[Footnote 1:  Though he had quarter given and life promised, Coote ordered him to be hanged.  Yet it was by MacMahon’s persuasion that O’Neil in the preceding year had saved Coote by raising the siege of Londonderry.—­Clarendon, Short View, &c., in vol. viii. 145-149.  But Coote conducted the war like a savage.  See several instances at the end of Lynch’s Cambresis Eversus.]

[Footnote 2:  See Castlehaven’s Memoirs, 120-124; and Carte’s Ormond, ii. 116.]

[Footnote 3:  Heath, 267, 370.  Whitelock, 457, 459, 463, 464, 469.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1650.  June 18.] [Sidenote a:  A.D. 1650.  June 25.]

the conquerors in the field, had been engaged in a long and irritating controversy with those of the Catholic leaders who distrusted his integrity, and with the townsmen of Limerick and Galway, who refused to admit his troops within their walls.  Misfortune had put an end to his authority; his enemies remarked that whether he were a real friend or a secret foe, the cause of the confederates had never prospered under his guidance; and the bishops conjured him,[a] now that the very existence of the nation was at stake, to adopt measures which might heal the public dissensions and unite all true Irishmen in the common defence.  Since the loss of Munster by the defection of Inchiquin’s forces, they had entertained an incurable distrust of their English allies; and to appease their jealousy, he dismissed the few Englishmen who yet remained in the service.  Finding them rise in their demands, he called a general assembly at Loughrea, announced his intention, or pretended intention, of quitting the kingdom; and then, at the general request, and after some demur, consented to remain.  Hitherto the Irish had cherished the expectation that the young monarch would, as he had repeatedly promised, come to Ireland, and take the reins of government into his hands; they now, to their disappointment, learned that he had accepted the invitation of the Scots, their sworn and inveterate enemies.  In a short time, the conditions to which he had subscribed began to transpire; that he had engaged to annul the late pacification between Ormond and the Catholics, and had bound himself by oath,[b] not only not to permit the exercise of the Catholic worship, but to root out the Catholic religion wherever it existed in any of his dominions.  A general gloom and despondency prevailed; ten bishops and

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1650.  March 28.] [Sidenote b:  A.D. 1650.  August 6.]

ten clergymen assembled at James-town, and their first resolve was to depute[a] two of their number to the lord lieutenant, to request that he would put in execution his former design of quitting the kingdom, and would leave his authority in the hands of a Catholic deputy possessing the confidence of the nation.  Without, however, waiting for his answer, they proceeded to frame[b] a declaration, in which they charged Ormond with negligence, incapacity, and perfidy; protested