afts of the informer. In the course of a few years, no
less than nine bishops were compelled to do humiliating penance in some
form or other for heterodox opinions. But the most illustrious victim of
the Inquisition was Bartolome Carranzo, archbishop of Toledo. The
primacy of Spain might be considered as the post of the highest
consideration in the Roman Catholic Church after the papacy.[453] The
proceedings against this prelate, on the whole, excited more interest
throughout Christendom than any other case that came before the tribunal
of the Inquisition.

Carranza, who was of an ancient Castilian family, had early entered a
Dominican convent in the suburbs of Guadalajara. His exemplary life, and
his great parts and learning, recommended him to the favor of Charles
the Fifth, who appointed him confessor to his son Philip. The emperor
also sent him to the Council of Trent, where he made a great impression
by his eloquence, as well as by a tract which he published against
plurality of benefices, which, however, excited no little disgust in
many of his order. On Philip's visit to England to marry Queen Mary,
Carranza accompanied his master, and while in that country he
distinguished himself by the zeal and ability with which he controverted
the doctrines of the Protestants. The alacrity, moreover, which he
manifested in the work of persecution made him generally odious under
the name of the "black friar,"--a name peculiarly appropriate, as it
applied not less to his swarthy complexion than to the garb of his
order. On Philip's return to Flanders, Carranza, who had twice refused a
mitre, was raised--not without strong disinclination on his own part--to
the archiepiscopal see of Toledo. The "_nolo episcopari_," in this
instance, seems to have been sincere. It would have been well for him if
it had been effectual. Carranza's elevation to the primacy was the
source of all his troubles.

The hatred of theologians has passed into a proverb; and there would
certainly seem to be no rancor surpassing that of a Spanish
ecclesiastic. Among the enemies raised by Carranza's success, the most
implacable was the grand-inquisitor, Valdes. The archbishop of Seville
could ill brook that a humble Dominican should be thus raised from the
cloister over the heads of the proud prelacy of Spain. With unwearied
pains, such as hate only could induce, he sought out whatever could make
against the orthodoxy of the new prelate, whether in his writin