“On Friday night being the 22nd of February, 1646, I was conveyed to Abbington by Sir George Lisle, and a party under his command, and from thence near Cisseter, where I parted from them, took a guide and went to Sir William Pooles, from whence by night I was carefully guided to Sir Robert Poyntz’s at Acton, which his Majesty conceived to be the safest way; there by Sir Robert was I exceedingly welcomed as coming from his Majesty, and in that employment, and for the space of five days I was concealed in Sir Robert’s house whilst he did continually employ some of his trusty servants to endeavour a way for my passage over Severn, which both by land and water was very strongly guarded; yet having disguise from him I hired a boat for Black Rock, and passed as a grazier, and a farmer, a friend of his with me, to assist me; but no sooner had we landed but we had, by a grazier, intelligence that in the village, and in all that country of the Moors, were Parliament forces driven by his Majesty’s party from Newport and Carlisle. Thereupon the farmer brought me to a church on a rock [a] few yards from the sea side, into which rock I conveyed my dispatches, and myself and horse into the porch, whilst the farmer bought [brought?] me a guide, a man of his acquaintance, well known to the enemy’s party but honest to his Majesty’s; and after night he conveyed me through their guards by the name of a butcher of Bristol, and on the break of day, three Parliament officers, newly landed at Gouldcliffe from Bristol, seeing me riding fast, charged me in a lane and questioned me who I was for; and I answered that it was then no time to ask impertinences, by my being here you may judge who I am for; I intended for Newport or Carleon in business for the States, but my guide tells me that there is my Lord Charles Somerset with 300 horse, for God’s sake tell me how I shall avoid them. Whereupon they being as much affrighted with my word, as I with their summons, hastily pointed me out a way, and ran themselves another way into the Moors. By this means I came to Carleon, from whence the King’s party were marched two days before; and being then within four miles of Raglan I came (as I thought) undiscovered to Colonel Richard Herbert’s, and finding the passage full of dangers, by reason of Langibby Castle and many soldiers quartered in the way, I sent to the Lord Charles, desiring a convoy, and acquainting him with what business I was in. His Lordship returned me answer that by one of the clock, the next day, by a windmill on Christ Church hill, a party should meet me punctually; and so there did, but it was of the enemy, who having foot with the horse made me distrust and betake myself to a wood adjoining; and when they were past, no convoy coming, nor intended, as it appeared afterwards, I returned to the Lady Mary Herbert’s, who then lay in, and some intelligence being given to the enemy, so soon as it was dark, a party being sent to take me, my Lady Mary secured the despatches in or under her bed, commanded a servant of hers to go with me, called my horse hers; and [I] going on foot all night in most bitter weather and bad way, full of danger, I came to the Castle about the day’s dawning, where I presently appeared myself to my Lord Charles, made my relation, and besought him for a present convoy. His answer was that that house was their own, and not as other garrisons, they must look on their own securities, and had done more than they had thanks for, but would bring me to his father, so soon as he was ready. His Lordship did so, and in the first place my Lord asked me whether in my despatches I had any letters from his Majesty to his son Glamorgan. I answered, not that I knew of, but there might be within the Lord Marquis of Ormond’s; on that I delivered to his That message I well remember and so will his Majesty, I having set it down so soon as I went out of the bed chamber. Lordship his Majesty’s most gracious and comfortable message concerning my Lord his son, with thanks for their former loyal expressions; unto which my Lord Marquis answered that it was the grief of his heart that, he was inforced to say that the King was wavering and fickle, and that at his Majesty’s last being there, he lent him a book[B] to read in his chamber, the beginning of which he knows he read, but if he had ended, it would have showed him what it was to be a fickle prince; for was it not enough, said his Lordship, to suffer him, the Lord Glamorgan to be unjustly imprisoned by the Lord Marquis of Ormond for what he had his Majesty’s authority for; but that the King must in print protest against his proceedings and his own allowance, and not yet recall it.
