grower unhappily landed
in the presidio on the day they were baiting a bull in the streets, a
game constantly played and with more danger to the passers-by than the
players. The bull goaded into a state of fury attacked the new comer
and tossed him so that he fell to the ground with both legs broken. The
poor man got no plan and no news of his dollars. All he gained was two
months in bed lying between life and death.
The writer Relosillas, who filled the place of an inspector or surveyor
of works at Ceuta, has given some of his personal experiences in that
convict prison.[14] He describes how on one occasion he was present
at a free fight among the convicts in the barracks which had been
originally a Franciscan convent. He was in his own office at a late
hour, hard by, when he heard a terrible uproar in the great dormitory
and ran over to exercise his authority and prevent bloodshed. Knives
were out and being freely used by combatants ranged on two sides, one
lot backing up a friend who had been robbed of a photograph of his
sister, the other lot defending the thief, who had stolen the portrait
for use in a buried treasure swindle. He had created her a marchioness
and intended to forward it as a bait to show his intimacy with the
aristocracy and prepare the way for the fraud. The case may be quoted
to show how minutely the practitioners in the _entierro_ studied their
ground and acquired the means of operating. In all Spanish prisons and
notably in Ceuta, cunning convicts are to be found, men of ability
and experience, who have travelled far and wide, who are conversant
with many languages and well acquainted with prominent people in other
countries and the leading facts and particulars of their lives.
[14] _Catorce Meses en Ceuta_, Malaga, 1886.
A few additional stories of swindles akin to the _entierro_ are of much
interest.
A French landowner by name Armand Carron, a resident of a small town
in the Department of Finistère, received, some time ago, a letter from
Ceuta, signed Santiago (or James) Carron. The writer explained that he
was a native of Finistère where the Frenchman resided; that he was a
namesake and a member of the landowner's family, son of a first cousin
of his who had left France many years before and settled in Spain with
wife and three sons, of whom he, Santiago Carron, now alone survived.
This Santiago, the letter went on, had been placed by his father in
the military college at Segovia, had served through all the subaltern
grades as an artillery officer, had risen to the rank of brigadier
and in that capacity had been sent out in command of the district of
the Cinco Villas in Cuba, where he had married the daughter of Don
Diego Calderon, a wealthy Havana merchant, and the owner of vast
sugar plantations. His wife had brought him a dowry of four million
reales (£40,000) and had died leaving him a daughter called after her
mother, Juanita, now about 17 years old. This girl, the only object of
her father's love and care, had been by him sent to Europe and placed
for her education at the convent of the Sacre Coeur at Chamartin near
Madrid.
His career in the army had been for many years very fortunate and his
wedded life in Cuba exceedingly happy. He had been laden with honours
by a grateful Government and received many proofs of his country's
trust, but lately the officer in charge of the chest of the military
district at Cinco Villas had absconded and run away to New York with
a sum of two million reales. As he, the brigadier, was answerable for
his subaltern's conduct and was not willing to sacrifice one half of
his wife's--now his daughter's--fortune to pay for the defaulter, he
had been summoned to Spain and then relegated, or sent as a prisoner
on parole to the fortress at Ceuta to take his trial before a court
martial, which owing to the dilatoriness of all things in Spain might
sit till doomsday.
After thus giving an account of himself and his belongings the
brigadier proceeded to explain the reasons which induced him to address
himself to his unknown French relative. Having suffered much from long
exposure to the heat of a tropical climate he felt old before his time,
and his hereditary enemy, the gout, had by several sharp twinges made
him aware of the precariousness of his tenure of life. He had only that
one daughter in the world, the sole heiress of a considerable patrimony
who might at any moment be deprived of her natural protector and for
whose final education and introduction into society it was his duty to
provide. The girl had great natural gifts, had inherited her mother's
Creole beauty, and the accounts of her proficiency, given by the nuns
at Chamartin were most flattering to his paternal pride. He was anxious
to appoint a guardian to his daughter and he could think of no one
fitter in every respect for that charge than his only relative, M.
Armand Carron.
He (the brigadier) had lately been diligently looking over his father's
papers; had found among them very numerous and interesting family
documents--ample evidence that a hearty and loving correspondence had
for many years been kept up between his father, Vincent Carron, and the
father of M. Armand Carron, also called Armand, and he followed up the
narrative with frequent allusions to several incidents occurring in the
early youth of the two cousins, with descriptions of localities, common
acquaintances and the usual joys and sorrows alternating in their
domestic circles. Altogether it was a well contrived, plausible story
verging so closely upon probability as to avoid shipwreck upon the rock
of truth.
M. Armand Carron of Finistère did not think it right or expedient to
cast doubt on the genuineness of the communication. He answered the
brigadier's appeal by calling him "My dear cousin," saying he had a
perfect recollection of his father's frequent allusions to Vincent
Carron, the cousin who had grown up with him in their own home and only
left their native town on arriving at man's estate. After heartily
congratulating the brigadier on his conspicuous career which reflected
so much lustre on their own name, and condoling with him about the
momentary cloud that had now--undeservedly he felt sure--settled upon
it, he assured his newly found relative of his sympathy and of his
readiness to look upon the brigadier's daughter as his own child,
to receive her into the bosom of his family and take that care of
her which so precious a jewel as she was described to be, must fully
deserve.
So the matter was settled. The correspondence between the two newly
found relatives continued for six or seven months and became very
affectionate and confidential. The brigadier sent the Frenchman
his photograph and that of his daughter, both taken in Havana and
bearing the name and trade mark of the artist. The one represented a
middle-aged officer of high rank in full uniform and with the Grand
Cross of San Hermengeldo on his breast, a fine manly countenance with
long grey silky moustache; the other exhibiting the arch, pretty
countenance of a brunette in her teens, with smooth bands of raven hair
on either side of her low forehead and the shade of a moonlit night in
her dark eyes; a bright blooming creature with dimples and pouting lips
and a look of humour and frolic and sense in every feature. Together
with the photographs came a letter of Juanita Carron to the brigadier,
her father, from the convent, and bearing the Chamartin postmark,
in which the girl congratulated her father on his discovery of his
Finistère relative, expressed a firm confidence that her loving father
would long be spared to her and concluded that she would for her part,
in the worst event, willingly acknowledge her relative as a second
father and acquiesce in every arrangement that might be made for her
welfare.
Seven months passed and the post one morning brought M. Armand Carron
a letter with the Ceuta postmark, but no longer in his cousin's
handwriting. The writer who signed himself Don Francisco Muñoz, parish
priest of San Pedro in Ceuta, announced the death of Brigadier Santiago
Carron, which had occurred seven days before the date of the letter. He
stated that the brigadier, brought to the last extremity by a sudden
attack of gout, had been attended, by him, Don Francisco, as priest
in his last hours, and been instructed to wind up all his earthly
affairs both in Ceuta and in Madrid. He was further empowered to remove
the Señorita Juanita, the brigadier's daughter, from the Chamartin
convent and take charge of her during her journey to Finistère where
she should be delivered into the hands of her appointed guardian. The
priest's letter enclosed the printed obituary handbill announcing the
brigadier's decease, according to Spanish custom, the last will and
testament of the deceased appointing M. Armand Carron sole executor,
guardian and trustee of his only daughter Juanita, and entrusting to
him the management of her fortune of one million francs, (£40,000),
mentioning the banks in Paris and Amsterdam in which that sum lay
in good state securities. The whole document was duly drawn up by
a notary, with witnesses' signatures, seals, etc., and even with
certificates of the brigadier's burial, the signatures and stamps of
the civil and military authorities at Ceuta and those of the governor
in command of the place.
At the close of this minute statement the priest expressed his
readiness to comply with the brigadier's instructions by travelling to
Madrid, receiving the young Juanita from the hands of the Sacre Coeur
nuns and continuing with her the journey to Finistère, immediately
upon hearing from M. Armand Carron that he was prepared to receive
his lovely ward. M. Armand Carron answered by return of post that
his house and arms were open to welcome his relative's orphan child.
Where there came after some time another letter from Don Francisco
Muñoz explaining that the brigadier, although the most methodical and
careful of men, had left some trifling debts at Ceuta and there were
the doctors' and undertakers' bills to be settled: also the travelling
expenses for himself and the young lady which he, the priest, was not
able to defray. Besides all this the papers, deeds, books and other
portable property left by the brigadier, some of it very valuable, but
also bulky--among which were the certificates of the state securities
deposited in the French and Dutch banks--which at the express desire of
the deceased would have at once to be conveyed to Finistère. He, the
priest, would have to be responsible for all this, so that, what with
the boarding money and fees due to the nuns, and the clothes, linen
and other necessaries the young lady might require to fit herself for
appearance in the world, an expense would have to be incurred of which
it was difficult to calculate the exact amount. The conclusion was that
he could not undertake the journey unless M. Armand Carron supplied him
with a round sum of money, say four thousand francs, which he could
forward in French bank notes and in a registered letter addressed not
to him but to a Doña Dolores Mazaredo, a pious woman, whom her reduced
fortunes had compelled to take service as a washerwoman of the Ceuta
state prison.
The reason alleged by the priest for receiving the money in this
roundabout way was that as the brigadier had died in debt to the
state and the government might suspect that property belonging to the
deceased had come into his, the priest's charge and be subject to the
law of embargo on the brigadier's effects, it was desirable that every
precaution should be taken to disarm suspicion and prevent injury.
The fraud was entirely successful and in due course the letter from
Finistère enclosing bank notes for four thousand francs was delivered
to the washerwoman and from her passed into the hands of the sharpers
whose deep laid plan and transcendent inventive powers were thus
crowned with full success. M. Armand Carron heard no more of his
orphaned relative.
The most astonishing feature in the "Spanish Swindle," as it is
commonly and almost universally known, is the extent to which it is
practised and in countries far remote from those in which the trick
originates. In one case a resident in the Argentine Republic received a
letter from Madrid which he communicated to the press stating that he
could not conceive how his name and address had become known. But it
was clear that the Argentine and many other directories were possessed
by the swindler, for similar letters all conveying the usual rosy
stories of hidden treasure had come into the country wholesale. The
fraudulent agent had long discovered that the credulity and cupidity on
which he trades are universal weaknesses and that he is likely to find
victims in every civilised part of the world. At another time Germany
was inundated with typewritten letters from the Spanish prisoner, and
the correspondent cleverly accounted for his use of the machine by
stating that he was employed as a convict clerk in the office of the
governor of the prison.
An attempt of the same kind was tried on a Swiss gentleman of Geneva,
but it failed signally. The swindler in Barcelona thought he had
beguiled his correspondent into purchasing certain papers at the
price of twelve thousand francs by which a treasure was to be found,
and sent a young woman to Geneva to receive the cash. But the Swiss
police, having been informed of the transaction, were on the alert,
and when she kept her appointment with the proposed dupe she was taken
into custody. An individual staying at the same hotel and said to have
been in communication with her was also arrested. The emissary denied
all complicity in the intended fraud protesting that she had been
commissioned by a stranger she met in Barcelona to convey a letter to
Geneva and bring back another in return.
The ubiquity of the swindle is proved by the adventures of a certain
M. Elked, a restaurateur of Buda-Pest, who was lured into making a
journey to Madrid, carrying with him a sum of ten thousand francs in
cash. The money was to be used in securing possession of a fortune
of three hundred thousand francs, part of which was lying in a trunk
deposited in the cloak room of a French railway station and part in
the strong room of a Berlin bank. Elked was to get the half in return
for his advance. On arrival in Madrid he met the representative of his
correspondent and was shown bogus receipts from the railway and bank.
To remove all possible doubt it was suggested that telegrams should
be sent to the railway station and to the bank and in due course what
purported to be replies were brought to Elked by a pretended telegraph
messenger. The sham telegrams finally convinced him of the genuineness
of the business and he arranged to meet the swindler in a certain café
to hand over the ten thousand francs.
All this time an eye was kept upon Elked by a brother Hungarian named
Isray, a commercial traveller, who had come to Madrid by the same train
and who on hearing the purpose of the restaurateur's visit had vainly
tried to persuade him that the affair was a fraud. Isray followed his
infatuated compatriot to the café in a very low quarter of Madrid
and arrived just in time to see three men attempting to hustle Elked
into a carriage. He had apparently hesitated to hand over the money
at the last moment and the ruffians were attempting to get him away
to a spot where he could be conveniently searched and robbed. Isray
drew his revolver and fired two or three shots at Elked's assailants,
but did not succeed in hitting any one. He contrived however to
injure the horse and the struggle ended in the three bandits running
away, leaving Elked still in possession of his money. No passers-by
offered the Hungarians any assistance during the fight, nor did any
police appear on the scene. When Elked subsequently complained to the
police authorities they simply laughed at him for displaying so much
credulity. The victims of the "Spanish Swindle" are certainly not
entitled to much sympathy. Although arrests are occasionally made, the
Spanish police have never been able to cope very successfully with the
ancient and ever flourishing fraud.
