Was the spanish Inquisition cruel
a cruel organisation but a strict one, there rules were only to create a Spain that had uniformity in it, which was the norm at the time it saved small quarrels that broke out between inhabitants and was generally much more safe for the stability of the country.
As if to show the monarchs fears of heretical Christians a large revolt happened in 1568 against the two Moriscos and the Christians. Phillip II becoming increasingly aware that the Moors that had been forced to convert under his father Charles I time still seemed to be practising their old beliefs in his time. There was rumour that the Moriscos sympathised with the Muslim Pirates, this was a threat. If Phillip wanted to avoid a large scale crisis he had to act quickly, they could ask for help from the Ottomans to overthrow the Catholic Granada and reinstate their old religion which was exactly what Phillip did not want, he was already fighting wars where his best soldiers were. In 1567 he passed edicts banning everything that suggested that they were Moors by true faith. However this caused the rebellion the whole state of Granada was involved with the help of North Africa if the Ottoman Empire had intervened Granada would no doubt have been taken over again but luckily they were busy with their own wars and were not able to help. The revolt was finally overthrown but iit showed hoe dangerous to Phillip what damage heretical Moriscos could do. Those that were captured were enslaved and sold, those that were not were scattered around Spain. At this point it is worthy to note out that the action that was taken was not cruel in the extent what they had done was treasonous and also extremely worrying if they had suceeded then Granada could then be another foothold into Europe by the Ottomans. It showed how unstable the Moriscos were in their faith and for this they were severely punished.
The Protestant were few and far between in Spain as Charles felt it his duty to stamp it out early on before it flourished and destroyed yet another one of his countries. Only a few were actually executed while others were put on an elaborate public trial.What is noticable is the amount that is written about the Spanish Inquistion, much of it was propaganda put about by famous and popular writers like Foxe but Kamen states that "torture was rather the exception than the rule". The Inquistion in all killed only a fraction of its "heretics" the usual cause of punishment was to recant or merey to be put in prison, death or torture was a rarity. Even when torture was caried out it was brief and a physician stayed present to see that it did not cause any lasting damage. This seems cruel to a modern civilisation but at the time torture was a common thing and by anyother European country "Spain [next page]