About this time the Governor had put in prison one Ambrosio Morales, a sub-official of the Inquisition, who had had a quarrel with an officer. Cardenas, being informed of this, could not lose so good a chance of exercising the power he arrogated in temporal affairs. Holding a monstrance in his hands, he went to the prison and asked for the prisoner, placing the monstrance on a table at the prison gate. The rector of the Jesuit college came and expostulated with him, saying that it was not fitting to expose the body of Jesus Christ in such a place, and that it was not decent that the Bishop himself should stay there. Considering his position, and the times in which he lived, it seems the rector was judicious in his expostulation. Cardenas replied that he would stay there till the prisoner was released. The rector, knowing him to be as obstinate as a male mule, went and begged the Governor to let Morales out. This he did at once, and then the Bishop, cross in hand, returned in triumph to the palace with the rescued Inquisitor following amongst his train. The people, whose lives were dull, snatched at the opportunity for some amusement, and said that it was good luck the Governor and Bishop were not always of one mind, for that their agreement had caused the demolition of a church and convent, and their quarrel the setting of a prisoner free. This little triumph emboldened the Bishop to go further. He admitted Morales into minor orders, gave him the tonsure, and thus, having placed him above the temporal power, enabled him to brave the Governor openly. The Bishop’s nephew, taking the Governor’s kindness for weakness, broke publicly into insulting terms about him. The Governor’s brother, Father Hinostrosa, pressed him to vindicate his dignity, but he refused, saying he wanted peace at any price. This policy the Bishop did not understand, for all concessions he set down as weakness, and they encouraged him to fresh exactions and more violence. Dining with the Governor, the Bishop chanced to see upon the table a fine pair of silver candlesticks. To see and to desire with Cardenas was to ask, and so he intimated to the Governor his wish to have them. The Governor, thinking, perhaps, to wipe out the remembrance of the difficulty about Morales, sent them to the palace with his compliments. The Bishop took the present, and, turning to the man who brought them, said, ‘I should now be quite content if I only had the silver ewer and flagon which I noticed in your master’s house.’ The Governor, we may suppose, on hearing this made what the Spaniards call ‘la risa del conejo’; but sent the plate and a message, saying all his house contained was at the Bishop’s service. Don Bernardino, who, though he may have been a saint, as his friends proclaimed, was certainly far from a gentleman, sent for the flagon and the ewer, which he received at once, together with a friendly message from the Governor.