Some of the Spanish prisoner's lies are the crudest and most
transparent attempts at fraud, but a few are really very fine works of
art. An English country gentleman once received the following letter:
"DEAR SIR AND RELATIVE: Not having the honour to know you but for
the reference which my dead wife, Mary--your relative--gave me, who
in detailing the various individuals of our family warmly praised
the honest and good qualities which distinguished you, I now address
myself to you for the first time and perhaps for the last one
considering the grave state of my health, explaining my sad position
and requesting your protection for my only daughter, a child of
fourteen years old whom I keep as a pensioner in a college--"
This is the prelude to a really clever and picturesque story of the
writer's adventures in Cuba, where, after having been secretary and
treasurer to Martinez Campos, he had subsequently been driven by
General Weyler to join the insurgents, and was eventually forced to
flee the country taking with him his fortune of thirty-seven thousand
pounds. Subsequently being summoned to Spain by the illness of his
"only daughter child" he deposited the money in a London bank under the
form of "security document." After this we are introduced to the old
mechanism of this venerable swindle. The deposited note was concealed
in a secret drawer of the prisoner's portmanteau. The prisoner had
been arrested on his arrival in Spain, but a trusty friend at large
was willing to assist him in recovering the money for the benefit
of his child, if only the dear relative in England "would advance
the necessary funds for expenses." It is possible to imagine that
anyone who had never heard of these ingenious frauds might be taken
in by such a plausible narrative, but it is difficult to understand
such ignorance. A letter was received from the Castle of Montjuich
in Barcelona by a man in Dublin, who showed it to several friends in
the city explaining the process. It was new to them all, and arrests
of persons who had all but succeeded in completing this well-worn
confidence trick are constantly made in London. The boldness of these
attempts may be seen in the case of the swindlers who despatched
three letters identically the same, to three persons who were near
neighbours, residing at North Berwick near Edinburgh. The letter dated
from Madrid and said:--
"SIR, Detained here as a bankrupt, I ask if you would help me to
withdraw the sum of fr. 925,000 (£37,000) at present lodged in a
secure place in France. It would be necessary for you to visit Madrid
and obtain possession of my baggage by paying a lien on it. In one
valise concealed in a secret niche is the document which must be
produced as a warrant for the delivery of the above mentioned sum.
I propose to hand you over a third of the whole in return for your
outlay and trouble."
The rest of the letter simply contained instructions as to telegraphing
an answer to Madrid. The whole was a very stupid and clumsy attempt
to deceive, lacking all the emotional appeals, the motherless child,
the persecuted political adherent of a failing cause. Worse yet it
openly invited co-operation with a bankrupt seeking to defraud his
creditors. Nor is there any effort to explain the selection of these
three particular persons in the same small town as parties to the
fraud, and the only conclusion is that dupes had been found even under
such circumstances who were afterward reluctant to reveal their own
foolishness.
A more elaborate fraud was perpetrated soon after the fall of
Cartagena; the story ran as follows: Two of the well known
leaders of the hare-brained republican movement that led to that
catastrophe,--General Contreras and Señor Galdez,--both deputies of
the Constituent Cortes, came as fugitives to England and lodged in the
Bank of England a sum amounting to several millions of reales in state
securities, obtaining for them of course the regular certificates and
receipt from the bank. These two Spanish gentlemen afterwards lived for
some time on the continent. General Contreras took up his quarters as
a political exile in France and Señor Galdez ventured under a disguise
into Spain, where he had the misfortune to be recognised, arrested and
shut up in the Saladero. The certificates had been left in England in
trusty hands, in a trunk belonging to Señor Galdez, who from his prison
sent directions that the box should be sent by rail to Madrid addressed
to a person enjoying his full confidence. This person however had some
claim upon Señor Galdez for an old debt of six thousand francs or about
two hundred and forty pounds and insisted upon payment of this sum
before he would either part with the trunk or allow it to be opened and
the precious certificates to be taken from it.
The matter required delicate handling, for Señor Galdez was a prisoner,
General Contreras an exile, both beyond reach, and about the money
they had placed in the bank there might lie some mystery into which it
was not desirable that enquiry should be made. An easy way of getting
at the contents of the trunk could be found if any one would think it
worth while to supply two hundred and forty pounds, settle the claims
of Señor Galdez's creditor, and laying hold of the certificates,
convey them to England and withdraw the securities from the bank. A
man whose name was given and whose address was in the Calle de la
Abada or Rhinoceros Street, Madrid, would undertake to carry through
the negotiations if any one would call upon him with the needful two
hundred and forty pounds and allow him half an hour to rescue the trunk
and deliver the certificates. The worthy Yorkshire squire to whom
intimation had been conveyed of the coup there was to be made, looked
upon the story as extremely probable. He fancied it was corroborated by
a good deal of circumstantial evidence and thought he might venture on
the speculation. A professional adviser whom he consulted undertook to
do the job for him and carry the two hundred and forty pounds to the
Calle de la Abada, taking a revolver with him, as a precaution, and
intending to deliver the money in Bank of England notes, the numbers
of which should be stopped the moment he found out that any trick was
being played on his good faith.
Further enquiries were made, however, before any decided steps were
taken, and it was ascertained beyond doubt that Señor Galdez was
no longer a prisoner, that General Contreras had come back from
banishment, that the house in the Calle de la Abada was a notorious
haunt of malefactors and den of thieves, and the whole scheme was
another instance of the criminal ingenuity of the Spanish swindler.
CHAPTER VIII
LIFE IN CEUTA
Dangerous weapons manufactured within the prison walls--Frequent
quarrels--Murderous assaults on warders of constant
occurrence--Disorders and lack of discipline owing to the employment
of prisoners as warders--The "_cabos de vara_"--These posts sold
to the highest bidder--Salillas' description of these convict
warders--Worst criminals often promoted to exercise authority
over their fellows--Terrible evils arising from such a state of
affairs--Description of Ceuta--Life at Ceuta no deterrent to crime
by reason of the pleasant conditions under which the convicts
lived--Popularity of the theatre in Spanish prisons--Escapes from
Ceuta--The case of El Niño de Brenes--The different characteristics
of the Andalusians and Aragonese--Foreigners from Spanish colonies
imprisoned at Ceuta--Chinamen and negroes--Dolores, the negro
convict--His assassination by two fellow convicts--Political
prisoners--Carlists--Different types of murderers.
Life is held cheap in Ceuta and indeed in all Spanish presidios and
gaols. The saying "a word and a blow," may be expanded into "a word and
a knife thrust." The possession of a lethal weapon is common to all
prisoners and prevails despite prohibiting regulations. Fatal affrays
are of constant occurrence. At Valladolid five men were wounded in
a fight over cards, which were openly permitted. An official enquiry
followed, with the result that on a search instituted through the
prison, numbers of large knives were discovered and many smaller
daggers.
It is pretended by the authorities that the introduction of such
weapons as well as of spirits and packs of cards cannot be prevented.
The gate keepers however exercise no vigilance or are readily bribed
to shut their eyes. The ruinous condition of many gaols with their
numerous cracks and openings and holes in the walls is partially
responsible. As a natural consequence blood flowed freely when rage
and unbridled passion were so easily inflamed and the means of seeking
murderous satisfaction were always ready to hand. Quarrels grew at once
into fierce fights which could not be prevented and must be fought
out then and there even to the death. Chains and stone walls and iron
bars were ineffective in imposing order. There could be no semblance
of discipline where the two essentials were absolutely wanting,
supervision and honest service in the keepers.
Knives were often provided by the ingenious adaptation of all kinds
of material within the walls, such as one-half of a pair of scissors
firmly fixed in a handle bound round with cloth; or a piece of tin
doubled to form a blade and stiffened by two pieces of wood to keep
the point sharp; or the handle of a wooden spoon sharpened and as
formidable as an inflexible fish bone.[15] Other arms carried and
used on occasion for premeditated or unexpected attack or in set,
formal encounters were a razor, a file, a carpenter's adze, a hammer, a
cobbler's awl.
[15] I have seen a precisely similar weapon in an English convict
prison, the product of an evil-minded prisoner who used it in an
assault upon his officer.
Some surprising figures have been collected by Salillas to show how
frequent was the appeal to violence and how fatal the consequences
of the bloodthirsty strife so constantly breaking out among the more
reckless members of this hot-tempered Latin race. They had often
their origin in drunken quarrels, for _aguardiente_, the Spanish
equivalent to whiskey or gin, was always plentiful, introduced almost
openly by the warders. Ancient feuds were revived when the opportunity
of settling them was offered by the chance meeting in the gaol.
Occasionally a homicidal lunatic ran loose about the yards and struck
blindly at any inoffensive person he met when the furious fit was on
him. Salillas tells us that in one year sixteen murderous assaults
were committed upon warders,[16] and twenty-four free fights occurred
among the prisoners, eleven of whom were killed outright and forty-two
seriously wounded. One truculent ruffian fell upon an aged wardsman
(a convict also), struck him with a shoemaker's knife and then,
brandishing his weapon, defied interference or the rescue of his victim
whom he "finished" with repeated blows. A Valencian newspaper describes
an encounter between two inmates of the Torres Serranos prison in that
city. "Without warning or suggesting the cause of difference the two
silently hurried to a large empty room, rushed at each other with their
knives, and the only sounds heard were those of blows struck and warded
off and of shuffling feet as they circled round each other. Warders
headed by the governor (alcaide) strove to separate the combatants and
succeeded at last in doing so but at peril of their lives. Both the
antagonists were wounded, one had his cheek laid open and the other's
face was horribly gashed. At Saragossa an old man who complained that
one of his blankets had been stolen was fiercely attacked in the
shoemaker's shop by the thief, who had been cutting out sole leather
with a heavy iron tool. Deadly wounds were inflicted on the victim,
but the infuriated aggressor stood over him, keeping those who would
have interposed at bay until it was clearly evident that death had
supervened.
[16] An official report dated 1888 gives a total of 221 prisoners in
the whole of the establishments admitted into hospital suffering from
wounds, fractures and contusions received in the gaols.
The primary cause of the chronic discreditable, disgraceful disorder
that reigned in the Spanish prisons was the prevailing custom of
employing prisoners in the service and discipline of the prisons. This
practice is now universally condemned as reprehensible and it has been
abolished in most civilised countries and even in Spain. The excuse
offered which long passed current in Spain was the expense entailed by
employing a proper staff of officers, a necessity in every well ordered
prison administration. But till quite a recent date the control and
supervision of prisoners in Spanish gaols was practically their own
affair. There were the usual superior officials, assisted by a few free
overseers (_capataces_) but the bulk of the work was entrusted to the
_cabos de vara_.
The vicious system was the more objectionable from the uncertainty
which prevailed in its working. If the _cabo de vara_ had been
carefully selected from the best and most exemplary prisoners some of
the worst evils might have been avoided. But it was all a matter of
chance. Not only was there no selection of the best but there was no
rejection or elimination of the worst candidates. In some conspicuous
cases the office of _cabo de vara_ was suffered to fall into the hands
of men altogether unfit to hold it. Two in particular may be quoted,
those of Pelufo and Carrillo, who having first committed atrocious
crimes, escaped punishment and were actually promoted. One, Pelufo,
was a convict in the presidio of Cartagena who murdered a _cabo_ and
cut his way out of the St. Augustin prison, knife in hand; the other,
Carrillo, slew a comrade in a duel in the presidio of San Miguel de
los Reyes (Valencia) and both were subsequently appointed _cabos_, "a
reward," as a witty official said, "which they had earned by their
services to penitentiary methods."
With such examples and under such authorities serious crimes were
naturally numerous. A few may be mentioned. A _cabo_ named Casalta
killed a fellow _cabo_ in St. Augustin prison of Valencia with five
cruel thrusts and afterwards stabbed an officer to the heart. When the
military guard came up he seriously injured one of the soldiers and
wounded two convicts, one in the head, the other in the back. Casalta
was however condemned to a fresh sentence of twelve years. One Ferreiro
Volta cut a comrade's throat for having given evidence against the
man, Pelufo, already mentioned. Many more cases of the same heinous
character where the homicidal instinct had full play may be picked out
of the published lists. In one prison thirteen already guilty of murder
or attempted murder repeated their crimes as prisoners; in another nine
convicted of maliciously wounding, pursued the practice or were guilty
of awful threats to murder in the gaols. The cases might be multiplied
almost indefinitely but it will suffice to indicate the terrible
conditions constantly prevailing. No doubt murderous attacks were often
stimulated by the tyranny of the prisoner _cabos_, against whom their
fellows, goaded to desperation, rose and wreaked vengeance.
The discipline exercised by these prisoner warders was naturally not
worth much. It was their duty to correct and restrain their comrades,
to assist in their pursuit when they escaped after having originally
most probably facilitated the evasion, to side with the authority in
cases of serious insubordination and disturbance. But they were weak
vessels yielding readily to temptation, accepting bribes hungrily,
swallowing drink greedily when offered, quickly cowed by the threats
of prison bullies and surrendering at discretion when opposed. But
even although there were good and trusty men to be found at times
among them, no real reliance could be placed in them. They generally
represented fifty per cent. of the staff and the necessity for the
substitution of the non-convicted, properly paid, fairly honourable
warders has been very wisely decided upon. The chief danger lay in
their close and intimate association with the rest, day and night
constantly alone when no official supervision was possible. Their
value depended entirely upon their personal qualifications. If they
were weak-kneed and invertebrate, they could apply no check upon the
ill-conditioned, could neither intimidate nor repress: if on the other
hand they were of masterful character with arrogant, overbearing
tempers, they might do immense mischief by tyrannising over their
charges and leading them astray. Men of this class often claimed an
equality with the recognised officials, treated them with off-hand
familiarity, spoke without saluting or removing their caps, while
insolently puffing the smoke of a half-consumed cigarette in faces
of the officers. Salillas sums up the type as "semi-functionary,
semi-convict and all hangman."
The external aspect of Ceuta is not unpleasing. It is built on seven
hills, the highest of which is topped by the fortress, and in the
word "septem" we may trace the name Ceuta. It still possesses a few
Moorish remains, for it was once an important Moorish city. Some of
the streets show a tesselated pavement of red, white and green tiles,
and house fronts are to be seen in white, black and serpentine marble
with decorated scroll work running in a pattern below the gutter.
