When Torquemada passed away, in the absence of his vigorous personality, the Council rapidly became a determining factor in the organization. In 1499 and in 1503, instructions of a general character, although signed by one inquisitor-general, also bear the signatures of two or three members of the Council and are countersigned by the secretary "por mandado de los señores del consejo." A decree of November 15, 1504, although signed by Deza alone, bears that it is with the concurrence, opinion and vote of the Council.[422] It was also assuming the appellate jurisdiction, for it announced to inquisitors, January 10, 1499, that, if any parties came before it with appeals, it would hear them and administer what it deemed to be justice.[423] If papal confirmation of this were lacking it was supplied by Leo X, in his bull of August 1, 1516, in which he conferred on members of the Council, in conjunction with the inquisitor-general, power to act in all appeals arising from cases of faith.[424] The death of Ferdinand, January 23, 1516, the preoccupations of Ximenes who, till his death in November, 1517, was governor of Spain, and the youth and inexperience of Charles V, gave the Suprema an opportunity of enlarging its functions. We find it regulating details and giving instructions to the tribunals much after the fashion of Ferdinand himself.[425] This was facilitated by the fact that it had a president of its own who, during vacancies, acted as inquisitor-general, a practice apparently commenced in 1509 when Ximenes, on the eve of his departure with his expedition to Oran, was required by Ferdinand to appoint the Archbishop of Granada, Francisco de Rojas, president of the Council during his absence.[426] [Sidenote: _THE SUPREMA HAS A PRESIDENT_]