The English Catholics had enjoyed for many years an unprecedented peace and liberty, which now, owing to the kindness of the King and the Court for the fascinating Con, had reached such a pitch that England appeared to foreigners almost like a Catholic country. The recusancy fines, which were still exacted in a modified form, kept up a certain feeling of irritation, but on the whole the Catholics were loyal. They felt much gratitude towards the Queen, on whom their prosperity depended, and when the Scotch rebellion broke out they would have liked to bear arms in the King's service. Con, who believed that Charles would willingly have employed them, assured him that few of his subjects would fight for him as loyally as those of the ancient faith. The King possibly believed him, but true to his cautious nature he preferred to ask for a present of money, which the envoy, who, notwithstanding his short sojourn in England, had a minute acquaintance with the persons and circumstances of the English Catholics, set himself to procure. As a first step he called together representatives both of the clergy and of the laity, and laid before them the royal request. He had undertaken no easy task. Some of the Catholics, to whom sad experience had taught prudence, were alarmed at the idea of helping the King to rule without the need of calling Parliament. Others, going to the opposite extreme, offered their contributions separately, hoping thus to gain the royal favour. Worst of all, the ill-feeling between the secular and regular clergy made any cooperation between the two bodies a matter of great difficulty. From meetings lasting many hours, at which he had attempted to weld together these discordant elements, and from still more fatiguing private audiences, Con, ill and suffering as he then was, came away weary and dispirited, complaining bitterly of the "obstinate prudence" of the Jesuits and of the self-seeking of all. "This kingdom," he wrote on one of these occasions to Cardinal Barberini, "has no men who are moved by the common good, but each one thinks only of his private interest."[213] At first the Queen's name appears little, but she watched the negotiations carefully, and in their latter stages she sent Montagu and Father Philip to attend the meetings on her behalf, and to bring her news of an undertaking in whose success she was deeply interested, and in which, for constitutional reasons, she was now actively to intervene.