Archbishop Usher protested against the intolerant demands of these fanatics, but he desired that all the penal laws should be enforced and all Papists disarmed. The King vainly represented to them how useless it was to expect the Confederates, superior in power, and possessed of more than three-fourths of the Kingdom, to resign themselves disarmed to the mercy of those whom they have provoked by their resistance. Even in time of peace, he said, the penal laws were too odious to be strictly executed. It was, therefore, plain that no treaty with the Confederates could be made “on the terms proposed by the Protestants, and it was scarcely less evident that the most violent of this party,” in the interests of the English Parliament, “laboured to obstruct a treaty upon any terms whatever.”
However, Charles was keenly aware of his own necessities, and seeing that of the three Irish parties, that of the Confederates alone had the means to help him if they could be won over, treated their agents with particular attention, and as Leland says somewhat disparagingly, “answered their propositions with that courtesy and condescension which he had been taught by his misfortunes.” He was willing to refer the great difficulty of the independence of the Irish Parliament to be temporarily decided by both Parliaments. He agreed to pass an Act for removing the incapacity of Catholics to purchase lands and hold public offices, and to allow them places of education. Instead of reversing Acts of Parliament and attainders, he proposed to grant a general pardon, and to assent to such an Act of Oblivion as should be recommended by the Lord Lieutenant and Council. He was willing to summon a new Parliament in Ireland, but without the suspension of Poynings’ Act. With regard to the penal laws, he contended that as they had never been rigorously enforced, so his recusant subjects, in returning to their duty, should have no cause of complaint that they were treated with less moderation than in the two last reigns.
Though the negotiations were interrupted, the agents of the Confederation were conciliated by these declarations of the King, and said they confessed that, placed as he was, he could not well make further concessions at present, and hoped that when their General Assembly was aware of his situation they would modify their demands, though they themselves had no authority to recede from them. The King dismissed them with an admonition that would have had some weight from a man of firmer and more trustworthy character, but even as he was, his words were in a sense prophetic. He advised them to bear in mind his circumstances and their own, “that the existence of their nation and religion depended on the preservation of his just rights and authority in England, that if his Catholic subjects of Ireland would consent to such conditions as he could safely grant and they accept, with security to their lives, fortunes, and religion, and hasten to enable him to suppress his enemies it would then be in his power to vouchsafe such grace to them as should complete their happiness, and which he gave them his royal word he would “then dispense in such a manner as should not leave them disappointed of their just and full expectations. But if, by insisting on particulars which he could not in conscience grant, nor they in conscience necessarily demand, and such as though he might concede, yet, at present, would bring that damage on him which all their supplies could not countervail ... if they should thus delay their succours until the power of the rebels had prevailed in England and Scotland then they would quickly find their power in Ireland but an imaginary support for his interest or their own; and that they (the English rebels) who with difficulty had destroyed him, would without opposition root out their nation and religion.” The Confederate Commissioners returned to Kilkenny, and Ormond was empowered by the King to treat with the Supreme Council on the basis of the amended memorial. Meanwhile the war dragged on between the Confederates and the Scots and other adherents of the Parliament who refused the truce, while Ormond’s garrisons remained neutral. In the South, Lords Inchiquin and Broghill continued ravaging the country and capturing posts from the Confederates. They expelled the Catholic inhabitants of Cork, Youghal, and Kinsale, and wrote to the King asking him to proclaim the Confederates as rebels “and that they were resolved to die a thousand deaths rather than consent to any peace with them.” Supported now by the Parliament which sent a fleet into the Shannon, and disappointed at the King’s refusal to make him Lord President of Munster, Inchiquin soon after openly joined the Parliamentarians, and adopting a canting style, declared that “he was acting for the Gospel, and that if he died for it he should be held as a perfect martyr.”
The negotiations for the peace with the Confederates were resumed by Ormond in September, 1644, but it was soon evident that even if the political articles could be rendered acceptable to both parties, the religious ones promised to upset everything. The Irish demanded not only the repeal of all laws that hindered their freedom of worship, but those against appeals to Rome, and the portion of the Act of Praemunire against Papal jurisdiction. Though Charles would agree that the penal laws should not be enforced, he still would not consent to their repeal, and was absolutely resolved not to alter the Acts of Appeals and Praemunire. In this resolution he was strengthened by the action of the Ormondist faction in the General Assembly headed by Lord Muskerry and Geoffrey Browne. These declared privately to Ormond that they would accept the King’s terms on sufficient guarantee being given that the lives and properties of the Irish would be safe. They would not press for the repeal of the penal laws which they thought would fall into abeyance when Charles was restored to power. The King now yielded somewhat and ordered Ormond to promise that the penal laws should be suspended as soon as peace was made, and that if restored to his rights by Irish aid, they should be absolutely repealed, “but all those against appeals to Rome and Praemunire must stand.”
Ormond, feeling the difficulty of his position as a Protestant native of Ireland with many connections amongst the gentry of the Pale, and, perhaps, also, through a belief that the King would conduct the negotiations without him, wrote offering to send his resignation, but Charles would not hear of it, and urged him to complete the treaty. While so many estimates have been formed of Ormond’s conduct and capacity at this juncture by Irish partisans, it may be useful to quote an English opinion. Gardiner, reviewing his conduct in these transactions says: “Of all living men Ormond was perhaps the least fitted to conduct that negotiation even to the temporary sense of which it was alone capable. His virtues and his defects alike stood in his way. He was too loyal to throw off his shoulders the load which Charles had placed upon them, but he was at the same time so completely wanting in initiative power that he never thought—as Strafford under similar circumstances would assuredly have thought—of suggesting a policy of his own, or even of criticising adversely the one imposed on him by his master. Yet it ought to have been evident to Ormond that an Irish army was not to be gained by haggling over the privileges to be accorded to the true Irish Parliament, and the true Irish Church.” Even if the 10,000 men had been really forthcoming, they would have been of little avail unless those Irishmen were heartily engaged in the King’s cause.
