In 1598, the Inquisitors of Seville went to the metropolitan church, with the president and members of the royal court of justice, to attend the funeral of Philip II.; they pretended that they ought to precede the judges, who resisted, and the inquisitors excommunicated them in the church. The king's attorney protested against this act, and the scandalous scene which ensued may be easily conceived. The judges repairing to the place where they held their sessions, declared that the inquisitors had used violence in proceeding against the law, and passed a decree commanding the inquisitors to take off the excommunication. The inquisitors did not obey the order, and the judges repeated it, with the threat of depriving them of all civil rights, and condemning them to banishment and confiscation. Philip III. disapproved of the conduct of the inquisitors, commanded them to take off the excommunication and repair to Madrid, where they were confined to the city. In the December following, the king issued a decree, importing that the inquisitors should only take precedence in the ceremony of the _auto-da-fé_. The inquisitor-general Portocarrero was deprived of his office, and banished to his bishopric of Cuença. In 1622 the town of Lorca, which was within the jurisdiction of the Inquisition of Murcia, appointed a familiar of the holy office to be the collector of a tax upon the sale of goods called _Alcabala_. The man refused the employment, but his representations were not admitted, upon which the inquisitors excommunicated the judge of Lorca, and required the assistance of Don Pedro Porres, the corregidor of Murcia, to take him to their prisons. On his refusal, they excommunicated him also, and decreed that divine service should cease in all the churches of Murcia. This measure threw the inhabitants into the greatest consternation, and they entreated their bishop, Don Antonio Trejo, to interpose his authority. This prelate remonstrated with the inquisitors; but not succeeding, in order to tranquillize the people, he published a mandate, announcing that he was not obliged to submit to the interdict, or to the order for the _cessation of divine service_. Don Andres Pacheco, the inquisitor-general, condemned the mandate, and ordered this measure to be proclaimed in all the churches of Murcia. At the same time he imposed a penalty of eight thousand ducats on the bishop, and cited him to appear within twenty days at Madrid, to answer the complaint preferred against him, by the fiscal of the Supreme Council, on pain of another penalty of four thousand ducats. The bishop and the chapter of his cathedral sent the dean and a canon to Madrid as his deputies. The inquisitor-general excommunicated them, without hearing their defence, and threw them into separate prisons, and at the same time caused this excommunication to be announced in all the pulpits of Madrid. The inquisitors also excommunicated the Curé of St. Catherine, who refused