rty. To prepare against
subsequent contingencies, and to leave the king what he termed "a
starting-hole," he had been careful to subjoin to his treaty a secret
article called a defeasance, stipulating that the sovereign should be no
further bound than he himself might think proper, after he had witnessed
the efforts of the Catholics in his favour; but that Glamorgan should
conceal this release from the royal knowledge till he had made every
exertion in his power to procure the execution of the treaty.[2] This
extraordinary instrument he now produced in his own vindication: the
council ordered him to be discharged upon bail for his appearance when it
might be required; and he[a] hastened under the approbation of the lord
lieutenant, to resume his negotiation with the Catholics at Kilkenny. He
found the general assembly divided into two parties. The clergy, with their
adherents, opposed the adoption of any peace in which the establishment of
the Catholic worship was not openly recognized; and their arguments were
strengthened by the recent imprisonment of Glamorgan, and the secret
influence of the papal nuncio Rinuccini, archbishop and prince of Fermo,
who had lately landed in Ireland. On the other hand, the members of the
council and the lords and gentlemen of the pale strenuously recommended the
adoption of one of the two expedients which have

[Footnote 1: Carte, iii. 445-448.]

[Footnote 2: Compare Carte, i. 551, with the Vindiciae, 17. Neither of
these writers gives us a full copy of the defeasance. In the Vindiciae
we are told that it was this which procured Glamorgan's discharge from
prison.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1646. Jan. 22.]

been previously mentioned, as offering sufficient security for the church,
and the only means of uniting the Protestant royalists in the same cause
with the Catholics. At the suggestion of the nuncio, the decision was
postponed to the month of May; but Glamorgan did not forget the necessities
of his sovereign; he obtained an immediate aid of six thousand men, and the
promise of a considerable reinforcement, and proceeded to Waterford for the
purpose of attempting to raise the siege of Chester. There, while he waited
the arrival of transports, he received the news of the public disavowal
of his authority by the king. But this gave him little uneasiness; he
attributed it to the real cause, the danger with which Charles was
threatened; and he had been already instructed "to make no other acc