days after summons, bail being given for 40,000_l._, half on his own part and half on that of the Earls of Clanricarde and Kildare. Both the sureties had houses in Dame Street, where service was declared good. Glamorgan went back to Kilkenny, entering the town late 'to avoid the vanity' of popular demonstrations in his favour, and Rinuccini was rather sorry to see him, because his return removed one obstacle to the conclusion of peace. The interest of Rome was to continue the war, and the nuncio pleaded hard for delay, at least until the articles came to which the Pope had agreed.[84] [Sidenote: Mission of Sir Kenelm Digby.] [Sidenote: The Queen's religion.] [Sidenote: The broken reed to be sacrificed.] In the spring of 1645 Henrietta Maria sent Sir Kenelm Digby to Rome. The choice of this fantastic genius was not a happy one, and the cool-headed Italians soon found that he was not a serious diplomatist. He could show no authority from the King, and that derived from an exiled Queen, who was hated in England and not much loved in Ireland, hardly afforded security enough. He received an order for 20,000 Roman crowns to be laid out in munitions of war, and carried with him articles to which he undertook to get the royal consent. He left Rome in December for Paris, where he was to see the Queen. After that he proposed to visit the King in England and the nuncio in Ireland. He was at Nantes at the end of January and on the point of sailing for Ireland, but returned to Paris instead, whence he made his way back to Rome a few months later. 'Let him say what he will,' wrote Bonaventure Barron to Wadding, 'this is certainly true that excepting going to mass, the Queen has no other religion than the Lord Jermyn's, and that both are all agreeing in this, that while there is any hope of relieving the King by a Protestant, a Catholic shall never be admitted to his succour, and while they think the Scots can do it, the Irish shall never be admitted to a communication in the work, much less to any good conditions for our nation, which is equally hated by the King, Parliament, Scots, Queen, and Jermyn.' This was written in May, after Charles had left Oxford on that sad journey which ended in the Scotch camp, but the learned Franciscan was well informed, and had perhaps seen some of the letters received by the Queen. In January the King had told his wife that Ireland 'must at all times be sacrificed to save the crown of England, Montreuil assuring me that France, rather than fail, will assist me in satisfying the Scots' arrears.' His later letters to her are in the same spirit, and with some reason from his own point of view, he declares the Irish wanting in generosity. Colepepper about the same time pronounced Ireland to be a broken reed, and the same simile was applied at Rome to the heretics upon whom King and Queen alike were disposed to lean.[85] [Sidenote: Sir Kenelm Digby's treaty.] [Sidenote: Protestants to be excluded from office.]