on the other a raised daïs for the Inquisitor-General, his superior officers, and the higher clergy. The ministers and Court officials in gala uniforms, and the various trade corporations in state dresses, with a motley group of monks in their respective habits, together with an overwhelming multitude of the populace, all assembled in the imposing arena, amid the pealing of bells and the chaunts of priests.

The ceremony began about six in the morning, and by eight, the King, Queen, Queen-mother, and Court, the foreign ambassadors with numberless ladies in Court dresses, and the innumerable dignitaries of the State, had taken the places reserved for them opposite the gallery of the Inquisitors, before which floated the green cross, the banner of the Holy office. The cry Viva la fé!' burst forth from myriads of throats, as the melancholy procession was seen entering the arena. A hundred charcoalburners, clad in black, and armed with pikes and helmets, came first, as was their prescriptive right, they having furnished the wood for the sacrifice; then followed a number of Dominican monks, and the Duke of Medina Celi, hereditary standard-bearer of the Inquisition, with other friars and nobles bearing banners and crosses. Thirty-four images of life size, with their names inscribed in large letters,

and borne by the familiars of the Inquisition, represented those who had died in prison, or escaped by flight; Dominican friars with coffins came next, bearing the bones of those who had been convicted of heresy after death, and then appeared fifty-four men and women holding lighted tapers, and clad in the sambenito and coroza, or high cap, almost all of whom had been convicted of Judaising, but had confessed and repented. Lastly followed eighteen Jews and Jewesses, mostly persons of humble rank, also wearing the sambenito and coroza, who were to bear witness in the flames to their steadfastness to the law of Israel. Most of them, haggard and worn by long imprisonment, seemed languid and indifferent, quite resigned to quit the world in which they had suffered so intensely, but one beautiful girl about seventeen, as she approached the royal stand, called out, Noble queen, cannot your royal presence save me from this? I sucked in my religion with my mother's milk; must I now die for it?'

The young Queen's eyes filled with tears; she hid her face, and the sad procession passed on. High Mass was then celebrated before a grand altar, which had been erected for the purpose, with all the pomp which was thought befitting to the occasion. At noon the Inquisitor-General with a staff of his

officials passed over to the King, with the Gospels in his hands, upon which he administered to Charles the oaths that he would support the faith and the Inquisition, and do all that lay in him to extirpate heresy. Next followed a sermon from one of the principal chaplains of the King, Fray Tomas Navarro. The text of this lengthy lecture which lasted a couple of hours was, Arise, O Lord, and judge thy cause,' and this was the refrain of the whole composition, which from beginning to end was one vast tissue of abuse of the Hebrew people, and one long string of curses supported by passages from Scripture violently wrested from their context. He adjured the Jews before him to acknowledge the wickedness of their ways, and to accept the doctrines of salvation before that last moment of life, which was so painfully drawing near. After this the prisoners were brought to the staging, which had been erected in the middle of the arena; each entered a sort of cage, and the name of the individual, with the nature of the crimes of which he or she was convicted, was read out in a loud voice. The day was unusually sultry, but the King sat out the fourteen hours without so much as moving to take a mouthful of food.

Monks were continually hovering round the unfortunate Jews urging them to repent, and to acknow

ledge their abominable heresy, but all in vain: the harder the trial to which they were subjected, the higher rose the heroism of these Hebrew men and women, who were thus barbarously exposed like wild beasts in the arena, when separated by but a few hours from the most painful death. At length the long-delayed shadows of this summer's eve drew on, the evening Angelus pealed forth in its impressive tones, vespers were grandly chaunted, absolution was pronounced, and the Inquisitor leaving his throne passed over to the King, when the fictitious ceremony took place of handing over the prisoners to the secular power, since the Church could not pronounce a verdict of death. Then in the growing darkness was organised the horrible procession to the Puerta de Fuencarral, outside which was the Quemadero, where the final scene was to take place. Those who at the last moment confessed their penitence, had the grace conceded to them of being strangled at the foot of the pile; the bodies of such, the bones of the dead heretics, and the effigies of the absent were first deposited at the stake, and lastly the living victims, men and women, mounted the pile with so firm a step that the chroniclers were fain to ascribe their courage to some diabolical charm, in order not to be forced to own their admiration. The King

himself kindled with his own hand the fatal pile, and soon the flames in which these noble beings perished mounted towards heaven amid the deafening plaudits of the multitude, and the whole city was lit up by the lurid light, which represented so vividly, as it was meant to represent, the flames of hell.

Those so-called penitents, who had life spared to live a life-long torment, were forced to assist at the horrible spectacle, after which they were taken back to their dungeons, which many of them were never to leave again, whilst others in a few days were sent off to the galleys.

Such were the scenes which with more or less similar circumstances were enacted in every large city in Spain, and Portugal, and in all the immense colonies, and dependencies of the two crowns. Sometimes twice or thrice in a year, sometimes not for several years together, depending much on the personal character of the sovereign, and still more on the greater or less degree of severity, which marked the Inquisitor-General. The monarchs of the Bourbon dynasty refused to be present at any autos-da-fé, and though one was celebrated on the accession of Philip V., in 1701, the King could not be persuaded to witness it; from this time the exhibition grew less frequent, and the last occasion on