But withal the negotiations got no nearer. The dispensation still tarried in Rome, and Olivares staved off all definite discussion, on the lying {94} pretext that he did not know upon what the Pope would insist. To keep things going and beguile the English, the Count-Duke persuaded Charles to listen to a disputation in the monastery of St. Geronimo as to the truth of the Catholic religion, and set all the most persuasive clerics of the Court upon the task of converting the English Prince. An English priest named Wallsfort (?) was specially charged to tackle Buckingham, in conjunction with Friar Francisco de Jesus, the King's preacher; but, as may be supposed, with little success, though they asserted that Buckingham, though a heretic for political reasons, was really a Catholic at heart. But when the great attempt was made to bring to bear all the priestly artillery in Madrid upon the Prince's Protestantism, and Charles showed some signs of acquiescence in the Catholic arguments,[8] Buckingham put his foot down firmly, and rudely told Olivares he should not allow the Prince to continue the discussion, to which Olivares retorted by warning him that any attempt to introduce the Protestant chaplains from England into the Prince's apartment in the palace would be resisted by force,[9] for all their pretence that the {95} rites they used were similar to those of Rome. Charles, indeed, flattered himself with the idea that he had half converted the Infanta's confessor, Rahosa,[10] though certainly no signs appear of it in the subsequent actions of the priest. In every diocese in Spain, too, orders were given that religious processions, rogations, and penitential exercises should be celebrated in all churches and convents, in supplication to God for the fortunate issue of the negotiations for the marriage, which, of course, meant the conversion of the Prince and his country, whilst ecclesiastics were bombarding the King and Olivares with solemn addresses, denouncing the idea of the marriage of the Infanta to any Prince not a devout Catholic. [Sidente: Attempts at conversion]