midnight
And this had been the case for years -- we should say for centuries -- and yet so inviolable was the faith pledged to each other , so awful the dangers around them , were even suspicion excited , that the fatal secret never transpired ; offices of state , as well as distinctions of honor , were frequently conferred on men who , had their faith or race been suspected , would have been regarded as the scum of the earth , and sentenced to torture and death , for daring to pass for what they were not . At the period of which we write , the fatal enemy to the secret Jews of more modern times , known as the Holy Office , did not exist ; but a secret and terrible tribunal there was , whose power and extent were unknown to the Sovereigns of the land . The Inquisition is generally supposed to have been founded by Ferdinand and Isabella , about the year 1480 or ' 82 ; but a deeper research informs us that it had been introduced into Spain several centuries earlier , and obtained great influence in Arragon . Confiding in the protection of the papal see , the Inquisitors set no bounds to their ferocity : secret informations , imprisonments , tortures , midnight assassinations , marked their proceedings ; but they overreached themselves . All Spain , setting aside petty rivalships , rose up against them . All who should give them encouragement or assistance were declared traitors to their country ; the very lives of the Inquisitors and their families were , in the first burst of fury , endangered ; but after a time , imagining they had sunk into harmless insignificance , their oppressors desisted in their efforts against them , and were guilty of the unpardonable error of not exterminating them entirely . -LSB- A -RSB- -LSB- Footnote A : Stockdale 's History of the Inquisition . -RSB-