Irrespective of the influence which the office of president may have had, the relations between the inquisitor-general and Suprema were ill-defined and fluctuating. Under Cardinal Adrian we sometimes find the Councils acting as though independent and sometimes Adrian doing the same. In the Aragonese troubles over Juan Prat, the Suprema nowhere appears--everything is in the name of Adrian or of Charles. During the interval between Adrian's election as pope, January 9, 1522, and his leaving Spain, August 5th, he and the Suprema acted at times each independently of the other.[435] As the vacancy was not filled until September 1523, by the appointment of Manrique, there can be little doubt that this effacement of the inquisitor-generalship established precedents for a development of the activity and functions of the Suprema which, under Manrique, is found taking part in all business, the signatures of the members following his in the letters and decrees; it was rapidly becoming the direct executive and legislative head of the Holy Office.[436] His disgrace and relegation to his see, in 1529, could not but stimulate this tendency. During his absence there are many letters from it submitting questions for his decision, but there are also many to the tribunals, showing that it was acting in full independence. [Sidenote: _THE SUPREMA BECOMES DOMINANT_] The result of this is seen, in 1540, when Cardinal Tavera, in announcing to the tribunals his accession to office, tells them that he will act with the concurrence and opinion of the members of the Council and when, in the same year, he appointed Nicolao Montañánez inquisitor of Majorca, he refers him to what the Council writes to him with regard to his duties. The appointing power continued to give to the inquisitor-general a certain predominance, but otherwise he and the Suprema had coalesced into one body--a fact emphasized by a declaration, May 14, 1542, that they formed together but a single tribunal and that there was no appeal from the one to the other.[437] Still, there was a primacy of honor in the inquisitor-generalship. When the _Instrucciones nuevas_--the elaborate code of procedure embodied in the Instructions of 1561--were sent to the tribunals, it was in the name of Inquisitor-general Valdés but, in the prefatory note, he is made to state that they had been maturely discussed in the Council, where it was agreed that they should be observed by all inquisitors.[438]