Whether Rupert found them or not is unrecorded, but he certainly made friends with the King, in whose company he remained until October. Charles had still some hopes of the Scots, and it was rumoured that Rupert endeavoured to win the Presbyterians by stating--with perfect truth--that he had been bred a Calvinist.[51] It was said also that he had countenanced the plot of 1654 for Cromwell's assassination, and had even introduced the author of it to the King. Whether the accusation be true or false it is hard to say.[52] The only allusion to the plot found in the Prince's own correspondence is in a letter written from Heidelberg, which narrates the fate of the conspirators; "the Diurnal says Jack Gerard is beheaded, and another hanged, and that the Portugal ambassador's brother was beheaded at the same time, and another English gentleman hanged about that business, but says little of any design. I have not yet received one line, so I cannot give your Highness any further account."[53] This letter may, or may not imply a previous acquaintance with the design. It certainly assumes that Rupert knew all about it, but the affair was then public property. Still there is nothing absolutely impossible in the Prince's complicity. Cromwell was regarded by the Royalists at that {280} time, as a being almost beyond the pale of humanity. He was "the beast whom all the Kings of the earth do worship;"[54] and, though Rupert's known words and actions fit ill with assassination plots, it may be that the crime of murder looked less black to him when the intended victim happened to be the English Lord Protector.