Note 3 — Chapter IX · THE AUDIENCIA AND THE GOVERNOR: THE AD INTERIM RULE

During the period from 1544 to 1551, until the arrival in Perú of Viceroy Mendoza, the audiencia exercised control of governmental affairs. It made and unmade captains-general and viceroys, irrespective of royal appointments. It suspended the New Laws of 1542 and its commands were obeyed. From 1550 to 1551 it governed alone. In these incidents we note that the audiencia actually assumed the government ad interim prior to the time of the promulgation of the law of March 19, 1550, exercising administrative as well as judicial powers, thirty-five years before the Audiencia of Manila was created. “To it (the audiencia) were confided in the beginning and later in the absence of the viceroy,” writes Moses, “all matters with which governmental authority might properly deal.”3 He further states that “the audiencia in its executive capacity, failed to justify the expectations of the king, and a new order of things was introduced by the appointment of a viceroy” (Mendoza, April 17, 1535) for New Spain.4