The hypothesis of Mr. Pollock is that Coleman had told Godfrey of the meeting of the Jesuits in St. James's Palace. Oates had declared that the Jesuits met to concert their plot, at the White Horse Tavern in the Strand, on the 24th April 1678. James II. admitted some years afterwards that the Jesuits met on that date, but at St. James's Palace, and the Jesuit Father Warner has left it on record that they did hold their Provincial Congregation on that date in St. James's Palace. If it were known at that time that forty Jesuits had held a secret council in the Duke's Palace the consequences might have been very serious, and there is therefore some plausibility in the statement of a later witness, Dugdale, that the Protestant magistrate was removed because he learned this fact from Coleman. We know that Godfrey secretly consulted Coleman after he had received the depositions of Oates and Tonge; we have good reason to believe that he laid those depositions before Coleman; and it is not improbable that Coleman refuted the testimony of Oates by disclosing that the Jesuit meeting took place in James's Palace, not in the White Horse. It would assuredly be a grave matter for the Jesuits if this were known, and it would almost be enough to prevent the succession of James II. This must remain a mere hypothesis. I may recall that, according to the teaching of many Jesuit theologians, the assassination of a man in order to prevent grave harm to the Church was not a crime, but a laudable act. But many others, besides the Jesuits, would be interested in taking drastic measures to ensure the position of the Duke of York, nor is it more than a conjecture that Godfrey learned of the meeting. It is possible that this meeting was by no means an innocent "congregation" of Jesuits to discuss their affairs; and it is just as possible that the real cause of the murder has never yet occurred to us. It remains one of the numerous unsolved problems in the story of the Jesuits. The remaining years of the reign of Charles II. were years of suffering for the Jesuits. They continued to enter the country in disguise and minister to the fiercely persecuted Catholics. We learn that in 1682 the Province counted 295 members, and that in 1685 they had no less than 102 priests working in England. In those harsh times they endured the worst rigours of an apostolic life. Whether or no they were innocent of murder, many Catholics felt that their presence in England was inflammatory and their conduct indiscreet, and familiar houses were closed against them. Several of them died from the privations which they had to suffer. But an ardent and steady hope fired them to meet their perils and sufferings, and in the first week of February 1685 the news rang through the stricken and scattered ranks that Charles was dead and a devoted Catholic about to ascend the throne of England.