question of non-residence was happily solved, for a time at least, by selecting as the next incumbent Juan Bautista de Azevedo, Bishop of Valladolid, the seat of the court. He was a person of so little consequence that the appointment aroused general surprise until it was recalled that he had been a secretary of Lerma. When the court removed to Madrid, in 1606, he was obliged to choose between the two dignities and his resignation of the bishopric was facilitated by granting him a pension of twelve thousand ducats on the treasury of the Indies, besides which, as Patriarch of the Indies, he had a salary of eight thousand.[770] His death soon followed, in 1608, when Sandoval y Rojas, the uncle of Lerma, obtained the position without sacrificing his primatial see of Toledo, a dispensation for non-residence being doubtless easily obtained by such a personage.
Sandoval was succeeded, in 1619, by Fray Luis de Aliaga, a Dominican who had been Lerma’s confessor. In 1608 Lerma transferred him to the king, over whom his influence steadily increased, although his doubtful reputation is inferable from the popular attribution to him of the spurious continuation of Don Quixote, published in 1614 under the name of Avellaneda—a work of which the buffoonery and indecency are most unclerical.[771] Though he owed his fortune to Lerma, he joined, in 1618, in causing his patron’s downfall in favor of Lerma’s nephew, the Duke of Uceda, and during the rest of Philip’s reign Uceda and Aliaga virtually ruled and misgoverned the land, filling the offices with their creatures, selling justice and intensifying the financial disorders which were bringing Spain to its ruin. When Philip IV succeeded to the throne, March 31, 1621, under tutelage to his favorite Olivares, their first business was to dismiss all who had been in power under the late king. The secular officials were easily disposed of, but the papal commission of the inquisitor-general rendered him independent of the king; he did not manifest the accommodating disposition of Portocarrero and Guevara and, as he was not a bishop, he could not be ordered to his see. It illustrates the anomalous position of the Inquisition, as part of an absolute government, that for some weeks the question of his removal was the subject of repeated juntas and consultations, but finally, April 23d, Philip wrote, ordering him to leave the court within twenty-four hours, for the Dominican Convent of Huete, where his superior would give him further instructions. He obeyed, but he refused the bishopric of Zamora and the continuance of his ecclesiastical revenues as the price of his resignation. The only method left was to obtain from Gregory XV the withdrawal of his delegated powers by representing his unworthiness, his guilty complicity with Uceda and Osuna and Philip III’s reproach to him on his death-bed for misguiding his soul to perdition. Gregory listened favorably and Aliaga seems to have recognized the untenableness of his position and to have resigned, although no evidence of it exists. All we know is that Andrés Pacheco, Bishop of Cuenca, was appointed as his successor in February, 1622, and took possession of the office in April. Even after this Aliaga was an object of apprehension. In June, 1623, he came to Hortaleza, which was within a league or two of Madrid. Immediately the court was in a flutter; the king held earnest consultations; his propinquity was regarded as dangerous and he could not be allowed to return, as he had asked, to his native Aragon, which was in a chronically inflammable condition, while in Valencia his brother was archbishop; nor could he be allowed to leave the kingdom, possessing as he did so intimate a knowledge of state secrets. There were messages and active correspondence and finally he was allowed to settle in Guadalajara with ample means, where his remaining three years of life passed in obscurity. Llorente tells us that proceedings were commenced against him for propositions savoring of Lutheranism and materialism, which were discontinued after his death, a device doubtless adopted to keep him in retirement.[772]
THE INQUISITOR-GENERALSHIP
