which were forwarded to the court at Brussels. When deemed of sufficient
importance, the further examination of a case was reserved for the
council itself. But for the most part the local authorities, or a
commission sent expressly for the purpose, were authorized to try the
cause, proceeding even to a definitive sentence, which, with the grounds
of it, they were to lay before the Council of Troubles. The process was
then revised by the committee for the provinces, who submitted the
result of their examination to Vargas and Del Rio. The latter were alone
empowered to vote in the matter; and their sentence, prepared in
writing, was laid before the duke, who reserved to himself the right of
a final decision. This he did, as he wrote to Philip, that he might not
come too much under the direction of the council. "Your majesty well
knows," he concludes, "that gentlemen of the law are unwilling to decide
anything except upon evidence, while measures of state policy are not to
be regulated by the laws."[1012]

It might be supposed that the different judges to whom the prisoner's
case was thus separately submitted for examination, would have afforded
an additional guaranty for his security. But quite the contrary; it only
multiplied the chances of his conviction. When the provincial committee
presented their report to Vargas and Del Rio,--to whom a Spanish jurist,
auditor of the chancery of Valladolid, named Roda, was afterwards
added,--if it proposed sentence of death, these judges declared it "was
right, and that there was no necessity of reviewing the process." If, on
the contrary, a lower penalty was recommended, the worthy ministers of
the law were in the habit of returning the process, ordering the
committee, with bitter imprecations, to revise it more carefully![1013]

[Sidenote: THE COUNCIL OF BLOOD.]

As confiscation was one of the most frequent as well as momentous
penalties adjudged by the Council of Blood, it necessarily involved a
large number of civil actions; for the estate thus forfeited was often
burdened with heavy claims on it by other parties. These were all to be
established before the council. One may readily comprehend how small was
the chance of justice before such a tribunal, where the creditor was one
of the parties, and the crown the other. Even if the suit was decided in
favor of the creditor, it was usually so long protracted, and attended
with such ruinous expense, that it would have been better f