Answer. “Refers to the Counterpart.”
6. “Did your Lordship agree for and in the behalf of his Majesty, his heirs and successors, that the Lord Marquis of Ormond, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, or any other or others authorised by his Majesty, should not disturb the professors of the Roman Catholic religion in their present possession and continuance of the possession of their churches, lands, tenements, tithes, and hereditaments, jurisdiction, or any other of the matters aforesaid, until his Majesty’s pleasure were signified for confirming and publishing the said grants? Or, did your Lordship make any agreement to that or the like effect?”
Answer. “That (for aught he knows), he did not agree for, &c.; but saith that he promised to use his best endeavours therein with the Lord Lieutenant.”
(And so on to the 15th Interrogatory.)
16. “Did your Lordship take an oath in these following words, viz.: I, Edward Earl of Glamorgan, do protest and swear faithfully to acquaint the King’s most excellent Majesty, with the proceedings of this kingdom, &c.”[G]
Answer. “He remembers something to this effect, but refers to original or copy, which he will produce.”
The proceedings involved by this affair, the Earl’s examination before the Council, the documents in evidence against him, his own counter-statements, the correspondence between parties, and especially Charles the First, who entirely repudiated and ignored the acts of his duped agent; together with the proceedings in Parliament, and opinions expressed there, with others published in the political tracts of those agitated times, have been handled by every eminent historian, and still afford abundant matter for dispute. Those who take up the cause of the King, censure the Earl of Glamorgan in most unmeasured terms: Hume assails his intellect, Carte charges him with forgery. While those who see in the whole transaction but another instance of the King’s duplicity, of his contempt of every obligation (which a Christian feels bound to respect), so long as he fancies expediency offers him, in his high position, a sufficient excuse for the boldest tergiversation, exonerate the Earl from the charge of having acted on his own responsibility.
Indeed it requires a large amount of credulity to believe that any subject, much less a man of the mild and honourable tone characteristic of the Earl’s whole conduct, could have acted as he did, otherwise than with a full and perfect previous understanding with his misguided sovereign, and empowered with sufficient proofs, if even legally insufficient instruments under his hand and seal to warrant his proceedings. That he had such powers is well authenticated, and that he did not abuse them is his highest merit. He did not coin money, or appropriate property, or commit any other extravagance, such as a man deficient in “judgment” possibly would have done, under the grant of similar powers.
We cannot be mistaken as advocates of his acts in the Irish affairs, by merely showing that those acts were in strict conformity with the injunctions of the Royal will; for so long as troops were required, no means were to be spared that were found absolutely requisite to gain the desired end. We rejoice that the warm-hearted Earl did not succeed, that all his negotiations failed, and that the exorbitant demands made on him destroyed the measures they were intended to render unbounded and permanent; at the same time, as a Roman Catholic, the Earl of Glamorgan acted honestly, consistently, and by no means extravagantly. The folly and blame and entire shame of the whole affair weighs heavily on the King’s memory.
While the death of the Archbishop of Tuam in October, 1645, led to this exposure in Ireland, very different circumstances conveyed the intelligence to England.