Note 11 — The Pardo Controversy

In this matter both first and second decrees were issued for the said archbishop and the father provincial of St. Dominic, neither of whom was willing to render obedience, the archbishop returning some very uncivil answers.11 Finally, the latter took exception to Doctor Don Diego Calderon, assigning as the cause of this proceeding his remarks about the ecclesiastical jurisdiction; he also challenged Don Diego Antonio de Viga [the fiscal] for the mode of expression which he had used in his writings. By this expedient the proceedings of the Audiencia were suspended, for lack of judges—for at that time it contained only the two gentlemen, Don Francisco de Montemayor and Don Diego Calderon—until Doctors Don Christoval de Grimaldo and Don Pedro Sebastian de Bolivar y Mena, the recently-arrived [auditors],12 could examine the question of the said challenge. At the petition of Doctor Don Estevan Lorenzo de la Fuente y Alanis, who also had just arrived, they declared that there was no cause for it; and without doubt it would result thus, since the challenge was not sworn to, or presented, in accordance with the regulations of the royal laws. They likewise commanded that the said archbishop be requested and charged to maintain in all things friendly relations with the [royal] ministers, not only in writing to them but in speech. When he was notified of this royal decree, he gave a very sharp answer, and concluded by saying that his own behavior would be governed in accordance with the actions of the ministers, as he thus tells them in all his replies.