Thanks for your insight. I consider myself reasonably well read, but I had no idea about the (small) scale of the Inquisition. I had always assumed it was much larger than that.
It is mostly a good story because it is both true and also paints some of the mainstream western ideas, and Christianity in particular, in a bad light.
It was bad of course, and most population despised it. Many politicians (liberals) tried to abolish it, but the conservatives counter-attacked several times by restating it. It was at last abolished in 1834.