and his Archbishop William Laud were papists, Rossetti bravely took the opportunity to suggest the King might consider converting to Catholicism, seeing as though he was being accused of as much anyway. Charles' Queen, Henrietta Maria, saw Rossetti's position at court as potentially advantageous and, having developed a social relationship with the clandestine nobleman, urged the prelate to write to the uncle of his Barberini patrons, Pope Urban VIII, asking for the equivalent of £100,000 pounds sterling to aid England's ailing coffers. The Pope responded saying he was, "...very ready to supply the King so soon as ever he should declare himself a Catholic". When the bill of attainder was passed and Archbishop William Laud was sentenced to death, some suggested Laud would have been better off had he converted to Catholicism and escaped to Rome (as Rossetti had urged) rather than staying to fight for which he was executed. Return to Rome At the outbreak of the First Bishops' War, Rossetti's life was threatened. At the behest of the Queen Henrietta Maria gave him refuge in St. James's Palace. Thereafter he was summoned to appear before the House of Commons of England but instead fled England at the end of June 1641. He went to Flanders with the assistance of the Venetian ambassador. His presence at Ghent on 7 September 1641 is established by a letter written by him to one of the Cardinals Barberini, containing a report on the intended colonization of Maryland. He then returned to Rome and to the service of the Barberini. After he returned to Rome he was appointed Archbishop of Tarsus on 16 September 1641. Since this was a titular See, his appointment was a direct action by the Pope, who intended to send him on a diplomatic mission, for which he needed episcopal status. He was consecrated bishop on 8 December 1641 in Cologne, by Bishop Fabio Chigi, the Apostolic Nuncio to Cologne. Rossetti had been dispatched, with the title of Nuncio Extraordinary, to the Congress of Münster, where an effort to find a solution to the Thirty Years' War was being attempted. After the Congress, he stayed on as Nuncio in Cologne for two years. On 4 May 1643 he was translated to the See of Faenza in succession to Cardinal Francesco Cennini, who resigned the office. Though he was promoted Bishop of Tusculum (Frascati) in 1676, he retained the Administration