To this oath of obedience to the pope, he likewise added one to the king, and to the prince his successor, Facilidas, with a strange clause, or qualification, which made what he said formerly still worse:--“I likewise swear to the prince, as heir of his father in this empire, as long as he shall hold favour, and defend the holy Catholic faith; and if he shall fail in this, I hereby swear to be his greatest enemy.” This extravagant addition he insisted should be imposed upon all the officers of state, and of the army then at court, and therefore did most deservedly seal his own condemnation and punishment, which overtook him in the end, though it did not follow till long afterwards. To these violent proceedings were added others still more violent. A solemn excommunication was pronounced against all such as did not keep that oath, and a proclamation was forthwith made, “That all people, in the line of being ordained priests, should first embrace the Catholic religion upon pain of death; that all should observe the form of the church of Rome in the celebration of Easter and Lent, under the same penalty; and with that the ceremonies of the day ended.” _Tempus erit cum magno optaverit emptum,_ _Intactum Pallanta._ It was a day ever to be marked with black, not only in the annals of Ethiopia, but in those of Rome. Although the arrival of the patriarch at Bilur had been happily effected, both as to himself and those that attended him, it was not so with some of his brethren sent to assist him in that mission. Two Jesuits, Francisco Machado and Bernard Pereira, had received the king’s letters in India for their safe conduct to Bilur in Dancali. Whether by malice, or inadvertency, the king’s secretary, instead of Bilur, had mentioned Zeyla in the letter. Zeyla, an island belonging to the king of Adel, was of all other places that where the people were most inveterate against the Catholic religion. No sooner did the Shekh know the quality and errand of these missionaries, than he confined them to close prison, where, after great suffering, they were both put to death; and, to aggravate this, a letter was written to Socinios stigmatizing him with the name of apostate from the religion of his forefathers, and applying to him many opprobrious names.