A distinguished British historian, commenting on the trial and execution of “ Edmund Arrowsmith, a Papist burned by pious Englishmen at Lancaster in 1628,” claims that “ clearly … there is no rational comparison between a victim of the bloody Spanish Tribunal and one who suffered at the hands of cool headed English justice.” Considering that Magistrate Henry Yelverton judged Arrowsmith guilty of high treason for being a priest, refused to allow the accused to testify in his own defense, and then gleefully witnessed the execution, it is possible that “ cool headed English justice ” might not compare so favorably with the proceedings of the Inquisition. This is particularly true when the Inquisition in eighteenth-century New Spain is studied, for although the Holy Office was then in decline and under the control of regalist prelates, its operations exhibited marked deliberation in the pursuit of justice as defined by the courts of that period.