PHILIP II. AND THE INQUISITION.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIX, Issue 129, 3 June 1895, Page 4

PHILIP 11. AND THE INQUISITION.

Temple Bar. If tlie King was, as it seems he was, the aotive main-spring of the iniquitous Inquisition, on his shoulders mußt rest the blame of the atrocities committed by the Holy Office in his reign. What these atrocities were to the full can never be known, but the pages of Limborch and Llorente set forth in no fanciful language the horrors of thp Inquisition dungeons— the deadly silence maintained in the prisons, where even to pray aloud was a crime — the solitary confinement, for years deprived of light, the food doled out being too abominable to touch — the after-terrors of the leading to the Torture Chamber — tho binding of the unfortunates in stone cells far below the light of day, where the screams of agony could only be heard by the devils who sat in judgment and watched each phase of deadly suffering. The full horrors of those dreadful days cannot be fully gone into. It is all too terrible and ghastly. And it is to be recollected that thes.e prisons of the Inquisition were scattered all over Spain, and were often so full that private edifices had to be engaged in which to spcure the long term prisoners. As Dunham says: "The worst feature of this infernal institution was that the vilest men were admitted as witnesses; that they were never confronted with the accused; that .wives might, nay were compelled, to accuse their husbands, husbands their wives, children their parents, and vice versa. He who bore enmity to another had only to depose or hire some wretch to depose, and his vengeance was gratified." And what was Philip's part in this great sea of wickedness and evil that swept throughout the kingdom! There is one instanceiknown of his interfering between the Holy Office and the torture of its victims, but ther9 are many instances of his urging them on to inoreased efforts. There was no rule passed by the Inquisition that could come into 'force without his consent, and yet not one single case can be brought forward to prove he urged upon them the exercise of fairei or more tender dealing. If it could only be said against Philip that he worked— as he certainly did work— hand and hand with, the Inquisition, tiis condemnation as a criminal, Exceeding in wickedness any crowned head that ever ruled in Christian Europe, ■would be an assured fact. But there is far more against him. His evil deeds in the LoV Countries, his murders of Egmont, Hoorn, of Bergen and Montigny, jbad and evil as they were, almost pale before the countless atrocities he encouraged Alva to perpetrate. The only crime the people in the Northlands had committed was that they desired to worship God in their o ( wn way. In every respect they were Philip's loyal and devoted subjects. Egmont, sent to him to entreat him to be more was dismissed with assurance that all should be as the Netherlander wishe^, aud the Kegont herself informed the king that the country was \n no need of further military force. The nobles and the people all believed in the promises of their sovereign, with intercepted letters showed that " poor Phillip" had altogether other views, and would wo^k such vengeance on the people' "as would make the ears of all i Christendon tingle." And he acted up to his intentions. Is not the record written in the pages of Prescott, Motley, Davies, and Watson? The deeds of the ferocious Alva were! almost unparalleled in atrocity,; and turning at last upon the avjful tyranny when no man's life ;or woman's honour was safe from a licentious soldiery, who were left unchecked to do exactly as they' pleased, the Dutch, when too late, flew to arms. Then followed the sack of Zutphen and the incredible horrors after the capture of Naarden and other cities, when outraged womep were hung ] by tbe feet to the rafters, their children beside them I Is there one word of evidence that Philip, this something of a gentleman, ever interfered with Alva until he began to find |that these excesses were doing more harm than: good ? And even then not one word of censure wps directed to the m?n who ordered the committal of such hideous wickedness.