The Year after the Armada, and Other Historical StudiesHume, Martin A. S. (Martin Andrew Sharp)
Philosophy
The Year after the Armada, and Other Historical Studies
Hume, Martin A. S. (Martin Andrew Sharp)
Armada, 1588; Europe -- History -- 1517-1648; Europe -- History -- 17th century
The next day Folch de Cardona sounded his
inquisitor brother, and found that the Council of
the Holy Office knew nothing of what was going
on, and when the Inquisitor was informed and asked
whether the tribunal would consider Froilan guilty if
the facts were proved, he cautiously answered his
brother that he would not venture of himself to
decide, but personally he considered so much hobnobbing
with the Devil both delicate and dangerous. In
June the Grand Inquisitor Rocaberti died suddenly,
probably of poison, and left Froilan to face the matter
alone; and a few days afterwards a report was sent
from Germany, having been transmitted to the
Emperor by the Bishop of Vienna, containing a
declaration, said to have been made by the Devil to
{314}
an exorciser in the church of St. Sophia, to the
effect that Charles II. was bewitched by a certain
woman called Isabel living in the Calle de Silva,
in Madrid, and that if search were made the
instruments of her incantations would be found
beneath the threshold of her house. The Queen
thought to prove that this was another of Froilan's
tricks, and had the whole matter discussed by the
Inquisition, who, however, could find nothing to
connect him with it, but proceeded to excavate the
spot indicated in the Calle de Silva, and there found
sundry dolls and figures dressed in uniforms, which
dolls were borne in solemn procession and burnt
with all the ceremonies of the Church at the end of
July. All this was of course conveyed to the King
by Froilan, and it, together with the positive
assurance that he was bewitched given to him by a
German exorciser named Mauro Tenda, who had
been secretly summoned to Spain, threw the poor
creature into such an agony of terror that his state
became more and more pitiable.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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