First, the pope turned his hand to the Spanish possessions in Italy, sending peremptory orders to the Neapolitan bishops for them to promulgate and obey the papal bulls without waiting for the royal confirmation. This was met by the viceroy, the Duke of Alcalá, by threatening any bishop who did so with summary imprisonment. Pius tried by every device imaginable for three years to circumvent the Spanish position in Naples, but at last in February 1569 had to confess himself beaten. The patronage was in the hands of Philip, which necessarily made the bishops his creatures. The pope was equally unsuccessful in Sicily and in Milan, notwithstanding the efforts of the great cardinal, Charles Borromeo, and the excommunication of Philip’s governor, the Duke of Albuquerque. The pope’s action in Spain itself was more effectual. The various pontiffs had from time to time regranted to the Spanish monarchs the revenues arising from the sale of the so-called Crusade bulls granting certain indulgences. Pius V. now refused to do this, on the ground that the government traffic in these indulgences had become a scandal. He also continued to worry Philip about Carranza and the appropriation of the great revenues of his vacant see of Toledo to the cost of the building of the Escorial. Bitter words and reproaches were used on both sides. Philip gave way on secondary points, such as the sending of Carranza to Rome, but he kept fast to his main idea of retaining control over the clergy and benefices; and the constant menaces of the Turks in the Mediterranean made it impossible for the pope to carry to the last extreme the quarrel with the only prince to whom he could look for protection. Philip, indeed, was assailed by trouble at all points. His married life, in a domestic sense, was a happy one, though his constant labour left him but small leisure to enjoy it. All else was bitterness and disappointment, mostly, it is true, the result of his rigid unadaptability to circumstances.