private judge, who, with the concurrence of the oficiales reales, should have jurisdiction over and should proceed against, receive and collect all the products and rents of the vacant archbishoprics and bishoprics until the day on which the new prelates should take possession of their offices, proceeding with full cognizance ... to the collection ... of whatever might be due, ... with the assistance of the oficiales reales who in this matter are subject to the royal audiencia. [790] By this same law the audiencias, viceroys, presidents and tribunals were forbidden to interfere with this judge in the execution of his duties, or to impede the execution or the law in any manner whatsoever. The estates of prelates were thus placed on a basis similar to that occupied by the properties of civilians, which, we have noted, were administered by a special magistrate of the audiencia. This cédula also provided that all money left as a residue, after the debts of the prelates were paid, should be sent to the king for distribution. In view of the above-mentioned law, the practice followed in 1715, on the death of Bishop Gorospe of Nueva Segovia, seems to have been a direct violation of the royal command, and somewhat different from the usual method of settling the estates of prelates. As soon as Gorospe died at Magaldán, Pangasinán, the alcalde mayor of the province sent immediate notification to the governor and audiencia. The tribunal, in acuerdo, on the motion of the fiscal, authorized the alcalde mayor and the treasury officials to take the espolio of that prelate, which order was duly complied with. [791] The audiencia also dispatched a formal notification to Archbishop de la Cuesta and the metropolitan chapter, designating the former as the ecclesiastical governor of the bishopric. [792] The significant feature of this espolio is that it was taken by an official as inferior in rank as an alcalde mayor through the express authorization of the audiencia, instead of being conducted by the second magistrate of the audiencia as the law directed. It is possible that the arrival of the cédula of June 24, 1712, had been delayed, or that this may have been a case, so frequent in the Spanish colonies, of compliance without obedience. Certain it is that the conditions of life and travel in the provinces were of such a character that an oidor would have found it more comfortable to remain in the capital and delegate the disagreeable duties of the espolio in a far-distant province to the resident alcalde mayor. Attention has already been called to various complaints made by governors and others against the disinclination of the magistrates to submit to the inconveniences of provincial inspections. Again, it is very probable that the time and attention of the magistrate whose duty it should have been to take this espolio were occupied with more important judicial duties. [793]