During the fatal struggle which Charles I. maintained against the Parliament, the Jesuits publicly and openly took part with the cavaliers, because Charles was evidently much better disposed towards them than were the Puritans. It is evident that, by shewing their devotedness to the king, if the contest had ended in his favour, they might not only have hoped for the free exercise of their religion, but for a considerable share of influence over him. But a very grave accusation was brought against them, which, if true, would shew them guilty of the most diabolical iniquity. We have no proofs to establish this accusation, which was produced some years after the event; but, if we are to declare our own conviction, we firmly believe them guilty; not because we credit in all its parts the narrative of Jurieu, but for the reasons we are about to give. Jurieu relates that the Jesuits, to re-establish the Roman Catholic religion, thought that it would be necessary that Charles, then prisoner, should fall, and the monarchy along with him. In consequence, eighteen of them, headed by a lord of the realm, went to Rome to consult the Pope. The matter was discussed in secret assemblies, and it was decided _that it was lawful that Charles should die_. The deputies, on their return from Rome, shewed to the Sorbonne the response of the Pope, _of which many copies were distributed_. The Sorbonne approved. On their return to England, the Jesuits set themselves to work, and sent many of the most ardent Catholics among the Independents, dissembling their religion, to inflame still more their passions, and push things to extremities. Their scheme having failed, they wished to _have back the copies of the consultation of the Pope and the Sorbonne_; but the priest who before abjuring Protestantism had been Charles’s confessor, and who was intimate with the Jesuits, would not give up his copy, and, after the return of the Stuarts, shewed it to many persons who were still living, and could afford actual evidence of the reality of what he narrated.[286]