Panzani was a priest of the Italian Oratory, and his ostensible mission in England was to heal the long-standing feud between the secular clergy and the religious Orders, and to remedy certain irregularities of morals and discipline which specially affected the younger religious and the London clergy who were unable to resist the seductions of heretical society. It is probable that the Pope and Cardinal Barberini desired these ends. It is certain that they saw in the state of affairs a convenient cloak to cover different and more important designs. For Panzani was not in London without the connivance of the King and the express desire of the Queen, who had arranged the matter with her husband. "I have no objection," said Charles, "as long as things are done quietly and matters of State are not meddled with; but I do not wish it said that the Pope has sent an agent to the King of England."[163] This was said, of course, and perhaps not altogether to the dissatisfaction of Panzani and those who sent him. Nevertheless he behaved with great discretion, and was liked by everybody, except the Jesuits, to whose pretensions he was greatly opposed, and whose ill opinion was an advantage to him rather than otherwise in dealing with the King and the people. On the advice of the sage Father Philip he refused to express any opinion on the thorny question of the lawfulness of taking the oath of allegiance[164] to the King, thus following the example of the Capuchin Fathers, who were wont to tell inquirers that they knew nothing of the matter, and that it would be well to seek other advisers; altogether so judicious was his conduct that he was described as "a person greatly to be esteemed for his many vertues and religious life and great zeale and industry for the advancem^t of the Catholick cause in this Country."[165] He was able, towards the end of his stay, to do the Catholics a notable service by persuading the King to dismiss the pursuivants, the most odious instruments of the recusancy laws, comparable to the familiars of the Spanish Inquisition, and to leave the prosecution of recusants in the hands of the justices of the peace.