great troubles and scandals arising from nobles being officials and familiars--positions which they sought, not to discharge their duties but to commit crimes under the protection of the Inquisition, thus creating many quarrels between the jurisdictions to the discredit of both, to scandal of the people and hindrance of justice. It would therefore be well for the inquisitor-general and Suprema to order that Sicilian nobles be no longer appointed as officials and familiars and that existing appointments be called in and revoked, for he had resolved to order the viceroys and judges to hold that they are not entitled to the fuero of the Inquisition. It was unreasonable that so holy a business should serve as a cover for delinquents and evil-doers and there was ample experience that this was their sole object in seeking these positions, so that he greatly wondered that the Inquisition should persist in a course so damaging to its reputation and so foreign to the object of its foundation.[67] Such rebuke and such action could only have been elicited from a monarch like Philip II by a profound conviction of the unbearable abuses of inquisitorial jurisdiction. He would more wisely have followed the example of his father in suspending wholly that jurisdiction, for the tribunal continued to exercise it in a manner provocative of continual disturbance. At length, in 1595, a junta or conference was formed, consisting of two members of the Suprema, Doctors Juan de Zuñiga and Caldas, and two regents of the Gran Corte, Bruñol and Escudero, to reach, if possible, an agreement that should lead to peace. There were many discussions and tentative attempts which finally resulted in a consulta presented to Philip as a compromise acceptable to both sides. This commences by stating that the special cases in dispute had been settled or laid aside, awaiting further documents, and that for the future it had been agreed that the Concordia of 1580 should be observed with certain amendments. The Inquisition was not to protect officials or familiars guilty of treason against the viceroy or his counsellors, of assassination, of shooting from ambush, of insulting, wounding or killing any one in presence of judges of the Gran Corte or Real Patrimonio. It was the same with familiars who were notaries and committed frauds in that capacity, or were warehousemen and adulterated commodities stored with them, or dealers in provisions who used false weights, or bankers or other debtors delinquent to the Real Patrimonio, or delinquent taxpayers in general. Widows of officials were to enjoy the fuero only so long as they remained unmarried, and servants were only to be entitled to it when they were really part of the household and not merely serving for food and wages, concerning which inquisitors were strictly enjoined not to commit frauds. In Palermo and its suburbs the number of familiars was limited to one hundred; in towns of sixty