or who could discuss the proposals better than he who had helped to devise them. Bellings was a man of note and distinction among the Catholics in both islands, and was often employed by the court in confidential missions. His father had been one of the leaders in the opposition to the nuncio Rinuccini, and was the author of that protestation of allegiance which had been adopted by a large party in Ireland, and which was so badly received at Rome. The son was, therefore, not unlikely to suggest those limitations of ecclesiastical authority which he undertook to defend, and which corresponded with the views of his father and of those who, in the language of Bristol, were Catholics of the Church of Rome, not of the court of Rome.
The answer of Alexander was probably not very encouraging, for the negotiation was broken off. A suspicion was awakened that the king was in correspondence with the Pope, and Charles, in his alarm, took measures to prove his aversion of Catholicism. He opened Parliament on the 18th of February 1663 with a demand for new laws to restrain the progress of popery, and gave his assent to a proclamation ordering all priests to quit the kingdom under pain of death. He explained, five years later, in a letter to which I shall presently return, the failure of his negotiation, and the inconsistency of his subsequent conduct : "Quoy qu'elle nous fust présentée avec touttes les circonstances necessaires, et par personne catholique, toutte-fois ce ne peut estre avec tant de prudence que nous ne fussions soupçonnés d'intelligence avec le pape par les plus clairvoyants de nostre cour ; mais ayant trouvé le moyen d'etouffer le soubçon que l’on comencoit d'avoir que nous fussions catholique, nous fusmes obligé, crainte de ne le faire renaistre dans les esprits, de consentir aux occasions a plusieurs choses tournant au desavantage de plusieurs catholiques de nostre royaume d'Hybernie, ce qui est cause encore que bien que nous eussions escry assez secrettement a sa saincteté pour nostre rangement à l'eglise catholique, au mesme temps que nous prions sa saincteté de faire cardinal nostre très cher cousin le
