A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 3Lea, Henry Charles
History
A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 3
Lea, Henry Charles
Inquisition -- Spain
The numerous effigies which figure in the autos indicate those who were
compromised in the confessions of the penitents, and who succeeded for a
time in eluding arrest. As a rule it may be said that this was but a
temporary reprieve from the all-pervading vigilance of the Inquisition.
Sooner or later, it gathered them in despite change of residence and
name, and all the precautions of the hunted against the hunter. This is
well illustrated in the vicissitudes of a colony of Portuguese, some
twenty or thirty in number, in the little town of Beas (Jaen), which
throw a vivid light on the miseries of these unfortunates. They had
succeeded in living there obscurely for ten years or more, supporting
themselves by such industries as they could follow, when some
imprudence, or the watchfulness of some neighbor, drew upon them the
attention of the tribunal of Cuenca, which arrested thirteen of them.
From these the names of nine others were obtained, for whom warrants of
arrest were issued but, when these were sent for execution, in April,
1656, it was found that they had left Beas secretly in February,
abandoning their property. Five of them were traced to Málaga; the other
four were said to have gone to Pietrabuena, but there the track was
lost. All were duly prosecuted in absentia and their effigies formed
part of the Seville auto of 1660.
[Sidenote: _ACTIVITY OF PERSECUTION_]
The party that went towards Portugal was a family group of five--Diego
Rodríguez Silva, his wife Ana Enríquez, her father Antonio Enríquez
Francia, and her brother and sister-in-law, Diego Enríquez and Isabel
Rodríguez. They pushed through without stopping to Rioseco, where they
rested four days and then, hiring a guide, they traversed the mountains
of Portugal, travelling only by night. Settling in Villa Pinhel, they
tried to mend their broken fortunes, Ana Enríquez by keeping a shop and
Diego Rodríguez by turning his hand to whatever he could find to do--at
one time we hear of him as driving a thousand sheep to Lisbon for sale.
Apparently by way of precaution, they appeared spontaneously before the
tribunal of Coimbra, which treated them mercifully, imposing no fines
but ordering them not to leave Pinhel without permission. Misfortune
pursued Diego and, in 1671, he returned to Spain, stopping at Talavera
de la Reina, whence he sent for his wife and children and father-in-law,
telling the rest to remain. He took the name of del Aguila for himself
and de los Rios for his wife, and settled for two years in Seville,
where his father-in-law died. Thence they removed to Daimiel, where the
Inquisition found them at last and arrested them, February 18, 1677,
some seventeen years after they had been burnt in effigy in Seville. As
two or three of the Beas fugitives, who had gone to Málaga, were on
trial at Toledo in 1667, it is probable that none escaped save those who
remained in Portugal. Two years and a half were spent on the trials of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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