The Spanish Inquisition was not a papal inquisition but rather was an endeavor by the King of Spain as he dealt with the actual and suspected false converts to Catholicism who were accused of treasonously helping the Muslim. Yes, the bulk of them were Jewish converts, so called Marranos or Coversos, and if they declared that they are in fact Jewish, the Inquisition lost all interest in them, -- but the Spanish Court, by the same token, gained an interest.
Protestant Huguenots slaughtered by the Inquisition
I don't think there was any inquisition operating, if you refer to the Barholomew's Night. Vladimir might know more.
You wrote:
“I don’t think there was any inquisition operating, if you refer to the Barholomew’s Night. Vladimir might know more.”
Huguenots were not slaughtered by the Inquisition. I wouldn’t be surprised that some had been tried by the inquisition, but they were not executed by the inquisition under any circumstance. St. Bart’s Day Massacre had nothing to do with the Catholic Church.
They were no different than those slaughtered in the Holocaust, tragic victims of ignorance and hatred.
In reality Muslims were the main target of the Spanish Inquisition because they represented a disruptive enemy presence. The Spaniards had spent 700 years reclaiming the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors and needed to reestablish Christian culture and jurisprudence. Muslims did not accept the European concept of Divine Right or the God that authored it. As such they represented a treasonous presence. Remember, simultaneous to the Inquisition Islam was in a continuous and aggressive war with the Christian world. Fall of Constantinople was in 1453, the Battle of Lepanto took place in 1571 and Vienna was under siege in 1683, Greece and the Balkans were under Muslim control. Islam was a very real threat to all of Europe. One has to wonder why Protestantism remained neutral in the clash of civilizations.
The slaughter of the Huguenots was a mob action that sprang from the arrest of the Protestant leaders who were conspiring with the English and Dutch to stage a coup. It marked but a single event among hundreds in a series of populist sectarian violence incidents between Protestants and Catholics. Unfortunately, as in much of European history the peasants and poor were caught up in power politics that had nothing to do with religion.