over the temporalities of kings, and can neither depose them, nor release their subjects from their oath of fidelity_; the other, that _the authority of the general council is greater than that of the Pope_." The same minister, in 1776, wrote a letter from Aranjuez to Don Philip Bertran, inquisitor-general. Speaking with approbation of his intention to correct the Spanish expurgatory index, he says, "A thousand absurdities were committed in the last expurgatory (confided in 1747 by the Bishop of Teruel to two Jesuits), and it is necessary to correct them; the fact is proved by the denunciations and printed notes of Fray Martin Llobet. But the appendix, or catalogue of authors called _Jansenists_, is the most intolerable; the names are all taken from the _Bibliothèque Janseniste_ of Father Colonia, a Jesuit, which was condemned by a brief of Benedict XIV. Instead of placing this work in the Index, as it ought to have been, the names are copied from it. You know the brief addressed by that Pope to the Bishop of Teruel, on the 31st of July, 1748, and in which he disapproves of the insertion of the works of Cardinal Noris in the Index. His Holiness also addressed five letters to Ferdinand VI. on the same subject, but neither the Popes nor the king could get the name of _Noris_ erased from the Index for ten years: at that time the Bishop of Teruel (who had at last consented) died, and, the king dismissed his confessor, the Jesuit Rabago, who had been the most averse to the measure. I took the necessary steps, and the king's order was sent to Monsignor Quintano, inquisitor-general, and his majesty's confessor, with whom I had a long conference on this subject: I at last obtained a decree, declaring _that the works of Noris had neither been condemned, censured, nor denounced to the holy office_. CHAPTER XXVI. OFFENCES COMMITTED BY THE INQUISITORS AGAINST THE ROYAL AUTHORITY AND MAGISTRATES. In addition to the prevention of the progress of literature, the Inquisition was so much dreaded by the magistrates, that criminals were frequently left unpunished. Ferdinand and his successors had granted privileges to this tribunal, which the encroachments of the inquisitors soon rendered insupportable. They even endeavoured to humiliate three sovereigns: Clement VIII.; the Prince of Bearn, King of Navarre; and the Grand Master of the order of St. John of Jerusalem, at Malta. They also attacked and qualified, as suspected of heresy, the whole Council of Castile; excited seditions in several cities by their arbitrary measures; and persecuted several members of their own _Supreme_ Council.