It has some claims to be picturesque and possesses certain artistic
architectural features. An imposing barrack, that called Del Valle,
built by prison labour, is considered one of the finest Spanish
military edifices. It has also a cathedral dedicated to Our Lady of
Africa, engineering and artillery yards, a military hospital, another
church, public offices, and above all a palace of the governor and
general commanding. The latter in particular, with its extensive
grounds, handsome façade, and suites of fine rooms, the whole well
mounted and served by a large staff of convict attendants, is the
envy of all other government officials. One wide street traverses the
city from west to east crossed by a network of smaller ways, all airy
and well ventilated by sea breezes and constantly illuminated by a
brilliant sun. From time to time convicts in their distinctive dress
pass along, but scarcely cast a shadow upon the scene, showing few
signs of their thraldom and passing along with light-hearted freedom,
smoking excellent tobacco or singing a gay song. No beggars offend the
eye, for to solicit public charity is strictly forbidden. Generally a
contented well-to-do air is worn by the crowd, and even the convicts
are decently dressed. Other inhabitants, Moors from the mainland, and
Jews long established in commerce seem prosperous and evidently possess
ample means gained by their industry and thrift.
The presidio or prison proper of Ceuta covers a large part of the
peninsula or promontory and embraces four distinct districts; the first
is situated in the new or modern town; the second lies just outside
it; the third is within the old town and the fourth is beyond the
outer line of walls. The first part is connected with the third by a
drawbridge called _boquete de la sardina_ or the "sardine's entrance";
the second with the third by a portcullis; the third with the fourth
and last by the outer gate of the city.
In the first are the artisans' quarters, situated in the cloisters of
an ancient monastery, that of San Francisco, and but for the patching
and whitewashing would look quite ruinous. It is neither secure nor of
sufficient size. The night guards are posted in the old mortuary house,
the bars to many windows are of wood. The building contains offices,
schoolhouse, store for clothing and the workshops, these being in a
sort of patio or courtyard, or in hollow spaces in the cloisters, and
are simply dens and rookeries, in part exactly over the old burial
ground. The handicrafts pursued when I visited it were various: men
were making shoes; fourteen tailors were at work; a blacksmith with
a life sentence constantly hammered out the red hot iron; a tinsmith
produced many useful articles; a turner at his lathe worked admirably
in the old meat bones and fashioned handles for walking sticks and
umbrellas. This turner earned much money and was comfortably lodged.
Convicts at Ceuta are not deprived of their profits and spend their
money buying better food, superior clothing and _aguardiente_ and
using it to bribe their overseers, or they cleverly conceal it, adding
constantly to their store. Industry is a chief source of wealth, but
many political prisoners bring large sums in with them, or it is
smuggled in to them, and a successful hit with the "buried treasure
fraud" will supply plenty of cash.
Other industries followed are carpentering and the construction of
trunks and boxes which sell well. A number of looms are engaged in
weaving canvas for the manufacture of sails for the local shipping,
rough material for sacking and clothing of the convicts, all in large
quantities and to a really valuable extent. These workshops are
filled by the prisoners in the first stage of their detention. The
water-carriers and clerks in the government office are in the second
period, and on reaching the third the convicts obtain the privilege of
going at large to accept employment in the town "from gun to gun."
The prison hospital is situated in this first district, an ancient
edifice erected with part of the funds subscribed in times past to
purchase freedom for Christian captives enslaved by the Barbary Moors.
The building is of good size, well ventilated, and enjoys good hygienic
conditions. But the defects and shortcomings in Spanish administration
extend even to Ceuta and the prison hospital, which a local authority
says "is detestably organised and mounted miserably." The roof is so
slight that it affords no proper protection in summer and the intense
heat of the blazing sun striking through is very injurious to the
patients. The medical resources are small and inferior; the beds
few and unclean; the whole of the interior arrangements, furniture
fittings and appliances, insufficient and worn out. There is no
mortuary and to add a small detail in proof of the imperfections,
autopsies were performed in a small den, part of the hospital proper,
without disinfectants and the essential appliances for carrying out
post mortems. Patients seldom made a long stay in the hospital, for
they were rarely admitted until they had reached the last stages of an
illness and came in as a rule only to die.
The second district contains the principal quarters for convicts. One
is in the chief barrack called _cuartel principal_ and another in the
fortress _el Hacho_.[17] Some further evidence of their evil condition
may be extracted from an account given by Salillas. "It is impossible
to conceive," he writes, "a more unsuitable, unsavoury place for a
prison. The rooms and dormitories occupied by the convicts are dark
and gloomy, always damp, full of pestilential odours and dirty beyond
description. The floors are of beaten earth, ever secure hiding places
for all forbidden articles, weapons, tools for compassing escape,
jars of drink, the fiery and poisonous _aguardiente_. It seems to me
extraordinary," he goes on to say, "that life under such conditions is
possible. A thousand and odd men who seldom if ever wash, who never
change their clothes, are crowded together promiscuously in small,
unclean, ill-ventilated, noisome dens and must surely engender and
propagate loathsome epidemic disease." The fetid air is foul with the
noisome exhalations of many generations of pestiferous people. It is
one sink of concentrated malaria--a reeking hot bed of infection.
The services of supply are carried out with abominable carelessness:
the kitchen is an abode of nastiness: the cooking is performed by
repulsive looking convicts in greasy rags who plunge their dirty arms
deep into the seething mess of soup which they bail out into buckets, a
malodorous compound of the colour and consistency of the mortar used in
building a wall.
[17] See ante, pp. 159 sqq.
Close by is another quarter in which convicts are lodged, _el Hacho_,
or the hilly ground or topmost point of Ceuta on which is placed the
citadel which crowns the fortifications. It takes the overflow from
the principal barrack and is moreover generally occupied by the worst
characters, the most insubordinate and incorrigible members of the
prison population. The rooms, as in the barrack below, are dirty,
overcrowded and insecure, but a few windows of the upper story open on
to the Mediterranean and are not always protected by either wooden or
iron bars. _El Hacho_ contains within its limits a certain number of
solitary cells, well known and much dreaded by the habitual criminals
of Spain. They are essentially punishment cells used in the coercion
of the incorrigible and are just as dark, damp and wretched as the
larger rooms. But the solitary inmate in each cell is generally kept
chained to the wall or is as it is styled _amarrado en blanca_, nearly
naked and heavily ironed. The treatment is exemplary in its cruelty,
but does not necessarily cure the subject. There was one irreclaimable
upon whom several years of the _calabozo_ had had no effect. He had
been sentenced to be thus chained up as the penalty for murderously
wounding an overseer in _el Hacho_, but he did not mend his manners.
On one occasion on the arrival of a new governor all under punishment
were pardoned. This convict when sent out forthwith furiously attacked
the first warder he met and was again condemned to be locked up as a
ceaseless danger to the presidio. He is remembered as little more than
a youth, but with a diabolical countenance and indomitable air.
The district of the _Barcas_ does not contain a barrack properly
speaking, but there is a space cut in the thickness of the line wall
entering a patio or courtyard which gives upon seven rooms, some
high, some low; of these three and part of the yard were filled with
munitions of war, and a battery of artillery was placed over the
dormitories on their upper floor. Many of the convicts are employed as
boatmen and watchmen in the port, others have charge of the walls and
carry water up to the guardhouses on the higher level. They also attend
to the service of the drawbridge between the old and new town. One
who was employed as gatekeeper at the drawbridge was well remembered.
He was trusted to call on all convicts who passed to produce their
permits of free circulation or to enter and leave the fortress. He
had a pleasant rubicund face, was one armed, a little deaf, but with
very sharp eyes, not easily hoodwinked. He was a confirmed gossip who
picked up all the news which he retailed to all who passed in and out.
Escapes were of constant occurrence at Ceuta, but few occurred by the
drawbridge of the _Barcas_.
Half way up the road from the town to the citadel and the fort of
the Seraglio was the Jadu barrack which was occupied by the convicts
who were engaged in agricultural work, in making tiles and burning
charcoal. Many of these were foreigners and negroes. The bulk of the
residents was made up of those who had completed three fourths of their
sentences and lived "under conditions," or in a state of conditional or
semi-freedom. There was little wrong-doing in Jadu, thefts were rare,
fights and quarrels seldom took place. The Seraglio was a fortified
barrack of rectangular shape occupied by troops of the garrison and
lodging an odd hundred convicts labouring on adjacent farms in private
hands.
It will be observed that the convicts established in these last-named
quarters beyond the walls do not appear to exhibit all the unpleasant
features attributed to them by some writers in recording their
experiences of Ceuta.[18] No doubt the truth lies somewhere between
the two extremes but it is certain that the chief penal colony of
Spain shares to a marked extent the drawbacks inseparable from all
forms of penal colonisation. We may see, beyond all question, that at
Ceuta no beneficial results are achieved by the system. Criminals who
undergo the penalty are not improved by it; their reformation, too
generally a will-o'-the-wisp under the very best auspices, is not even
attempted, much less assured. On the other hand, it is perfectly clear
that evil is perpetually in the ascendent, that criminal tendencies
are largely encouraged by the facilities given in the education and
practice of wrong doing; that the presidio itself is a criminal centre
where the seeds of crime are sown and their growth fostered despite the
difficulties of distance and inconvenience. The fear of penal exile is
no deterrent to crime for the simple reason that life in Ceuta is not
particularly irksome and that the convict finds many compensations
there. The obligation to hard labour is not strictly enforced. Man
must work, but not hard and chiefly for his own advantage, to gain
the means of softening and bettering his lot. He passes his time very
much as he pleases. Though he rises with the sun, as is the universal
custom of his country, he turns out of bed without giving a thought to
personal cleanliness and proceeds to his appointed labour leisurely,
after disposing of his breakfast, adding perhaps more toothsome
articles of food, including a morning drink of _aguardiente_ bought
from the hawkers and hucksters awaiting him at the prison gates. He is
dressed in prison uniform, but it is sufficient and suitably varied
with the season. He is not hampered by fetters, as the ancient practice
of chaining convicts together in couplets has long since ceased. The
wearing of irons fell into disuse years ago at the building of the
great barrack del Valle, when several deplorable accidents occurred and
it was found that chains interfered with the free movement of workmen
on scaffolding and so forth. The idea was that irons should again
be imposed at the conclusion of the building; "but all who thought
so did not know Spanish ways, nor the despotism of custom when once
established."[19] "To-day (1873)," says same writer, "there are not
fifty suits of chains in the storehouse and not more than twenty are
worn by special penalty and by no means as a general practice." The
convict loafs about the rooms or courtyard or idly handles the tools
of his trade, gossiping freely with his comrades, or taking a hand at
_monte_ or _chapas_ with the full permission of warders not indisposed
to have a "little on the games"; he finds easy means to issue into the
streets to carry on some delectable flirtation; there may be a bull
baiting afoot, a _novillos_ in which all may join, or a theatrical
performance is being given by a convict company in one of the penal
establishments.
[18] See ante, p. 159.
[19] Relosillas.
The theatre is a passion with the average Spaniard and the taste
extends to those in durance. Cases constantly occur in which popular
plays have been reproduced in prisons situated in the principal cities.
Salillas[20] states that almost all the prisons of Spain had their
theatre and he gives the names of Burgos, Ceuta, Ocana, Valladolid,
Saladero (Madrid) and Alcalá de Henares. One writer who visited the
prison performance at Seville of a musical piece, the "Viejas Ricas
de Cadiz," said it was given well and that the vocal talent was
considerable in that and other prisons. At the presidio of San Miguel
de los Reyes the convicts were heard singing a chorus on Christmas Eve
which was perfectly executed and with great feeling.
[20] "Vida Penal en Espana."
In the Valladolid gaol the theatre was regularly installed by a
company of forty convicts who had contributed substantial sums for
the purpose. It had working committees with rules and regulations
formally sanctioned by the governor of the province. The theatre with
seats for an audience of four hundred, and four private boxes holding
twelve persons each, was constructed in a building which afterwards
became the blacksmith shops. A refreshment room was provided in which a
contractor dispensed sweets and pastry and strong drink; real actresses
were engaged from outside at a salary of a dollar for each performance;
invitations were issued to the free residents and the convicts paid
two reales for admission. Well known, high class plays were produced,
comedies, dramas and comic operas.
The whole proceeding was a caricature upon prison discipline and the
authorities who permitted it were very properly sharply and severely
condemned. They exposed themselves to reproof and worse for flagrant
contempt of the most ordinary restrictions in allowing women to pass
in constantly, and in permitting the sale of alcoholic liquors. That a
place of durance, primarily intended for the restraint and punishment
of evil doers should be converted into a show and spectacle was an
intolerable misuse of power and a disgraceful travesty of the fitness
of things. The positive evil engendered was seen in the wholesale
escape of the theatrical company, while the audience patiently waited
in front of the curtain which "went up" eventually on a wholly
unexpected performance.[21]
[21] See ante, p. 128.
In the matter of escapes Ceuta was famous. It was not difficult to
get away from that imperfectly guarded stronghold when the convict
had means to bribe officers or buy a boat and had the courage to make
the voyage across the Straits of Gibraltar. The story of one veteran
convict who escaped from Ceuta is interesting because he was driven to
take himself off by what he no doubt deemed the ill-judged severity of
his injudicious keepers. This was an old brigand known as "_El Niño de
Brenes_," (the lad of Brenes), a name he must have earned some time
back for he was a man aged seventy when he "withdrew" (the word is
exact) from Ceuta. He was a well-behaved, well-to-do convict of affable
address who had gained many staunch friends among the officials and
his own comrades. The position he had created for himself was one of
practical ease and comfort; he lived in _el Hacho_ pursuing various
industries, usury among the rest, and gradually grew so rich that he
gained possession of a strip of land which he cultivated profitably and
kept a fine poultry yard as well as many sheep and goats.
