Article III

After the conclusion of the said sermon the inquisitors shall publish an edict granting a term of grace, of thirty or forty days—as they may deem proper—so that all persons who have fallen into the sin of heresy or apostasy, who have observed Jewish rites or any other that are contrary to the Christian Religion, may come forward to confess their sins, assured that if they do so with a sincere penitence, divulging all that is known to them or that they remember, not only of their own sins but also of the sins of others, they shall be received with charity.

They shall be subjected to a salutary penance, but they shall not suffer death, imprisonment, or confiscation of their property, nor shall they in any way be mulcted unless the inquisitors, in consideration of the quality of the penitents and of the sins they confess, should think well to impose some pecuniary penance upon them.

Concerning this grace and mercy that their Highnesses consider well to accord to those who are reconciled, the Sovereigns order the delivery of letters-patent, bearing the royal seal, whose tenor shall be included in the published edict.

It is sufficiently plain, from the terms of this article, that the edict of grace was published by royal command, and that it was not, as Garcia Rodrigo represents it, a merciful dispensation spontaneously emanating from the Holy Office.