The Spanish Inquisition Refashioned: the Experience of Mary I's England and the Valladolid Tribunal, 1559

Abstract

Philip II returned to Spain in 1559 to take up the reins of power and also to support the repression by the Valladolid Inquisition of supposed 'Lutherans' in that city and elsewhere. This study briefly examines the arrested groups in their Spanish context and then focuses on Philip's own experience of religious dissidence, particularly during his time as King of England, in 1554–58. This paper concentrates on the English experience of Philip and his entourage: their direct meeting with Reformed Christianity, in its religious and political aspects. The Spanish input into Mary I's attempt to restore the Catholic faith in England is considered, particularly in the context of the punishment and refutation of 'heresy'. For this purpose, special attention is given to the work of Fray Bartolomé Carranza, who produced influential texts in the context of the English 'restoration'. Ironically, though Archbishop of Toledo from 1557, Carranza himself became a prisoner of the Inquisition, yet his practical and written work, as well as the activities of other English and Spanish Catholic activists in Mary's reign, played a largely inadvertent part in laying down the guidelines of the Counter-Reformation Inquisition in Spain.