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Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/160

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140
VICEROYS TORRES, ALVA, AND ALBURQUERQUE.

were three friars, and burned the churches. The governor of Durango was ordered to subjugate them, and during the following year restored peace throughout the disturbed districts.

The old dispute about the submission of the doctrineros to the episcopal authority was revived during the term of viceroy Alva, but his prudent conduct prevented it from assuming such significance as the former one. Royal orders, tending to check the efforts of the regular clergy to become more independent of the jurisdiction of the crown, were also successfully enforced[1] without encountering serious opposition.

Although the count appears to have made a moderate use of his authority, he was jealous of his rights as the representative of a powerful monarch, and did not fail to guard them when occasion happened. Among other instances may be mentioned a case which occurred in June, 1651, when a dispute arose about the place which the chapter of the cathedral and the pages of the viceroy should occupy in the procession of corpus christi. The procession was forcibly interrupted by order of the count, who in unison with the audiencia issued several orders, which caused great excitement among the people. The matter was settled by the chapter yielding to the demand of the viceroy, when the ceremony was allowed to proceed.[2]

Owing to the wars almost continuously carried on

  1. Several cédulas were issued to protect the royal jurisdiction. One of September 18, 1650, ratified on the 6th of June, 1655, declared all briefs and bulls of the holy see issued to the people of New Spain as null and void, if not authorized by the council of the Indies, to which they were to be sent. To the same scrutiny were subjected all those patents for religious orders which introduced important innovations or referred to the founding of new convents. Montemayor, Svmarios, 37-8; Ordenes de la Corona, MS., ii. 219-21.
  2. Guijo, Diario, 179-82; Robles, Vida, 127-9. The viceroy would probably have encountered more opposition had there been an archbishop. The last one, Juan de Mañosca y Zamora, had died on December 12, 1650, not in 1653 as Vetancurt, Trat. Mex., 25, has it. Guijo, Diario, 157-9, Panes, Vir., MS., 100; Concilios Prov., 1555-65, 219. The see remained vacant for two years until December 25, 1652, when Pedro de Barrientos took possession of it in the name of the new appointee, Marcelo Lopez de Ascona, who arrived in July, 1653. He died after a few months, on November 10th of the same year. Guijo, Diario, 227, 229-30, 248-70; Concilios Prov.,1555-65, 220. Panes, Vir., says erroneously 1654. MS., 101.