“I wonder, you are not yet gone for Ireland; but since you have stayed all this time, I hope these will overtake you, whereby you will the more see the great trust and confidence I repose in your integrity, of which I have had so long and so good experience; commanding you to deal with all ingenuity and freedom with our Lieutenant of Ireland the Marquis of Ormond, and on the word of a King and a Christian I will make good anything, which our Lieutenant shall be induced unto upon your persuasion; and if you find it fitting, you may privately show him these, which I intend not as obligatory to him, but to myself; and for both your encouragements and warrantise, in whom I repose my chiefest hopes, not having in all my kingdoms two such subjects; whose endeavours joining, I am confident to be soon drawn out of the mire, I am now enforced to wallow in; and then shall I show my thankfulness to you both; and as you have never failed me, so shall I never fail you, but in all things show how much I am... “Oxford the 12th of March, 1644.” The newly created Earl of Glamorgan was now just entering on what afterwards proved to be the most perilous period of his life. He no doubt felt the weighty importance of the duties he was undertaking, and one cannot help imagining that it was under a lively impression of the possible change in his fortune, which, whether for good or for evil, it was past human wisdom to divine, that he addressed the following most reverential letter to his honoured father, in August, 1644.[E] “MAY IT PLEASE YOUR LORDSHIP, “Amongst other memorable expressions which have taken deep root in my heart, I assure your Lordship, that those you were pleased to use towards me on Sunday last, shall never be defaced out of my memory; for you were pleased so to interlace terror and comfort, as that I knew not whether joy or fear possessed me most, or whether you showed more justice or clemency; but at last a tender fatherly affection appeared to steer your words and deeds which shall be, God willing, answered with a filial duty and tenderness, and your unparalleled goodness shall not, with God Almighty’s grace, undo, but strengthen me in my duty to God and your Lordship, with as much zeal and true-hearted devotion as can be witnessed, with the uttermost endeavours of thought, word, and deed, lying in the power and uttermost abilities which I can at any time attain unto, whose ambition is not greater to anything in this world than really and entirely to appear, my Lord, “Your Lordship’s most dutifully obedient son, “and most devoted servant, [Illustration: Ed. L. Herbert (autograph) afterwards 2nd Marquis of Worcester] “This 13th of August, 1644.”