The relations between the inquisitor-general and the Suprema thus had grown up without any precise definition and consequently were open to diversity of opinion. A writer who, about 1675, drew up an exhaustive account of the working of the Inquisition, admits that it was a disputed question whether the inquisitor-general could act by himself and dispense with the Suprema, but he states that the prevailing opinion is that the members are independent and act by immediate delegated papal powers; in his absence their acts are final and it is the same when the office is vacant. This, he says, is the invariable custom, nor can there be found an instance of his acting without the Suprema, while the Suprema in his absence acts without him.[445] As we have seen, this was a usurpation, grown strong by prescription. It was fairly put to the test, in 1700, by Inquisitor-general Mendoza, in the trial of Fray Froilan Díaz, which was, in some respects, one of the most noteworthy cases in the annals of the Inquisition. [Sidenote: _CASE OF FROILAN DÍAZ_] Carlos II, the last of the Hapsburgs who were the curse of Spain, was imbecile equally in mind and body. A being less fitted to rule has probably never encumbered a throne and it was his misfortune, no less than that of his people, that, reaching it in his fourth year, through thirty-five weary years, from 1665 to 1700, he staggered under the burden, while his kingdom plunged ever deeper in misery and humiliation. He was but a puppet in the hands of any intriguing man or woman or artful confessor who might obtain ascendancy; prematurely old, when he should have been in the prime of manhood, with mental and bodily sufferings continually on the increase, he was restlessly eager for whatever might promise relief. His first wife, Marie Louise of Orleans, had died childless, and the second, Maria Anna of Neuburg, whom he married in 1690, in the vain hope of an heir, was an ambitious woman who speedily dominated him and ruled Spain through her favorites. It soon became recognized that a successor would have to be selected from among the collateral branches and, after active intrigues, parties formed themselves in the court in support of the two most prominent aspirants--Philip Duke of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV, who was preferred by the mass of the people, and the Archduke Charles, son of the Emperor Leopold I, whose claims were urged by the queen. It was the misfortune of Froilan Díaz that he became the sport of the contending factions.