In the summer of 1563 eight English merchantmen anchored in the roads
of Gibraltar. England and France were then at war. A French brig came in
after them, and brought up near. At sea, if they could take her, she
would have been a lawful prize. Spaniards under similar circumstances
had not respected the neutrality of English harbours. The Englishmen
were perhaps in doubt what to do, when the officers of the Holy Office
came off to the French ship. The sight of the black familiars drove the
English wild. Three of them made a dash at the French ship, intending to
sink her. The Inquisitors sprang into their boat, and rowed for their
lives. The castle guns opened, and the harbour police put out to
interfere. The French ship, however, would have been taken, when
unluckily Alvarez de Baçan, with a Spanish squadron, came round into the
Straits. Resistance was impossible. The eight English ships were
captured and carried off to Cadiz. The English flag was trailed under De
Baçan's stern. The crews, two hundred and forty men in all, were
promptly condemned to the galleys. In defence they could but say that
the Frenchman was an enemy, and a moderate punishment would have
sufficed for a violation of the harbour rules which the Spaniards
themselves so little regarded. But the Inquisition was inexorable, and
the men were treated with such peculiar brutality that after nine months
ninety only of the two hundred and forty were alive.

Ferocity was answered by ferocity. Listen to this! The Cobhams of
Cowling Castle were Protestants by descent. Lord Cobham was famous in
the Lollard martyrology. Thomas Cobham, one of the family, had taken to
the sea like many of his friends. While cruising in the Channel he
caught sight of a Spaniard on the way from Antwerp to Cadiz with forty
prisoners on board, consigned, it might be supposed, to the Inquisition.
They were, of course, Inquisition prisoners; for other offenders would