All Spain, setting aside petty rivalships, rose up against them.

All who should give them encouragement or assistance were declared traitors to their country; the very lives of the Inquisitors and their families were, in the first burst of fury, endangered; but after a time, imagining they had sunk into harmless insignificance, their oppressors desisted in their efforts against them, and were guilty of the unpardonable error of not exterminating them entirely.[A] [Footnote A: Stockdale's History of the Inquisition.] According to the popular belief, the dreaded tribunal slept, and so soundly, they feared not, imagined not its awakening.

They little knew that its subterranean halls were established near almost all the principal cities, and that its engines were often at work, even in the palaces of kings.

Many a family wept the loss of a beloved member, they knew not, guessed not how--for those who once entered those fatal walls were never permitted to depart; so secret were their measures, that even the existence of this fearful mockery of justice and Religion was not known, or at that time it would have been wholly eradicated.

Superstition had not then gained the ascendency which in after years so tarnished the glory of Spain, and opened the wide gates to the ruin and debasement under which she labors now.