[Sidenote: Charles II. repudiates the 'bloody Irish rebels,' Aug. 16.]
[Sidenote: The King's mother idolatrous.]
[Sidenote: And Ormonde's peace exceeding sinful.]
[Sidenote: Commissions to Cavaliers revoked.]
[Sidenote: Opinions of Clarendon, Carte, and Walker.]
On August 16, four days after the decree of excommunication was passed at Jamestown, an event happened in Scotland which was alone sufficient to destroy all Ormonde's plans. It is less famous and was less important than the Glamorgan treaty, but it shows that Charles was his father's son, and he even contrived to better the instruction. At Dunfermline on August 16, he was induced to sign a declaration in which he professed himself 'deeply humbled and afflicted in spirit before God' for his father's sin in opposing the Covenant, 'and for the idolatry of his mother, the toleration whereof in the King's house, as it was matter of great stumbling to all the Protestant churches, so could it not but be a high provocation against Him who is a jealous God, visiting the sins of the father upon the children.' He further declared his conscientious conviction of the 'exceeding great sinfulness and unlawfulness of that treaty and peace made with the bloody Irish rebels, who treacherously shed the blood of so many of his faithful and loyal subjects in Ireland.' For the future he would prefer affliction to sin, and employ no one who had not taken the Covenant; and he 'recalled all commissions given to any such persons.' The baseness of this declaration can hardly be matched in our history, but George IV. tried to emulate it when he authorised Mr. Fox to inform the House of Commons that he was not married to Mrs. Fitzherbert. Clarendon can only say that Charles was 'absolutely forced to consent' and other apologists take the same line, but Carte, with all his royalism, was not deceived by sophistry of this kind. He makes every allowance for Charles's youth and difficulties, but with the scathing reflection that 'if a man once gets over his natural magnanimity he is afterwards fit for anything; and having done one mean thing, is capable of doing ten thousand.'[190]
[Sidenote: Charles had confirmed the peace.]
[Sidenote: Effect of Charles's declaration in Ireland.]