Fox's Book of Martyrs, John Foxe [i like reading .txt] 📗
- Author: John Foxe
- Performer: -
Book online «Fox's Book of Martyrs, John Foxe [i like reading .txt] 📗». Author John Foxe
The time was now so far elapsed, and the horrid situation so truly loathsome, that Mr. Lithgow waited with anxious expectation for the day, which, by putting an end to his life, would also end his torments. But his melancholy expectations were, by the interposition of Providence, happily rendered abortive, and his deliverance obtained from the following circumstances.
It happened that a Spanish gentleman of quality came from Grenada to Malaga, who being invited to an entertainment by the governor, he informed him of what had befallen Mr. Lithgow from the time of his being apprehended as a spy, and described the various sufferings he had endured. He likewise told him, that after it was known the prisoner was innocent, it gave him great concern. That on this account he would gladly have released him, restored his money and papers, and made some atonement for the injuries he had received but that, upon an inspection into his writings, several were found of a very blasphemous nature, highly reflecting on their religion. That on his refusing to abjure these heretical opinions, he was turned over to the inquisition, by whom he was finally condemned.
While the governor was relating this tragical tale, a Flemish youth (servant to the Spanish gentleman) who waited at the table, was struck with amazement and pity at the sufferings of the stranger described. On his return to his master's lodgings he began to revolve in his mind what he had heard, which made such an impression on him that he could not rest in his bed. In the short slumbers he had, his imagination painted to him the person described, on the rack, and burning in the fire. In this anxiety he passed the night; and when the morning came, without disclosing his intentions to any person whatever, he went into the town, and enquired for an English factor. He was directed to the house of a Mr. Wild, to whom he related the whole of what he had heard pass, the preceding evening, between his master and the governor; but could not tell Mr. Lithgow's name. Mr. Wild, however, conjectured it was him, by the servant's remembering the circumstance of his being a traveller, and his having had some acquaintance with him.
On the departure of the Flemish servant, Mr. Wild immediately sent for the other English factors, to whom he related all the particulars relative to their unfortunate countryman. After a short consultation it was agreed, that an information of the whole affair should be sent, by express, to Sir Walter Aston, the English ambassador to the king of Spain, then at Madrid. This was accordingly done, and the ambassador having presented a memorial to the king and council of Spain, he obtained an order for Mr. Lithgow's enlargement, and his delivery to the English factory. This order was directed to the governor of Malaga; and was received with great dislike and surprise by the whole assembly of the bloody inquisition.
Mr. Lithgow was released from his confinement on the eve of Easter Sunday, when he was carried from his dungeon on the back of the slave who had attended him, to the house of one Mr. Bosbich, where all proper comforts were given him. It fortunately happened, that there was at this time a squadron of English ships in the road, commanded by Sir Richard Hawkins, who being informed of the past sufferings and present situation of Mr. Lithgow, came the next day ashore, with a proper guard, and received him from the merchants. He was instantly carried in blankets on board the Vanguard, and three days after was removed to another ship, by direction of the general Sir Robert Mansel, who ordered that he should have proper care taken of him. The factory presented him with clothes, and all necessary provisions, besides which they gave him 200 reals in silver; and Sir Richard Hawkins sent him two double pistoles.
Before his departure from the Spanish coast, Sir Richard Hawkins demanded the delivery of his papers, money, books, &c. but could not obtain any satisfactory answer on that head.
We cannot help making a pause here to reflect, how manifestly Providence interfered in behalf of this poor man, when he was just on the brink of destruction; for by his sentence, from which there was no appeal, he would have been taken, in a few days, to Grenada, and burnt to ashes: and that a poor ordinary servant, who had not the least knowledge of him, nor was any ways interested in his preservation, should risk the displeasure of his master, and hazard his own life, to disclose a thing of so momentous and perilous a nature, to a strange gentleman, on whose secrecy depended his own existence. By such secondary means does Providence frequently interfere in behalf of the virtuous and oppressed; of which this is a most distinguished example.
After lying twelve days in the road, the ship weighed anchor, and in about two months arrived safe at Deptford. The next morning, Mr. Lithgow was carried on a feather bed to Theobalds, in Hertfordshire, where at that time was the king and royal family. His majesty happened to be that day engaged in hunting, but on his return in the evening, Mr. Lithgow was presented to him, and related the particulars of his sufferings, and his happy delivery. The king was so affected at the narrative, that he expressed the deepest concern, and gave orders that he should be sent to Bath, and his wants properly supplied from his royal munificence. By these means, under God, after some time, Mr. Lithgow was restored, from the most wretched spectacle, to a great share of health and strength; but he lost the use of his left arm, and several of the smaller bones were so crushed and broken, as to be ever after rendered useless.
