The rebellion in Ulster had almost collapsed before the end of the year. The tens of thousands who had rushed to the standard of Sir P. O'Neill were now reduced to a number of weak and disorganised collections of armed men taking shelter in the woods. The English garrisons scoured the neighbouring counties with little opposition, and where they met any they gave no quarter. Sir William Cole, ancestor of the Earl of Enniskillen, proudly boasted of his achievement in having 7,000 of the rebels famished to death within a circuit of a few miles of his garrison. Lord Enniskillen is an excellent landlord, but the descendants of the remnant of the natives on his estate do not forget how the family obtained its wealth and honours. The Government, however, seemed to have good reason to congratulate itself that the war was over with the Irish. To these Sir Phelim O'Neill had shown that there is something in a name: but if the name does not represent real worth and fitness for the work undertaken, it is but a shadow. It was so in Sir Phelim's O'Neill's case. Though he had courage, he was a poor general. But another hero of the same name soon appeared to redeem the honour of his race, and to show what the right man can do. At a moment when the national cause seemed to be lost, when the Celtic population in Ulster were meditating a wholesale emigration to the Scottish Highlands—'a word of magic effect was whispered from the sea-coast to the interior.' Colonel Owen Roe O'Neill had arrived off Donegal with a single ship, a single company of veterans, 100 officers, and a quantity of ammunition. He landed at Doe Castle, proceeded to the fort of Charlemont, met the heads of the clans at Clones in Monaghan, was elected general-in-chief of the Catholic forces, and at once set about organising an army. The Catholics of the whole kingdom had joined a confederation, which held its meetings at Kilkenny. A general assembly was convened for October 23, 1642. The peerage was represented by fourteen lords and eleven bishops. Generals were appointed for each of the other provinces, Preston for Leinster, Barry for Munster, and Burke for Connaught. With the Anglo-Irish portion of the confederacy the war was Catholic, and the object religious liberty. With them there was no antipathy or animosity to the English. There was the Pope's Nuncio and his party, thinking most of papal interests, and there was the national party, who had been, or were likely to be, made landless. The king, then at Oxford, was importuned by the confederation on the one side and the Puritans on the other; one petitioning for freedom of worship, the other for the suppression of popery. Pending these appeals there was a long cessation between the Irish belligerents.
Ormond had amused the confederates with negotiations for a permanent peace and settlement, from spring till midsummer, when Charles, dissatisfied with these endless delays, dispatched to Ireland a more hopeful ambassador. This was Herbert, Earl of Glamorgan, one of the few Catholics remaining among the English nobility, son and heir to the Marquis of Worcester, and son-in-law to Henry O'Brien, Earl of Thomond. Of a family devoutly attached to the royal cause, to which it is said they had contributed not less than 200,000l., Glamorgan's religion, his rank, his Irish connections, the intimate confidence of the king which he was known to possess, all marked out his embassy as one of the utmost importance.
The earl arrived in Dublin about August 1, and, after an interview with Ormond, proceeded to Kilkenny. On the 28th of that month, preliminary articles were agreed to and signed by the earl on behalf of the king, and by Lords Montgarrett and Muskerry on behalf of the confederates. It was necessary, it seems, to get the concurrence of the Viceroy to these terms, and accordingly the negotiators on both sides repaired to Dublin. Here Ormond contrived to detain them ten long weeks in discussions on the articles relating to religion; it was the 12th of November when they returned to Kilkenny, with a much modified treaty. On the next day, the 13th, the new Papal Nuncio, a prelate who, by his rank, his eloquence, and his imprudence, was destined to exercise a powerful influence on the Catholic councils, made his public entry into that city.
This personage was John Baptist Rinuccini, Archbishop of Fermo in the marches of Ancona, which see he had preferred to the more exalted dignity of Florence.
From Limerick, borne along on his litter, such was the feebleness of his health, he advanced by slow stages to Kilkenny, escorted by a guard of honour, despatched on that duty by the supreme council.
The pomp and splendour of his public entry into the Catholic capital was a striking spectacle. The previous night he slept at a village three miles from the city, for which he set out early on the morning of November 13, escorted by his guard and a vast multitude of the people. Five delegates from the supreme council accompanied him. A band of fifty students, mounted on horseback, met him on the way, and their leader, crowned with laurel, recited some congratulatory Latin verses. At the city gate he left the litter and mounted a horse richly housed; here the procession of the clergy and the city guilds awaited him: at the market cross, a Latin oration was delivered in his honour, to which he graciously replied in the same language. From the cross he was escorted to the cathedral, at the door of which he was received by the aged bishop, Dr. David Rothe. At the high altar he intonated the Te Deum, and gave the multitude the apostolic benediction. Then he was conducted to his lodgings, where he was soon waited upon by Lord Muskerry and General Preston, who brought him to Kilkenny Castle, where, in the great gallery, which elicited even a Florentine's admiration, he was received in stately formality by the president of the council—Lord Mountgarrett. Another Latin oration on the nature of his embassy was delivered by the Nuncio, responded to by Heber, Bishop of Clogher, and so the ceremony of reception ended.[1]
After a long time spent in negotiations, the celebrated Glamorgan treaty was signed by Ormond for the king, and Lord Muskerry and the other commissioners for the confederates. It conceded, in fact, all the most essential claims of the Irish—equal rights as to property, in the army, in the universities, and at the bar; gave them seats in both houses and on the bench; authorised a special commission of oyer and terminer, composed wholly of confederates; and declared that 'the independency of the parliament of Ireland on that of England' should be decided by declaration of both houses 'agreeably to the laws of the kingdom of Ireland.' In short, this final form of Glamorgan's treaty gave the Irish Catholics, in 1646, all that was subsequently obtained, either for the church or the country, in 1782, 1793, or 1829. 'Though some conditions were omitted, to which Rinuccini and a majority of the prelates attached importance, Glamorgan's treaty was, upon the whole, a charter upon which a free church and a free people might well have stood, as the fundamental law of their religious and civil liberties.'
General O'Neill was greatly annoyed at these delays. Political events in England swayed the destiny of Ireland then as now. The poor vacillating, double-dealing king was delivered to the Puritans, tried, and executed. But before Cromwell came to smash the confederation and everything papal in Ireland, the Irish chief gladdened the hearts of his countrymen by the glorious victory of Benburb, one of the most memorable in Irish history.
In a naturally strong position, the Irish, for four hours, received and repulsed the various charges of the Puritan horse. Then as the sun began to descend, pouring its rays upon the enemy, O'Neill led his whole force—five thousand men against eight—to the attack. One terrible onset swept away every trace of resistance. There were counted on the field 3,243 of the Covenanters, and of the Catholics but 70 killed and 100 wounded. Lord Ardes, and 21 Scottish officers, 32 standards, 1,500 draught horses, and all the guns and tents, were captured. Monroe fled to Lisburn and thence to Carrickfergus, where he shut himself up till he could obtain reinforcements. O'Neill forwarded the captured colours to the Nuncio at Limerick, by whom they were solemnly placed in the choir of St. Mary's Cathedral, and afterwards, at the request of Pope Innocent, sent to Rome. The Te Deum was chanted in the confederate capital; penitential psalms were sung in the northern fortresses. 'The Lord of Hosts,' wrote Monroe, 'has rubbed shame on our faces till once we are humbled.' O'Neill emblazoned the cross and keys on his banner with the Red Hand of Ulster, and openly resumed the title originally chosen by his adherents at Clones, 'the Catholic Army.'