Religious Orders should have a representative by turns.[804]
THE SUPREMA
The royal power of appointment was not uncontested and gave rise to frequent debates. Philip IV sometimes yielded and sometimes persisted; occasionally the question was complicated and papal intervention was hinted at.[805] A decisive struggle came in 1640, in which the Suprema chose its ground discreetly. It suited Olivares to appoint Antonio de Aragon, a youthful cleric and the second son of the Duke of Cardona. Anticipating resistance, Philip announced the nomination imperiously; Don Antonio must be admitted the next day as he was about to start for Barcelona and any representations against it could be made subsequently. The Suprema replied that the inquisitor-general could not make the appointment and if he did so it would be invalid; Don Antonio was less than thirty years old; the canons require an inquisitor to be forty, although Paul III had reduced for Spain, the age to thirty; members of the Suprema were inquisitors and it was only as such that they sat in judgement without appeal in cases of faith. To this Philip rejoined that Olivares would report the efforts he had made to quiet his conscience in view of the great public good to result from the appointment, wherefore he expected that possession would be given to Don Antonio without delay. Matters went so far that the Duchess of Cardona wrote to her son to abandon the effort but the royal command prevailed; he obtained the position and in the following year he was made a member of the Council of State; he was already a member of the Council of Military Orders and the whole affair gives us a glimpse of how Olivares governed Spain.[806] Having thus asserted his prerogative, Philip, in 1642 and the early months of 1643, made four appointments without consultation. The remonstrances of the Suprema must have been energetic for Philip yielded and, in a decree of June 26 (or July 2), 1643, he agreed that the old custom of submitting three names should be renewed, with the innovation that the Suprema should unite in making the recommendations. Against this the inquisitor-general protested, but in vain. It was probably to make an offset to these royal nominees that, November 10, 1643, the inquisitor-general and Suprema asked that their fiscal should have a vote, which Philip refused.[807] The rule continued of submitting three names for selection, but the participation of the Suprema in this seems to have been dropped. The royal control, moreover asserted itself in the case of Froilan Díaz when, by decree of November 3, 1704, Philip V reinstated three members, Antonio Zambrana, Juan Bautista Arzeamendi and Juan Miguélez, who had been arbitrarily ejected and jubilado by Inquisitor-general Mendoza, ordering moreover that they should receive all arrears of salary.[808]
While thus the crown continued to exercise the right of selecting the heads of the Inquisition, its practical control was greatly weakened by one or two changes which established themselves. Of these perhaps the most important was the claim of the Suprema to interpose itself between the king and the tribunals, so that no royal commands to them should be obeyed unless they should pass through it, thus rendering the inquisitors subject to itself alone and not to the sovereign. In a government theoretically absolute this was substituting bureaucracy for autocracy and, when the example was followed, though at a considerable distance, by some of the other royal councils, it at times produced deadlocks which threatened to paralyze all governmental action.
We have seen that, towards the end of Ferdinand’s reign, his letters to the tribunals were sometimes countersigned by members of the Suprema, but that this was not essential to their validity and, when there was an attempt to establish such a claim, he was prompt to vindicate his authority. A royal cédula of October 25, 1512, gave certain instructions as to the manumission of baptized children of slaves whose owners had suffered confiscation. There was no question of faith involved, but when, in 1514, Pedro de Trigueros applied to the inquisitors of Seville to be set free under it, they refused on the ground that it had not been signed by the Suprema. He appealed to Ferdinand who promptly ordered the inquisitors to obey it; if they find Pedro’s story to be true they are to give him a certificate of freedom and meanwhile are to protect him from his master, who was seeking to send him to the Canaries for sale.[809] The claim which Ferdinand thus peremptorily rejected was persistently maintained during the period of confusion which followed his death. Whether it received positive assent from Charles is more than doubtful, although the Suprema so asserts in a letter of July 27 1528, ordering inquisitors to examine whether a certain royal cédula had been signed by its members, for the kings had ordered that none should be executed in matters connected with the Inquisition unless thus authenticated—thus basing the claim on the royal will and not on any inherent right of the Holy Office.[810] So complete was the autonomy thus established for the organization that a carta acordada or circular of instructions May 12, 1562, tells the tribunals that, if an inquiry from the king comes to them through any other council, they are to reply that if the king desires the information it will be furnished to him through the inquisitor-general or the Suprema.[811]
THE SUPREMA
The far-reaching importance of this principle can scarce be exaggerated. One of its results will be seen when we come to consider the complaints and demands of the Córtes and find that fueros directed against inquisitorial aggressions, in purely civil matters, when agreed to by the king were invalid without confirmation by the inquisitor-general. A single instance here will suffice to show the working of this. In 1599 various demands of the Córtes of Barcelona were conceded by Philip III. One regulated the number of familiars, which Philip promised that he would induce the inquisitor-general to put into effect, within two months if possible. Another provided that all officials, save inquisitors, should be Catalans; he agreed to charge the inquisitor-general and Suprema to observe this and he would get it confirmed by the pope. Another was that, in the secular business of the tribunal, the opinion of the Catalan assessor should govern, because he would be familiar with the local law; this he accepted and promised, in so far as it concerned the inquisitor-general and Suprema, to charge them to give such orders to the tribunal. Another was that commissioners and familiars should not be “religious,” to which his reply was the same. Another required the inquisitor-general to appoint a resident of Barcelona to hear appeals in civil cases below five hundred libras; this he said was just and he would charge the inquisitor-general to do so. After this, in fulfilment of his plighted word, he addressed the inquisitor-general in terms almost supplicatory “I charge you greatly that for your part you condescend and facilitate that what they have supplicated may be put in execution, in conformity with what I have conceded and decreed in each of these articles, which will give me particular contentment.” Not the slightest attention was paid to this request and, on May 6, 1603, Philip repeated it “As until now it is understood that not a single thing contained in it has been put in execution and, as I desire that it be enforced, I ask and charge you to condescend to it and help and facilitate it with the earnestness that I confidently look for.”[812] This second appeal was as fruitless as the first and the Catalans gained nothing. It is true that, in 1632, the Barcelona tribunal, in a memorial to Philip IV, asserted that Philip III had only assented to these articles to get rid of the Catalans and that he wrote privately to the pope asking him not to confirm them.[813]
This case may have been mere jugglery and collusion, but in general it by no means followed that royal decrees sent to the Suprema for transmission were forwarded. If it objected, it would respond by a consulta arguing their impropriety or illegality, and this would, if necessary, be repeated three or four times at long intervals until, perhaps, the matter was forgotten or dropped or some compromise was reached. The privilege that all instructions must be transmitted through the Suprema was therefore one of no little importance and it was insisted upon tenaciously. There was a convenient phrase invented which we shall often meet—obedecer y no cumplir—to obey but not to execute, which was very serviceable on these occasions. In 1610 the Suprema argued away a cédula of Philip III as invalid because it had been despatched through the Council of State and the king was repeatedly told to his face that the laws required his cédulas to be countersigned by the Suprema in order to secure their execution. This was done to Philip IV, in 1634, when he intervened in a quarrel and, in 1681 to Carlos II when there were difficulties threatened with foreign nations arising from abuses committed in examining importations in search of forbidden books.[814] As the questions calling for royal interposition as a rule affected only the wide secular and not the spiritual jurisdiction of the Inquisition, this created conditions
