Scarcely had this investigation been closed when the Lithuanian Jews were faced by another charge. Many of them were said to be on the point of leaving the country, and, acting with the knowledge and co-operation of the Sultan, intended to emigrate to Turkey, accompanied by the Christians who had been converted to Judaism. It was even rumored that the Jews had already succeeded in dispatching a party of circumcised Christian children and adults across the Moldavian frontier. The King gave orders for a new investigation, which was marked, like the preceding one, by acts of lawlessness and violence. The Jews were in fear that the King might lend an ear to these accusations and withdraw his protection from them. Accordingly Jews of Brest, Grodno, and other Lithuanian cities, hastened to send a deputation to King Sigismund, which solemnly assured him that all the rumors and accusations concerning them were mere slander, that the Lithuanian Jews were faithfully devoted to their country, that they had no intention to emigrate to Turkey, and, finally, that they had never tried to convert Christians to their faith. At the same time they made complaints about the insults and brutalities which had been inflicted upon them, pointing to the detrimental effect of the investigation on the trade of the country. The assertions of the deputation were borne out by the official inquiry, and Sigismund, returning his favor to the Jews, cleared them of all suspicion, and promised henceforward not to trouble them on wholesale charges unsupported by evidence. This pledge was embodied in a special charter, a sort of _habeas corpus_, granted by the King to the Jews of Lithuania in 1540. All this, however, did not discourage the Catholic clergy, who, under the leadership of Bishop Gamrat, continued their agitation against the hated Jews. They incited public opinion against them by means of slanderous books, written in medieval style (_De stupendis erroribus Judaeorum_, 1541; _De sanctis interfectis a Judaeis_, 1543). The Church Synod of 1542 assembled in Piotrkov issued the following "constitution":