Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/392

248 248 THE INQUISITION. PART tunatelj this was greatly counteracted by her sound " understanding and natural kindness of heart. Tor- quemada urged her, or indeed, as is stated by some, extorted a promise, that, " should she ever come to the throne, she would devote herself to the ex- tirpation of heresy, for the glory of God, and the exaltation of the Catholic faith." ^^ The time was now arrived when this fatal promise was to be dis- charged. It is due to Isabella's fame to state thus much in palliation of the unfortunate error into which she was led by her misguided zeal ; an error so grave, that, like a vein in some noble piece of statuary, it gives a sinister expression to her otherwise unblem- r:,|.ni i.i.ii ished character. ^^ It was not until the queen had the iiKiuisi- endured the repeated importunities of the clergy, particularly of those reverend persons in whom she most confided, seconded by the arguments of Fer- dinand, that she consented to solicit from the pope a bull for the introduction of the Holy Office into Castile. Sixtus the Fourth, who at that time filled the pontifical chair, easily discerning the sources of wealth and influence, which this measure opened to the court of Rome, readily complied with the petition of the sovereigns, and expedited a bull bearing date November 1st, 1478, authorizing them 25 Zurila, Anales, torn. iv. fol. honorable testimony to the unsus- 323. pected intefjrity of her motives. 26 The uniform tenderness with Even in relation to the Inquisition, which the most liberal Spanish her countrymen would seem wil- writers of the present comparative- ling to draw a veil over her errors, ly enIiijht(Mied ape, as Marina, or to excuse her by charging them Lloreuio, Clcinciicin, &c., regard on the age in which she lived. the memory of Isabella, affords an