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THE CAPUCHIN MISSION TO ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND 219' He brought the problem direct to Paul V, confident that he was known personally to the pope. Paul V, as Camillo Borghese, had been one of the Inquisition cardinals who witnessed Nugent's outspoken self-– defence at his trials in 1599 and 1600. Nugent expounded his arguments with conviction and emotion. Which was to take precedence - Capuchin regulations or the spiritual welfare of the persecuted Catholics in the British Isles? To the Capuchin delegates in Rome this would have seemed an unfair over-simplification of the problem, but in fact it did reduce the question to its stark essentials. Nugent ended his appeal to Paul V on a note of his own helplessness in the face of Capuchin doubts about the proposal. Paul was roused and exclaimed, « But we will inflame them!». The immediate result was the papal brief of 29 May 1608 establishing a Capuchin Mission to Great Britain. It was hardly an accident that in this foundation charter of the Mission to « England, Scotland and Ireland » the Holy See indicated an order of importance and interest2 1 • While the capitular fathers were in Rome there occurred another event of more than passing importance for the future history of the Mission. Ange de J oyeuse was in Rome as delegate from the Paris Province, and in some way he became acquainted with a young convert, George Leslie of Aberdeen, then a student at the Scots College 25 • By the time Ange left Rome Leslie had seen the path to a new vocation. He was to attain a troubled fame both in life and after death under the title « The Scottish Capuchin ». The papal brief of 29 May 1608 would remain no more than a pious gesture unless men, money and a recognised continental base were forthcoming. The general, Girolamo da Castelferretti, showed his goodwill by appealing to the capitular fathers at Rome from the different continental countries to assist the Mission by receiving and training youths from the British Isles 2 ". Lest this appeal might have been forgotten once the delegates returned to their respective provinces, the procurator general, Michelangelo da Rimini, sent a. circular letter to the non-Italian provinces on 17 June 1609 exhorting in particular the provinces of Belgium, Paris, Lorraine, and Lyons to 21 « Paulus, divina providentia V, Pontifex Maximus, praesente Illustrissimo ac Re– verendissimo Domino Cardinali Barberino Protectore Scotiae ac Vice-Protectore Hiberniae, Mis– sionem Patrum Capucinorum Sancti Assisinatis in Mriiorem Britanniam, ac eius ornnes insulas,. quae ad Angliam, Scotiam et Hiberniam reduci communiter solent » (Bull.Cap. V, 278; printed in MARTIN, Nugent, 301; see also ibid., 92 n.38). An original sealed copy of the decree is in the Archives de !'Aube, Troyes, 11.H.1(2); this came from the Irish Capuchin archives at Char– leville, and is probably the copy which Nugent secured in Rome. zr, FmlDEGAND CALLAEY, O.F.M.Cap., Essai critique sur la vie du P. Archange Leslie, in Eludes Franc. 31(1914) 499-500. 2G MARTIN, Nugent, 94.