Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/32

8 8 INTERNAL AFFAIRS. PART I. nation, as well as to their settled opinions and habits, and prajing that its operation might be suspended for the present, so far at least as concerned the con- fiscation of property, which it rightly regarded as the moving power of the whole terrible machin- ery. ' Both the pope and the king, as may be imagin- ed, turned a deaf ear to these remonstrances. In the mean while the Inquisition commenced oper- ations, and autos da fe were celebrated at Saragos- sa, with all their usual horrors, in the months of ftme'd"''^ May and June, in 1485. The discontented Ara- gonese, despairing of redress in any regular way, resolved to intimidate their oppressors by some ap- palling act of violence. They formed a conspiracy for the assassination of Arbues, the most odious of the inquisitors established over the diocese of Sara- gossa. The conspiracy, set on foot by some of the principal nobility, was entered into by most of the new Christians, or persons of Jewish extraction, in the district. A sum of ten thousand reals was sub- scribed to defray the necessary expenses for the execution of their project. This was not easy, however, since Arbues, conscious of the popular odium that he had incurred, protected his person 6 By one of the articles in the Privilegium Generale, the Magna Charla of Aragon, it is declared, " Que turment : ni inquisicion ; no sian en Aragon como sian con- tra Fucro el qual dize que alguna pesquisa no hauemos : et contra el privilegio general, el qual vie- da que inquisicion so sia feyta." (Fueros y Observancias, fol. 11.) The tenor of this clause (although the term inquisicion must not be confounded with the name of the modern institution) was sufficiently precise, one might have thought, to secure the Aragonese from the fangs of this terrible tribunal.