purpose he threw out all the rest [of
the governor's nominations]. He had the prebendaries of the cathedral
notified not to accept Don Andres, under penalty of excommunication,
and notified Don Francisco de Baldes to assist in the choir as before,
since he was the archdeacon--telling him that his resignation had been
invalid, as it had been made through the governor and not through
the ordinary, before whom the resignation of any ecclesiastical
benefice must be made; but the good man did not heed the archbishop
and those who were aiding him. Although it is true, and a matter that
has been settled by law, that the resignation from an ecclesiastical
benefice in which the incumbent has been canonically installed must be
presented only through the ordinary, yet Don Francisco de Baldes did
not hold the post of archdeacon _in titulum_, but only in charge, and
until his Majesty should appoint another. Therefore, the resignation
from it was governed by the same rule as the resignation from other
chaplaincies of the king, who was the one to appoint other incumbents
to them. It is not necessary that those who hold these should make
their resignation before the ordinary; and this, it seems, is the
practice. For the same object of preventing that presentation,
the archbishop exiled Don Andres Xiron, and announced that he was
excommunicated. But his Majesty likewise orders in a royal decree
that, when the governors should present any persons as prebendaries,
the archbishops should accept them, unless they had some objection to
offer to them; but that if any exception were made, then such were not
to be accepted--with the proviso that the exception must be proved,
and, if it should not be proved, then they must pay damages to the one
presented. Therefore, the archbishop came forward for this purpose,
and entered several exceptions before the royal Audiencia against
the said master Don Andres Xiron. The latter manfully repelled these
accusations, and purged himself from them all; for at the outset,
in reply to a formal accusation with evidence that he had caused a
miscarriage, some years before, by ordering a pregnant Indian woman
to be whipped, the said master Don Andres Xiron came forward with
another report made by the same judge, in which the witnesses who
had sworn against him retracted their oaths, and declared that they
had been induced by others to swear; whereupon the judge declared him
free from that calumny. Further, on the