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216 F. X. MARTIN Joseph became a student of theology under Nugent at Chartres in the year 1603, and a lasting friendship was formed 15 • Nugent nev– er made a secret of his dream to found a Mission to the British Isles, and his enthusiasm must have infected the young aristocratic Capuchin with the dreamy eyes and the iron determination. When Nugent was changed to Paris the following year to act as professor of theology it appeared as if events were working with set precision for the establishment of the Mission he so much desired. The provincial of the Paris Capuchins during Nugent's first years in France was Pere Ange, the former due de Joyeuse. When Nugent was ap– pointed a definitor of the province in 1604 he became intimately associated with Pere Ange and the other leading French Capuchins. Pere Ange had byen a novice at the rue Saint-Honore in the year 1587 with Benet of Canfield, John Chrysostom Campbell and Archangel of Pembroke 16 • The rise of Nugent to prominence among the French Capuchins coincides with the manifestation of an official Capuchin interest in a Mission to the British Isles. One could at this stage attribute too much to Nugent, but his presence and pressure in the background must be constantly borne in mind. A plea on behalf of the Catholics of England and Scotland was made on 19 July 1603 by Anselmo Marzati, procurator general of the Capuchins. At the request of Pope Clement VIII he wrote to all the provinces of the order, asking that prayers be offered for the English and Scottish Catholics 17 • Marzati and Nugent had come to know one another during 1599 and 1600, when Nugent was on trial by the Inquisition at Rome 1 8, but there is no evidence that Nugent had a hand in the circular letter of July 1603. The predicament of the Catholic subjects of James I was again brought to Marzati's notice in the following year when Pere Ange, provincial of the Paris Capuchins, wrote to him on 26 February 1604 petitioning for a Mission to the British Isles 19 • Since in the text of the petition Ireland gets no greater mention than England and Scotland we cannot readily assume that Nugent had any greater part in urging Pere Ange than had Benet of Canfield, Archangel of Pem- · broke, or John Chrysostom Campbell. But his appointments as 10 N. ARCHBOLD, The Historie of the Irish Capucins, Troyes, Bib!. Municipale, MS 1103, p.58. (See Cat.gen.MSS bibl.publ.depart.France: Troyes II, Paris 1855, 453); see MARTIN, Nugent, 81-82. 16 CUTHBERT, Capuchins I, 221. 17 HILDEBRAND, Kap.Nederland. IX, 611. I am indebted to Rev. Placide de Cleer, O.F.M.. Cap., Archivist, Capuchin Provincial Archives, Antwerp, for sending me a transcript of the·· original letter. 18 MARTIN, Nugent, 58, 64-65. rn Ed. in Archivium Hibernicwn 2(1913) 317-319.