The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1561-62 | Page 2

soon,
however, extended from pagans to heretics. The Dominican
Torquemada was the first Moloch to be placed upon this pedestal of
blood and fire, and from that day forward the "holy office" was almost
exclusively in the hands of that band of brothers. In the eighteen years
of Torquemada's administration; ten thousand two hundred and twenty
individuals were burned alive, and ninety-seven thousand three hundred
and twenty-one punished with infamy, confiscation of property, or
perpetual imprisonment, so that the total number of families destroyed
by this one friar alone amounted to one hundred and fourteen thousand
four hundred and one. In course of time the jurisdiction of the office
was extended. It taught the savages of India and America to shudder at
the name of Christianity. The fear of its introduction froze the earlier
heretics of Italy, France, and Ger many into orthodoxy. It was a court
owning allegiance to no temporal authority, superior to all other
tribunals. It was a bench of monks without appeal, having its familiars
in every house, diving into the secrets of every fireside, judging, and
executing its horrible decrees without responsibility. It condemned not
deeds, but thoughts. It affected to descend into individual conscience,
and to punish the crimes which it pretended to discover. Its process was
reduced to a horrible simplicity. It arrested on suspicion, tortured till
confession, and then punished by fire. Two witnesses, and those to
separate facts, were sufficient to consign the victim to a loathsome
dungeon. Here he was sparingly supplied with food, forbidden to speak,
or even to sing to which pastime it could hardly be thought he would
feel much inclination--and then left to himself, till famine and misery
should break his spirit. When that time was supposed to have arrived he
was examined. Did he confess, and forswear his heresy, whether
actually innocent or not, he might then assume the sacred shirt, and
escape with confiscation of all his property. Did he persist in the
avowal of his innocence, two witnesses sent him to the stake, one
witness to the rack. He was informed of the testimony against him, but
never confronted with the witness. That accuser might be his son, father,
or the wife of his bosom, for all were enjoined, under the death penalty,
to inform the inquisitors of every suspicious word which might fall

from their nearest relatives. The indictment being thus supported, the
prisoner was tried by torture. The rack was the court of justice; the
criminal's only advocate was his fortitude--for the nominal counsellor,
who was permitted no communication with the prisoner, and was
furnished neither with documents nor with power to procure evidence,
was a puppet, aggravating the lawlessness of the proceedings by the
mockery of legal forms: The torture took place at midnight, in a
gloomy dungeon, dimly, lighted by torches. The victim--whether man,
matron, or tender virgin--was stripped naked, and stretched upon the
wooden bench. Water, weights, fires, pulleys, screws--all the apparatus
by which the sinews could be strained without cracking, the bones
crushed without breaking, and the body racked exquisitely without
giving up its ghost, was now put into operation. The executioner,
enveloped in a black robe from head to foot, with his eyes glaring at his
victim through holes cut in the hood which muffled his face, practised
successively all the forms of torture which the devilish ingenuity of the
monks had invented. The imagination sickens when striving to keep
pace with these dreadful realities. Those who wish to indulge their
curiosity concerning the details of the system, may easily satisfy
themselves at the present day. The flood of light which has been poured
upon the subject more than justifies the horror and the rebellion of the
Netherlanders.
The period during which torture might be inflicted from day to day was
unlimited in duration. It could only be terminated by confession; so that
the scaffold was the sole refuge from the rack. Individuals have borne
the torture and the dungeon fifteen years, and have been burned at the
stake at last.
Execution followed confession, but the number of condemned
prisoners was allowed to accumulate, that a multitude of victims might
grace each great gala-day. The auto-da fe was a solemn festival. The
monarch, the high functionaries of the land, the reverend clergy, the
populace regarded it as an inspiring and delightful recreation. When the
appointed morning arrived, the victim was taken from his dungeon. He
was then attired in a yellow robe without sleeves, like a herald's coat,
embroidered all over with black figures of devils. A large conical paper
mitre was placed upon his head, upon which was represented a human
being in the midst of flames, surrounded by imps. His tongue was then

painfully gagged, so that he could neither open nor shut his mouth.
After