[317] The queen evidently suspected that he might be brought to abandon the catholics. King's Cabinet Opened, pp. 30, 31. And, if fear of her did not prevent him, I make no question that he would have done so, could he but have carried his other points.
[318] Parl. Hist. 428; Somers Tracts, v. 542. It appears by several letters of the king, published among those taken at Naseby, that Ormond had power to promise the Irish a repeal of the penal laws and the use of private chapels as well as a suspension of Poyning's law. King's Cabinet Opened, pp. 16, 19; Rushw. Abr. v. 589. Glamorgan's treaty granted them all the churches with the revenues thereof, of which they had at any time since October 1641 been in possession; that is, the re-establishment of their religion: they, on the other hand, were to furnish a very large army to the king in England.
[319] Rushw. Abr. v. 582, 594. This, as well as some letters taken on Lord Digby's rout at Sherborn about the same time, made a prodigious impression. "Many good men were sorry that the king's actions agreed no better with his words; that he openly protested before God with horrid imprecations that he endeavoured nothing so much as the preservation of the protestant religion and rooting out of popery; yet in the meantime, underhand, he promised to the Irish rebels an abrogation of the laws against them, which was contrary to his late expressed promises in these words, 'I will never abrogate the laws against the papists.' And again he said, 'I abhor to think of bringing foreign soldiers into the kingdom,' and yet he solicited the Duke of Lorrain, the French, the Danes, and the very Irish, for assistance." May's "Breviate of Hist. of Parliament" in Maseres's Tracts, i. 61. Charles had certainly never scrupled (I do not say that he ought to have done so) to make application in every quarter for assistance; and began in 1642 with sending a Col. Cochran on a secret mission to Denmark, in the hope of obtaining a subsidiary force from that kingdom. There was at least no danger to the national independence from such allies. "We fear this shall undo the king for ever, that no repentance shall ever obtain a pardon of this act, if it be true, from his parliaments." Baillie, ii. 185. Jan. 20, 1646. The king's disavowal had some effect; it seems as if even those who were prejudiced against him could hardly believe him guilty of such an apostasy, as it appeared in their eyes. P. 175. And, in fact, though the catholics had demanded nothing unreasonable either in its own nature or according to the circumstances wherein they stood, it threw a great suspicion on the king's attachment to his own faith, when he was seen to abandon altogether, as it seemed, the protestant cause in Ireland, while he was struggling so tenaciously for a particular form of it in Britain. Nor was his negotiation less impolitic than dishonourable. Without depreciating a very brave and injured people, it may be said with certainty that an Irish army could not have had the remotest chance of success against Fairfax and Cromwell; the courage being equal on our side, the skill and discipline incomparably superior. And it was evident that Charles could never reign in England but on a protestant interest.
[320] Birch's Inquiry into the Share which King Charles I. had in the Transactions of the Earl of Glamorgan, 1747. Four letters of Charles to Glamorgan, now in the British Museum (Sloane MSS. 4161), in Birch's handwriting, but of which he was not aware at the time of that publication, decisively show the king's duplicity. In the first, which was meant to be seen by Digby, dated Feb. 3, 1646, he blames him for having been drawn to consent to conditions much beyond his instructions. "If you had advised with my lord lieutenant, as you promised me, all this had been helped;" and tells him he had commanded as much favour to be shown him as might possibly stand with his service and safety. On Feb. 28 he writes by a private hand, Sir John Winter, that he is every day more and more confirmed in the trust that he had of him. In a third letter, dated April 5, he says, in a cipher, to which the key is given, "you cannot be but confident of my making good all instructions and promises to you and nuncio." The fourth letter is dated April 6, and is in these words: "Herbert, as I doubt not but you have too much courage to be dismayed or discouraged at the usage like you have had, so I assure you that my estimation of you is nothing diminished by it, but rather begets in me a desire of revenge and reparation to us both (for in this I hold myself equally interested with you), whereupon not doubting of your accustomed care and industry in my service, I assure you of the continuance of my favour and protection to you, and that in deeds more than in words I shall show myself to be your most assured constant friend. C. R."
These letters have lately been republished by Dr. Lingard, Hist. of Eng. x. note B, from Warner's Hist. of the Civil War in Ireland. The cipher may be found in the Biographia Britannica, under the article Bales. Dr. L. endeavours to prove that Glamorgan acted all along with Ormond's privity; and it must be owned that the expression in the king's last letter about revenge and reparation, which Dr. L. does not advert to, has a very odd appearance.