El Niño was a tall well built old man, dark-skinned, with abundant
white hair. He was of highly respectable appearance, very stout and
sleek, and, being on the best of terms with his masters, he took
upon himself to discard the prison uniform and dress himself as an
Andalusian peasant with gaiters and red sash and _sombrero calañes_
(round hard hat). Not strangely this presumption displeased the
authorities and he was told that he must conform to the rules and
appear in the proper convict clothing and cease to act as a money
lender to his poorer brethren. He received this intimation with
a smiling protest; he pointed out that he used his influence in
pacifying ill-conditioned convicts, in staving off disturbances and
preventing quarrels. If his services were not better appreciated
and he was tied down to the strict observance of the ordinary rules
he would move further away; his remaining in the presidio was quite
a matter of favour and he had always at his disposal the means to
make his escape, and if he were interfered with he would take his
departure. This impudent reply quite exasperated the authorities,
who thereupon resolved to employ sharp measures. The facts as he had
stated them were more or less true and the blame lay really with the
faulty and inefficient régime in force. But the authorities would not
tamely submit to be defied and a peremptory order was issued that he
should dispose of his private property by a certain date, wind up his
financial affairs and renounce all idea of exceptional treatment. El
Niño took this as a threat to which there could be but one reply.
He gathered together his cash and portable property and quietly
disappeared. A hue and cry was raised; the usual signals flew at the
signal staff; all gates and exits were closely watched; the police were
unceasingly active in pursuit, but the fugitive had laid his plans
astutely and was never recaptured. Having the command of ample means he
doubtless used them freely to purchase freedom by taking some sure road
past the frontier or across the sea.
Allies and auxiliaries were never wanting to the enterprising fugitive
willing to pay liberally for assistance. In one case a convict had the
courage to allow himself to be shut up in a chest half full of tobacco
and to be thus conveyed to Gibraltar, to which it was returned as
containing damaged goods. Gibraltar is a free port and the chest was
landed without question. Then the consignee opened it without delay
and extracted the fugitive convict uninjured. The last part of the
story is somewhat incredible and we may wonder why the fugitive did not
succumb to the discomforts of his narrow receptacle, want of air, the
exhalations of the tobacco and the shakings and bumping of the box as
it made its voyage, albeit a short one, from Ceuta to the Rock.
An escape on a large scale was effected from the principal barrack when
eighteen convicts descended into the drains, and finding their progress
unimpeded threaded them safely and passing under the outer wall reached
the outlet to the sea. It happened that the water was high and that
there was a great conflict of currents in which that setting inward had
most force and the exit was blocked by the stormy waves. Some of the
convicts committed themselves to the waters but were washed back with
violence against the rocky fortifications and all of them in terror
for their lives raised loud cries, calling for help. The sentries gave
the alarm, the guards ran down and recaptured all the fugitives but
one, a fine swimmer who persisted in his attempt and was swept seaward
clear of the rough water till he was able to regain the shore on the
far side of the Moorish sentries.
The prison population of Ceuta is made up of a number of motley,
polyglot types of the many diverse families that compose the
Spanish race and of other distinct nationalities. The Spaniards are
generally classified under two principal heads: the Aragonese and the
Andalusians. The first named comprises all from the northern provinces
who are generally coarse, quarrelsome and brutal, sentenced chiefly for
crimes of violence, murders premeditated and committed under aggravated
circumstances, the outcome of furious and ungovernable passion. The
Andalusian is of more generous character, lively and light-hearted,
but of unsettled disposition and much impelled to attempt escapes. He
is a chronic grumbler constantly moved to complain, dissatisfied with
his rations and clamorous for special privileges. The Aragonese on
the other hand suffers long in silence which leads eventually, after
long brooding, into mutinous combination. The Andalusian makes his
grievances heard by word of mouth, the Aragonese rushes without notice
into overt action and organised attack. Another distinct section of
the Spanish race is the Galician and the native of the Asturias, a
sober, quiet and well-conducted people at home, who exhibit great
ferocity as convicts. Sanguinary encounters are little known in these
provinces, but when an Asturian or Galician takes the life of his
enemy, he uses artifice and waylays him, decoying him into an ambush
and murdering him often with horrible mutilation. A criminal feature,
peculiar to the women of these provinces, is their addiction to the use
of poison. Other Spanish females will use violence and inflict lethal
wounds openly, but the Galician woman administers poison secretly,
deliberately choosing her victims among her nearest relatives.
The colonial empire of Spain, now a thing of the past, contributed
in its time a substantial contingent of yellow and black convicts,
Chinamen from the Philippines and negroes from Cuba. It was a
reprehensible practice to associate these foreigners with the European
convicts and it produced many evils. The Chinaman was often shamefully
ill-treated. He bore it patiently, but at times when goaded beyond
endurance, retaliated with bloodthirsty violence. The story of one
negro convict, a rather remarkable person, is still remembered at
Ceuta. He rejoiced in the somewhat inappropriate feminine name of
Dolores, and despite his colour was a singularly handsome man. He
had a slight, active figure, a highly intelligent face and a clear,
penetrating eye. His mental faculties were of a high order, although
he had received only an indifferent education. He had the fondness
of his race for fine clothes and although conforming to the prison
uniform wore it with a certain distinction, improving and adding to it
where possible and having quite a gentlemanly appearance. He had been
guilty of a hideous murder in Havana for which he had received a nearly
interminable sentence. His behaviour in gaol was orderly and submissive
and he always displayed the utmost loyalty to his masters, who in
return lightened his lot as far as was possible.
Dolores, as a rule, was of a patient disposition, although he was
easily roused into fits of violent temper and could be at times,
according to his treatment, either a lion or a lamb. It seemed almost
incomprehensible that the mild eyes so calm and peaceable, when he was
unmoved, could blaze with sudden fury or that his small delicately
shaped hands could fasten murderously on a fellow creature's throat.
Tyranny and oppression were intolerable to him and he altogether
declined to submit to be domineered over by the chief bully in the
prison. His defiance led to an embittered conflict--a duel fought out
with knives--in which the black champion conquered after inflicting
many deep wounds upon his antagonist. With his victory Dolores gained
also the implacable ill-will of his fellows. They put him on his trial,
in a corner of the principal barrack and condemned him to death, which
would certainly have been inflicted had not the authorities interposed
to give him their protection. He was removed to _el Hacho_ and placed
in one of the separate cells used generally for the punishment of the
incorrigible.[22] This was fatal to him. Two water-carriers belonging
to the hostile faction entered the cell when Dolores was engaged in
writing with his back to the door, and throwing themselves upon him
gave him two mortal wounds under the left shoulder. In this supreme
moment Dolores put forth his tremendous strength, caught his assailants
by their necks and broke them before the warders could interfere on
either side. Dolores died but he is still remembered in the prison
annals as one of the most valiant and indomitable convicts who had ever
been detained in the presidio.
[22] See ante, p. 194.
Another alien convict to whom Relosillas pays a high tribute was his
own Chinese servant, a convict known as "Juan de la Cruz, the Asiatic."
He seems to have been unceasingly loyal and devoted in his service, an
admirable cook, an indefatigable nurse, a faithful watchman who guarded
his effects and secured his privacy. Juan had many accomplishments;
he could weave shade hats of the finest palm fibre, he was as clever
as any seamstress with his needle; he was a first-class housemaid and
laundress; he could make a dollar go further in the market than the
most economical housewife. He drove the most astonishing bargains with
the hucksters and purveyors of food, fish and game, with which Ceuta
was plentifully supplied. He had been condemned to a long term for
a murder committed in Havana at a hotel, of which he was the chief
cook. In appearance he was younger than his years, tall, thin, anæmic
looking, shortsighted, with jet black hair and oblique eyes. He was
a man of great intelligence, a dramatic author in Chinese and was
released before his time to accompany the Director General of Prisons
to Madrid as his cook. In the end he started a fruit shop in the
capital and prospered greatly.
An entirely different class of prisoners came to Ceuta in considerable
numbers from time to time,--those exiled for political misdeeds. A
whole discipline battalion was composed of military offenders, among
them a number of artillerymen condemned for the rising in Barcelona
and crowds of Carlists and those concerned in the so-called cantonal
risings. One or two politicals were strange characters, such as the
old soldier named "_el Cojo_" (the lame man) of Cariñena, a conceited
veteran very proud of his many campaigns in which he had served, and
who went everywhere on donkey back, being infirm and crippled. Another
was the ex-curé of Berraonda, a Biscayan priest of ferocious aspect,
tall, corpulent, dark-skinned, with an abundant snow white bushy beard,
which grew to his waist and which was left untouched by the prison
barber.
Speaking in general terms of the whole body all types of character were
represented. Some when in funds liked to pose as dandies with fine
linen, smart shoes or rope sandals tied with ribbons and coloured
sashes (fajas); others, the larger number, were coarse and brutal
ruffians, without private means, or too idle to acquire them by the
labour of their hands, much given to drunkenness and very quarrelsome
in their cups. The attitude of most convicts is mute irritation against
everyone, but they especially hate their warders and superiors; they
are surly and forbidding in manner, silent as to their past, little
disposed to talk of their criminal adventures. Yet they display the
most contradictory traits. Even when they have been guilty of the most
horrible misdeeds they often show a calm, innocent face and are little
vexed by conscience. One who was noted for his submissive demeanour and
who in any trouble always sided with authority, was a parricide who had
killed his father under the most revolting conditions.
This youth, barely of age at the time of his crime, had sought his
father's consent to his marriage with an unworthy character, and
when refused, he retaliated by beating in his parent's brain with a
pickaxe. The fit of homicidal fury which possessed him drove him to
kill his father's donkey also and the dog which had been at his heels.
Then, having satiated his rage, he went home seemingly undisturbed,
and made some paltry excuse for his father's absence. When the corpse
was found he was arrested on suspicion, but for want of more than
circumstantial evidence escaped the garrote, and was sent to Ceuta
for life. Yet this miscreant betrayed no outward sign of the horrible
passions that sometimes dominated him, but was always placid and
of an engaging countenance. He was lamblike in his demeanour, most
attentive to his religious duties, never missed a mass or failed to
confess. He was devoted to children and his greatest pleasure was to
fondle the baby child of one of the warders which he carried about in
his arms in the streets of Ceuta. He seemed absolutely callous and
insensible to the prickings of conscience, but he showed in two ways
that he was consumed with remorse. When any reference was made to his
crime, at the slightest hint or the vaguest question, a fierce look
came into his eyes, his mouth closed, his hand sought his knife and
he was ready to attempt some fresh act of violence. The other sign of
his mental distress was that he seldom slept and never soundly or for
long, and his nights were disturbed with groans, deep sighs, even yells
of despair. Yet his general health was good, he ate with appetite,
maintained his strength well, and there was no apparent mental
failure. But he was no doubt mad and under a more intelligent system
of jurisprudence he would have been relegated to a criminal lunatic
asylum. There is no record however that at Ceuta he had been seized
again by homicidal mania.
There were many other types of murderers in Ceuta. The husbands who
had killed their wives formed a distinct group. Jealousy because of
real or fancied injury led to the vindictive thirst for revenge and
this was more frequently found in the peasant than in the higher
and better educated classes. Death had been inflicted in most cases
by violence, but one aggrieved Othello chose poison, rejoicing in
the acute suffering produced by arsenic. Another, who was half a
Frenchman, adopted the French method of dismemberment, and to dispose
of the damning evidence of the corpse, cut it up into small pieces and
distributed them far and wide, but could not hide them effectually.
Extenuating circumstances were allowed him and he went to Ceuta, where
he is said to have lived quite contentedly, never regretting the savage
act that had avenged his dishonour and made him a widower.
Ceuta made its own murderers. Duels to the death were of constant
occurrence as elsewhere, and the authorities rarely interfered even
when fatal consequences ensued. On this point Relosillas says: "During
my stay of fourteen months in Ceuta hardly an hour passed without a
serious quarrel, not a day when some one was not wounded, not a week
without a violent death in the _Cuartel Principal_. These troubles
were due invariably to the same causes, the admission of _aguardiente_
and the facility with which knives and lethal weapons could be
obtained--points already noted and discussed at the beginning of this
chapter. The drink was always on tap, as it could be introduced without
difficulty through the dishonesty of the warders and the unlimited
traffic with the townspeople. The weapons were never wanting, as it was
impossible to check their presence, for no convict would be without his
long sharp knife ready for instant use.
CHAPTER IX
BRIGANDS AND BRIGANDAGE
Disordered state of Spain at the accession of Isabella--Brigandage
raised into an organised system by lawless nobility and rebels--The
revival of the Santa Hermandad or Holy Brotherhood--This
institution revived again in the 19th century under the name of
"Migueletes"--Attack on the mail coach outside Madrid--The famous
brigand José Maria--His daring robberies in the Serrania--His
early life--English officers from Gibraltar captured and held to
ransom--Beloved and venerated by the peasants--In 1833 appointed an
officer of the Migueletes--Brigandage not extinct in Spain--Don Julian
de Zugasti appointed governor of Cordova--Methods of procedure--The
famous robber Vizco el Borje--His seizure of Don Pedro de M.--Enormous
ransom extorted--Agua Dulce.
Brigandage, the form of organised highway robbery practised by bands of
thieves in countries where roads are long and lonely and imperfectly
guarded, has been always popular with the Latin races. It suited the
tastes and temperament of reckless people who defied the law and
laughed at the attempt to protect defenceless wayfarers. Their activity
was stimulated by the long wastes of rugged country that separated the
towns, giving harbourage and security to the robbers who issued forth
to prey upon travellers and easily retired to their rocky fastnesses
and escaped pursuit. These Ishmaelites have been especially active in
Spain and Italy and the aggressive spirit that moved them is not yet
entirely extinct. More settled government has produced a more effective
police in these latter days, but acts of brigandage in its latest
development, that of "holding up" modern means of conveyance, express
trains, bicycles and motor cars, have occurred, and may be reasonably
expected to increase.
