e 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]

[Footnote 1: Darcy Magee, vol. ii. p.128.]

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