[Sidenote: Charles lays down conditions of peace,]
A few days after giving Glamorgan his instructions, Charles wrote to Ormonde defining clearly the extreme point of his possible concessions to the Roman Catholics. He promised that 'the penal statutes should not be put into execution, the peace being made and they remaining in their due obedience. And further that when the Irish give me that assistance which they have promised, for the suppressing of this rebellion, and I shall be restored to my rights, then I will consent to the repeal of them by a law. But all those against appeals to Rome and _Præmunire_ must stand.' A month later the orders were that Ormonde should hasten the peace upon the terms already granted, but that if he could not do so he was to avoid a rupture and to continue the cessation. Only three days later came a 'command to conclude a peace with the Irish, whatever it cost, so that my Protestant subjects there may be secured and my regal authority preserved.' Charles said he would not think it a hard bargain if the Irish could be heartily engaged on his side in England or Scotland, upon condition of repealing the penal laws at once, and of suspending Poynings' Act for that and kindred purposes. But he did not tell Ormonde whether he still considered the statutes against foreign ecclesiastical jurisdiction part of his 'regal authority,' and he directed him to 'make the best bargain he could, and not to discover his enlargement of power till he needs must.' The King's position remained substantially unaltered during the spring and early summer, but four days after Naseby he told Ormonde that Irish help was more necessary than ever. 'If,' he wrote, 'within two months you could send me a considerable assistance, I am confident that both my last loss would be soon forgotten, and likewise it may (by the grace of God) put such a turn to my affairs, as to make me in a far better condition before winter than I have been at any time since the rebellion began.' The Lord Lieutenant was to conclude the peace as quickly as possible, and then to come over himself at the head of an army. The course of events was destined to be very different.[71]
[Sidenote: Glamorgan in Ireland. August 1645.]