If the conferring of the benefices vacated by a cardinal on his elevation to the Pontificate is to be considered simony, then there never was a Pope yet against whom the charge could not be levelled and established.
Consider that by his election to the Pontificate his Archbishoprics, offices, nay, his very house itself--which at the time of which we write it was customary to abandon to pillage--are vacated; and remember that, as Pope, they are now in his gift and that they must of necessity be bestowed upon somebody.

In a time in which Pontiffs are imbued with a spiritual sense of their office and duties, they will naturally make such bestowals upon those whom they consider best fitted to use them for the greater honour and glory of God.

But we are dealing with no such spiritual golden age as that when we deal with the Cinquecento, as we have already seen; and, therefore, all that we can expect of a Pope is that he should bestow the preferment he has vacated upon those among the cardinals whom he believes to be devoted to himself.

Considering his election in a temporal sense, it is natural that he should behave as any other temporal prince; that he should remember those to whom he owes the Pontificate, and that he should reward them suitably.

Alexander VI certainly pursued such a course, and the greatest profit from his election was derived by the Cardinal Sforza who--as Roderigo himself admitted--had certainly exerted all his influence with the Sacred College to gain him the Pontificate.