_Intrigues of the king and his party._--The banished king, meanwhile, began to recover a little of that political importance which the battle of Worcester had seemed almost to extinguish. So ill supported by his English adherents on that occasion, so incapable with a better army than he had any prospect of ever raising again, to make a stand against the genius and fortune of the usurper, it was vain to expect that he could be restored by any domestic insurrection, until the disunion of the prevailing factions should offer some more favourable opportunity. But this was too distant a prospect for his court of starving followers. He had from the beginning looked around for foreign assistance. But France was distracted by her own troubles; Spain deemed it better policy to cultivate the new commonwealth; and even Holland, though engaged in a dangerous war with England, did not think it worth while to accept his offer of joining her fleet, in order to try his influence with the English seamen.[422] Totally unscrupulous as to the means by which he might reign, even at the moment that he was treating to become the covenanted king of Scotland, with every solemn renunciation of popery, Charles had recourse to a very delicate negotiation, which deserves remark, as having led, after a long course of time, but by gradual steps, to the final downfall of his family. With the advice of Ormond, and with the concurrence of Hyde, he attempted to interest the pope (Innocent X.) on his side, as the most powerful intercessor with the catholic princes of Europe.[423] For this purpose it was necessary to promise toleration at least to the catholics. The king's ambassadors to Spain in 1650, Cottington and Hyde, and other agents despatched to Rome at the same time, were empowered to offer an entire repeal of the penal laws.[424] The king himself, some time afterwards, wrote a letter to the pope, wherein he repeated this assurance. That court, however, well aware of the hereditary duplicity of the Stuarts, received his overtures with haughty contempt. The pope returned no answer to the king's letter; but one was received after many months from the general of the jesuits, requiring that Charles should declare himself a catholic, since the goods of the church could not be lavished for the support of an heretical prince.[425] Even after this insolent refusal, the wretched exiles still clung, at times, to the vain hope of succour, which as protestants and Englishmen they could not honourably demand.[426] But many of them remarked too clearly the conditions on which assistance might be obtained; the court of Charles, openly or in secret, began to pass over to the catholic church; and the contagion soon spread to the highest places.