But I will pray for him, and that he may be more constant to his friends, saith my Lord; and so soon as my other employments will give leave, you shall have a convoy to fetch securely your despatches; that I daily pressed and expected, sometimes it was delayed with fair language and sometimes with such as was very unwelcome to me, both from the father and the son; it being invectives against his Majesty and the Lord Marquis of Ormond, and after fourteen days delay,[C] I advised with Colonel Ratcliffe Jarrard, Colonel Thomas Butler, Major Hugh Butler, and William Watkins, Receiver General for South Wales, being all Protestants, and of the Council of War, who agreed in opinion that the delay was of purpose, and caused by jealousy, conceiving that if I got over before Captain Bacon who was then attending for a despatch to his Lord the Lord Glamorgan, my despatch might tend to the prejudice of his said Lord. On this I took occasion to wait on my Lady Glamorgan, and remembering her of the King’s gracious intentions towards her Lord, I besought her assistance, to which she answered that my going so hastily was not material whatsoever I considered of it, for that there were others gone with duplicates of business to her Ladyship’s knowledge, of whom her cousin Will. Winter was one, and he had no relation to the Lord Marquis of Ormond, but was her husband’s friend. To which I answered that my Lord was her Lord’s very good friend, as I was very much his servant, but if his Majesty’s business be done I care not by whose hand it is; but I thank your honour, for now I know wherefore I am stayed here; and from her Ladyship I went to my Lord Charles, and told him that by his neglect his Majesty might be undone, and that to acquit myself I must lay the blame on those that deserved it; but if his Lordship would yet give way Captain Spite would undertake to do the business with twenty horse. His Lordship answered, that he took my importunity ill, but would impart it to the Council of War, and take their advice, which he did indeed, but that caused so general a knowledge, that the country was laid for me and my business, as I had very good intelligence; and thereupon the Protestant party showed themselves to be much discontented, insomuch that Colonel Butler, Major Butler, and others quitted the Castle the next day, being the nineteenth of my stay there. My Lord sent a party, who bringing the despatches, I desired my Lord, in obedience to his Majesty’s Warrant to afford me a convoy, or if not, two guides, one to ride before me to discous [discover or discourse?] and the other to direct me in my way, both which he refused because, as he said, I had no letters to his brother. Thereupon I went discontentedly away to Aburgainy [Abergavenny] with Colonel Ratcliffe Jarrard, Colonel Butler, and Major Butler, with whom I advised, and sent with their approbation for a woman who was continually employed betwixt the Castle of Denby in North Wales and Raglan in South Wales. I agreed with her to go to Denby, Conway, or Harlo Castles, with the letters quilted up in a truss of linen and tied next to her body, and with her my own man disguised to receive them from her, and to go over with them, if I could not make my way to overtake him, but directed him by the Governors to whom I wrote. The man and woman were taken and carried before Howell Gwynn, then High Sheriff; but what became of the despatches, or how the woman concealed or made them away, I know not, nor dare enquire, but she saw the man taken, being a great distance from her, as I had directed them, to keep in sight one of the other, but not to go together; and she was not taken in two or three hours after, so that by all likelihood she conveyed them away, otherwise the Parliament pamphlets would have told us of it as they did not, for with much fear, I expecting it, perused all the diurnals for more than a quarter of a year. This is all I can deliver of it, and the particulars of these will be punctually justified by those several parties formerly meant, some of them being now about the Court, and for the truth of this I am ready to make Oath when I shall there unto be called.
“Allan Boteler.”[D]
Boteler or Butler’s evidence would appear to have been taken during the Marquis of Ormond’s temporary sojourn in England, after his leaving Dublin in June, 1647, previous to his shortly after going to Paris for six months, when he returned to Ireland to assume his post of Lord Lieutenant.[13] The document derives considerable interest from its conveying to us the sentiments of the Marquis of Worcester, in his reflections on the King’s conduct affecting himself and his son. It was on no light grounds he charged Charles the First with being “wavering and fickle;” declaring his son to have been “unjustly imprisoned;” and bitterly lamenting that the King should, in print, “protest against his [son’s] proceedings;” being no doubt well satisfied through his Majesty’s own discourse and his after written instructions, that the Earl of Glamorgan had, in every sense, been most unworthily used from first to last by his royal master. The upright old Marquis, touched in a tender part, was not disposed to overlook the injury done to his family, although coming from so high a quarter, for he must have felt it as nothing short of a gratuitous maligning and blackening of his son’s character from the most sordid, selfish motives, reckless of all risks and hazards. No considerations swayed him to conceal his utmost anger at the indignity put on himself and his house, rendered perhaps all the keener by the presence of the unsuspecting messenger from that prince who had so utterly deceived him, and that peer who had aided in his dishonour. The blunt Boteler adds, in a marginal notification, “That message I well remember, and so will his Majesty; I having set it down, as soon as I went out of the bed chamber.”[E]
The Marquis, a shrewd, observant man, appears to have expressed his wrath not only by words but acts; not caring that the messenger should return with any favourable account of his reception or dismissal, for after having so unequivocally expressed his mind to him, he is left to shift for himself, is long detained, and at length departs at his own expense.
The siege of Raglan Castle was maintained by Colonel Morgan, Major General Laughorne, Sir Trevor Williams, Baronet, and Colonel Robert Kirle, with about 5000 horse and foot.
It became necessary for the besieged, in their extremity, in the pleasant month of May, 1646, to destroy every shelter or advantage the enemy might derive from the houses in the village, or its old church. They, therefore, levelled the goodly tower of the latter, as also the houses near, burning likewise whatever might in any way have been likely to prove available.
Sir Trevor Williams, at the same time, was arranging to blockade Raglan, garrisoning his men in the town of Usk. On the other side, Colonel Kirle, with his force, was stationed within two miles of Raglan; while Laughorne occupied Abergavenny; and Colonel Birch, besieging Gutbridge Castle, left Raglan without hope of relief.
In their skirmishes with the enemy, posted in these positions, the Royalists lost 16 killed, and 20 taken prisoners; while Sir Trevor Williams seized 80 horses grazing under the castle walls. Colonel Morgan, then at Worcester, shortly after, joining the army, made Landenny his head-quarters, within a distance of three miles.
A domestic incident may be here mentioned, not only as showing the discomfort of the place, but as connected with the wife of the subject of this memoir; and also as characteristic of the Marquis’s religious sentiments. Dr. Bayly states that:—