Beyond this, until recently, nothing more was known except that it was remarked that negotiations between the Duke of Norfolk and the Vatican were broken off, and that the former left Rome suddenly for England without having an audience with the Pope, for which arrangements had been made.  The forecast of the Tablet as to Mgr.  Persico’s return to Ireland to see that the terms of the decree were enforced and applied, was not correct.  The responsibility for the decree was everywhere laid on his shoulders, and the Tablet for April 27th, 1889, records that an Address was presented to Mgr.  Persico after his return to Rome “as an expression of respect, and in the fervent hope that his Excellency’s mission might largely conduce to the glory of God, the increase of charity, and the restoration of peace and goodwill among men.”

It is only in the last couple of years, with the publications of Persico’s correspondence with Cardinal Manning,[15] that the real facts of the case have been known.  After spending six months in Ireland, the envoy was obliged, for reasons of health, to move to Devonshire in January, 1888.  He had orders from Rome to remain in the British Islands, but further, so he told the Cardinal in his letter, “I must not reside in London so as to give not the least suspicion that I have anything to do with the British Government.”  As to the promulgation of the decree, it was done without his knowledge and, what is more, against his judgment.  Having arrived in Ireland in July, 1887, he had concluded his investigations by the middle of the month of December of that year.  His requests that the mission might be terminated were met by the reply that it was to continue indefinitely, and he was told that if he wished, for reasons of health, to leave Ireland during the winter months he might do so, but that he must remain in the British Isles.

After the issue of the rescript he wrote to the English Cardinal in these words:—­“It is known to your Eminence that I did not expect at all the said decree, that I was never so much surprised in my life as when I received the bare circular from Propaganda on the morning of the 28th ulto.  And fancy, I received the bare circular, as I suppose every Irish bishop did, without a letter or a word of instruction or explanation.  And what is more unaccountable to me, only the day before I had received a letter from the Secretary for the Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, telling me that nothing had been done about Irish affairs, and that my report and other letters were still nell casetta del Emo.  Rampolla! And yet the whole world thinks and says that the Holy Office has acted on my report, and that the decree is based upon the same!  Not only all the Roman correspondents but all the newspapers avec le Tablet en tete proclaim and report the same thing!  I wish that my report and all my letters had been studied and seriously considered, and that action had been taken from the same!  Above all, I had