History of the Inquisition from Its Establishement Till the Present Time by William Sime

Author:William Sime [Sime, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anboco
Published: 2017-02-05T23:00:00+00:00

FOOTNOTES:

[16] Constantine Ponce de la Fuente, one of the victims, was persecuted with so great a degree of barbarity, that he exclaimed, "My God, were there no Scythians or cannibals into whose hands to deliver me, rather than to let me fall into the power of these barbarians!"—Olmedus, another sufferer at Seville, who died in prison from bad treatment, was once heard to exclaim, "Throw me any where, O my God, so that I may but escape the hands of these wretches."

[17] The unspeakable cruelty and inhumanity exhibited at an auto-da-fé, with its effects on the public mind are exhibited briefly in the following account:—"Amid this horrid exhibition scenes of atrocity occurred which it is appalling even to describe. Those about to be put to death were teased by Jesuits to recant. The executioners and these ghostly attendants united their endeavours to add to the misery of their victims; and when there was no hope of recantation, they were left in the hand of him who was supposed to be the fomenter of their heresy—Satan. When the priests abandoned them, a shout was raised by the people. This was like the death-knell, and, amid coarse and ribald expressions, blazing furze was first thrust into the faces of the sufferers. This inhumanity was commonly continued until the face was black as coal, and was accompanied with loud acclamations from the spectators. If the wind was moderate, the agony of the murdered men lasted perhaps for half an hour, but on other occasions an hour and a half or two hours were needed to terminate their sufferings.

"In the year 1706, Mr. Wilcox, afterwards bishop of Rochester, was chaplain to the English factory at Lisbon, and furnished Burnet, bishop of Salisbury, with the following account of an auto-da-fé, at which Wilcox attended as a spectator. 'Five condemned persons appeared,' he says, 'but only four were burnt—Antonio Travanes being reprieved after the procession. Heytor Dias and Maria Pinteyra were burned alive, and the other two were strangled. The woman,' says Wilcox, 'was alive in the flames for half an hour, and the man above an hour. The king and his brother were seated at a window so near as to be addressed for a considerable time, in very moving terms, by the man as he was burning; and though he asked only a few more faggots, he was not able to obtain them. Those who were burned alive,' Wilcox continues, 'are seated on a bench twelve feet high, fastened to a pole, and above six feet higher than the faggots. The wind being a little fresh, the man's hinder parts were perfectly roasted; and as he turned himself, his ribs opened before he ceased to speak, the fire being recruited only so far as to keep him in the same degree of heat. All his entreaties could not procure for him a larger allowance of wood to shorten his misery and despatch him.'

"'But, though out of hell,' says one who witnessed an auto-da-fé, 'there

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