[81] Rinuccini’s Embassy, p. 90; Bellings, iv. 5-7. See also the translation of a paper preserved at Rome, reprinted in appendix to Meehan’s Confederation, from the Dublin Review for 1845.
[CHAPTER XXVII]
THE ORMONDE PEACE, 1646
Glamorgan and the nuncio.
Digby in Dublin.
Rinuccini and the Confederates not in accord.
Attitude of Henrietta Maria.
While at Rochelle waiting for his ship, Rinuccini had seen Geoffrey Baron, treasurer of the Confederation, who told him that no peace had yet been made in Ireland, and who brought a letter from Glamorgan. Baron, ‘a cavalier of excellent countenance and very affable manner,’ was on his way to Paris to succeed O’Hartegan, who seems to have returned to Ireland a little later. Glamorgan returned from Dublin to Kilkenny one week after the nuncio’s arrival, and in due course delivered the King’s letter to him. Of that to the Pope he only showed the address, but he disclosed the contents of two ‘patents in which the King gives him secret but full powers to conclude a peace with the Irish, on whatever terms he thinks advisable.’ In the meantime Lord Digby, who bore the now empty title of principal secretary of state, had arrived in Dublin. It was characteristic of Charles’s diplomacy that his English minister was even more ignorant of Glamorgan’s business than his Irish viceroy. Glamorgan was sanguine that the nuncio would agree to everything required; but Ormonde calls him ‘the Italian bishop,’ and an ‘unbidden guest,’ which he would not have done had he known of the King’s letter to him. Rinuccini found that the majority of the Confederates were inclined to accept Ormonde’s political articles, and to leave the religious question for later consideration. Noblemen and lawyers saw plainly enough that the King could not grant what would satisfy the Pope without making his position in England hopeless, and they wished to save their properties with the hope of later concessions in church matters. The certain ruin of the royal cause was the worst thing that could happen, for from the Parliament nothing but evil was to be expected. Some, says Rinuccini, ‘audaciously declare that the Catholic interest could not fail to prosper under the government of a nobleman so warmly attached to the cause of Ireland as the Marquis of Ormonde; others are not ashamed to say that it is sufficient to perform the Catholic service in secret, provided it can be done in safety, and that to expect more than this from the King, restricted as he is at the present moment in his liberty, would be open injustice; and finally, that it is not lawful to contend with him in this cause. No one holds forth more loudly in favour of this doctrine than that priest Leyburn sent here six months ago by the Queen, and whose words almost amount to sedition.’ Leyburn’s mission was known and feared at Rome, where it was well understood that Henrietta Maria was willing to make peace ‘without one word concerning religion,’ and considered ‘the whole well-being of the Catholics to depend on peace with the Protestants.’ A still greater obstacle to peace on Rinuccini’s terms was the personal popularity of Ormonde, and the fact that the Council ‘were mostly relations, friends, clients, or dependants of his house.’[82]
Arrest of Glamorgan.
Examination of Glamorgan.