Brigandage is as old as the hills in Spain and some of its earliest
phases are well worth describing before they are forgotten or replaced
by newer processes. We may look back and gather some idea of those
early days in Spain.
When Isabella, the Catholic, ascended the throne of Castile, she was
called upon to govern a country profoundly demoralised, infested
with evil doers and dominated by a turbulent and vicious nobility.
The throne was an object of contempt, the treasury empty, the
people poverty stricken, and the princes of the Church rebellious
and rejoicing in large revenues. A lawless aristocracy hungry for
independent authority were fighting for their own lands or conspiring
secretly to overawe the Crown. Titled alcaldes, traitors and rebels,
openly raised brigandage into a system, exacted tribute by blackmail
from the lower classes, and made unceasing war upon the higher. Within
the kingdom a rival pretender aimed at the Crown. One near neighbour,
Alfonso V of Portugal, menaced the peace of the country and kept
an army on the frontier; another, Louis XI of France, crafty and
unscrupulous, constantly threatened war and held his army in Guipuscoa.
In a few short years the whole aspect of the country was changed.
Isabella brought her rebellious nobles to their knees, all of them
asking pardon and promising allegiance; the French army withdrew
hastily to France; the Portuguese was defeated and expelled; the
claimant to the throne was imprisoned and numbers of high-born
criminals suffered on the scaffold. The great ecclesiastics disgorged
much of their wealth to buy forgiveness, the robber haunts were
attacked and destroyed, the high-roads became perfectly safe, thieves
and highwaymen took to honest labour. Now the revenue was largely
improved, the law was respected, crime was actively pursued and
rigorously punished. But for the terrors and cruelties practised by the
Inquisition, Spain would have enjoyed unbroken domestic peace and all
the benefits accruing from general good government. These satisfactory
results were largely achieved by the excellent police organised by
Isabella and her husband, Ferdinand. The revival and consolidation of
the "Santa Hermandad" or Holy Brotherhood which had always existed in
the country districts to secure peace and tranquillity, but heretofore
wielding smaller powers, worked wonders. A comprehensive system was now
introduced by which all parts were patrolled by well-armed guardians
of the law, mounted and on foot, who checked, prevented or punished
misdeeds. In every collection of thirty houses or more two officials
were appointed to deal with all offenders according to a strict code.
Every thief when taken was punished with fine, flogging and exile, in
penalties proportioned to the amount stolen. For more heinous offences
his ears were cut off and he got a hundred lashes, or yet again one of
his feet was amputated and he was peremptorily forbidden to ride on a
horse or mule at peril of his life. A sentence of death was carried out
by shooting with arrows.
This ancient Hermandad was at one time revived in the _Migueletes_,
a body of men organised early in the nineteenth century to act as
escorts to private travellers, as the regular mails and diligences
were under the protection of troops provided by the Government. The
_Migueletes_ were a semi-military force composed of picked youths of
courageous conduct, wearing uniform and armed with a short gun, with
a sword, a single pistol and carrying a cord by which to secure their
prisoners. The _Migueletes_ took their name from one Miguel de Pratz,
who had been a lieutenant of Caesar Borgia. They were often recruited
from the robbers who were offered service as a condition of pardon when
captured, and afterwards behaved admirably. No one with an escort of
ten or twelve _Migueletes_ need fear attack.
The mail coach was sometimes attacked, and on one occasion was stopped
at Almuwadiel outside Madrid. It carried several passengers, among
others an Englishman, a German artist and a Spaniard. At the first
appearance of the brigands, the guard threw himself on the ground with
his face in the mud and the postillions did the same. When summoned
to deliver up their possessions, the Englishman gave up his well
filled purse and was warmly thanked; the German artist would have been
ill-treated as a punishment for his empty pockets, but was spared
when his poverty was explained; the Spaniard was caught attempting to
conceal his valuables in the carriage lining and narrowly escaped a
beating. The coach was at last permitted to proceed and at parting the
leader of the band shook hands with the Englishman and said he was a
real gentleman, the German was ignored and the Spaniard was sharply
taken to task for his attempted "fraud."
To this period (1825-35) belongs the famous brigand, José Maria, the
Spanish Fra Diavolo, whose name is still remembered in the "Serrania"
or mountain country of Ronda and throughout Southern Andalusia, for his
daring robberies and continual defiance of the authorities. A "pass" or
safe conduct granted by him was a better protection than any official
escort. So great was his power that he was known by the proud title
of "El Señor del Campo" (the lord of the country), and he ruled more
absolutely in Andalusia than King Ferdinand in Spain. Travellers paid
him a head tax, blackmail was levied on all public conveyances and, as
has been said, he issued passports at a price to all who chose to pay
for his protection. Strong bodies of troops were sent against him, but
he managed always to elude or oppose them successfully.
José Maria started in life as a small cultivator in a village near
Antequera, but, unable to earn a decent living, he took to the more
profitable business of smuggling, a profession greatly honoured and
esteemed in Spain. In one of his operations he was drawn into an affray
with the soldiers and unfortunately shot and killed one of them. He at
once fled to the mountains, where he was soon surrounded by other no
less reckless companions, all of them outlaws like himself, and became
the chief and centre of the band which soon spread terror throughout
Southern Spain. His headquarters were in the rugged and lofty mountain
district of Ronda near the little town of Grazalema, but he was
ubiquitous in his rapid movements and traversed the whole of Andalusia.
A story is preserved of an English nobleman who travelled to Spain
for the express purpose of making his acquaintance but long sought
him in vain in his favourite haunts and much disappointed retraced
his steps to Madrid. But on the road between Carmona and Ecija[23] he
had the questionable good fortune to meet José Maria in person, who
thanked him courteously for the compliment he had paid him in seeking
an interview, in return for which he proceeded to relieve his lordship
of his valuables and his baggage so that he might continue his journey
without encumbrance. He had many ways of levying contributions. One was
to send a messenger to some landed proprietor, demanding a large sum of
money, and declaring that if it was not paid he would swoop down to lay
waste his lands and burn his house over his head. Another plan was to
take post with his gang, all of them well mounted and fully armed, on
the highroad just outside some populous city, and "hold up" every one
who passed in or out, seizing all ready money and carrying off to some
secret fastness all persons known to possess means.
[23] This town of Ecija is renowned in the history of Spanish
brigandage as the home of the "Seven Sons of Ecija," a very daring
and dangerous band whose achievements have been told by the Spanish
novelist, Fernandez y Gonzalez.
English officers, part of the garrison of the Rock of Gibraltar, did
not escape the exactions of José Maria. Once a shooting party in the
woods near Gibraltar was suddenly attacked and captured, but after
the first surprise they showed fight and a brigand was wounded. The
lives of all of them were in danger but were saved on the persuasion
of José Maria that they would be more valuable as prisoners for whom a
large ransom would be obtained than as corpses. One of the party was
accordingly sent to the Rock to procure the money while the rest were
detained as hostages for his return at a certain hour the next day.
The messenger was warned that if a rescue was attempted, the whole of
the prisoners would be instantly massacred. He reached the Rock after
gunfire, but the gates were presently especially opened to admit him,
the money was collected, not without difficulty, and was conveyed to
the brigands in sufficient time to secure the release of the captives.
For some time later English officers were forbidden to go into Spain
except in sufficient numbers to set the brigands at defiance. In quite
recent years (1871) two gentlemen, natives of the Rock, were carried
off and detained until a large ransom was paid.
José Maria dominated the country for nearly ten years. The secret of
his long continued impunity may be traced to the fact that many of
the local authorities, influenced either by fear or interest, were in
collusion with him, and that the peasantry all wished him success;
for, as he never oppressed them, but assisted and protected their
smuggling transactions in which they are nearly all, in one way or
other, engaged by opposing the regular troops, he was greatly beloved
and venerated. He was in fact regarded as a hero; for such a life, wild
and adventurous, where there is plenty of plunder and no laborious
duty, has wondrous charms in the eyes of the lower Andalusians, by
whom the laws of _meum_ and _tuum_ have never been well understood.
How long José might have continued in power it is impossible to say,
but like some other great personages he chose to abdicate. In 1833, he
made his own terms with the Queen's government, agreeing to break up
his band on condition of receiving an _indulto_, or pardon for all past
offences, and a salaried appointment as an officer of Migueletes, or
"police." He did not long exercise this honest calling, for soon after,
when attempting to secure some of his former comrades who had taken
refuge in a farmhouse, he was shot dead as he burst open the door.
With all his bad qualities, José had some of a redeeming character.
Among these were his kindness to his female prisoners, his generosity
to the poor, and his forbearance, for he frequently restrained his
troop from acts of violence, and displayed on occasions a certain
chivalrous nobility of character, hardly to be expected from a robber.
In person he was very small, scarcely more than five feet in height,
with bowed legs; but he was stout, strong and active and made amends
in boldness, determination and talent for his physical deficiencies.
His success and the long continued control which he exercised over the
lawless fellows who composed his band proved that he possessed the
difficult art of command. His courage indeed was proverbial. As an
instance of it, it is reported that he once ventured into the presence
of the Prime Minister at Madrid and dared to beard him in his own house.
Brigandage has not wholly disappeared in Spain although it no longer
exists on the grand scale of former days when the mountain passes
and lesser highways were infested by robber bands led by daring
and unscrupulous chiefs who stopped travellers, blackmailed landed
proprietors and carried off country folk whom they held to ransom often
for considerable sums. To-day, if the knights of the road are still to
be met with occasionally, they are for the most part paltry pilferers
bent on stealing small sums from the poorer folk returning from market,
or in rare cases holding up some solitary vehicle and its defenceless
passengers. These are of the type of the old fashioned _salteadores_
or "jumpers," so named because they jumped out from behind a rock and
dropped suddenly on their prey with the old peremptory summons of
"_Boca abajo!_" "_Boca à tierra!_" "Faces down! Mouth to the ground!"
The cry may still be heard, and it means mischief when backed as of old
by the muzzle of a gun protruding from the bushes in some narrow pass
or defile. They are courageous too, these Spanish road agents, ready
to fight at need as well as to rob, to overbear resistance and to meet
the officers of the law with their own weapons. A story is told of one
daring ruffian, Rullo de Zancayro, who, in 1859, murdered the alcalde
of his village and was followed by two _guardias civiles_. At the end
of a long chase they went too near some brushwood, when one was shot
dead and the fugitive made good his escape.
In the year 1870 brigandage was general throughout Spain, but the
heart and centre of it was the province of Andalusia, with branches
and ramifications everywhere, spreading dismay and apprehension
among all peaceable people. This was in the interregnum that followed
the revolution which drove Queen Isabella from the throne. There
was safety for no one. Respectable landowners dared not visit nor
reside upon their estates for fear of attack, dreading robbery with
violence or seizure of their persons, and they constantly received
threatening letters demanding the purchase of immunity on the payment
of considerable sums. The roads were more than ever insecure, trains
and diligences were repeatedly held up, and small parties of travellers
or solitary wayfarers were certain to be laid under contribution. It
was claimed that the _guardias civiles_, the fine rural police, were
no longer active but were diverted from their legitimate duties by
political party leaders in power. So many bitter complaints, so many
indignant demands for protection, reached the central government in
Madrid, that the authorities resolved to put down brigandage with a
strong hand. A new governor of Cordova was appointed, a man of vigour
and determination, armed with full powers to purge the province of its
desperadoes.
The choice fell upon Don Julian de Zugasti y Saenz, who had been a
member of the Cortes and employed as civil administrator, first as
governor of Teruel, where he had restored order in a period of grave
disorder, and at Burgos, where he had laid bare a formidable conspiracy
against the government. When Zugasti undertook the task, it was high
time to adopt energetic measures. There was no security for life or
property as robberies on a large scale were perpetrated both in town
and country. Well-to-do citizens were seized in the public streets and
carried off to sequestration; farmers and cultivators were compelled to
share their produce, their harvests, and their herds with the brigands
who swooped down on them; the police were impotent or too much overawed
to interfere in the interest of honest folk. The prevailing anarchy
and widespread lawlessness were a disgrace to any country that called
itself civilised. Zugasti did a great work in restoring order and
giving security to the disturbed districts. The whole story is told
at some length in his book on "Bandolerismo,"[24] which deals with
brigandage in Spain from its very beginnings, describing the principal
feats of the banditti.
[24] "Bandolerismo estudo social y memorias historicas," by Don Julian
de Zugasti. Madrid, 1876.
At the outset he was faced with a most difficult situation. Crimes
in great number had been committed with impunity. Many of their
perpetrators were wholly hidden from the authorities, while others
were perfectly well known. A crowd of spies were ever on the watch and
ready, whether from greed or to curry favour, with abundant information
of openings that offered for attempts at crime. On the other hand the
_guardias civiles_ were greatly discouraged and far too weak in numbers
for the onerous duties they were expected to perform. Judges were
dishonest and had been known to accept bribes, the ordinary police were
torpid, nearly useless and generally despised. A complete reform in the
administration of justice was a crying need, as the power and authority
of the law were completely broken down.
The new governor was helpless and handicapped on every side. His
representations to the government for support were but coldly
received and he had to rely on such scanty means as he had at hand.
He looked carefully into the character of all police employés and
dismissed all of doubtful reputation. He established a system of
supplying the _guardias civiles_ at all stations with photographs of
criminals at large whom they could identify and arrest, and insisted
on strictly revising the permits issued to carry arms, allowing none
but respectable persons to do so. The prohibition was extended to all
kinds of knives, many of them murderous weapons of the well known type.
