1644.] OF THE MARQUIS OF WORCESTER. 69 



CHAPTER VI. 



LORD HERBERT CREATED EARL OF GLAMORGAN. 

 IRISH AFFAIRS. 



ALTHOUGH many successes had early attended the 

 Royalists arms, the chances of war in 1643 were inter 

 minably perplexing to all parties. The royal cause 

 was becoming desperate, and the King, never over 

 scrupulous, then endeavoured to obtain speedy assis 

 tance at all hazards. After taking the sacrament at 

 Oxford, in sacred repudiation of employing papists, yet 

 was he privately urging his generals to engage all who 

 would serve. The fact of the Marquis of Worcester 

 being of the proscribed religion was no obstacle to his 

 maintaining correspondence with him, personally com 

 municating with his son, and constantly draining their 

 fortunes and other resources. 



The impoverished monarch was at least liberal in 

 promises and niggardly in fulfilling even those referring 

 to mere dignities in acknowledgment of immense ser 

 vices, so long as farther demands might thereby possibly 

 be the better secured such was his insincerity in all 

 social relations, and such his intriguing policy in. all his 

 acts of sovereign power. 



At home the battle of Edge-hill had just been fought, 

 and in Ireland a rebellion had to be suppressed, and 

 troops to be raised to swell the royal army. The 

 King must have been much confounded how best to 

 conciliate friends and enemies, protestants and papists, 

 until he could fearlessly assert his claims in accordance 

 with his own construction of regal rights. 



