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But the general verdict of historians seems now to be, that Charles I., whose many good qualities as a man and a ruler are cheerfully admitted on all hands, was yet utterly deficient in downright good faith; that duplicity was his besetting sin; and that Glamorgan's embassy is one, but only one, of the strongest evidences of that ingrained duplicity.
January of 1646, according to the division of the year, arrived, and with it the heaviest cloud that had yet overshadowed Raglan. One day, about the middle of the month. Dorothy, entering lady Glamorgan's parlour, found it deserted. A moan came to her ears from the adjoining chamber, and there she found her mistress on her face on the bed. 'Madam, said Dorothy in terror, 'what is it?
The Papal Nuncio disowned it as insulting to the Church after Glamorgan's; the Roman Catholic clergy gathered round the Nuncio; there were riots wherever it was proclaimed; excommunications were thundered against its adherents; the Confederate Commissioners who had made the Treaty were imprisoned; the Nuncio himself became generalissimo, and, with Owen Roe O'Neile's army on one side of him and General Preston's on the other, declared war afresh against Ormond, and marched in his robes upon Dublin.
But the marquis was very unwilling she should leave him, and for his sake she concluded to remain. 'I am not long for this world, Dorothy, he said. 'Stay with me and see the last of the old man. The wind of death has got inside my tent, and will soon blow it out of sight. Lady Glamorgan's intention from the first had been to go to Ireland to her husband as soon as she could get leave.
Though some conditions were omitted, to which Rinuccini and a majority of the Prelates attached importance, Glamorgan's treaty was, upon the whole, a charter upon which a free church and a free people might well have stood, as the fundamental law of their religious and civil liberties.
In short, this final form of Glamorgan's treaty gave the Irish Catholics, in 1646, all that was subsequently obtained either for the church or the country, in 1782, 1793, or 1829.
In February came news of a foreign treaty made at Rome between Sir Kenelm Digby and the Pope's Ministers, most favourable to the English and Irish Catholics. On the 28th of March, a final modification of Glamorgan's articles, reduced to thirty in number, was signed by Ormond for the King, and Lord Muskerry and the other Commissioners for the Confederates.
When at length he was ushered into lady Glamorgan's parlour, where her mistress had desired her to receive him, both her ladyship and Dorothy were at once prejudiced in his favour. They saw a rather tall young man of five or six and twenty, with a small head, a clear grey eye, and a sober yet changeful countenance.
But as he had a better opinion of Glamorgan's zeal and affection for his service than of his capacity, he enjoined him to communicate all his measures to Ormond; and though the final conclusion of the treaty must be executed only in Glamorgan's own name, he was required to be directed in the steps towards it by the opinion of the lord lieutenant.
In short, this final form of Glamorgan's treaty gave the Irish Catholics, in 1646, all that was subsequently obtained either for the church or the country, in 1782, 1793, or 1829.
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