In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Morcillo and the second or maternal family name is Rubio de Auñón.
Diego Morcillo Rubio de Auñón, Archbishop of Lima, Viceroy of Peru
Fray Diego Morcillo Rubio de Auñón, O.SS.T. (sometimes Diego Morcillo Rubio de Suñón de Robledo) (January 3, 1642, Villarrobledo, Albacete, Spain – 1730, Lima, Peru) was a Spanish bishop in Peru and twice viceroy of the colony, from August 15, 1716, to October 5, 1716 (interim) and from January 26, 1720, to May 14, 1724.
In 1716, while he was archbishop of Charcas, King Philip V named him interim viceroy of Peru. On August 15 he entered Lima and replaced Mateo de la Mata Ponce de León, president of the Audiencia. Mata had also been serving on an interim basis, since the removal of Viceroy Diego Ladrón de Guevara on March 2, 1716. Morcillo occupied this post until October 5, 1716, when the position was taken up by Carmine Nicolao Caracciolo, Prince of Santo Buono, the official successor of Ladrón de Guevara. Morcillo then returned to his ecclesiastical duties as archbishop of Charcas.
At the end of Caracciolo's term, Morcillo once again became viceroy, this time on a permanent basis. He entered Lima and took up the office on January 26, 1720. On the death of the archbishop of Lima, Antonio de Zuloaga, he also occupied that office.
Among his political accomplishments were a great increase in royal revenues from the colony, and the repulse of the English pirates on the coast.
He was recognized as intelligent and a good administrator. He wrote the book Clamores de la obligación.
In 1722, Viceroy Morcillo intervened in the Revolt of the Comuneros of Paraguay, where he stood up for Paraguay's deposed governor Reyes. Reyes had been convicted by a judge of the Royal Court of Charcas of misdeeds - but the Court had given the judge the power to succeed the governor himself, creating an obvious conflict of interest. In a series of letters with the Royal Court of Charcas, he emphasized that the choice of governor was not a judicial matter, that the judge's trial was irregular and invalid, and that Reyes should be restored to his position promptly. Partially from the strain of the affairs of being both Archbishop and Viceroy in his eighties, he retired in 1724. He died in Lima in 1730 and was interred in the crypt of the cathedral.
