It was a blow to these worthy men that they were not permitted to serve the Queen's chapel, for which office they possessed, certainly in their own eyes, every qualification.[150] It was a greater blow when, owing doubtless to the machinations of the Jesuits, the Bishop of Chalcedon was banished.[151] But, after all, this untoward event took place while the Queen's influence was still small. As it grew, and with it the general prosperity of the Catholics, the secular clergy took heart again. Henrietta cared little or nothing for Bishop Smith personally, and his connection with Richelieu was by this time small recommendation to her. But it galled her pride that whereas there had been a Bishop in England on her arrival now there was none, and she probably believed, what even the cautious Du Perron on one occasion admitted, that the regulars were jealous of her as a Frenchwoman, and unwilling that she should have too great honour as a mother in Israel. It was whispered among the secular clergy that the Queen was "all for the Bishop and his jurisdiction" in spite of the efforts of the Jesuits to win over not only her, but Father Philip. Their hopes were not unfounded. Henrietta was so far roused as to write a strongly worded letter to the Pope on behalf of the Bishop, who was out of favour not only with the English Government, but with the authorities at Rome. She begged the Holy Father to restore "this good father to his children,"[152] and she entreated him, in words that are no obscure hit at the Jesuits and their friends the English Catholics, not to allow so good a prelate to be oppressed by those who regarded their own interest rather than the good of religion and the union of Catholics. To strengthen her appeal she dispatched a letter at the same time to her brother's ambassador in Rome, asking him[153] to use his influence in the matter. She knew that the Bishop was a _persona grata_ at the French Court, where his elevation to the Cardinalate was at one time desired. Henrietta's intervention effected nothing, and Richard Smith lived and died in an exile which was due at least as much to his fellow-Catholics as to his Protestant oppressors. But in the year following she was engaged in negotiations with the Papacy as fruitful as these had been abortive. In 1633 a Scotch gentleman, by name Sir Robert Douglas,[154] appeared in Rome. He was a cousin of the Earl of Angus, a noted Scotch Catholic, and he was the bearer of letters from that nobleman to the Pope. But there were other and greater people responsible for his presence. Behind Angus stood the Queen of England, and behind the Queen stood her husband the King, though, as the emissary carefully explained, the latter could not openly appear in the affair, as he was not yet reconciled to the Catholic Church.