The next day the King addressed a private letter to the Lord Lieutenant, affording sufficient evidence of the shifts to which he had recourse to uphold his miserable policy, which no experience of ensuing hazards and vexations could induce him to abandon.
“I cannot but add to my long letter, that, upon the word of a Christian, I never intended Glamorgan should treat anything without your approbation, much less without your knowledge. For besides the injury to you, I was always diffident of his judgment (though I could not think him so extremely weak) as now to my cost I have found, which you may easily perceive by the postscript in a letter of mine to you,[H] that he should have delivered you at his coming into Ireland, which if you have not had, the reason of it will be worth the knowing; for which I have commanded Digby’s service, desiring you to assist him. And albeit I have too just cause, for the clearing of my honour, to command (as I have done) to prosecute Glamorgan in a legal way; yet I will have you suspend the execution of any sentence against him, until you inform me fully of all the proceedings. For I believe it was his misguided zeal, more than any malice, which brought this great misfortune on him and on us all. For your part, you have in this, as in all other actions, given me such satisfaction, that I mean otherwise, more than by words, to express my estimation of you. So I rest
“Your most assured,
“constant, real friend,
“Charles R.
“Jan. 30, 1645–6.”
On the 31st of January, 1645, Secretary Nicholas wrote to the Lord Lieutenant and Council of Ireland, as follows:—[13a][25a]
“My Lords,
“His Majesty having, with the Lords of the Privy Council here, heard and duly weighed your Lordship’s [letter] to me of the 5th present, concerning your prudent and grave proceedings, in the business of the Lord Edward Herbert of Raglan, so highly importing his Majesty, hath commanded me to send your Lordships his royal thanks, as well for your affectionate expressions of your tenderness of his honour, as your just resentment, how scandalous and disadvantageous such the said Lord Herbert’s proceedings might have been to his Majesty’s affairs and service here, and on that side, if the wise course your Lordships have taken to vindicate his Majesty, had been deferred. Your Lordships will, by the King’s own letter herewith sent, receive the particulars of all, that his Majesty can call to mind or imagine he may have done or said to the Lord Herbert in that business. And since the Warrant, whereby his Lordship pretends to be authorised to treat with the Roman Catholics there, is not sealed with the signet, as it mentions, nor attested by either of his Majesty’s Secretaries, as it ought, nor written in the style that Warrants of that nature used to be; neither refers to any instructions at all; your Lordships cannot but judge it to be, at least, surreptitiously gotten, if not worse; for his Majesty saith, he remembers it not. And as the Warrant is a very strange one, so hath been also the execution of it. For it is manifest, the Lord Herbert did not acquaint the Lord Lieutenant with any part of it, before he concluded with the said Roman Catholics, nor ever advertised his Majesty, the Lord Lieutenant, or any of the Council here or there, what he had done in an affair of so great moment and consequence four months before, till it was discovered by accident. This doth not sound like good meaning; and I am sure is not fair dealing. But his Majesty having, by his letter to your Lordships, left the charge against the Lord Herbert, to be prosecuted by your Lordships, I shall say no more of that unhappy subject.”