The quarters of all evil doers he heard of were broken up, including
the farm which had come to be called Ceuta because it harboured a
mob of ex-convicts, escaped prisoners who were eager to resume their
depredations by joining themselves to the plans and projects of others.
These active measures were bitterly resented and vigorously resisted by
all evil doers, who went so far as to seek the removal of the governor,
and it was falsely announced in more than one newspaper that he had
sent in his resignation. The disastrous consequence was the immediate
revival of brigandage in various forms. Horses and cattle were once
more stolen in the open country and a house in the town of Estado
was broken into and a large amount in cash and securities with much
valuable jewelry was seized. At the same time ten prisoners escaped
in a body from the gaol of that city. On the highroad between Posadas
and Villaviciosa, seven armed men robbed nineteen travellers, and a
party had the audacity to carry off a child of nine and hold him to
ransom. The police and well-disposed people were greatly disheartened,
the _guardias civiles_, which had done excellent service in capturing
more than a hundred prisoners in a short time, slackened in their
endeavours, while the municipal police, which had forty captures to
its credit, also held their hand. The whole situation was greatly
aggravated and crime gained the ascendancy. But Zugasti rose to the
occasion, publicly denied the report of his resignation; the government
published a complimentary decree commending his conduct, and his
pursuit of wrong doers was continued with renewed energy. Naturally he
incurred the bitterest hostility and went constantly in danger of his
life. He received anonymous letters containing the most bloodthirsty
threats and was warned by his friends that they could not possibly
support or protect him. Undeterred he held his way, bravely and wisely
organised an association akin to the "Regulators" of the wild days
in the Western States of the United States to patrol the country and
insure the general safety, and employed a large force of secret police
agents to perambulate the country, keeping close watch upon suspicious
persons, travelling by all trains, patrolling all roads, visiting
taverns in low quarters, entering the prisons in disguise and gaining
the confidence of the fellow prisoners. Zugasti himself spent long
periods in the various gaols, observing, investigating and interviewing
notable offenders.
The thoroughness of his proceedings might be gathered from the choice
he made of his agents. One of the most useful was an idiot boy, whose
weak-mindedness was relieved by some glimmerings of sense and who
passed entirely unsuspected by those upon whom he spied. His foolish
talk and silly ways gained him ready admission into cafés and clubs,
where he was laughed at and treated as a butt upon whom food, drink
and unlimited cigars were generously bestowed. He had the gift of
remaining wide awake while seeming to be sound asleep, his ears ever on
the stretch to pick up compromising facts which were openly mentioned
before him. He had also a prodigious memory and seldom forgot what he
heard, storing up everything to be produced later when he attended
upon the governor. In this way Zugasti often heard of crimes almost
as soon as they were planned, and could hunt up their perpetrators
without delay. On one occasion a mysterious crime was unravelled by
placing the idiot in the same cell with two of the suspected actors,
who entirely believed in the imbecility of their cell companion and
unguardedly revealed the true inwardness of the whole affair.
The _ladron en grande_, the "robber chief" at the head of a numerous
band, is still to be met with, although rarely representing the type
of the famous José Maria. These leaders rose to the command of their
lawless fellows by force of superior will, and they were unhesitatingly
obeyed and followed with reckless devotion in the constant commission
of crime. One or two noted specimens have survived till to-day and some
account of them may be extracted from recent records.
Vizco el Borje was long a terror to the peaceable people in northern
Andalusia. He was originally an officer of _carabineros_, the "custom
house" regiment of Spain, but had been, in his own judgment, unjustly
dismissed and found himself deprived of the means of subsistence.
Falling lower and lower, step by step he became an outcast, an
Ishmaelite consumed with an intense hatred of all social arrangements,
with his hand against every man. He began business as a smuggler and
soon took to worse, following the Spanish proverb:--
"De contrabandista e ladron
No haymas que un escalon."
"There is only one short step from smuggler to thief," and Vizco
quickly crossed the narrow space and became a notorious criminal. He
carried on the war against law and order with constantly increasing
recklessness and more and more daring outrages. His strong personal
character, his iron will, his unbounded courage and boldness gave
him a great ascendancy over the men who collected around him and who
served him with the greatest loyalty and unstinting effort. One of his
exploits may be quoted at some length as exhibiting his methods and the
success that generally attended them.
A certain landowner, Don Pedro de M----, whose estates were in the
neighbourhood of the mountain village of Zahrita, was in the habit of
providing bulls free of charge for the amusement of the villagers, at
the annual festival of their patron saint. Amateur bull fighters are
always to be found to take part in the performance of a _novillos_,
or game with young bulls. Don Pedro like many of his class was also
an _aficionado_, an amateur devoted to bull fighting, and he loved to
pick out himself the animals he gave from his herds, trying first their
temper and their aptitude for the so-called sport of _tauromaquia_.
He was thus engaged, assisted by his steward and a herdsman, and had
dismounted with the steward to walk round the herd, when the ominous
cry was raised, "_Boca abajo!_" and they found themselves covered
by the rifles of three brigands who had crept upon them unobserved.
Resistance was hopeless, though they also were armed, for their guns
hung at the saddles of their horses, which they led at the full length
of their reins, and to have made any hostile move would have drawn
down a murderous fire. The chance soon passed, for one of the robbers
quickly took possession of both horses and guns. The seizure was
complete and the captors proceeded to carry off their prize.
All remounted by order of the chief of the band, who took the lead,
and the party started in single file along the narrow mountain path,
an armed escort bringing up the rear. They made straight for the
upper sierra, avoiding the frequented track until they reached a
dense thicket, where a halt was called and a scout sent on ahead.
After an interchange of whistled signals, nine other horsemen rode
up, the two prisoners were ordered to dismount, their eyes closely
bandaged, and they were warned that their lives depended upon their
implicit obedience to the orders they received. Then the march was
resumed. The road led constantly upward, becoming more and more rugged
and precipitous till from the utter absence of brushwood and the
stumbling of their horses they knew that they were climbing through
a mountainous region. Another halt was called, all again dismounted,
and the prisoners were led on foot along a narrow passage, that from
the echoing sounds and the closeness of the air evidently penetrated
far into the hill. It opened presently into an extensive cavern,
probably the long-abandoned workings of some ancient Roman mine.
Here their bandages were removed and Don Pedro saw that he was in the
presence of the three bandits who had first made him prisoner. The cave
contained nothing but a few empty boxes, on one of which was a light,
a flickering wick in a saucerful of oil. Another box was offered Don
Pedro as a seat, writing materials were produced and he was desired to
write from dictation as follows:--
"DEAR FATHER, I am in the power of the 'Sequestradores,' who make good
plans and bind fast. It is madness to put the government on their
track--they will escape and you will lose your son. Your secrecy and
your money can at once free me. You can send the silver by Diego our
steward, who is the bearer of this. Let him appear on the mountain
between Grazalema and El Bosque, riding a white donkey and bringing
ten thousand dollars."
Here the prisoner stopped short and point blank refused to demand so
large a sum, declaring that to pay it his brothers would be robbed of
their patrimony and that he had no right to ask even when his life was
at stake for more than his individual share as one member of a large
family. It was a fair argument and he held out so staunchly that the
brigand was pleased to reduce the demand to six thousand dollars. The
letter conveying these terms was then completed, signed and delivered
to Diego, who was told to make the best of his way to Xeres, and as
dawn had now broken he had no difficulty in finding the road.
Don Pedro was hospitably entertained. A wine skin (_borracha_) was
broached and a plentiful supper laid out. The day was spent in sleep,
but at nightfall the march was resumed. The prisoner was once more
blindfolded, the weary pilgrimage, halting by day, travelling by
night for three nights in succession, was resumed. On one occasion he
seemed near rescue. A cry of "Civiles! Civiles!" was raised, an alarm
of the near approach of the much dreaded _guardias civiles_. Orders
were promptly issued to prepare for action. The brigands closed their
ranks, sent their prisoner to the rear and took post to open fire. In
the confusion Don Pedro, keenly alert for the deliverance that seemed
so near, managed to lift the bandage over his eyes sufficiently to
peep around. The party stood on a narrow ledge of the mountain side,
straight cliff above, sheer drop below: movement forward or back was
alone feasible. Meanwhile the increasing clatter of hoofs betrayed
the enemy's approach, nearer and nearer, and the brigands barring the
narrow road hoped to take them at a disadvantage and, after shooting
them down, make good their retreat. But the sight of the first horse
showed that it had been a false alarm. These were not "_Civiles_" but
"_Contrabandistas_," smugglers not policemen, friends not foes. A long
train of animals, heavily laden with goods that had paid no duty, were
being guided across the mountains. Don Pedro's hopes were crushed
out of him when he heard the interchange of friendly greetings: "_Muy
buenas noches!_" on one side and "_Vayan ustedes con Dios_," on the
other; "Good night!" and "Go in God's keeping," and room was made by
the robbers for the safe passage of the smuggling train.
On the third day news came that the authorities were on the alert and
it would be unsafe to meet the messenger returning on his white donkey.
Another tryst was therefore appointed. Don Pedro's father was desired
to send half the whole sum demanded to Grazalema and the other half was
carried by a man on the white donkey to a lonely spot among the hills.
The father started in person on the long ride from Xeres to Grazalema
weighted with three thousand dollars in cash, reached his destination
safely but remained there for a couple of days tortured with suspense.
On the third morning he was approached by a man leading a pony laden
with rolls of the rough brown cloth manufactured in Grazalema, who
said under his breath as he passed, "Follow me." The peddler led the
way to a small draper's shop where the same cloth was exposed for sale
and, dismounting, passed into the back premises, where another man,
also a peddler, was seated waiting. This was Vizco el Borje himself,
who at once asked for the money, producing Don Pedro's pencil case
as his credentials. The dollars had been sewn for security into the
pack saddle of the pony which had brought the old man, and they were
extracted, counted and handed over. Vizco forthwith climbed on top of
the pile of cloth carried by his own mount and rode boldly out of the
town.
Meanwhile Diego, the steward on the white donkey, with the remaining
three thousand dollars patiently hung about the mountain lair to
which he had been directed, and at last encountered a goatherd at the
entrance of the village, who told him to ride on till he met a woman
dressed in black seated by the side of a well. "She will ask you the
time, and you will answer twelve o'clock, at which she will guide you
to the spot where you are expected." It was a cavern in the hill and he
was met there by his young master Don Pedro safe and sound. The money
was handed over, but no release was permitted until news came of the
delivery of the other half, when the prisoners were guided to a path
familiar to them and they were free to return home. Next evening they
rode into Xeres after a captivity of fifteen days.
The end of Vizco el Borje was such as might be expected. He was shot
down by the _guardias civiles_. For a long time he carried his life
in his hands and had many hairbreadth escapes, saved always by his
fine pluck and resourcefulness. At last the authorities had positive
information of his whereabouts, gained through treachery, and he was
surrendered. He made a gallant defence, but his retreat was cut off
and he was soon overpowered. When he fell his body had been pierced by
five rifle bullets.
Another type of brigand was Agua Dulce, who worked on a much smaller
scale, but was long a terror in the neighbourhood of Xeres. He was
a mean, contemptible ruffian who preyed upon charcoal burners, poor
travellers, carriers and workmen returning home with their hard earned
wages. He had one narrow escape. After securing an unusually large sum,
the equivalent of £600, all in small coins, he was caught dividing
these with two accomplices in a wine shop. His arrest and imprisonment
followed. When called upon to account for his possession of the gold,
Agua Dulce explained that he had got it in the course of a business
transaction in Seville and was removed to that city for trial, where he
was acquitted, although little doubt was entertained of his guilt.
For years he continued his depredations, committing for the most part
small thefts and petty larcenies. Now and again he made bold coups, as
when, under threat of damaging a herd of valuable mares, he extorted
three thousand dollars from a lady who raised horses. He levied a
thousand dollars on another landowner by using the same menace and a
third gentleman, who had stoutly refused to be blackmailed and who
owned a large drove of donkeys, found them all with their throats cut
lying by the high road. When his misdeeds became too numerous to be
borne the municipal guard of Gorez swore to put an end to him. A hot
pursuit was organised and he was found at a ford near a wood belonging
to the Duke of San Lorenzo, where he was caught hiding among the trees.
Two guards opened fire, which was returned, with the result that one
guard was killed and one robber. Agua Dulce, who was still alive, got
into the covert, and shots were again and again exchanged, ending in
the destruction of the brigand.
A later affair with brigands occurred at Gibraltar in 1870, when two
gentlemen, natives of the Rock, much given to hunting and taking long
rides in the neighbourhood, were waylaid and made prisoners. They were
carried off to a lonely house in the hills near Ronda and detained
for ransom, which was advanced by the British government through the
governor of the fortress of Gibraltar, and eventually repaid by the
Spanish authorities. After the money had been paid over the _guardias
civiles_ intercepted the robbers and shot them down.
CHAPTER X
A BRIGHT PAGE IN PRISON HISTORY
Wonderful results achieved by Colonel Montesinos in the presidio
at Valencia--Montesinos repairs and reconstructs the prison with
convict labour--His system of treatment--Period--Marvellous success
in reforming criminals--Convicts entrusted with confidential
despatches in civil war--Armed to resist attack on the prison
by insurgents--Employed to hunt down brigands--Movement towards
prison reform in 1844--Three new model prisons planned for
Madrid--Executions--The "garrote"--Account of the trial and execution
of José de Rojas--The condemned cell at the Saladero--An Englishman's
description of a Spanish execution.
