swarm of locusts.' He asked that the recusancy laws should be strictly executed against all who left the Establishment for the Church of Rome, but deprecated violence and 'wished that effusion of blood might be held rather the badge of the whore of Babylon than of the Church of God,' which is a little too like the common form of the Inquisition. On the day after this letter was penned, Primate Hampton wrote a mild rebuke from Drogheda. He thought it very unwise to trouble the waters, and suggested that Ussher should explain away what he had said about the sword, for his proper weapons were not carnal but spiritual. He also advised the Bishop of Meath to leave Dublin and spend more time in his own diocese, of which the condition, by his own showing, was unsatisfactory, and to make himself loved and respected there even if his doctrine was disliked. According to Cox, Ussher preached such a sermon as the Primate advised; but there seems to be no trace of it anywhere else.[154] [Sidenote: Effects of the Spanish marriage negotiations.] [Sidenote: The King of Spain treated as sovereign.] Whatever may have been the Bishop of Meath's exact meaning, Falkland was well inclined to use his authority for the support of the Establishment. But the Spanish match was in the ascendant, and not much was done until the Prince of Wales came back without his bride. While the prospect was still held out of having an Infanta as Queen of England, the priests became bolder than ever. A clergyman was attacked by a mob of eighty women when trying to perform the funeral service for Lady Killeen. At Cavan and Granard thousands assembled for worship, and Captain Arthur Forbes reported that, unless he knew for certain that the King wished for toleration, he would 'make the antiphonie of their mass be sung with sound of musket.' Some priests went so far as to pray openly for 'Philip our king.' At Kells fair it was publicly announced that the Prince of Wales was married and that the Duke of Buckingham had carried the cross before him. The return of the royal adventurer came as a surprise, and the Roman Catholics of the Pale proposed to send agents to London to congratulate him upon it, and to make it clear that they had no hand in obstructing the marriage. The newly made Earl of Westmeath and Sir William Talbot took the lead and proposed to raise a sum of money which seemed to Falkland quite disproportioned to the necessity of the case. Earls were expected to contribute ten pounds, and there was a graduated scale down to ten shillings for small freeholders, 'beside what addition every man will please to give.' Falkland was very suspicious, and it is clear enough that a general redress of grievances was part of the plan; but Westmeath and his friends were probably too loyal to excite much enthusiasm, and the whole scheme was given up because subscriptions did not come in. [Sidenote: Proclamation against the priests, Jan. 1624,] [Sidenote: which takes little effect.]