tion, but the subjugation of the three kingdoms to the faith of Rome.' This would be even more incredible than the king's employment, the previous year, of Glamorgan as a secret rival to Ormond was pronounced to be by Mr. Gardiner himself." So much for the charge of intriguing behind Ormond's back. But what of the statement that Charles wished to join Glamorgan and the Nuncio ? 3 If he thought of fleeing, it was to France. Yet this is 1 "The Nuncio was of opinion that under the conduct of so zealous a Catholic as the Earl, a way would be opened for exterminating the Protestant religion from Ireland and the conversion of the king, if he should come thither; or at least for transporting a strong and faithful army out of Ireland into England; by the junction of which with the English Catholics, his Majesty might be restored, and the Catholic religion triumph over the Protestants in England and Scotland, who were extremely divided among themselves" (Inquiry, p. 253, from Nuncio's Memoirs, fo. 1,376, where the Latin runs: "ad hæresim tota Ibernia eliminandam " "fides catholica in Anglia quoque et Scotia de hæreticis inter se discordibus triumpharet"). It would be to nourish these hopes that the Newcastle letter was concocted (if, as I suggest, it was forged). It was meant to illustrate, for Glamorgan's purpose, what the memoirs term "the confidence in his Lordship testified by his Majesty in his letters to him (Ibid.). 2 << "Ormond is to drive as good a bargain as he can. Is it to be supposed that he [Charles] was at the same time privately authorising Glamorgan to purchase a peace at any price?" (E. H. R., II. 700). “That he [Glamorgan] had any secret instructions to abandon the Acts of Appeal and Præmunire is an idea which may be rejected as incredible " (History, II. 174). 3 The Pope, it is said, shed tears on receiving a copy of this letter, from which it would seem that, if I am right, Glamorgan succeeded in hoaxing, not only the Nuncio, but the Pope. "On the 8th (July) he wrote to Ashburnham that he not the evidence on which I take my stand. At this period we read (of the king's objects) : It was Charles' firm conviction that he was dividing his enemies by his policy.1 Now if there was one step by which he would instantly, infallibly, compel those enemies to unite, it would be by throwing himself into the arms of the Nuncio and Glamorgan. The Scots, the army, the English Presbyterians would present an unbroken front. And they would be joined even by others at a time when all English parties were resolutely opposed to every idea which had found favour at Kilkenny.2 Nay, in Ireland itself, not only the Presbyterians, but Ormond and his Council, were unshakeably hostile to the Nuncio and all his schemes. Charles at the worst was no fool: he was perfectly aware that such a step would destroy his last chance of recovering, as he hoped, his kingdoms. It would be the act of a madman. And it would, moreover, have been useless. How could Charles, even if he sacrificed all his believed himself to be lost unless he could escape to France before August" (History, III. 132). Glamorgan and the Nuncio drew up (according to the latter's memoirs) a reply to the alleged letter of 20 July, urging Charles to come, as it suggested, to Ireland. 1 History, III. 140. 2 Ibid. p. 162. At the moment of returning this proof for press I find that Charles, in his letters to the queen (19 Aug., 31 Aug., 7 Sept. 1646) assures her that even Ormond's peace (which the Nuncio rejected) would "infallibly" hamper his nego tiations in England (Add. MS. 28,857). other supporters, hope to gain the Nuncio and his followers, when he had made it, Mr. Gardiner admits, a point of honour and of conscience never to grant those two concessions on which the Nuncio had inexorably insisted throughout as the minimum price of his support. His stubborn insistence on these concessions culminated in the rejection of the treaty between Ormond and the Supreme Council (12 Aug. 1646), because it did not contain them, and in his arrest of the Council's leaders. As for Glamorgan, he had “surrendered himself body and soul to the Nuncio, swearing by all the saints that he would obey every one of his commands and would never do anything contrary to his honour and good pleasure.' Charles, on the other hand, had firmly declared (31 July 1645) that he would "rather chuse to suffer all extremity than ever to" make these concessions, and had privately assured the queen (March 1646) that he could never hope " to enjoy God's blessing" if he did. Mr. Gardiner observes that "it was hopeless to expect him to change his mind," and that though "there is always something arbitrary in the selection of a limit to concession, that limit had now been reached by Charles.' How then could he hope for the Nuncio's help? Has Mr. Gardiner even asked himself how the king could "pawn" his kingdoms ? Or whether he would do so in this manner? Or whether he 1 See History, III. 39, 40. 3 Ibid. p. 52. 6 History, II. 174. 2 Ibid. pp. 156, 159. 7 Ibid. III. 34. wished to take a step which meant his instant ruin? Apparently not. He finds a letter in 'Dircks' (which is merely taken from Birch's Inquiry, where it is retranslated from a Latin translation found in the Nuncio's Memoirs), and accepting its evidence without question as that of an original authority, he charges the king with a stupid treachery at obvious variance with all the facts as given even in his own History. When shall we learn, in England, how to use our evidence? If one document is as good as another, if their critical treatment is deemed needless, vain is the writer's talent, and vain the student's toil. X The Abeyance of the Barony of Mowbray SEVERAL points of great interest to the student of Peerage law were raised in the Mowbray and Segrave case decided in 1877. But on the present occasion I do not propose to call attention to more than one-the alleged determination, in some way or other,' in favour of the Howard co-heir, of the abeyance into which the baronies of Mowbray and Segrave had fallen in the 15th century. She Anne, the child-heiress of the Mowbrays, dukes of Norfolk, was an infant of three years old at her father's death (1476) and affianced to a son of Edward IV. (one of "the princes in the Tower"), who was thereupon created earl of Nottingham, and subsequently duke of Norfolk. died in tender years, leaving the succession to the baronies and vast estates of her house open to the heirs of her relatives, Isabel and Margaret, wives respectively of James Lord Berkeley and Sir Robert Howard. Now these ladies were the daughters of the first duke of Norfolk, son of John Lord Mowbray, by his marriage with the |