ABSTRACT
In early January 1644 Leicester was visited by George Lord Digby, the son of the Earl of Bristol, and asked to subscribe to a letter from the king's supporters then at Oxford to the Scottish Privy Council, aimed at preventing the Covenanters' impending military assistance for the Long Parliament. But, having been excluded from the prior discussions, his reply of 18 January eloquently expressed his own mounting frustration and political isolation:
Having not had the honour to be called to the consultation, not to know anything of the business till the deliberation was passed and the resolution taken, I have wanted the opportunity which others had to present such doubts as peradventure the Lords would have been pleased to allow or satisfy ... I have now no way so modest to express as by desiring humbly the liberty of excusing myself from the subscription, wherein the name of so inconsiderable a person as I am cannot be missed ...
