It must not be imagined that this Royalist activity represented any double-dealing on the part of the Jews. Those who, like Carvajal and De Caceres, had fled direct from the Inquisition to England, were faithful to Cromwell to the end. The Royalist Jews were men who had acquired their Cavalier sympathies in France and Holland, and shared them with their Christian fellow-citizens in those countries. None of them were parties to the negotiations with Cromwell in 1655–56, and none had ever affected Puritan sympathies. They probably had conscientious objections to Republicanism, for they were of the aristocratic Sephardi branch of Israel, with some of the bluest blood of Spain in their veins and immense wealth in their strong-boxes. Their dissent from their Puritan brethren was an early illustration of the falsity of the hypothesis of Jewish political solidarity, which is to this day a cherished delusion of the anti-Semites. Charles II. did not confine himself to ignoring the anti-Semitic petitions. Having made up his mind that the Jews should be protected, he sought, like Cromwell, to throw the responsibility for his decision on the Constitutional Government. Before the end of 1660 an Order of the Lords in Council was sent to the House of Commons, recommending that measures should be taken for the protection of the Jews.[174] There is no record of any such measures having been adopted. It was probably felt that the most convenient course to pursue was to continue the policy of personal connivance inaugurated by Cromwell, as by that means men’s minds would be least disturbed, and an experiment which was likely to produce good results would not be hampered. Moreover, should the experiment fail, it would be all the easier to deal with it if it had not received any legislative sanction. Accordingly, the Jews passed from the personal protection of Cromwell to that of Charles. In 1664, when an attempt was made by the Earl of Berkshire and Mr. Ricaut to obtain their expulsion, the King in Council disavowed the scheme, and assured the Jews “that they may promise themselves the effects of the same favour as formerly they have had so long as they demean themselves peaceably and quietly with due obedience to his Majesty’s laws and without scandal to his Government.[175]” A similar course was taken by the Privy Council in 1673 and 1685, when attempts were made by informers to prosecute the Jews for the exercise of their religion.[176] Finally the King marked his personal gratitude to the Jews by knighting Coronel soon after the Restoration, and by a generous distribution of patents of denization among the members of the Synagogue.[177] Thus the Cromwellian settlement was confirmed, and the path was definitely opened by which the Jews might win their way to the citizenship of the United Kingdom.