It was not long before this produced another quarrel with Archbishop Aliaga of Valencia. In 1631, Vicente Palmer, rector of Játiva, was prosecuted in the archiepiscopal court for sundry offences, including a charge of solicitation preferred by Ana Martínez. The notary employed was a familiar who informed the tribunal. It promptly notified the Ordinary to omit that specification, to which Aliaga replied that his court had always possessed jurisdiction over the matter, and the brief of Gregory XV had confirmed the cumulative jurisdiction of both tribunals; if Urban VIII had rendered that of the Inquisition exclusive, he had not seen the brief, but if shown to him he would of course obey it. Then came a pause during which Palmer returned to Játiva and, from the pulpit, denounced all who had testified against him, declaring that all who accused ecclesiastics were excommunicated and he would not hear them in confession, especially Ana Martínez; the town was in an uproar and one man died without confession. After some months the tribunal, in its customary arrogant fashion, with threats of excommunication, summoned the archbishop to surrender the papers and admit that he was inhibited. To this he replied at much length, pointing out that it was unreasonable to ask him to strip himself of an established jurisdiction on the simple assertion of the inquisitors that they held a brief of Urban VIII, which they would not exhibit. He offered to submit the question to the pope or to form a competencia in the regular way, but both suggestions were rejected, although the tribunal adopted a more moderate tone. The records are imperfect and we do not know the outcome, but probably the Suprema quietly let the affair drop out of sight through delay, in preference to provoking an investigation which would have manifested the fraudulence of its claims.[197] [Sidenote: _INCLUDED IN EDICT OF FAITH_] The audacity of the claim increased with time and, in the formula of the Edict of Faith, in use in 1696, there was an absolute assertion that Gregory XV had declared that, in the Spanish dominions, the offence was subjected to the exclusive cognizance of the Inquisition and not to that of the bishops, their vicars, provisors or ordinaries.[198] Notwithstanding this, when bishops asserted their rights, the Suprema shrank from a direct contest. Thus, in 1755, when the Bishop of Quito undertook to try cases of the kind, the Suprema merely presented a long and argumentative consulta to the king. So, in 1807, the Bishop of Badajoz tried Joseph Méndez Rodríguez, priest of Llerena, for solicitation, apparently without remonstrance on its part and when, in 1816, Rodríguez was prosecuted by the tribunal of Llerena for propositions and _mala doctrina_, the Suprema ordered it to obtain from the bishop the papers of the former trial and add them to the new proceedings.[199] * * * * *