The controversy is, I suppose, completely at an end; so that it is hardly necessary to mention a letter from Glamorgan, then Marquis of Worcester, to Clarendon after the restoration, which has every internal mark of credibility, and displays the king's unfairness. Clar. State Pap. ii. 201, and Lingard, ubi supra. It is remarkable that the transaction is never mentioned in the History of the Rebellion. The noble author was, however, convinced of the genuineness of Glamorgan's commission, as appears by a letter to Secretary Nicholas. "I must tell you, I care not how little I say in that business of Ireland, since those strange powers and instructions given to your favourite Glamorgan, which appear to be so inexcusable to justice, piety, and prudence. And I fear there is very much in that transaction of Ireland, both before and since that you and I were never thought wise enough to be advised with in. Oh! Mr. Secretary, those stratagems have given me more sad hours than all the misfortunes in war which have befallen the king, and look like the effect of God's anger towards us." Id. p. 237. See also a note of Mr. Laing, Hist. of Scotland, iii. 557, for another letter of the king to Glamorgan, from Newcastle, in July 1646, not less explicit than the foregoing.
[321] Burnet's Mem. of Dukes of Hamilton, 284. Baillie's letters, throughout 1646, indicate his apprehension of the prevalent spirit, which he dreaded as implacable, not only to monarchy, but to presbytery and the Scots nation. "The leaders of the people seem inclined to have no shadow of a king, to have liberty for all religions, a lame Erastian presbytery, to be so injurious to us as to chase us hence with the sword."—148. March 31, 1646. "The common word is, that they will have the king prisoner. Possibly they may grant to the prince to be a duke of Venice. The militia must be absolutely, for all time to come, in the power of the parliament, alone," etc.—200. On the king's refusal of the propositions sent to Newcastle, the Scots took great pains to prevent a vote against him. 226. There was still, however, danger of this. 236, Oct. 13, and p. 243. His intrigues with both parties, the presbyterians and independents, were now known; and all sides seem to have been ripe for deposing them. 245. These letters are a curious contrast to the idle fancies of a speedy and triumphant restoration, which Clarendon himself as well as others of less judgment seem to have entertained.
[322] "Though he should swear it," says Baillie, "no man will believe that he sticks upon episcopacy for any conscience."—ii. 205. And again: "It is pity that base hypocrisy, when it is pellucid, shall still be entertained. No oaths did ever persuade me, that episcopacy was ever adhered to on any conscience."—224. This looks at first like mere bigotry. But, when we remember that Charles had abolished episcopacy in Scotland, and was ready to abolish protestantism in Ireland, Baillie's prejudices will appear less unreasonable. The king's private letters in the Clarendon Papers have convinced me of his mistaken conscientiousness about church government; but of this his contemporaries could not be aware.
[323] Hollis maintains that the violent party were very desirous that the Scots should carry the king with them, and that nothing could have been more injurious to his interests. If we may believe Berkley, who is much confirmed by Baillie, the presbyterians had secretly engaged to the Scots that the army should be disbanded, and the king brought up to London with honour and safety. "Memoirs of Sir J. Berkley," in Maseres's Tracts, i. 358; Baillie, ii. 257. This affords no bad justification of the Scots for delivering him up.
"It is very like," says Baillie, "if he had done any duty, though he had never taken the covenant, but permitted it to have been put in an act of parliament in both kingdoms, and given so satisfactory an answer to the rest of the propositions, as easily he might, and sometimes I know he was willing, certainly Scotland had been for him as one man: and the body of England, upon many grounds, was upon a disposition to have so cordially embraced him, that no man, for his life, durst have muttered against his present restitution. But remaining what he was in all his maxims, a full Canterburian, both in matters of religion and state, he still inclined to a new war; and for that end resolved to go to Scotland. Some great men there pressed the equity of Scotland's protecting of him on any terms. This untimeous excess of friendship has ruined that unhappy prince; for the better party finding the conclusion of the king's coming to Scotland, and thereby their own present ruin, and the ruin of the whole cause, the making the malignants masters of church and state, the drawing the whole force of England upon Scotland for their perjurious violation of their covenant, they resolved by all means to cross that design."—P. 253.