In November, 1700, the King died, and the Grand Inquisitor was one of the regents, making himself remarkable for his splendour and ostentation during the short period of uncertainty after the King's death. But the arrival of the French King, Philip V., put an end to the Queen's hopes, and the Grand Inquisitor was sent off in disgrace to his diocese. As soon as his back was turned the General Council of the Inquisition, with Folch de Cardona in the chair, demanded of Prior of the Atocha by what right he still kept Froilan in prison. His answer was that he did so on the warrant of the Grand Inquisitor. An appeal was made to the King, but the fortune of war kept Philip for ever on the move, and for years no decision was given. In the meanwhile the Pope espoused the cause of the Inquisitor-General, and protested against his deprivation. The King appointed a new Inquisitor-General, and the Pope vetoed the appointment. Then the Pope sent special power to the old Grand Inquisitor to sentence Froilan to whatever punishment he liked without more ado, and the Council of the Inquisition and Folch de Cardona protested to the King against the attempt of the Pope to override the {320} law of Spain; and at last Philip V. put his foot down once for all--dismissed the Inquisitor-General, reappointed the old Council, and authorised them to release Froilan in the King's name. They found him, after five years' close confinement, nearly blind in the dungeons of the monastery of the Atochu, and brought him out in triumph to be appointed Bishop of Avila. In vain the Pope protested and the dismissed Grand Inquisitor fumed. Philip the Magnanimous was a very different monarch from Charles the Bewitched. The black bigotry of the House of Austria was gone, and thenceforward, though the Holy Office existed in the land for a century longer, the arbitrary power of the Inquisition to override the law of the land was gone with it. [1] _The Gentleman's Magazine_, November, 1893. [2] Stanhope, the English minister in Madrid, writes to the Duke of Shrewsbury, September, 1696: "They cut off his hair in this sickness, which the decay of nature had almost done before, all his crown being bald. He has a ravenous stomach, and swallows all he eats whole, for his nether jaw stands out so much that his two rows of teeth cannot meet, so that a gizzard or a liver of a hen passes down whole, and his weak stomach not being able to digest it he void it in the same manner." [3] "L'Histoire dans Ruy Blas" in "Études sur l'Espagne," by A. Morel-Fatio, Paris. [4] Add. MS. 10241, British Museum. See also "Proceso criminal fulminado contra el Rmo. P.M. Fray Froylan Diax, de la sagrada religion de predicadores, Confesor del Rey N.S.D. Carlos II.: Madrid, 1787."