Out of more than two thousand priests in Ireland, only seventy signed the Remonstrance, and but sixteen of these were of the secular clergy. Among the fifty-four Regulars all but ten were Franciscans. The lay signatures were 164. Even in his own order the majority soon appeared to be against Walsh, and ultimately agreed to a much weaker declaration of their own, which contained no definite mention of the Pope and was at once rejected by Ormonde as inadequate. Having made but little progress in Ireland, Walsh went to London in August 1664, and shortly afterwards heard that the internuncio had come there secretly. A meeting was arranged 'in the back-yard at Somerset House,' De Vecchiis being accompanied by Patrick Maginn, one of the Queen's chaplains, and Walsh by his friend Caron. In argument the Roman representative was perhaps no match for the two learned Franciscans, but he took his stand on the fact of the Remonstrance being condemned by the Pope. To the assertion that His Holiness had been misinformed, he answered angrily that he was the informant--_ego informavi_. Caron continuing to urge that the Remonstrance contained nothing contrary to Catholic doctrine; he answered, 'so you think, but the Apostolic See thinks differently.' He seems nevertheless to have really wished for some accommodation, and suggested that a papal bull might be issued ordering the Irish to obey the King on pain of excommunication. This was plainly inadmissible as it made civil allegiance depend on the Pope; and the internuncio then proposed that His Holiness should create as many bishops as the King chose to name, and that these prelates should have power to banish from Ireland all clergymen whom they found disobedient to their Sovereign. Walsh liked this idea better than the other, but objected that the King, if he was a Catholic, could appoint what bishops he liked, but that he was in fact a Protestant and that the Pope had condemned the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, while the clergy had to swear fidelity to him. Moreover, the King could banish rebellious subjects without any help from Rome, and the total result of the proposed concordat would be to make ecclesiastics wholly independent of the Crown. The conference, which lasted three hours, ended in nothing as such encounters usually do, and De Vecchiis soon returned to Brussels, but afterwards made another effort in which he was assisted by Aubigny who still hoped for the red hat. Walsh and Caron were verbally invited over to Flanders, and to the latter a letter was sent inviting him to discuss the matter in dispute with his brethren at Brussels and Louvain, and describing the Remonstrance as a rock of offence (_lapis scandali_). Caron, who was ill and busy with controversial writing, refused to go, telling his colleague that he would not have done so in any case, for that the Court of Rome required a blind submission and no debate. Walsh was anxious to accept the invitation, and extracted