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THE CAPUCHIN MISSION TO ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND 223 the Catholic Church before leaving Cologne, largely due to Nugent's trenchant exposition of Catholic doctrine 42 • Nugent was one of those responsible for the conversion of Benjamin Carrier, a fellow of Corpus Christi, Cambridge, who was chaplain and preacher to James 1 43 • Carrier, shaken in his Protestant faith by reading the works of the early Christian fathers, had gone to the continent, and while in Germany visited Nugent and the Capuchins at Cologne. His conversion to Catholicism was hastened as a result of discussions with Nugent. Even in favourable circumstances it would have been difficult for an English-speaking group in the Rhineland to organize a Mission to the British Isles, but dissensions within the Capuchin community at Cologne disrupted any such effort. Nugent was deposed from his. office as commissary general because of the accusations that in his missionary efforts in the Rhineland he was adopting novel methods which ran counter to traditional Capuchin practices. The crisis among the Capuchins at Cologne might have passed off peacefully but for the character of Cornelio da Recanati, the Italian commissary general who replaced Nugent 44 • Cornelio was zealous and energetic, but narrow in his outlook and vindictive in his methods. He made no· secret of his conviction that the English-speaking group, and Nugent in particular, were responsible for lowering Capuchin standards by introducing new-fangled practices. When it became evident to Nugent and his companions that there was no abiding resting place for them at Cologne Nugent wrote to Rome on 24 November 1613 asking for a separate house for the Mission to Ireland; it was also to serve the English and Scottish Capuchins. The Capuchin procurator general, Clemente da Noto, sent a sharp reply on 16 December, stating with a sweeping disregard for the geographical and historical differences. between Ireland and Great Britain that the continental Capuchin provinces were slow to accept Irish recruits to the order since these· came from a country heavily infected with heresy and obdurate in its errors 45 • Meantime Cornelio da Recanati did not relax his campaign against the English-speaking friars. Matters had come to such a pass by September 1614 that they sent a piteous appeal direct to Pope Paul V 46 • They declared that Cornelio was making life unbearable for them and according to common report was determined to drive 42 MARTIN, Nugent, 126. 1s ibid., 127. 44 For this unhappy phase of Capuchin history at Cologne see ibid., 138-159. •• Ibid., 143. 46 Ibid.; printed ibid., 307-308.