ABSTRACT
The Roman Catholic historian John Lingard noted in Charles a habit of duplicity which had marked his conduct since his first entrance into public life. Once the civil war broke out, Charles tried to enlist both the Scots and the Irish to fight for him and gave diametrically opposite promises to them. Glamorgan in fact concluded a secret treaty with the Irish Catholics without informing the Marquis of Ormonde, who was the King’s official Lord Lieutenant in Ireland and was of course a Protestant. As Charles was a hereditary king, it is natural enough that light can be thrown on his character by noblemen and courtiers who knew him personally as well as by the insights that can be derived from letters that he wrote to his wife and son, the future Charles II, which have survived. But for Oliver less evidence is available.
