The creation of an audiencia, with judicial and advisory functions, put an end to the exercise of these extraordinary powers by the church and tended to confine its activities to the ecclesiastical field. Nevertheless, the prelates continued to advise the governors in administrative matters throughout the entire history of the Islands. Their influence was especially strong in matters relating to the natives, their government and protection, and the archbishops even went so far at times as to give advice on questions of foreign policy. Most of the time this counsel was solicited and was well received. From 1650 onwards, as we noted in the last chapter, the church waxed exceedingly strong in the Philippines and the prelates not only advised, but dominated governors and audiencias. In 1668, Governor Diego Salcedo was unseated, imprisoned and exiled by the commissary of the Inquisition, while a pliant magistrate of the audiencia took over the government and administered affairs in a manner entirely satisfactory to his ecclesiastical supporters. The period from 1684 to 1690 showed the weakness of the audiencia when opposed by a powerful prelate allied to a hostile governor. And in 1719 the church reached the climax of its power by bringing about the murder of a governor, and then succeeding him, overcoming every opposing element in the colony, including the audiencia. From that time onward the prelates governed during vacancies in the governorship--something which the audiencia had failed to do. Finally, in 1762, Simón de Anda y Salazar assumed the reigns of government and the obligations of defense, an act which was sanctioned technically because he was an oidor but really because he was an able man, capable of accomplishing what the church had failed to do. In this chapter it is not our purpose to review the historical facts of the relations of the audiencia and the church or the growth of clerical influence over the audiencia. These matters have been referred to in earlier chapters. It is rather the design to study here the influence which the audiencia, in its turn, exercised in ecclesiastical affairs, noting whence it derived its authority and what was the nature of its powers.