for, in so doubtful a matter, greater caution was needed than in other cases.[492] The secular authorities were restive under the deprivation of their jurisdiction over the crimes imputed to the witches; they continued to assert their claims, and the question came up for formal decision in 1575. The high court of Navarre had caused the arrest of a number of women and was trying them, when the Logroño tribunal, in the customary dictatorial fashion with threats of penalties, issued a summons to deliver all the prisoners and papers. This was duly read, November 24th, to the alcaldes, while sitting in court, to which they replied that the parties had been arrested under information that they had killed children and infants, that the women had had carnal intercourse with goats, and had killed cattle and injured harvests and vineyards with poisons and powders, and had carried off many children at night from their beds, while stupefying the adults with powders, of all of which as alcaldes they were the lawful judges. Therefore they appealed to the inquisitor-general against the penalties threatened and promised that, if the prisoners had committed heresy, they would be remitted to the inquisitors after undergoing punishment according to law. Finally they complained of the disrespect shown them and asked for a competencia. [Sidenote: _MODERATION_] The alcaldes further sent a memorial to the king, setting forth their claims to jurisdiction for crimes other than heresy, protesting against the assumption of the inquisitors to be sole judges of what pertained to them, to inhibit proceedings in the interim, and to interfere with the death-penalty which the alcaldes might decree. The royal court also petitioned the king in the same sense, adding that the prisoners spoke a dialect unintelligible to the inquisitors and that, if the cases were transferred, the king would lose the confiscations, which promised to be large. All this proved vain. A letter of the Suprema to the tribunal, in 1576, informs it that the alcaldes had been ordered to surrender all the prisoners and the papers in the cases.[493] While this matter was in progress, a similar controversy arose about numerous witches in Santander, for a letter of January 10, 1576, instructs the Logroño tribunal that it can proceed against them for anything savoring of heresy, requiring the secular judges meanwhile to suspend proceedings; the facts are to be carefully verified and everything is to be submitted to the Suprema.[494]