The reader who has followed this detailed description of Spanish penal
methods has realised the hideous shortcomings of Spanish prisons, the
horrible practices so constantly prevailing within the walls, the
apparently incurable nature of the criminals who regularly fill them,
and he might reasonably doubt that definite and substantial amendment
was possible. Yet the contrary is true and to the most marked and
astonishing degree if we are to believe the facts on record. In one
instance the personal character of one man, backed by his unshaken
determination and the exercise of a resolute and inflexible will,
brought a large mass of convicts into an admirable condition of
self-control and good behaviour. The story reads like a fairy tale,
as set forth in contemporary chronicles. One of the most interesting
accounts is to be found in a book of travels entitled "Spain as It
Is," by a Mr. Hoskins, in which he gives his personal observations
of the results achieved in the prison at Valencia by the enlightened
administration of its Governor, Colonel Montesinos. A brief account of
the man himself should precede our appreciation of his work.
Montesinos was a soldier, trained to arms, whose education and
experience were entirely military. He had no previous acquaintance
with or insight into prison systems, although he had travelled far
and wide in many countries. He had never visited or inspected their
penal establishments nor had he penetrated into any single prison in
his native Spain. He served in the Spanish army, beginning as a cadet
at fourteen, was actively engaged in the war of Independence, and was
carried off as a prisoner into France. When set free at the conclusion
of peace, he accepted a post in the secretariat of the War Office at
Madrid, where he remained for five years. Then came the political
troubles which ended in the fall of the constitutional government
in 1823 and the surrender of Cadiz. With many other soldiers and
citizens, he left Spain and wandered through Europe and America, with
no very definite idea of examining into the laws and customs of other
countries, but gaining knowledge and breadth of views. On his return
to Spain when close on forty years of age he was appointed governor of
the convict prison in Valencia.
Montesinos entered upon his duties with a firm conviction of the
paramount importance of military discipline, of that passive and
unquestioning obedience to authority, the absolute surrender of
individual volition, the complete subjection of the many to the single
will of one superior master, which he believed to be the essence of all
personal government and more particularly in a prison. To enforce such
discipline was the only effectual method of securing good order and
the due subordination of the rough and possibly recalcitrant elements
under his command. In this he entirely succeeded and established an
extraordinary influence over his charges. He became an autocrat but
in the best sense; his prisoners resigned themselves submissively and
unhesitatingly to his control, anxious to gain his good will by their
exemplary demeanour and their unvarying desire to behave well. What
he actually made of his charges, how he succeeded in changing their
very natures, in transforming lawbreakers and evil doers into honest,
trustworthy persons, successfully restraining their evil instincts,
will be best realised by a few strange facts which, if not positively
vouched for, would be considered beyond belief. But before relating
these marvellous results it will be well to describe in some detail the
processes adopted by him and the principles on which he acted.
When Colonel Montesinos was appointed governor of the Valencian convent
prison, it was located in an ancient mediæval edifice known as the
"_Torres de Cuarte_," two towers flanking the great gate which gave
upon the suburb known as "_El Cuarte_." This semi-ruinous building,
dating from the fifteenth century, lodged about a thousand prisoners,
herded together in a number of dark, dirty, ill-kept and insecure
chambers, wholly unfit for human habitation. They were on several
floors communicating by narrow passages and tortuous staircases, below
which were deep underground cellars divided up into obscure foul
dungeons, which were always humid from the infiltration from the city
ditch and into which neither sunlight nor fresh air came to dry up the
damp pavement and the streaming walls. Montesinos saw at once that it
would be impossible to introduce reforms in such a building and he
laboured hard to move into better quarters, securing at length, after
a long correspondence, new quarters in the monastery of St. Augustine,
which indeed was but little better. Here also the buildings had fallen
into disrepair. A large part was without roof, there was little
flooring, and many broken windows and decayed walls offered numerous
facilities for escape. Extensive repairs were indispensable, yet funds
were wanting, for the Spanish government was sorely taxed to meet the
expenses of the civil war (Carlist) now in full swing. Nevertheless
Montesinos, strenuous and indefatigable, a host in himself, transferred
his people, a thousand convicts of dangerous character, into their new
abode and set them to work to repair and reconstruct the old building.
He meant to succeed, by drawing upon his own limitless energies,
creating means from his own native resources, and was backed by the
ready response of those he brought under the dominion of an indomitable
will.
All difficulties yielded before his intense spirit. He was the very
incarnation of activity and it was enough to look at him to be
spurred on to assiduous effort. His personal traits and their effect
upon his surroundings are thus described by his biographer, Vincente
Boix,--"There can be no doubt that his martial air, his tall figure
and the look in his face, a mixture of imperious command with great
kindliness and shrewd appreciation of willing effort, had a marked
effect upon his people, and convicts who had been once coerced and
driven by the fear of punishment yielded much more readily to his
moral force. His obvious determination and strength of character got
more out of them than threats or penalties, although, if needs were,
he was ready enough to appeal to the strong arm. They acknowledged
his superiority, and rough undisciplined men, quite capable of rising
against authority when unchecked or weakly held, succumbed to his
lightest word like children to their father. They yielded even against
the grain absolute compliance to his lightest wish without needing a
sharp look or a cross word."
It will be interesting to follow Montesinos' procedure. Under his
system the treatment was progressive and divided into three periods;
first, that of chains; second, that of labour; and third, that of
conditional liberation. This arrangement is in some respects akin to
that generally known as the "Irish" system as practised many years ago
with conspicuous success.
(1) The wearing of irons at that time was general in Spain, although
now the practice has fallen into disuse. With Montesinos the rule was
to impose irons of varying weight graduated to the length of sentence.
A two years' man carried them of four pounds' weight; a four years'
man of six pounds, while between six and eight years they were of
eight pounds. They consisted of a single chain fastened to a fetter on
the right ankle, while the other end was attached to a waist belt, a
method supposed to cause no great inconvenience. With Montesinos the
period of wearing them was of short duration. It terminated on the
day that the convict petitioned for regular employment, for on first
reception, after having entered the first courtyard, which was kept
bright with garden flowers and the songs of many birds in cages hanging
around, the new arrival was given no work. He remained at the depot
idle and silent, for no conversation was permitted, although he was
associated with others, and if he put a question to a neighbour he
got no reply. Weariness and boredom soon supervened in this period of
first probation and the convict was keen to pass on. He appealed to his
officer, who told him to seek employment at some trade. "I know none."
"Then learn one, you cannot get quit of your irons in any other way."
If the convict hesitated he was left studiously to himself, unhappy
and ashamed, for his condition was deemed disgraceful. He could not
hold his head up, for a wide gulf separated him from others who had
escaped the chain. He was a marked man, shunned and sneered at, and was
required to work from the second day at ignominious and humiliating
labour, such as sweeping, cleaning, and so forth. They were the helots
and scavengers of the prison. Their lot was the more unbearable because
they were debarred from many privileges conferred on those who were
at regular labour, and who were earning wages to spend in part upon
themselves. These regular labourers might buy toothsome food and
cigars, the delight of every Spaniard's heart. Meanwhile the governor
had been watching him closely, noting his disposition and whether
or not he was desirous of taking up work which was so much to his
advantage and of which he would be speedily deprived unless he applied
himself to it with zeal and unflagging industry.
(2) A wide choice of labour obtained in Valencia. Trades and
handicrafts were varied and numerous. Carpenters, turners, saddlers,
shoemakers, fanmakers, workers with esparto grass, weavers of
palm straw hats, silk spinners, tailors, basket makers, were all
represented, and the total was some forty trades, with seven hundred
artisans. To-day there would be nothing remarkable in this industrial
activity, which may be seen in well governed prisons, but in Valencia
at that date (1835-40) it was a novelty due very largely to Montesinos'
initiative, and he could boast that out of three thousand convicts,
barely a fourth left prison without having acquired some smattering
of a trade. Stress must not be laid upon the exact amount of skill
possessed by these prison taught artisans, and it is to be feared
that it was no more thorough than in these latter days of ours, when
the same principles as those of Montesinos have actuated prison
administration. This is the crux of the system of prison instruction.
It cannot be expected to turn out workmen sufficiently well trained and
expert to go out into the open labour market, so generally overcrowded,
and compete for wages against the free labourer who has had the benefit
of full apprenticeship. Adults cannot easily acquire knowledge and
dexterity in the use of tools, and inevitable waste of materials
accompanies the experiments made by unskilled hands. We have no record
of how far these drawbacks affected Montesinos' well-meant practice.
(3) We have no facts to show how far the third period, that of
conditional liberation, was successful at Valencia. There is no
possibility of knowing definitely whether it was really tried or
went beyond the enunciation of the theory so long in advance of our
modern practice. It is little likely, however, that the effective
and elaborate method of police supervision on which it is absolutely
dependent was in existence or even understood in Spain in the days of
Montesinos.
No permanent results seemed to have been achieved by the Montesinos
system. There is no record that it survived the man who created it
or that the government sought to extend the admirable principles
on which it rested. It was essentially a one man system, depending
entirely for success on the personal qualities of the individual
called upon to carry it out. Montesinos was not, however, singular in
his remarkable achievement. The German Obermaier did much the same
in the prison of Kaiserslautern, and Captain Maconochie in Norfolk
Island exercised a notable mastery over the Australian convicts. The
effects produced by Montesinos were little less than phenomenal. He so
developed the probity of his convicts that he could rely implicitly
upon their honesty and good faith. During the civil war he sent them
with confidential despatches to commanders in the field and never had
cause to regret the trust placed in them. They were sent out as scouts
seeking information of the enemy's movements and brought in news with
punctuality and despatch. A message was brought one day to the governor
directing him to send a clerk to fetch a thousand dollars from the
provincial Treasury. Montesinos forthwith summoned one of his convicts
and despatched him, carrying with him the receipt for the money. Within
half an hour the man returned with the dollars. Whenever a convict
escaped from the presidio, a rare occurrence indeed, other convicts
were despatched in pursuit and seldom failed to bring in the fugitive.
At one time the Spanish government decided to build a new prison in
the capital and to employ convict labour in the construction. The
Governor of the presidio of Valencia was ordered to send up a number
of prisoners, and next day at daylight they marched, taking with
them a quantity of material, the whole escorted by a small body of
_cabos_, "prisoner warders," and commanded by a veteran overseer. The
journey was safely made to Madrid without the smallest mishap, not a
sign or symptom of misbehaviour shown on the road, and the alcaldes
of the towns on the route, after anticipating the worst evils, were
agreeably surprised and were satisfied to lodge the travellers at
night in private houses if there was no prison accommodation. A second
experiment of the kind was made in the same year.
On a previous occasion Valencia was threatened by a strong force of
Carlists under that distinguished Carlist general, Cabrera, and it was
feared that he would capture a large body of convicts at that time
employed on a new road, Las Cabrillas, a little distance from the city.
There were hardly any troops in the capital except the city militia
only recently organised and barely equal to the duties and dangers
imposed upon them. Great fears were entertained that Cabrera would
seize the convicts and incorporate with his own force. Montesinos was
desired to prevent this, and he turned up in person one evening at Las
Cabrillas, where he assumed command and drew off the greater number,
happily escaping without attack or interference by the enemy. So loyal
was the demeanour of the Valencian prisoners that under the direction
of Montesinos at another time they were armed and resisted an attack
made upon the gates of their convent prison by the insurgents in a
rising in Valencia. The following extraordinary story is related in an
official publication by the well known poet Don Ramon de Campoamor,
at that time governor of the province of Valencia. A formidable band
of brigands was devastating the neighbourhood of Valencia and a reign
of terror prevailed. The governor sent for Colonel Montesinos and
inquired whether there were any old brigands among the convicts in
custody and who were willing to atone for past misdeeds by coming to
the assistance of the authorities. Montesinos, who made it a rule to
know all his prisoners by heart, their present dispositions, and indeed
their inmost thoughts, spoke confidently of one as quite a reformed
character, and at the governor's request entrusted him with the special
mission of clearing out the country. The convict, after receiving
his instructions, went out with a sufficient escort, hunted down the
brigands, broke up their bands, killing or capturing the whole. Here
the commanding influence of Montesinos was paramount even beyond the
walls of the presidio. By the power of his strong will he called out
fine qualities and exacted loyal service from the worst materials whom
he had won to a high sense of discipline.
A minor and more sentimental instance is recorded of the confidence
he could repose in his reformed criminals. The mother of one of the
convicts was at the point of death. The man was summoned to the
governor's office and informed of her desperate condition. "Do you wish
to see her in her last moments?" asked the governor. "Can I trust you
to return if I give you permission to leave the prison for a time?"
The man much moved solemnly promised not to misuse his liberty. He was
allowed to exchange his prison uniform for a peasant's dress; he went
without escort to his mother's cottage, received her blessing, and went
back to durance as had been agreed.
The experience of Valencia was unique and short-lived. A commendable
effort was made to extend the principles on which Montesinos had acted,
and decrees embodying them and recommending them for general adoption
were issued but soon became a dead letter. Excellent in theory, their
success depended entirely on the man to give them effect. A second
Montesinos did not appear and Spanish prisons continued to exhibit the
worst features down to the present day.
A movement towards prison reform had been commenced as early as 1844,
when three new "model" prisons were planned for Madrid, but their
construction was long delayed. About the same date a model convict
prison was planned at Valladolid, but slow progress was made with
this and with other new prisons, including that of Saragossa, and
at the Casa de Galera of Alcalá de Henares. A penitentiary was also
projected on the island of Cabrera, opposite Cadiz. The chief effort
was concentrated on the model prison of Madrid, which was undertaken
in 1876 after much debate and discussion. It was to be an entirely
new building, to which were devoted all the funds that might have
been expended upon the impossible reform and repair of the hideous
old Saladero. Several years passed before the building began, and not
until 1884 did the tenants of the dismantled Saladero move into the new
prison. It is for the most part on the cellular or separate system,
by which each individual is held strictly apart from his fellows,
according to the most modern ideas, which have claimed to have exerted
a potent effect in the reformation of offenders and the diminution of
crime. Nevertheless the system is still in its trial and its beneficial
results are by no means universally conceded. The new prison is a very
distinct improvement on the old, and the former horrors and atrocities
are fast disappearing, but the secluded solitary life has its own
peculiar terrors which press hardly on transgressors, with results that
are very distinctly deterrent if not very largely reformatory.
