Hobbes offered no reply to Bramhall's ‘Vindication’ and the bishop must have been content to let that paper stand as the last word. After their engagement in Paris in the summer of 1645, Hobbes spent the next few years in France while Bramhall resided principally in the southern Netherlands. Both men had more than enough other business with which to occupy themselves. For Bramhall and the rest of the anglican clergy in exile, the ultimate task was to restore the king and themselves in England, Ireland and Scotland. Before and after the debate in Paris, Bramhall appears to have lived mostly in Brussels, with the king's resident, Sir Henry de Vic. While mainly in Brussels in the years 1644–8, Bramhall busied himself in various clerical functions for the benefit of fellow Englishmen abroad. De Vic maintained a chapel for anglican services and it was there that Bramhall must have been most active. As Vesey noted, English merchants in Antwerp travelled every month to Brussels to hear his sermons and receive the sacrament; they also provided financial support. But though in Brussels much of the time, the bishop's existence seems to have been fairly nomadic in this period. In addition to visiting Paris, where Prince Charles and Queen Henrietta Maria were now resident (since July 1646), Bramhall seems to have been running errands in the Netherlands, imperial Rhineland territory and coastal and northern France. He also made at least one trip into Spain.