Andrés Pacheco, who succeeded him in 1622, prudently resigned his see of Cuenca and, in spite of his audacious enforcement of inquisitorial claims, was allowed to hold the office until his death, April 7, 1626.[773] There was no haste in filling the vacancy, for it was not until August 6th that Olivares replied to the king’s order to report in writing the best persons to fill the office. He named four, covertly indicating his preference for Cardinal Zapata, who had resigned the archbishopric of Burgos in 1605 and at the time was governor of that of Toledo. Philip followed the suggestion by an endorsement on the paper, which was a singularly informal appointment, remarking at the same time that the choice should not be made public until his successor at Toledo was selected.[774] His resignation of the office, in 1632, is commonly attributed to a request from the king, but this is by no means certain. He was more than eighty years of age and for some time had been talking of resigning; already in 1630 the Suprema alludes in a consulta to the publicity of his intention of relieving himself of the charge. Possibly at the end some gentle pressure may have been used, but when, September 6, 1632, the commission of his successor arrived, his parting with the king was in terms of mutual respect and good feeling. His retirement was softened by continuing to him his full salary and perquisites, amounting to 1,353,625 mrs. (3620 ducats) which, as the Suprema never had enough revenue for its desires, was not cordially welcomed.[775]
His successor, the Dominican Fray Antonio de Sotomayor, was Archbishop of Damascus in partibus and confessor of the king. He was already in his seventy-seventh year and, when he had held his office for eleven years, his infirmities and incapacity became more evident to others than to himself. Early in 1643 the fall of Olivares deprived him of support, his opposition to the king in the matter of appointments still further weakened his position and in June he was requested to resign in view of his advanced age and to preserve his health. He was much disturbed and consulted friends, who advised him to obey, but he still held on, saying that they might await his death. Greater pressure was applied to which he yielded. June 20th he made a formal notarial attestation of his desire to be relieved on account of his great age and the next day he sent in an ungracious resignation, followed, on the 24th by one addressed to the pope. His successor, Diego de Arce y Reynoso, Bishop of Plasencia, was already on the spot, exercising some of the functions, but Urban VIII hesitated to confirm the change and required explanations. It was not until September 18th that the commission of Arce y Reynoso was expedited and it only reached Madrid November 7th. Sotomayor was “jubilated” with half his salary of nine thousand ducats, which he enjoyed for five years longer.[776]
Arce y Reynoso, as we shall see, when embroiled with Rome in the prosecution of Villanueva, Marquis of Villalva, was obliged to resign his see of Plasencia, December 2, 1652, in order to retain his inquisitor-generalship. He continued in office until his death, June 20, 1665, followed by that of Philip, September 16th. During this interval, Philip gave the appointment to Pascual of Aragon, son of the Duke of Cardona and serving at the time as Viceroy of Naples. He promptly sailed for Spain and, though he is said to have resigned without acting, there are documents of October and November, 1665, which show that he performed the functions of the office.[777] He obtained the see of Toledo March 7, 1666, and desired to retain the inquisitor-generalship, but the Queen-regent, Maria Ana of Austria, compelled him to resign, in order to fill the place with her confessor and favorite the German Jesuit, Johann Everardt Nithard.[778]
THE INQUISITOR-GENERALSHIP
Nithard, in 1668, boasted that he had had charge of the queen’s conscience for twenty-four years, during which she had kept him constantly with her. He had thus moulded her character from youth and, as she was weak and obstinate, he had rendered himself indispensable. Her selection of him as inquisitor-general provoked lively opposition, which even reverence for royalty could not repress; protests were presented, leading to prolonged and heated discussion, but resistance was in vain.[779] He was appointed October 15, 1666, and speedily became the ruler of the kingdom which he misgoverned. The general dissatisfaction thus aroused was stimulated by the jealousy of the frailes, who had been accustomed to see Dominicans as royal confessors and whose hatred of the Company of Jesus was exacerbated by his combination of that position with the inquisitor-generalship. He was accused of filling the Holy Office with Jesuit calificadores, under whose advice he managed it, and with accumulating for himself pensions amounting to sixty thousand ducats a year. Spain at the time had a pinchbeck hero in the person of the second Don Juan of Austria, son of Philip IV by a woman known as la Calderona; he stood high in popular esteem, for he had the reputation of suppressing the Neapolitan revolt of 1648 and of ending the Catalan rebellion by the capture of Barcelona
