Note 320 — Chapter X

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.