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Updated: May 5, 2025
Lossing tells us that Carlisle, wearing the meek garb and deportment of a Quaker, was at heart a Torquemada." "And who was Torquemada, mamma?" queried Walter. "A Dominican monk of Spain, who lived in the times of Ferdinand and Isabella, and was by them appointed inquisitor-general.
They are not ashamed, why should they? to perform His behests. When the late Duke of York was about to leave Lisbon, its Inquisitor-General waited upon him, with a humble request that he would delay his departure for a few days, in order to make one at an Auto da Fe, where it was kindly promised, some Jews should be burnt for his diversion: so cruel and so blind are the superstitious.
"Another notable circumstance made the power of the Inquisitors-General still more unusual; this was that, without consulting the king or the Supreme Pontiff, they dictated laws, changed them, abolished them, or substituted them by others, so that there was within the nation a judge, the Inquisitor-General, whose powers transcended those of the sovereign.
The sub-inquisitor himself allowed the trial in which he was to be one of the judges to begin without him; and he only put in an appearance at the express order of the inquisitor-general, and on a confidential hint that he would be in danger of his life if he persisted in his refusal.
As a more conclusive proof of his unlimited sway than any other of his acts had been, he had actually unseated and banished the inquisitor-general, Don Pietro Porto Carrero, and supplanted him in that dread office, before which even anointed sovereigns trembled, by one of his own creatures.
Of course these were all maintained in a style worthy of their office. The Inquisitor-general, or president of the council, exerted an absolute power over every Spanish subject, so that he almost ceased to be himself a subject. He alone consulted with the King concerning the appointment of inquisitors to preside over all the provincial tribunals.
"Open to the Holy Office," was the answer. Immediately the door flew open, for none dared resist that terrible summons, and Ramirez, the Inquisitor-General of Toledo, entered. The Archbishop raised himself in his bed, and demanded the reason of the intrusion. An order for his arrest was produced, and he was speedily conveyed to the dungeons of the Inquisition at Valladolid.
The inquisitor-general received full powers to cite, arrest, imprison, torture heretics without observing the ordinary forms of law, and to cause his sentences to be executed without appeal.
Torquemada, now appointed inquisitor-general for Castile and Leon, illustrated his office by his ferocity. Anonymous accusations were received, the accused was not confronted by witnesses, torture was relied upon for conviction; it was inflicted in vaults where no one could hear the cries of the tormented.
The inquisitor-general received full powers to cite, arrest, imprison, torture heretics without observing the ordinary forms of law, and to cause his sentences to be executed without appeal.
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