appointed by the Audiencia, while the Mayor was appointed directly by the King through the Council of the Indies. The High Mayor of Nicoya continued to depend on the province of Nicaragua until 1588. In 1573, the Province of Costa Rica was officially created to replace the Province of Nuevo Cartago y Costa Rica (1540). In 1576, Diego de Artieda Chirino y Uclés was appointed governor in charge of the three entities: Nicaragua, Nicoya and Costa Rica. This situation was maintained until 1588, when Artieda was deposed by the Audiencia of Guatemala, and autonomy was granted to the three entities separately. Between 1588 and 1593, Nicoya enjoyed political autonomy, both in Nicaragua and Costa Rica. In 1593, it was decided to add the Mayor of Nicoya to the province of Costa Rica, when King Phillip II confirmed the capitulations given to Diego Artieda Chirino in 1573, appointing Fernando de la Cueva y Escobedo. During the period 1593 to 1602 period, the governor of Costa Rica was appointed at the same time Mayor of Nicoya. This situation was maintained until 1602, when the High Mayor was declared again autonomous. From 1602 and for eighty years, the Mayor of Nicoya enjoyed political autonomy in its functions, independent of the colonial governments of Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Their high mayors or corregidores were directly appointed in Guatemala, and their faculties were those of minor governorates. This condition was maintained until 1786 when the intendancy regime was created in the Kingdom of Guatemala. In 1786, the High Mayor of Nicoya was once again united to the Province of Nicaragua, when it was incorporated as a party to the Intendency of León, created as a political-administrative dependency of the Kingdom of Guatemala, through the Royal Decree of December 23, 1786 The Party of Nicoya was under the government of a Subaltern Political Chief. In 1812, the Intendancy of Leon was united with the Province of Costa Rica (that was under a military government dependent on the Captaincy General of Guatemala, with the same faculties of an Intendance but with a smaller rank, since in the hacienda it depended on the Intendency of Leon), in a new circumscription, the Province of Nicaragua and Costa Rica, but during the Bourbon Restoration in Spain (1814-1820) it was again divided into two entities: Intendencia de León and Provincia de Costa Rica. In 1820, when the Constitution of Cádiz was