Ormonde does not adopt it.
Proposed treatment of Protestants.
Dublin cannot be taken.
Preston never really co-operated with O’Neill, but he joined him in making certain proposals to Ormonde in which the nuncio’s hand can be very clearly seen. The first was that the Roman Catholic religion should be exercised in every part of Ireland as in Paris or Brussels. The third was ‘that Dublin, Drogheda, Trim, Newry, Carlow, Carlingford, and all the garrisons within the Protestant quarters be garrisoned by the Confederate Catholics.’ They were to be held for the King, but only in name. ‘The madness of their propositions to you,’ Digby wrote to Ormonde after he had joined Clanricarde, ‘makes him almost despair of doing any good with Preston.’ Ormonde did not condescend to discuss the propositions at all, but contented himself with asking who composed the Council of the Confederates and by whose authority they were established. ‘These questions,’ says Bellings, pithily, ‘were too knotty to be resolved on the sudden, and therefore, as it is the custom in such cases, they were not answered.’ Four days later Clanricarde was at Tecroghan, near Trim, and at once opened communications with Preston. Safe-conducts were granted to him and Digby, but to the latter, who was still nominally Secretary of State, not without great difficulty. ‘I conjure you,’ said Ormonde, ‘(as you expect to serve our master, or his hereafter) not to venture any more among so faithless a generation, if you have any probable hope of getting away from thence. For, if I have any judgment, your coming will be fruitless.’ And fruitless it was. Two days later the Parliamentary commissioners reached Dublin, and O’Neill, probably fearing to be caught in a trap, threw an extempore bridge over the Liffey at Leixlip, collected his men by firing a gun, and passed them all over to the left bank. It was thought that Sir Phelim O’Neill, who was jealous of Owen Roe’s supremacy in Ulster and who had married Preston’s daughter, might be induced to join the latter. Digby’s plan was to make Clanricarde general, who would thus be in a position to make the best terms for his own Church, while loyally co-operating with the Lord Lieutenant. Preston and his friends bound themselves most solemnly to embrace the peace in consideration of such additional securities as Clanricarde undertook to procure. These included the repeal of the penal laws and enjoyment by Catholics of such churches and ecclesiastical possessions as they held at the conclusion of the peace, until a settlement by a free Irish Parliament, ‘his Majesty being in a free condition himself.’ To confirm these promises Clanricarde was to procure an engagement under the King’s hand as well as from the Queen and Prince of Wales and the French crown. The peace once concluded on these terms the Catholics were to be ‘forthwith invested in such commands by his Majesty’s authority, both in field and garrison, as may pass for a very sufficient part of the security.’ Ormonde was no party to this treaty, which could not be performed without his help, and he was not anxious for it after he had got rid both of O’Neill and the Parliamentary commissioners. Rinuccini’s influence was at work all the time, and it was insisted that the first thing should be the admission of a Prestonian garrison into Dublin. Ormonde insisted on the original peace being first accepted, and so the negotiations fell through. Digby thought that if Preston had been promptly dealt with he would have attacked O’Neill, but his judgment is not for a moment to be set against Ormonde’s. Preston was satisfied, and in a letter to the mayor and citizens of Kilkenny, urged the acceptance of Clanricarde’s terms. What the ultimate position of the Protestants would have been may be judged from this document. ‘We have,’ he said, ‘by the divine Providence, wrought the splendour of religion to that extension as from Bunratty to Dublin there is Catholic religion publicly professed and exercised, and from Waterford to the lower parts of Tyrone, and confined heresy in this province to Dublin, Drogheda, Dundalk, and Trim, these places which in four days will be garrisoned by my army, by God’s help; and then think you in what posture of religion these parts are in, for us and ours, having all penal laws against Catholics repealed; all in our own hands, churches and church livings secured till the King in a free Parliament declare the same for us; the government in the Catholics’ hands; petitions of right allowed the parties grieved; and, to make this good, our arms in our own hands.’ This was written under the impression that Dublin would soon be in his hands, though in the same letter he admits that he could not take it even with O’Neill’s help. Rinuccini and his council had already left the camp, and Preston’s officers were soon induced to break with Clanricarde on the ground that no concessions would be of any use without a garrison in Dublin. ‘That being denied did beget a desperation of future performances.’[103]
The popular tide turns against Rinuccini.
The Supreme Council released.
The Confederate constitution breaks down.
Officers not ‘excommunication-proof.’
Preston submits to the nuncio.
Ormonde in Westmeath.