Caetani set off from Paris on 3 March 1590, and on his way back to Italy visited the Duke of Nevers, who held himself aloof from the activities of the Catholic League and was eventually to pledge loyalty to Henry IV.
Arriving in Rome on 4 April, Caetani found Sixtus V now preoccupied with how to avoid Spain increasing its influence over affairs in Italy and the rest of Europe, and therefore much less enthusiastic than before about supporting a strategy that risked extending its hegemony over France.
[3][4] Regardless of the Pope's equivocations, Cardinal Enrico Caetani continued to pursue an uncompromising policy in Paris, openly supporting and funding the House of Guise and the Catholic League.
The Pope's displeasure at this disobedience was visited both on the Cardinal himself, who found all payments to his mission from the Vatican stopped, and on Camillo, who was placed under house arrest on 3 June 1590 for three weeks and forbidden to involve himself in any political activities.
Rudolf was inclined to be flexible and pragmatic with his Protestant subjects, in the interests of maintaining the integrity of the Empire, and was thus disinclined to take the kind of firm line that the Vatican favoured.
In the hereditary Habsburg lands, Caetani urged the Emperor to choose an archbishop for the vacant see of Prague, to make other appointments in Hungary, and to enact the many reforms agreed upon at the Council of Trent.
Following the line of Pope Gregory XIV in the conflict over the French succession, he tried to prevent the raising of troops for Henry of Navarre while seeking Imperial support for recruitment of soldiers for Spain.
During the brief papacy of Innocent IX, Caetani had requested that he be transferred to Spain, and Clement VIII agreed to his wishes, allowing him to leave Prague on 10 July 1592 and return to Rome in late August.
He arrived in Barcelona on 13 January 1593 and reached Madrid on 9 February, accompanied by his nephews Gregorio and Benedetto (both of whom died in Spain) and had his first audience with Philip II five days later.
He was critical of the Spanish attacks on shipping carrying alum (essential for the cloth industry) from Tolfa, near Rome, and of the restrictions Spain placed on the movement of grain from Sicily to the Papal States.
These financial circumstances compelled Caetani to constantly ask the court in Madrid for pensions, benefits and offices for his relatives, and this in turn inclined him to be amenable to Spanish diplomatic interests.