peremptory, and was in form obeyed. The Earl, Lord Butler, the council, and the deputy met in Dublin. Lord Leonard had called the Butlers traitors he was required to prove his words; and he and Ormond brought forward their respective charges in writing.[1] The arbitrators, under Cromwell's direction, decided that on both sides the accusations should be dropped. The Earl and his son should swear to serve in future loyally under the deputy; the deputy should accept the Butlers as faithful subjects. August.The proud noble men consented with haughty reluctance. They shook hands, and there was outward peace. But it was a peace which was ill founded and ill cemented. The Irish confederacy remained, though the personal quarrel was at an end. If on each side there had been faults of manner, the essence and reality of the fault had been confined to one. Ormond was a loyal nobleman and a sensible man. The conduct of Grey can be interpreted only as rising out of treachery, or from a folly which approached insanity. The Master of the Rolls, in reporting to Cromwell the result of the meeting, assured him, again and again, that the Earl had been entirely correct in his account of the expedition into the west that the reconciliation could not be of long endurance; and that if the King desired an effective administration of Ireland, he must recall Lord Leonard Grey.[2]
- ↑ State Papers, vol. iii. pp. 74–82.
- ↑ 'We have communed with the Earl of Ormond and his son for proof of their book; they say the most part of the matter is so notorious that it needeth no further proof. But we must be plain to your lordship that, as far as we can perceive, this agreement will not long endure
