successors,
the title of protector royal, together with the chief civil authority and
the command of the forces, but under the obligation of restoring both, on
the payment of his expenses, to Charles Stuart, the rightful sovereign.[1]
There cannot be a doubt that each party sought to overreach the other.

Clanricard was surprised that he heard nothing from his agents, nothing
from the queen or the duke of Ormond. After a silence of several months, a
copy of the treaty[a] arrived. He read it with indignation; he asserted[b]
that the envoys had transgressed their instructions; he threatened to
declare them traitors by proclamation. But Charles had now arrived in Paris
after the defeat at Worcester, and was made acquainted[c] with the whole
intrigue. He praised the loyalty of the deputy, but sought to mitigate his
displeasure against the three agents, exhorted him to receive them again
into his confidence, and advised him to employ their services, as if the
treaty had never existed. To the duke of Lorrain he despatched[d] the
earl of Norwich, to object to the articles which bore most on the royal
authority, and to re-commence the negotiation.[2] But the unsuccessful
termination of the Scottish war taught that prince to look upon the project
as hopeless; while he hesitated, the court of Brussels obtained proofs that
he was intriguing with the French minister; and, to the surprise of Europe,
he was suddenly arrested in Brussels, and conducted a prisoner to Toledo in
Spain.[3]

Clanricard, hostile as he was to the pretensions of the duke of Lorrain,
had availed himself of the money

[Footnote 1: Clanricard, 34.]

[Footnote 2: Id. 36-41, 47, 50-54, 58. Also Ponce, 111-124.]

[Footnote 3: Thurloe, ii. 90, 115, 127, 136, 611.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. Oct. 12.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1651. Oct. 20.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1652. Feb. 10.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1652. March 23.]

received from that prince to organize a new force, and oppose every
obstacle in his power to the progress of the enemy. Ireton, who anticipated
nothing less than the entire reduction of the island, opened[a] the
campaign with the siege of Limerick. The conditions which he offered were
refused by the inhabitants, and, at their request, Hugh O'Neil, with three
thousand men, undertook the defence of the city, but with an understanding
that the keys of the gates and the government of the place should remain in
the possession of the mayor. Both parties displayed a va