The Rise of the Spanish Inquisition

Jean Plaidy, with all her novelist's perception and skill, tells the storyof sabella and Ferdinand, the monarchs who brought the Inquisition intoSpain in the fifteenth century, and allowed it to flourish so hideously.Isabella was a pious and fervent Catholic who detested the corrupt decadenceof her brother's court at Castille: when she came to power she wasdetermined to stamp Spain irrevocably with the mark of her faith. TheInquisitors from Rome brought torture, humiliation and a fiery death tothousands - and swelled the coffers of the state with the confiscated richesof their victims. But when Isabella's confessor, the remorseless Tomas deTorquemada, became Inquisitor General, a new era of terror began, moreextreme and more ruthless than all that had gone before.