Coleman’s endeavours to keep up the pretence that James was not engaged to French schemes were not uniformly successful, and on the death of Clement X Howard received definite orders from home to vote in the conclave with the French party. Yet the task was accomplished with some adroitness. Howard was able to persuade the Pope that the marriage of Mary of York to the Prince of Orange was not due to her father’s fault, and on another occasion obtained a letter from James to Innocent XI of such sweetness that “the good man in reading it could not abstain from tears.” Sinister rumours were afloat at Rome of the duke’s Jesuit connection, and repeated warnings were sent that, if they proved true, his cause would be ruined. There were even grave doubts as to the genuine character of his faith. For some time the troublesome conduct of an English Protestant agent at Florence occupied Howard’s attention. The Inquisition bestirred itself in the matter. A triangular correspondence between Howard, Coleman, and Lord Arundel resulted in the man’s recall and led them to debate the possibility of a match between the Princess Anne and the son of the Duke of Florence. Another source of continual trouble was Prince Rinaldo d’Este in his quest for a cardinal’s hat. While his niece, the Duchess of York, backed by a special envoy from the court of Modena, was worrying the French ambassador in London for Louis XIV’s support, Coleman applied directly to Howard at Rome. Promises of consideration for the matter were all that could be obtained. The prince, who had no claims other than those of family, afterwards gained his object by constant importunity. Courtin had information that the Spanish ambassador had offered the Duke of York the whole credit of Spain for the prosecution of Rinaldo’s suit if he would quit the French interest, and therefore could not risk the result of a definite refusal; but neither Paris nor Rome manifested at this time the slightest intention to support the Modenese pretensions.[89] Cardinal Howard was in fact the official correspondent of the English Catholic party at Rome, and beyond the general business of helping in the amelioration of Catholic conditions and the improvement of the relations between different sections of the party, had little to do with particular schemes that might be fostered by one or another. Thus the literary evidence on the development of Roman Catholic policy in England is of the slightest. Accessible documents give little information. Nothing can be known exactly. The course of events between the years 1675 and 1678 cannot be elucidated by aid of the evidence of those who shaped it. The argument must be from the known to the unknown.