Notwithstanding every effort was used, Mr. Lithgow could never obtain any part of his money or effects, though his majesty and the ministers of state, interested themselves in his behalf. Gondamore, the Spanish ambassador, indeed, promised that all his effects should be restored, with the addition of £1000 English money, as some atonement for the tortures he had undergone, which last was to be paid him by the governor of Malaga. These engagements, however, were but mere promises; and though the king was a kind of guarantee for the well performance of them, the cunning Spaniard found means to elude the same. He had, indeed, too great a share of influence in the English council during the time of that pacific reign, when England suffered herself to be bullied into slavish compliance by most of the states and kings in Europe.
Croly on the Inquisition.
We shall conclude this chapter with the subjoined extract from the New Interpretation of the Apocalypse by the Rev. George Croly.
In our fortunate country, the power of the Romish church has so long perished, that we find some difficulty in conceiving the nature, and still more in believing the tyranny of its dominion. The influence of the monks and the murders of the inquisition have passed into a nursery tale; and we turn with a generous, yet rash and most unjustifiable scepticism from the history of Romish authority.
Through almost the entire of Italy, through the Flemish dominions of Germany, through a large portion of France, and through the entire of Spain, a great monastic body was established, which, professing a secondary and trivial obedience to the sovereign, gave its first and real obedience to the pope. The name of spiritual homage cloaked the high treason of an oath of allegiance to a foreign monarch; and whoever might be king of France, or Spain, the pope was king of the Dominicans. All the other monastic orders were so many papal outposts. But the great Dominican order, immensely opulent in its pretended poverty; formidably powerful in its hypocritical disdain of earthly influence; and remorselessly ambitious, turbulent, and cruel in its primitive zeal; was an actual lodgment and province of the papacy, an inferior Rome, in the chief European kingdoms.
In the closest imitation of Rome, this spiritual power had fiercely assumed the temporal sword; the inquisition was army, revenues, and throne in one. With the racks and fires of a tribunal worthy of the gulf of darkness and guilt from which it rose, the Dominicans bore popery in triumph through christendom, crushing every vestige of religion under the wheels of its colossal idol. The subjugation of the Albigenses in 1229 had scattered the church; the shock of the great military masses was past; a subtler and more active force was required to destroy the wandering people of God; and the inquisition multiplied itself for the work of death. This terrible tribunal set every principle, and even every form of justice at defiance. Secrecy, that confounds innocence with guilt, was the spirit of its whole proceeding. All its steps were in darkness. The suspected revolter from popery was seized in secret, tried in secret, never suffered to see the face of accuser, witness, advocate, or friend, was kept unacquainted with the charge, was urged to criminate himself; if tardy, was compelled to this self-murder by the rack; if terrified, was only the more speedily murdered for the sport of the multitude. From the hour of his seizure he never saw the face of day, until he was brought out as a public show, a loyal and festal sacrifice, to do honor to the entrance of some travelling viceroy, some new married princess, or, on more fortunate occasions, to the presence of the sovereign. The dungeons were then drained, the human wreck of the torture and scourge were gathered out of darkness, groups of misery and exhaustion with wasted forms and broken limbs, and countenances subdued by pain and famine into idiotism, and despair, and madness; to feed the fires round which the Dominicans were chanting the glories of popery, and exulting in the destruction of the body for the good of the soul!
In the original establishment of the inquisition in 1198, it had raged against the Vaudois and their converts. But the victims were exhausted; or not worth the pursuit of a tribunal which looked to the wealth as keenly as to the faith of the persecuted. Opulence and heresy were at length to be found only to Spain, and there the inquisition turned with a gigantic step. In the early disturbances of the Peninsula, the Jews, by those habits of trade, and mutual communion, which still make them the lords of commerce, had acquired the chief wealth of the country. The close of the Moorish war in the 15th century had left the Spanish monarch at leisure for extortion; and he grasped at the Jewish gains in the spirit of a robber, as he pursued his plunder with the cruelty of a barbarian. The inquisition was the great machine, the comprehensive torturer, ready to squeeze out alike the heart and the gold. In 1481, an edict was issued against the Jews; before the end of the year, in the single diocess of Cadiz, two thousand Jews were burnt alive! The fall of the kingdom of Grenada, in 1492, threw the whole of the Spanish Moors into the hands of the king. They were cast into the same furnace of plunder and torture. Desperate rebellions followed; they were defeated and, in 1609, were finally exiled. "In the space of one hundred and twenty nine years, the inquisition deprived Spain of three millions of inhabitants."
On the death of Leo X. in 1521, Adrian, the inquisitor general was elected pope. He had laid the foundation of his papal celebrity in Spain. "It appears, according to the most moderate calculation, that during the five years of the ministry of Adrian, 24,025 persons were condemned by the inquisition, of whom one thousand six hundred and twenty were burned alive."
It is
Comments (0)