Before the Oxford negotiations were broken off Charles had had an opportunity of winning their confidence. The English Parliament urged Monroe to break the Cessation and sent him a commission as Commander-in-Chief of all the English as well as the Scottish forces in Ulster. He complied with their orders, seized Belfast, and defeated Castlehaven’s army sent against him by the Supreme Council, who offered to place all their forces under Ormond’s command if he would unite with them against the Scots. Ormond refused to do so without the King’s positive order, and at that time, Charles withheld. No doubt he was afraid to take a step which would have cost him most of his army in England; “But what,” says Gardiner, “is to be thought of a policy which based itself on the co-operation of an Irish army in England when it was impossible to grant to the Irish the co-operation of an English army in Ireland?”
The King was apparently also sensible that some other intermediary than Ormond would be needed to bring about the only end he had in view—the strengthening of his army by any means against the Parliament. He soon found, or, rather, had ready to his hand, one far more likely than Ormond to come to speedy terms with the Confederate Catholics, and we accordingly approach the consideration of a series of transactions in which the King’s conduct has provided a fertile theme for discussion Whatever may be thought of his mode of conducting these negotiations, there is no doubt that nothing in his whole career injured him so much in English opinion or contributed more certainly to his tragic end.
When the Irish agents were at Oxford Charles had already been discussing his chances of Irish aid with Lord Herbert of Raglan, the Catholic son of the Marquis of Worcester. He and his father had generously placed their great wealth at the disposal of the King who had but lately acknowledged having received no less than £250,000 from them. He now conferred on Lord Herbert the title of Earl of Glamorgan by warrant, but in order to keep the whole transaction private, though the warrant was presented at the Signet Office, no steps were taken to render it valid by patent. Glamorgan offered—and his offer was eagerly accepted by the King—to induce the Confederates to enter into a private treaty for bringing over the 10,000 men on terms more liberal than Ormond was authorized to grant, he was also to bring 6,000 from Wales, and as many as he could get from Lorraine and the Low Countries to Lynn in Norfolk, where the Parliament’s Commander was ready to betray his post. Glamorgan, sanguine of success, was to be the Commander-in-Chief of the whole of this Catholic army. He chiefly relied on the Pope and other Catholic princes whom he expected to eagerly support a scheme from which the Church was to reap many advantages. The Commission to Glamorgan was issued without the Great Seal, but he soon overcame that difficulty. Any seal was good enough to show to Irish Confederates and foreign courts, and it is believed that he and Endymion Porter cut off a genuine seal from some other document. Charles, completely won over by the assurances of Glamorgan that he would soon be furnished with the means of overcoming all his difficulties, was ready to confer the highest honours. He offered the hand of the Princess Elizabeth to Glamorgan’s eldest son, and conferred on Glamorgan the higher title of Duke of Somerset, though in the case of this title also, the legal formalities were for the present avoided. Though Charles so highly appreciated Glamorgan’s enthusiasm, he apparently did not credit him with much discretion. In writing to Ormond that Glamorgan was about to visit Ireland on his own private affairs, he added, “His honesty or affection to my service will not deceive you, but I will not answer for his judgment.”
Ormond was fully aware of the King’s resolve to conclude peace with the Confederates on Muskerry’s conditions, and it was for this reason he had tried to shift the responsibility for complying with them to some one directly from England. Charles, as we have seen, refused to accept his resignation, but he now sent Glamorgan to persuade those of the Confederates who were opposed to peace on Muskerry’s terms, and to assure them that the penal laws, though unrepealed, would never be enforced. Charles desired that Glamorgan should be guided in everything by the advice of Ormond, but so desperately resolved was he on getting help from the Confederates, that he actually gave “the feather-brained Glamorgan a commission to succeed Ormond as Lord Lieutenant in the event of the death or misconduct of the latter; in other words, in the event of his persisting in his refusal to carry out the negotiation on the lines indicated by his last instructions.” At the same time it is evident that Charles did not think there was any likelihood of Ormond being replaced by Glamorgan, and that he counted rather on their working heartily together. “You may engage your estate, interest and credit,” he instructed Glamorgan, “that we will most readily and punctually perform any our promises to the Irish, and as it is necessary to conclude a peace suddenly, whatsoever shall be consented unto by our Lieutenant the Marquis or Ormond, we will die a thousand deaths rather than disannul or break it; and if upon necessity anything to be condescended unto, and yet the Lord Marquis not willing to be seen therein or not fit for us publicly to own, do you endeavour to supply the same.” Taken in conjunction with the instructions to Ormond, it is plain that Glamorgan was to act with him, but with powers to give the Confederates those assurances which Ormond as a Protestant Royalist might not feel himself free to give, that the penal laws would be suspended until peace was declared and repealed as soon as Charles’s restoration to power would make it safe for him to do so.
On January 6, 1645, Charles issued a Commission under the Great Seal to Glamorgan to levy troops not only in Ireland but on the Continent, and this was followed on the 12th by a letter to him in which the King said, “So great is the confidence we repose in you, as that whatsoever you shall perform, as warranted under our signature, pocket signet, or private mark, or even by word of mouth, without further ceremony, we do on the word of a King and a Christian, promise to make good to all intents and purposes as effectually as if your authority from us had been under the Great Seal of England, with this advantage that we shall esteem ourselves the more obliged to you for your gallantry in not standing upon such nice terms to do us service, which we shall, God willing, reward.... Proceed, therefore, cheerfully, speedily, and boldly, and for your doing so this shall be your sufficient warrant.”