English Traders and the Spanish Canary Inquisition in the Canaries during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth

Abstract

There is perhaps no historical subject less easy to treat dispassionately than the Inquisition. The tissue of exaggerations that has grown up around it is such that the sole hope of arriving at the truth is to turn to authentic sources, and to draw our own conclusions from them. Perhaps it was with this idea that the late Marquess of Bute, who had acquired a very valuable collection of the archives of the Canary Inquisition, had intended publishing in extenso the cases relating to English traders and others. The execution of this plan was unfortunately frustrated by death; but though a search through many volumes of MSS. is rendered necessary for a full study of the subject, the catalogue prepared by Dr. de Gray Birch is probably sufficient to give an intelligent acquaintance with it.