[Footnote 1:  Clanricard, 1-16.]

[Footnote 2:  Id. 31, 58.  It is certain from Clanricard’s papers that the treaty was not concluded till after the return of Taafe from Paris (p. 58).]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1651.  March 27.] [Sidenote b:  A.D. 1651.  July 11.] [Sidenote c:  A.D. 1651.  July 27.]

people and kingdom of Ireland, conferred on him, his heirs and successors, the title of protector royal, together with the chief civil authority and the command of the forces, but under the obligation of restoring both, on the payment of his expenses, to Charles Stuart, the rightful sovereign.[1] There cannot be a doubt that each party sought to overreach the other.

Clanricard was surprised that he heard nothing from his agents, nothing from the queen or the duke of Ormond.  After a silence of several months, a copy of the treaty[a] arrived.  He read it with indignation; he asserted[b] that the envoys had transgressed their instructions; he threatened to declare them traitors by proclamation.  But Charles had now arrived in Paris after the defeat at Worcester, and was made acquainted[c] with the whole intrigue.  He praised the loyalty of the deputy, but sought to mitigate his displeasure against the three agents, exhorted him to receive them again into his confidence, and advised him to employ their services, as if the treaty had never existed.  To the duke of Lorrain he despatched[d] the earl of Norwich, to object to the articles which bore most on the royal authority, and to re-commence the negotiation.[2] But the unsuccessful termination of the Scottish war taught that prince to look upon the project as hopeless; while he hesitated, the court of Brussels obtained proofs that he was intriguing with the French minister; and, to the surprise of Europe, he was suddenly arrested in Brussels, and conducted a prisoner to Toledo in Spain.[3]

Clanricard, hostile as he was to the pretensions of the duke of Lorrain, had availed himself of the money

[Footnote 1:  Clanricard, 34.]

[Footnote 2:  Id. 36-41, 47, 50-54, 58.  Also Ponce, 111-124.]

[Footnote 3:  Thurloe, ii. 90, 115, 127, 136, 611.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1651.  Oct. 12.] [Sidenote b:  A.D. 1651.  Oct. 20.] [Sidenote c:  A.D. 1652.  Feb. 10.] [Sidenote d:  A.D. 1652.  March 23.]

received from that prince to organize a new force, and oppose every obstacle in his power to the progress of the enemy.  Ireton, who anticipated nothing less than the entire reduction of the island, opened[a] the campaign with the siege of Limerick.  The conditions which he offered were refused by the inhabitants, and, at their request, Hugh O’Neil, with three thousand men, undertook the defence of the city, but with an understanding that the keys of the gates and the government of the place should remain in the possession of the mayor.  Both parties displayed a valour and obstinacy worthy of the prize for which they fought.