Ordinary conceptions of mercy were to Torquemada synonymous with weakness; and an acquittal of an accused heretic by a subordinate would be sufficient excuse in his eyes for a second trial. Was it not better for an innocent man to perish, than for a guilty man to pass out again into the world through negligence and sow eternal damnation amongst his neighbours? The penitent condemned, when the Inquisition was first introduced, to wear his sanbenito for twelve months as a sign of his repentance, now found himself cut off for the rest of his life from all true Catholics by this badge of his shame. The orthodox son of the convicted dead, whose bones had been committed to the flames, saw hanging up before him, whenever he entered his parish church, the garment of infamy that kept alive the memory of his parent’s sin. None were safe; for the indefinable sphere of the Holy Office and the royal favour and protection it enjoyed enabled Torquemada to encroach with safety on the rights of other courts, both civil and ecclesiastical, and to add as he thought fit to the number of inquisitorial ordinances and decrees. Proceedings were even taken against two bishops of Jewish lineage, on account of the supposed apostacy of their ancestors; with the result that one of them, Pedro de Aranda, Bishop of Calahorra, found himself despoiled of his see and revenues, while the other, the aged Juan Arias Davila, Bishop of Segovia, died at Rome, after successfully pleading his cause there before the Pope. The complaints and appeals lodged against Torquemada’s unbridled tyranny grew so loud that in 1494 Alexander VI. appointed four other inquisitor-generals with equal power, in the hope that they would exercise a restraining influence over their colleague’s actions. He, however, continued his work with unshaken zeal, until in 1498, he died tranquilly at the monastery he had founded at Avila, confident of a life well spent in devotion to the Faith, and revered as a Saint by the rest of his Order. It is difficult to ascertain exactly how many heretics were burned during his term of office; some historians placing the number at more than 8000, and others at 2000, while 90,000 are declared to have been subject to various forms of penance. Whatever the exact statistics, they represent but a small section of the results of the Inquisition during these years. Men die and are forgotten but the suspicion and treachery that are born of terror, the spirit of pitiless fanaticism that springs from licensed intolerance, the intellect bowed into subservience to an iron yoke of uniformity,—these were to leave their mark for generations and lessen the force of progress that Ferdinand and Isabel fostered so strongly in other directions. CHAPTER IX THE EXPULSION OF THE JEWS AND MUDEJARES