Note 30 — The Pardo Controversy

Another instance: Sargento-mayor Don Juan Gallardo—who was chief magistrate, castellan, and commander of the seamen and sailors, in the port of Cavite (the most important port in these islands, and its command one of the highest military posts)—had a prisoner, an artillerist named Lorenço Magno.30 The said archbishop sent him a letter of requisition, demanding that Don Juan hand over to him the said prisoner and the suit that had been brought against him; or that he should declare under oath whether or not that suit was in his hands. In this letter of requisition the archbishop did not state the cause for which his illustrious Lordship said he had accused the aforesaid [prisoner, which was] bigamy. The said castellan, moreover, noticed in it certain imperative expressions and the archbishop addressed him as vos [i.e., “you”],31 in the manner which is customary in the royal decrees. The said castellan sent the prisoner to the archbishop, who issued another letter of requisition, in the same form as the preceding, at the petition of Francisca Ignacia, wife of the said Lorenço Magno—against whom, it was declared, he was carrying on a suit for divorce—demanding that immediately, without any delay, under penalty of excommunication and a fine of five hundred pesos, the said castellan should within three hours deliver to the notary a certified statement of the suit which he had instituted against the said Lorenço Magno. The castellan came before the royal Audiencia with his deposition regarding these two letters of requisition, demanding that the said archbishop be requested and charged to observe, in the communications that he might send to the judicial officers of his Majesty, the forms ordained by law, treating the magistrates with the courtesy due to their position. These acts having been considered in the Audiencia, a royal decree was despatched requiring that the said archbishop must, in the requisitions which he might send to the royal magistrates, treat them with due politeness, conforming to the forms of law and usage—not using imperative terms, or the word vos. When the archbishop was notified of this royal decree, he gave an answer full of uncivil, improper, and disrespectful expressions against the royal jurisdiction, the governor, and the auditors. The latter had issued an act that Doctor Don Joseph Zervantes and Master Nicolas de la Vega Caravallo should not meddle with the profession of advocate, into which they had thrust themselves—from which resulted consequences pernicious to the public welfare, since they had not taken the courses of study in the school of law. When notified of the act, they replied that the archbishop had already ordered them not to plead in secular tribunals, and the said Caravallo added that he was the only one who could issue such commands. On the following day the archbishop issued an act in opposition to that of the Audiencia, commanding that no petitions should be accepted in his court that were not signed by the said Doctor Zervantes and Master Caravallo. The fiscal, when all the replies had been shown to him, demanded that, without giving opportunity for any further acts of disobedience or disrespect, they should execute upon the person of the reverend archbishop the penalties which he had been declared to have incurred—banishment, and the loss of his secular revenue [temporalidades]; and that, for this purpose, the clause “for the present,” contained in the act of October 1 in the past year of 82, be revoked and erased, and the act put into execution on May 1 of the said year [i.e., 1683]. These acts having been considered by the royal Audiencia with the attention and mature deliberation which so grave a matter demanded, it was decided that sentence of banishment should be executed on the archbishop, and that he should be sent to the village of Lingayen, in the province of Pangasinan, a village of Christian Indians in charge of the Dominican religious. This charge was committed to Doctor Don Christòval Grimaldo de Herrera and Sargento-mayor Juan de Veristain, alcalde-in-ordinary, who fulfilled it with the utmost discretion, quietness, and moderation;32 and the archbishop was embarked in a barcoluengo, in which the forethought of the governor had provided all his kitchen equipment, with everything else that was necessary for his support and the needs of the voyage.33