cession presented an ingeniously picturesque discord of ugly shapes,
an artistically loathsome dissonance of red and yellow hues, as it
defiled, to the infernal music of growled psalms and screams and
moanings, beneath the torrid blaze of Spanish sunlight.

[Footnote 84: The Supreme Council forbade the repetition of torture; but
this hypocritical law was evaded in practice by declaring that the
torture had been suspended. Llorente, vol. i. p. 307.]

Spaniards--such is the barbarism of the Latinized Iberian
nature--delighted in these shows, as they did and do in bull-fights.
Butcheries of heretics formed the choicest spectacles at royal
christenings and bridals.

At Seville the Quemadero was adorned with four colossal statues of
prophets, to which some of the condemned were bound, so that they might
burn to death in the flames arising from the human sacrifice between
them.

In the autumn of 1484 the Inquisition was introduced into Aragon; and
Saragossa became its headquarters in that State. Though the Aragonese
were accustomed to the institution in its earlier and milder form, they
regarded the new Holy Office with just horror. The Marranos counted at
that epoch the Home Secretary, the Grand Treasurer, a Proto-notary, and
a Vice-Chancellor of the realm among their members; and they were allied
by marriage with the purest aristocracy. It is not, therefore,
marvelous that a conspiracy was formed to assassinate the Chief
Inquisitor, Peter Arbues. In spite of a coat-of-mail and an iron
skullcap worn beneath his monk's dress, Arbues was murdered one evening
while at prayer in church. But the revolt, notwithstanding this murder,
flashed, like an ill-loaded pistol, in the pan. Jealousies between the
old and new Christians prevented any common action; and the Inquisition
took a bloody vengeance upon all concerned. It even laid its hand on Don
James of Navarre, the Infant of Tudela.

The Spanish Inquisition was now firmly grounded. Directed by Torquemada,
it began to encroach upon the crown, to insult the episcopacy, to defy
the Papacy, to grind the Commons, and to outrage by its insolence the
aristocracy. Ferdinand's avarice had overreached itself by creating an
ecclesiastical power dangerous to the best interests of the realm, but
which fascinated a fanatically-pious people, and the yoke of which could
not be thrown off. The Holy Office grew every year in pride,
pretensions, and exactions. It arrogated to its tribunal crim