In 1512, a report being spread among the _New Christians_ that Ferdinand intended to make war against his nephew, the King of Navarre, they offered him 600,000 ducats of gold towards the expenses of the war if he would consent to make a law that the trials of the Inquisition should be public: the king was on the point of treating with the _New Christians_, when Cisneros placed a large sum of money at his disposal; the king accepted it, though it was less than the first, and abandoned the idea of a reform. After the death of that prince, and while Charles V. was in Flanders, in 1517, the _New Christians_ again offered, on the same conditions, 800,000 ducats for the expenses of his journey to Spain. William de Croy, Duke d'Ariscot, the favourite governor of the young monarch, persuaded him to consult the colleges, universities, and learned men of Spain and Flanders; they all replied that the communication of the names and the entire depositions of the witnesses was consonant to all rights natural, human, and divine. When the cardinal-inquisitor was informed of this decision, he sent deputies, and wrote to the king to combat it; he reminded him that a similar proposal had been refused by his grandfather; but he did not tell him the most important circumstance, that he had refused it for a sum of money. Charles V. left the affair undecided until his arrival in Spain, but he terminated it according to the general hopes after the death of Cisneros, in 1518. The particular favour which Ferdinand granted to the Inquisition did not prevent him from maintaining the rights of his crown. In 1509, he published a law which prohibited, on pain of death, any person from presenting to the inquisitors any bull, or writing of that nature, obtained from the Pope, or his legates, without first applying to the king that it might be examined by his council. This right of the crown of Spain over the decisions of the Pope has been lately renewed by a law of Charles III.; yet the law has often been impotent against the enterprises, the decisions, and the briefs of the Popes. Ferdinand named Don Louis Mercader inquisitor-general for the kingdom of Aragon, after the death of the Bishop of Vic. Mercader died in 1516, while the government was in the hands of Charles of Austria, the grandson of Ferdinand, who died in the same year, leaving no children by his second marriage.