Before he came to the throne, James II's relations with the Holy See had not been entirely happy. For a long time the curia had resented his marrying Mary Beatrice without its approval. When he became king James did little to endear himself to the pope by either the matter or the manner of his dealings with him. James concentrated on the personal gratification of himself and his queen rather than on the needs of the English mission. In particular he tried for over three years to bully the pope into making Edward Petre SJ either a bishop or a cardinal. He ignored Innocent XI's arguments and obstinately refused to take ‘no’ for an answer.

James's high-handedness in his dealings with Rome seemed a conscious imitation of that of Louis XIV, who had carried on a long series of disputes with successive popes. Louis combined his plundering and oppression of the French church with claims of its virtual independence of Rome. His ambassador to the Holy See claimed an excessive degree of diplomatic immunity. To these long-standing sources of friction was added the dispute over the election to the archbishopric of Cologne in 1688. It was not surprising, therefore, that the dominant feature of Innocent XI's diplomacy was antipathy to France. It was thus singularly unfortunate that James should choose to imitate the French king's manner and that a close political connection should be believed to exist between them.