560 burned in effigy,
21,845 condemned to prison or public penitence.[92] The total, during
forty-three years, between 1481 and 1525, amounted to 234,526, including
all descriptions of condemned heretics.[93] These figures are of
necessity vague, for the Holy Office left but meager records of its
proceedings. The vast numbers of cases brought before the Inquisitors
rendered their method of procedure almost as summary as that of Fouquier
Thinville, while policy induced them to bury the memory of their victims
in oblivion.[94]

[Footnote 90: Llorente, p. 341.]

[Footnote 91: _Ibid._ p. 360.]

[Footnote 92: Llorente, p. 406.]

[Footnote 93: _Ib._ p. 407.]

[Footnote 94: I know that Llorente's calculations have been disputed:
as, for instance, in some minor details by Prescott (_Ferd. and Isab._
vol. iii. p. 492). The truth is that no data now exist for forming a
correct census of the victims of the Spanish Moloch; and Llorente,
though he writes with the moderation of evident sincerity, and though he
had access to the archives of the Inquisition, does not profess to do
more than give an estimate based upon certain fixed data. However, it
signifies but little whether we reckon by thousands or by fifteen
hundreds. That foul monster spawned in the unholy embracements of
perverted religion with purblind despotism cannot be defended by
discounting five or even ten per cent. Let its apologists write for
every 1000 of Llorente 100, and for every 100 of Llorente 10, and our
position will remain unaltered. The Jesuit historian of Spain, Mariana,
records the burning-of 2000 persons in Andalusia alone in 1482.
Bernaldez mentions 700 burned in the one town of Seville between 1482
and 1489. An inscription carved above the portals of the Holy Office in
Seville stated that about 1000 had been burned between 1492 and 1524.]

Sometimes, while reading the history of the Holy Office in Spain, we are
tempted to imagine that the whole is but a grim unwholesome nightmare,
or the fable of malignant calumny. That such is not the case, however,
is proved by a jubilant inscription on the palace of the Holy Office at
Seville, which records the triumphs of Torquemada. Of late years, too,
the earth herself has disgorged some secrets of the Inquisition. 'A most
curious discovery,' writes Lord Malmesbury in his Memoirs,[95] 'has been
made at Madrid. Just at the time when the question of religious liberty
was being discussed in the Cortes, Serrano