Political Career
As visitador general, Bishop Palafox y Mendoza broke with Viceroy Diego López Pacheco Cabrera y Bobadilla in 1642, accusing him of being in league with Portugal. (Portugal was then in revolt against Spain.) Bishop Palafox claimed to have orders from the Crown, although he did not show them. He arrived secretly in the capital, and in the middle of the night of June 9/10, he met with the Audiencia and laid out his suspicions. He then ordered that the viceregal palace be surrounded by guards. The following morning Viceroy López Pacheco was informed that he was under arrest and that the bishop had been named archbishop of Mexico and viceroy of New Spain. His possessions were confiscated and he was held for some time before being allowed to return to Spain. In Spain he was acquitted of the charges against him.
During his brief term as viceroy, Palafox established the laws governing the University, the Audiencia, and the legal profession. Two members of the Audiencia rejected his reforms, and he suspended them from office. Palafox also raised twelve companies of militia to protect the colony against the spread of revolution from Portugal and Catalonia. He destroyed the pagan religious statues of the Indians that had been kept in the capital as trophies of the Spanish conquest.
He was succeeded as viceroy by García Sarmiento de Sotomayor, 2nd Count of Salvatierra on November 23, 1642, but continued to hold the post of visitador.
Read more about this topic: Juan De Palafox Y Mendoza
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