terms, but Rinuccini made it an indispensable condition that all future viceroys should be Roman catholics, and that the bishops of his church should be peers of parliament—things which no king of England would have power to grant. The Anglo-Irish nobility adhered to Ormonde. But Rinuccini was resolved to abandon the king rather than postpone any of the church's claims. He consequently quarrelled with the Irish catholic royalists. On 28 March 1646 peace was concluded between Ormonde and the catholic confederates. In May Rinuccini went to Limerick, taking credit for having ‘adroitly prevented’ the despatch of ten thousand Irish infantry to Charles in England, and set to work to annul the treaty with Ormonde.
In Owen Roe O'Neill [q. v.], the Ulster leader, whose nationalist and catholic sympathies were more pronounced than those of the confederates, Rinuccini found a thorough-paced supporter; and, after O'Neill's great victory over the Scottish supporters of the English government at Benburb on 5 June, Rinuccini supplied him with funds, and accompanied him to the siege of Bunratty, which surrendered in July. Rinuccini then went to Waterford. Ormonde's peace was proclaimed at Dublin on 30 July, and accepted by the supreme council at Kilkenny; but Rinuccini and the clerical party procured its rejection by Limerick, Waterford, and other towns (Confederation and War, vi. 126). Rinuccini held an ecclesiastical congregation at Waterford, where, on 12 Aug., all confederate catholics adhering to the peace were declared perjured, because they had not obtained for their church such terms as they were bound to by their oath of association. Rinuccini's victory cost him a severe reprimand from Rome for exceeding his instructions. The pope and cardinals ‘never intended to maintain the Irish rebels against the king, but simply to assist them in obtaining the assurance of the free exercise of the catholic religion in Ireland’ (Embassy, p. 580).
Nevertheless, Rinuccini returned to Kilkenny in triumph, accompanied by the Spanish agent, who had advanced money for the use of O'Neill's Ulster army. The papal nuncio imprisoned most of the supreme council, and assumed the direction of affairs. He excommunicated all adherents of the peace (Clarendon, Ireland, p. 25). With the subservient remnant of the council he went to Kilkea Castle in Kildare, in the fond hope of procuring a joint attack by the Leinster and Ulster armies on Dublin, where Ormonde was; but the dissensions between O'Neill, the commander of the latter, and Preston, the commander of the former, and between Preston and Rinuccini, caused the plot to fail (Castlehaven, p. 69). Ormonde refused to listen to Rinuccini's extravagant demands (cf. Clarendon, Ireland, p. 25), and opened communications with the parliamentary authorities at Westminster for the surrender of Dublin to them.
Rinuccini's plan was to confer the vice-royalty on the catholic Lord Glamorgan, who was now a tool in his hands (Embassy, p. 205) [see Somerset Edward, second Marquis of Worcester]. But the native Irish cared nothing for an English sovereign or his viceroy, while the Anglo-Irish preferred Ormonde to an English ultramontane. Rinuccini now demanded in behalf of Irish catholics, not only the abolition of penal laws and the free exercise of his religion throughout Ireland, but also that all the property that had passed into the hands of the Roman catholic secular clergy should be enjoyed ‘in as full and ample a manner as the protestant clergy lately enjoyed it’ (Embassy, p. 585). The property of the regulars was reserved for future consideration, because faithful catholics were quite as unwilling as the heretics to disgorge abbey lands. In Rinuccini's opinion these impropriations were the church's real difficulty, for it was thought that the clergy designed to take them back. ‘I speak,’ he said, ‘promise, preach to the contrary, but not one of them believes me’ (ib. p. 322).
The general assembly of the confederates met once more at Kilkenny in January 1646–1647. Rinuccini promised the continued help of the holy see to Ireland, and begged them to be guided by his advice. There was a great deal of angry talk throughout the session, but the clergy under Rinuccini dominated the proceedings (Confederation and War, vi. 177). In other matters Rinuccini was less successful. The quarrel between Preston and O'Neill continued. Ormonde, whom Rinuccini detested, prepared to surrender Dublin to the English parliament. Subsequently Rinuccini procured the election of a new supreme council, of which twenty members out of twenty-four were his adherents (Embassy, p. 264). In June he and his council went to Clonmel to support Glamorgan, whom they had made general of the Munster army in place of Donogh MacCarthy, second viscount Muskerry [see under MacCarthy, Donogh, fourth Earl of Clancarty]; but officers and soldiers declared for their old chief. Inchiquin, who was then supporting the parliamentary cause, was carrying all before him in Munster, and the net was evidently closing round Rinuccini and the confederacy. From
