This measure humiliated the inquisitors, but they contrived to re-establish their authority in 1538, when the inquisitor Don Arnauld Albertius was viceroy _ad interim_: his presence emboldened them to persecute all who offended them; but their despotism was not of long duration. The viceroy returned to Sicily; and finding that the aversion of the inhabitants for the Inquisition was still the same, he communicated it to the emperor, who, as an indispensable measure, prolonged the suspension of their privileges for a fresh term of five years. The aversion inspired by the holy office was not without a cause, as will be seen in the following affair, which happened in 1532. Antonio Napoles, a rich inhabitant of the island, had been thrown into the secret prisons of the Inquisition: Francis Napoles, his son, applied to the Pope, and described this act of authority as the result of a miserable intrigue of some men of the lowest class, of whom the inquisitors had been the dupes, and had granted them a degree of confidence which nothing could justify, since his father had acted like a good Catholic from his infancy. He represented that the dean of the inquisitors had leagued with his father's enemies, and detained him in prison five months, to the scandal and discontent of the inhabitants of Palermo, and without affording him any means of defence; Francis entreated his holiness not to allow the inquisitor to judge his father. The Pope referred the affair to his commissioners in Sicily, Don Thomas Guerrero and Don Sebastian Martinez. Scarcely had the inquisitors of Madrid received information of this event, than they pressed the emperor and Cardinal Manrique to write to the Pope, and represent to him that the existence of this commission destroyed the privileges of the Spanish Inquisition, on which that of Sicily depended. The weak Clement VII. hastened to suppress the commission, and caused Guerrero to send all the writings of the process to the Spanish inquisitor-general. He appointed Doctor Don Augustin Camargo, inquisitor of Sicily, to continue the trial, or in his place any other inquisitor, so that Antonio Napoles fell into the hands of his enemy. He was condemned as an heretic, his property confiscated, (although he was admitted to reconciliation,) and to be imprisoned for life. What can justify the conduct of the Pope, the cardinal, and the judges? The inquisitors of Sicily depended on the protection of the court of Madrid, and supposed, that when all fear of rebellion had ceased, their privileges would be restored: this was really the case; the emperor, in 1543, signed a royal ordinance, which annulled the suspension at the end of the tenth year. This event inspired the inquisitors with the boldness to signify to the Marquis de Terranova, that he must accomplish the penance to which he had been condemned.