The history of the popes, from the close of the middle ages : drawn ...

PIUS V. AND HERESY. 365
The Imperial agent, Cusano, was of opinion that the wearisome
trial was one of the causes which hastened the death of
the Pope. On the one hand, Cusano says, he had realized
the innocence of the archbishop, and considered it his duty
to acquit him, but on the other there was reason to fear nothing
short of a breach with Spain if he were to annul the sentence
of the Spanish Inquisition. Cusano also bears witness that
Philip II. had expressed himself quite definitely on this point,
for the reason that there would be great scandal and much
harm done in Spain if the Inquisition should fall under the
suspicion of having made use of its power for the furtherance
of the private vengeance of any of its officials. The constant
anxiety and uneasiness of conscience, the difficulty of steering
a course between these two reefs was, says Cusano, the real
commencement of his incurable malady, the stone, which
brought about his death.
It would be quite unjust to look upon the zeal of Pius V.
for the Inquisition and for the punishment of the guilty as a
sign of any natural hardness of character. In the advice
which he sent to the princes and bishops as to the way in which
they should treat heretics, he clearly expressed the ideas which
governed his conduct towards the followers of the new rehgion.
In the first place, he was convinced that the first duty of a ruler
is the administration of justice, and justice demands the
punishment, and the severe punishment, of the guilty as much
as the protection of the innocent, while apostasy from the
Church was in his eyes a grave crime. ^ Moreover, he was
firmly convinced that it was precisely by stern measures against
the sectarians of the time that he could prevent much shedding
of blood, while, on the contrary, tolerance and half measures
could only lead to greater evils. ^ Hence came his warning to
' *Cusano, May 24, 1572.
^ " Mali vitiorum poenam, boni virtutum praemium, sibi a te
expectandum esse intelligant. Haereticorum venena ne gregem
tuam inficiant, quanta potes diligentia contende." To the Bishop
of Agram, August 11, 1569, in Goubau, 203.
' " Habes, carissime Fill, recens exemplum sccleris, furor's,
audaciae haereticorum. Vides, quam noccat cum iis molliter