This ended the case which, from its inception in 1628, had lasted for thirty-two years. Cabrera had spent nearly twelve years in Rome and had richly earned the bishopric of Salamanca which rewarded his labors, but his efforts while there had cost the Suprema nearly a hundred thousand ducats, at a time when it was representing itself as wholly impoverished. Arce had succeeded in removing Villanueva from the court and in blackening his memory, but the victory remained with the papacy, which had vindicated its appellate jurisdiction, for, although it never decided the case it retained possession of it and the papers which were the symbol of its rights. With its customary unscrupulousness, the Suprema endeavored to evade the precedent when, in 1668, it was alleged in the quarrel with the Bishop of Majorca (Vol. I, p. 501). In a consulta of that year it gives a summary of the case up to the delivery of the papers to the pope, who then, it proceeds to state, sent a brief full of favors to Arce, approving of Villanueva's sentence and the method of procedure; there was, it is true, an irregularity in allowing the papers to remain in Rome, but the pope excused himself because the originals were in Spain; the evil example led several powerful men to seek appeals to the Holy See, but the pope refused to entertain them, recognizing that it was injurious to the faith. When, in the same quarrel, it boasted of the bulls which it held prohibiting appeals, the Council of Aragon pointed out that the popes always preserved their reserved rights by a clause excepting cases in which they should insert in their letters the text of the bulls thus derogated.[405] [Sidenote: _BOURBON RESISTANCE_] In the subsequent quarrel with the canons and clergy of Majorca, in 1671 (Vol. I, p. 503) the latter appealed to the Holy See, under the brief obtained in 1642, and procured letters declaring void the excommunications fulminated by the tribunal and valid those uttered by the executors of the brief. The nuncio exhibited these letters to the inquisitor-general with a paper arguing that these appeals should be allowed and asking, in case there was a privilege or regalía to the contrary, that it should be shown to him. This was a test which the Suprema could not meet and, after a long delay, it sent, June 11, 1676, to the king all the documents bearing on the subject and asked him to assemble a junta to consider them and advise him what to do. It must have been impossible to solve the question favorably for, in a consulta of July 28, 1693, on the occasion of a fresh disturbance, it expressed its profound regret that the junta had failed to reach any conclusion.[406] * * * * *