Note 544 — Chapter XIX
Reading edition
Nevertheless, Royalist hopes were unquenched as late as the month of September, 1645.
"If you consider," it is said in an anonymous letter of that date, in the State Paper Office, "the strange extremities we were then in, the progress which we have made, and our wonderful success at last in the relieving of Hereford and chasing away the Scots, at a time when, in my conscience, within one week there had been a general revolt of South Wales (which is now likely to be entirely settled), you will think that it promises to us and portends to the rebels a strange revolution in the whole face of affairs; and if to this you add the miracles done by the same time by my Lord Montrose, in Scotland (who hath made himself entirety master of that kingdom), you will have reason to join with me in the confidence, that we shall have, by God's blessing, as quick a progress to happiness as we have had to the greatest extremities. I must confess, for my part, that these miracles, besides the worldly joy they give me, have made me even a better Christian, by begetting in me a stronger faith and reliance upon God Almighty, than before; having manifested that it is wholly His work, and that He will bring about His intended blessings upon this just cause, by ways the most impossible to human understanding, and consequently teach us to cast off all reliance upon our own strength."
This letter is dated September the 9th, 1645, and is addressed to Lord Byron.