What those actually subjected to the treatment feel we may read in
their own effusions. The literary quality of prison writers does not
rank high but they sometimes put their views forcibly. One says of the
"model":--"If I leave this trying place alive I can at least declare
that I have been buried underground and had made the acquaintance of
the grave diggers." Another writer:--"If you wish to know what life is
like here, come and take your lodging inside. They are handsome, but
curious, well provided with means to drive you out of your mind. There
is a water tap which overflows in drought and runs dry in wet weather;
a pocket handkerchief and a towel; a plate, a basin and a wooden spoon,
a broom, a dust box, one blanket and a mattress with four straws that
gives you pain in every limb: many things more, but one alone much
needed is absent, a rope by which you commit suicide."
It has been said that the worst use to which a man may be put is to
shut him up in a prison. A still more wasteful extravagance is to put
him out of the world. The penalties known to Spanish law have been
very various; there have been many forms of imprisonment, perpetual
imprisonment, greater or less detention, exile, the application of
fetters of several sorts, handcuffs, shackles, the _guarda amigo_ or
"holdfriend," the "persuader" or "come along with me"; the leg irons
and waist chains of varying weights. Penal labour was enforced in
_maniobras infimas_ by convicts chained together on public works,
fortifications, harbours and mines. All forms of secondary punishment
have been inflicted, winding up with capital, the death sentence
inflicting the extreme penalty of the law. This last irrevocable act
does not find favour with all Spanish legists, whose chief objection
is the familiar one that when a judicial error has been committed,
rectification is altogether impossible. Spain can add one to the many
well known cases such as those of Callas and Lesurques, and it may be
quoted here as it is probably little known.
The case occurred in Seville and grew out of a sudden quarrel in a
tavern followed by a fight to the death with knives. The combatants
went on the ground and attacked each other in the regular fashion when
one dropped to the ground mortally wounded and the other with his
second ran away. The wounded man's second went up to see whether his
principal was dying or already dead, when he got up and declared that
he was entirely unhurt. He had slipped upon a stone and fallen with
the obviously cowardly desire to escape from his antagonist's attack.
The second was furiously angry and rated his man soundly. He retorted
fiercely and another quarrel and another encounter ensued, also with
knives, in which the first man again fell and this time was killed
outright, by his own second, who at once made off. The body lay where
it had fallen until next morning, when the police found it. The story
of the original quarrel but nothing of the second had become known, and
it was naturally concluded that death had been inflicted by the first
combatant. On the face of it the evidence was conclusive against him,
and he did not attempt to deny the facts as they appeared when arrested
and put upon his trial. At that time the law treated homicide in a duel
as murder and the victim suffered the extreme penalty without protest,
believing himself to be guilty. The truth was never known, until the
real offender, years after, confessed the part he had played, but too
late of course to prevent the judicial murder of the innocent man.
This case has naturally been added to give weight to the many powerful
arguments against capital punishment.
The extreme penalty of the law is nowadays inflicted in Spain by the
_garrote_, a method of strangulation by the tightening of an iron
collar, the substitute for hanging introduced by King Ferdinand VII
(1820). Till then the hanging was carried out in the clumsiest and most
brutal manner. The culprits were dragged by the executioner up the
steps of a ladder leaning against the scaffold. At a certain height
he mounted on the victim's shoulders and thus seated flung himself off
with his victim underneath. As they swung to and fro the hangman's
fingers were busily engaged in choking the convict so as to complete
the strangulation. The _garrote_ is a very simple contrivance. The
condemned man sits on a stool or low seat, leaning his back against a
strong, firm upright post to which an iron collar is fixed. This, when
opened, encircles his neck, and is closed and tightened by a powerful
screw, worked by a lever from behind. Death is instantaneous.
Public executions must prove very popular performances with a people
who still revel in a bull fight and flock to look at the hairbreadth
escapes of human beings from hardly undeserved death by the horns
of a fierce beast tortured into madness. De Foresta, an Italian
traveller,[25] tells us that never was a greater concourse seen in
Madrid than that which collected in 1877 to witness the execution of
two murderers, Mollo and Agullar, when it was estimated that 80,000
people were present. Ford describes an execution in Seville in 1845
when the crowd was enormous and composed largely of the lower orders,
of the humbler ranks, "who hold the conventions of society very cheap
and give loose rein to their morbid curiosity to behold scenes of
terror, which operates powerfully on the women, who seem irresistibly
impelled to witness sights the most repugnant to their nature and to
behold sufferings which they would most dread to undergo," and many of
whom "brought in their arms young children at the beginning of life
to witness its conclusion." "They desire to see how the criminal will
conduct himself, they sympathise with him if he displays coolness and
courage, and despise him on the least symptom of unmanliness."
[25] La Spagna; Da Irun a Malaga, by Adolfo de Foresta, Bologna, 1879.
Ford in his "Gatherings from Spain" gives a graphic account of the
execution of a highway robber, one of the band of the famous José
Maria already mentioned. The culprit, José de Rojas, was nicknamed
"Veneno," poison, from his venomous qualities and had made a desperate
resistance before he was finally overcome by the troops who captured
him. He fell wounded with a bullet in his leg, but killed the soldier
who ran forward to secure him. When in custody he turned traitor and
volunteered to betray his old associates and give such information as
would lead to their arrest if his own life was spared. The offer was
accepted and he was sent out with a sufficient force to seize them.
Such was the terror of his name that all surrendered, but not to him.
On this quibble the indemnity promised him was withdrawn, he was
brought to trial, condemned, and in due course executed on the Plaza
San Francisco, which adjoins the prison in Seville and is commonly used
for public executions.
Ford was admitted within the walls and describes Veneno "_en
capilla_," a small room set apart as a condemned cell, the approach to
which was thronged with officers, portly Franciscan friars and "members
of a charitable brotherhood collecting alms from the visitors to be
expended in masses for the eternal repose of the soul of the criminal.
The levity of those assembled without, formed a heartless contrast with
the gloom and horror of the melancholy interior of the _capilla_. At
the head of the cell was placed a table with a crucifix, an image of
the Virgin and two wax tapers, near which stood a silent sentinel with
a drawn sword. Another soldier was stationed at the door with a fixed
bayonet. In a corner of this darkened compartment lay Veneno curled up
like a snake, with a striped coverlet drawn closely over his mouth,
leaving visible only a head of matted locks, and a glistening dark
eye rolling restlessly out of its deep socket. On being approached he
sprang up and seated himself on a stool. He was almost naked, but a
chaplet of beads hung across his exposed breast and contrasted with
the iron chains around his limbs.... The expression of his face though
low and vulgar was one which, once seen, was not easily forgotten.
His sallow complexion appeared more cadaverous in the uncertain light
and was heightened by a black unshorn beard, growing vigorously on a
half-dead countenance. He appeared to be reconciled to his fate and
repeated a few sentences, the teaching of the monks, as by rote. His
situation was probably more painful to the spectator than himself, an
indifference to death arising rather from an ignorance of its dreadful
import than from high moral courage."
When Veneno came out to die he was clad in a coarse yellow baize gown,
the colour which in Spain denotes the crime of murder and appropriated
always to Judas Iscariot in Spanish paintings, the colour, too, of
the _sanbenito_ or penitential cloak worn by the victims of the
Inquisition at an _auto da fé_. He walked slowly, stopping often to
kiss the crucifix held to his lips by the attendant confessor, a monk
of the Franciscan order, whom it was the convict's privilege to choose
for himself to accompany him to the scaffold. He was met there by the
executioner, a young man dressed in black who proceeded to bind his
naked legs and arms so tightly that they swelled and turned black:
a necessary precaution, as this very executioner's father had been
killed when struggling with a convict unwilling to die. Veneno made
no resistance, but he spoke with supreme contempt of this degraded
functionary, saying, "_Mi delito me mata no ese hombre_" (My crime
kills me and not this creature). He uttered many pious ejaculations,
and his dying cry was, "Viva la Virgen Santisima." The last scene was
ghastly in the extreme. While the priest stood by, "a bloated corpulent
man more occupied in shading the sun from his face than in his ghostly
office," the robber sat with a writhing look of agony, grinding his
clenched teeth. The executioner took the lever of the screw in both
hands, gathered himself up for a strong muscular effort, drew the iron
collar tight while an attendant threw a black handkerchief over the
face. A convulsive pressure of the hands and a heaving of the chest
were the only visible signs of the passing of the convict's spirit.
"After a pause of a few moments the executioner cautiously peeped under
the handkerchief and, after having given another turn of the screw,
lifted it off, carefully put it in his pocket and proceeded to light
a cigar. The face of the dead man was slightly convulsed, the mouth
open, the eye balls turned into their sockets from the wrench. A black
bier with two lanterns fixed on staves was now set down before the
scaffold. A small table and a dish into which alms were again collected
to be paid to the priests who sang masses for his soul was also brought
forward.... The body remained on the scaffold till after noon. It was
then thrown into a scavenger's cart and led by the _pregonero_ or
common crier beyond the jurisdiction of the city to a square platform
called the "mesa del Rey," the king's table, where it was to be
quartered and cut up. Here the carcass was hewed and hacked into pieces
by the bungling executioner and his assistants."
The condemned cell at the Saladero was a part of the prison chapel in
which the Spanish convict spent the last twenty-four hours of life and
was a horrible and painfully gruesome hole. The _capilla_ is described
by de Foresta, who saw it when it was on the eve of abolition. It was
of narrow dimensions, damp, dark, windowless and lighted only with one
or two small candles burning upon the altar which occupied a large
space filling all one wall. In a corner cut off by a black iron railing
from the rest of the chapel was a small space fitted with a bed or
stone shelf with rings to which the convict's chains were fastened and
where he knelt close to the bars to converse with or confess to the
ministering priests. The chapel was dimly lighted by a hanging lamp and
one or two wax candles. Its walls and floor were damp and it received
light and air only through the door. This gruesome den rejoiced in the
name _el confortador_, or the "place of comfort."
Another traveller gives the following graphic account of a Spanish
execution:--
"At seven we find ourselves in the crowd immediately beneath the prison
walls. Large bodies of troops are drawn up on either side of the
_plaza_ and there is a tolerably large concourse of male spectators
present. In a few minutes the mournful cortége appears upon the wall.
First comes the executioner, the Spanish Calcraft, a wiry looking
fellow, carrying a coil of rope; next comes a very stout padre armed
with a baton, and bawling out prayers at the top of his voice; he is
followed by the convict, who walks on in prison uniform, with his
neck bare and arms pinioned, clasping the cross in his hands and
looking literally in a blue fright; a couple more priests and two armed
sentries complete the group, who range themselves along the wall, the
criminal in the centre. The terrible scene is long protracted. The fat
padre roars out _Ave Marias_, exhortations and prayers, waving his
baton frantically in the air and making the miserable wretch repeat
after him. He then clasps him in his arms, and sitting down on chairs
opposite each other, they are covered with a large black pall held
by the supernumerary priests; under this they remain for some time
perfectly motionless, while the poor creature is unburdening his soul
and pouring forth his load of crimes into the ear of his confessor.
"The nerves of the spectators are strained to an intense pitch during
the awful pause, as is evident from the oppressive silence which
prevails and the anxious looks directed at the scaffold. At length the
pall is removed and the executioner proceeds to business. The culprit
is made to sit against an upright post to which he is firmly lashed;
the _garrote_, a machine consisting of an iron collar worked back by
a powerful screw and a long lever, is carefully adjusted round his
neck, a small handkerchief thrown over his face and all is ready. The
priest recommences shouting while the executioner, preparing himself
for a mighty effort, suddenly turns the handle two or three times as
quick as lightning; the head of the victim drops, the knees and arms
quiver for a few seconds and all is over. Priests and sentries retire,
Calcraft peeps under the handkerchief and, whipping it off with a
jerk, immediately disappears, leaving the ghastly corpse exposed to
open view. It is a sickening and disgusting sight: the face is of a
livid hue, the tongue protruding, and shedding saliva on the breast;
the bystanders shudder, the troops march off with drums gaily beating
and the crowd slowly disperses. I make a rapid sketch of the body and
return to the hotel fully satisfied that, were it not for the cruel
state of suspense in which the criminal is kept before the execution,
the punishment of the _garrote_ is far more merciful and expeditious
than the less speedy death by hanging in this country."
The profession of hangman does not entitle those who practise it to
the very highest honour, although in France in the case of the Sansons
it was an hereditary office in which son succeeded father for many
generations and the family took considerable pride in their functions.
In Spain the _verdugo_ is by no means a popular person. De Foresta, the
Italian traveller already quoted, tells us that in several towns he saw
a person of forbidding aspect who was walking about with a camp stool
under his arm and generally shunned. On enquiry he was informed that
this was the gentleman who administered the _garrote_. He was strictly
forbidden to take a seat at a café or in any place of public resort,
hence the camp stool on which he rested himself when tired. No one
recognised or addressed to him a single word. De Foresta's comment on
this is a story of the French executioner who, when called to Nice to
guillotine a criminal, was unable to find anywhere to lay his head.
He was turned away from every door, was refused a mouthful of food
and was obliged to dine on what he could find at the railway station
restaurant, and he spent the night in walking up and down the platform.
It may not be generally known that in England the executioner is
provided with board and lodging in the gaol where his victim is waiting
to be "finished."
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
Superscript text is represented with carat and brackets (i.e. E=MC^{2} )
Minor punctuation and printer errors repaired.
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