Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/391

THE INQUISITION. 247 meanor, complied with all humility, and was after- chapter wards heard to say, " This is the confessor that I '■ — wanted."^* Well had it been for the land, if the queen's con- character of ^ her coiifes- science had always been intrusted to the keeping ^"adl""^"'^' of persons of such exemplary piety as Talavera. Unfortunately, in her early days, during the lifetime of her brother Henry, that charge was committed to a Dominican monk, Thomas de Torquemada, a native of old Castile, subsequently raised to the rank of prior of Santa Cruz in Segovia, and con- demned to infamous immortality by the signal part which he performed in the tragedy of the Inquisi- tion. This man, who concealed more pride under his monastic weeds than might have furnished forth a convent of his order, was one of that class, with whom zeal passes for religion, and who testify their zeal by a fiery persecution of those whose creed differs from their own ; who compensate for their abstinence from sensual indulgence, by giving scope to those deadlier vices of the heart, pride, bigotry, and intolerance, which are no less opposed to virtue, and are far more extensively mischievous to society. This personage had earnestly labored to infuse into Isabella's young mind, to which his situation as her confessor gave him such ready access, the same spirit of fanaticism that glowed in his own. For- 24 Si^Oenza, Historia de la Or- virtues raised him from the hum- den de Sin Geronimo, apud Mem. blest condition to the highest posts de la Acad, de Hist., torn. vi. in the church, and gained him, to Hust. 13. — This anecdote is more quote that writer's words, the ap- characteristic of the order than the pellation of " El sancto, 6 el buen individual. Oviedo has given a arzobispo en toda Espafia." Quin- brief notice of this prelate, whose cuagenas, MS., dial, de Talavera,