his was a trial in the first instance,
and the said bachelor was under the bishop's parochial care and was
cura of the benefice of Vigan, one of the parishes belonging to his
bishopric. The said bishop requested a royal decree that the papers
should be furnished to him by the said archbishop in the customary
form, and that the said cases should be referred to him. In this
affair they went so far as to issue the fourth royal decree; but the
said archbishop did not obey one of them. [62]

The same resistance was encountered by four other royal decrees issued
against the said archbishop, at the demand, and appeal from fuerza,
interposed by Master Don Geronimo de Herrera y Figueroa, cantor of
this holy cathedral church. He was a prisoner of the said archbishop
in the college of Santo Tomas of this city, an indictment having been
brought against him, charging him with being guilty of disrespect for
the archiepiscopal dignity, and having at the session of the cabildo
concurred in their demand for relief, [63] of which mention has
been made--that the said archbishop should remove from his side Fray
Raymundo Verart, and the rest that is stated above. The said Master
Don Geronimo had alleged that the said archbishop was not competent
to act as judge, of which exception he had notified the prelate; but
the latter without settling this question--which, as pre-judicial,
[64] ought to have been summarily decided--proceeded in the case. Even
if he were a competent judge, he ought to proceed with the adjunct
judges, [65] as ordained by the holy Council of Trent; but, [not]
heeding these considerations, the said archbishop proceeded with
fuerza and violence, which he wreaked on Don Geronimo's person. This
case was decidedly within the cognizance of this royal Audiencia, and
to its organization and civil jurisdiction belongs the removal of the
fuerza with which the prelate had oppressed Don Geronimo. Upon this
ground they issued the said four decrees, to attain their object, in
order that the said archbishop should send them the acts, so that it
might be ascertained whether or not he had committed fuerza, or else
should send these with his notary; but he refused to obey the decrees.

The royal Audiencia, striving, in whatever pertained to its side,
to avoid inflicting the chastisement which his actions demanded, in
order to see whether their tolerance would constrain him to lay aside
his arbitrary proceedings, had suspended, with the c