in order to blacken
his conduct, reproached him with favoring that odious rebellion, and
exclaimed loudly against the terms of the cessation. They even went so
far as to declare it entirely null and invalid, because finished without
their consent; and in this declaration the Scots in Ulster, and the earl
of Inchiquin, a nobleman of great authority in Munster, professed
to adhere. By their means the war was still kept alive; but as the
dangerous distractions in England hindered the parliament from sending
any considerable assistance to their allies in Ireland, the marquis of
Ormond, lord lieutenant, being a native of Ireland, and a person endowed
with great prudence and virtue, formed a scheme for composing the
disorders of his country, and for engaging the rebel Irish to support
the cause of his royal master. There were many circumstances which
strongly invited the natives of Ireland to embrace the king's party. The
maxims of that prince had always led him to give a reasonable indulgence
to the Catholics throughout all his dominions; and one principal ground
of that enmity which the Puritans professed against him, was this tacit
toleration. The parliament, on the contrary, even when unprovoked, had
ever menaced the Papists with the most rigid restraint, if not a
total extirpation; and immediately after the commencement of the Irish
rebellion, they put to sale all the estates of the rebels, and had
engaged the public faith for transferring them to the adventurers, who
had already advanced money upon that security. The success, therefore,
which the arms of the parliament met with at Naseby, struck a just
terror into the Irish; and engaged the council of Kilkenny, composed of
deputies from all the Catholic counties and cities, to conclude a peace
with the marquis of Ormond.[**]

* 1643.

** 1646.

They professed to return to their duty and allegiance, engaged to
furnish ten thousand men for the support of the king's authority in
England, and were content with stipulating, in return, indemnity for
their rebellion, and toleration of their religion. Ormond, not doubting
but a peace, so advantageous and even necessary to the Irish, would be
strictly observed, advanced with a small body of troops to Kilkenny, in
order to concert measures for common defence with his new allies. The
pope had sent over to Ireland a nuncio, Rinuccini, an Italian; and this
man, whose commission empowered him to direct the spiritual conc