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We have seen how difficult it was to make the Inquisition respect municipal law, and it was not likely to regard international obligations. Excuses could readily be found to bring the hated foreign heretic under its jurisdiction and, in the chronic penury of the time, the opportunity of rich confiscations was not likely to be lost sight of. In 1621 we hear of a number of Englishmen arrested in Málaga, with sequestration of property, and the same occurred in Seville, in 1622. (140) Of one case we chance to have details--that of George Penn, brother of Admiral--then Captain--Penn, and uncle of William Penn, the Founder of Pennsylvania. He was in no sense a bigoted Protestant, or he would scarce have married a Catholic wife in Flanders. He took her to Seville, where he conducted a prosperous business until 1643, when he was arrested. His account of his sufferings is manifestly exaggerated though we may believe him when he says that he was tortured until he confessed all that was required of him--that he was a heretic who had married a Catholic in Antwerp, intending to take her to England and pervert her and their children from the faith. He was required to abjure in a public auto and ordered to leave Spain within three months, while his wife was taken from him and he says was married to a Spaniard. The property confiscated amounted, according to disinterested appraisers, to £6000 of his own and £6000 belonging to other parties. On his return to England, beggared and broken in health, he sought to obtain redress and, about 1664, Charles II appointed him envoy to Spain, to enable him to urge his claims to advantage, but being then 63 years old he did not venture to go. During the negotiations at [469] Utrecht, William Penn endeavored to obtain consideration of this case, but apparently without success. (141) The superb imperturbability of the Inquisition as to international obligations is evinced in a case occurring soon after the treaty of Munster. Paul Jerome Estagema, a citizen of Hoorn, was arrested at Alicante and tried by the Valencia tribunal. Influential people in Holland urged his release, and the Dutch ambassador, Anthony Brun, made forcible representations to the king, who wrote, September 15, 1651, to the Suprema, urging a prompt decision of the case and pointing out that, under the treaty, Estagema, as a citizen of the United Provinces, was not subject to the Inquisition. The royal request was treated with absolute indifference; Ambassador Brun kept urging the matter and, on December 16th, Philip repeated his application to the Suprema, and asserted the necessity of satisfying the Hollanders. Then the Suprema condescended to forward the royal letters to the tribunal, telling it to despatch the case without delay, which could readily be done as the trial had been finished on September 7th, and ordering it to report the sentence when pronounced. (142) At this period, political exigencies rendered both France and Spain desirous of an alliance with England. Don Alonso de Cardenas, the Spanish ambassador, endeavored to negotiate a treaty with Cromwell in 1653 and again in 1655, but the Protector insisted on larger toleration. In the draft of the projected treaty, Articles 22 and 35 not only repeated the previous provisions but added that Englishmen conducting business in Spain should be permitted, in their houses and ships, to perform divine service in their own manner, and to use their Bibles and other books, and that they should not be arrested for so doing or their property be sequestrated. When the treaty was submitted to Philip, he sent these articles to the Suprema for its advice, protesting that he was unalterably resolved to risk all his dominions and spill the last drop of his blood, rather than to yield anything that would be to the disservice of God, or prejudice in the least degree the purity of religion. In response to this the Suprema declared that the royal words ought to be recorded in imperishable bronze; it easily proved that by divine, canon and municipal law, a sovereign had no right [470] to permit such toleration; it quoted Gregory XV as ordering, in 1622, all rulers, under heavy penalties, to expel all heretics from their dominions, and it pointed out that heretics employed Catholic servants who would be corrupted, and that all cognizant of heresy incurred mortal sin and excommunication if they did not denounce it. These
arguments were as applicable to the treaties of 1605, 1630, and 1648 as to the proposed one, but they sufficed; it was rejected, and Cromwell turned to France. (143) Doubtless Admiral Penn felt a special personal satisfaction, when he avenged his brother by wresting Jamaica from Spain in 1655. A secret treaty, in 1656, between the wandering Charles II and Philip, pledged the former to bring about freedom of conscience in England, but was discreetly silent about toleration in Spain. With the Restoration, in 1660, peace ensued and the treaty of 1630 was revived. In 1663, when a new treaty was discussed, England again put forward the stipulations of Cromwell, and Philip again consulted the Suprema with the same result. On Philip's death, in 1665, the treaty of December 17th continued in force the provisions of 1630 and extended to all Englishmen the privileges granted, in 1645, to those of Andalusia. Then, in 1667, the treaty of May 23rd defined more clearly that the pretext of conscience should not be used to inflict injury on Englishmen or raise any dispute so long as no manifest public scandal was caused nor offence committed. In this shape the relations between the kingdoms continued; the treaty of Utrecht in 1713 and those of 1763 and 1783 merely confirmed that of 1667. (144) With France, of course, relations were wholly different. When the Huguenot was grudgingly tolerated at home, he could expect [471] no protection for his religion abroad, especially when, as in Spain, he could reside only by pretending Catholicism. The peace of the Pyrenees, November 7, 1659, merely provides, in article 5, that the vassals of each power shall have free ingress, residence and egress in the territories of the other, observing the laws and customs of the country. (145) This did not, however, preclude reclamation in cases of special malfeasance, as when, in 1672, the French ambassador Villars complained of an outrage in Majorca. A French ship, arriving there from Barbary, September 6th, with a cargo of wheat, chanced to have as a passenger a Huguenot of position, M. de la Fent, governor of the Bastion de France, with a large sum of money. On learning this, the inquisitor arranged to seize him and embargo his property; he assembled a force and armed two vessels with which to take possession of the French ship, and he would have done so had not M. de la Fent prevailed upon the master to make sail. The queen-regent forwarded this to the Suprema, October 28th, for explanation, but it was not until November 19th that it replied, merely saying that the inquisitor of Majorca had reported, on September 21st, the arrival of a heretic and that, on October 3d, it had ordered him to take such action as comported with the service of the queen, the public peace, and the consideration due to the subjects of the French king, who were to be treated like the English and the Dutch. (146) As the attempt had failed, the Suprema made the best excuse it could, but with manifest equivocation, for the French heretic had not such treaty protection as the English. This was manifested, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685, when it was thought that fugitive Huguenots might have settled in Spain. In 1687, the papal nuncio and the French ambassador called the attention of the inquisitor-general to the matter, suggesting that the Holy Office should not permit their residence. Carlos II seconded their representations, and issued a cédula, February 28th, ordering his officials to lend all necessary assistance to the Inquisition. The Suprema sent this to the tribunals and followed it, June 14th, with detailed instructions, ordering a general perquisition to be conducted through the parish priests throughout Spain. Each tribunal was to collect the results, investigate them and vote, reporting the vote to the Suprema. [472] Extreme vigilance was enjoined and the Suprema was to be kept informed. (147) Judging from such statistics of the period as are accessible, this proved to be a false alarm, leading to no results, but none the less it indicates the dread inspired by the prospect of the intrusion of foreign heretics. There seems to have been a similar scare, in 1698, when the Suprema instructed the tribunals to order all their commissioners to report whether, in their districts, there were any heretics, transient or resident, giving in detail the nationality, sect, occupation etc. of each one, and this without loss of time. (148)
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