upon by Lord Muskerry and General Preston, who brought him to Kilkenny Castle, where, in the great gallery, which elicited even a Florentine’s admiration, he was received in stately formality by the president of the council—­Lord Mountgarrett.  Another Latin oration on the nature of his embassy was delivered by the Nuncio, responded to by Heber, Bishop of Clogher, and so the ceremony of reception ended.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Darcy Magee, vol. ii. p.128.]

After a long time spent in negotiations, the celebrated Glamorgan treaty was signed by Ormond for the king, and Lord Muskerry and the other commissioners for the confederates.  It conceded, in fact, all the most essential claims of the Irish—­equal rights as to property, in the army, in the universities, and at the bar; gave them seats in both houses and on the bench; authorised a special commission of oyer and terminer, composed wholly of confederates; and declared that ’the independency of the parliament of Ireland on that of England’ should be decided by declaration of both houses ’agreeably to the laws of the kingdom of Ireland.’  In short, this final form of Glamorgan’s treaty gave the Irish Catholics, in 1646, all that was subsequently obtained, either for the church or the country, in 1782, 1793, or 1829.  ’Though some conditions were omitted, to which Rinuccini and a majority of the prelates attached importance, Glamorgan’s treaty was, upon the whole, a charter upon which a free church and a free people might well have stood, as the fundamental law of their religious and civil liberties.’

General O’Neill was greatly annoyed at these delays.  Political events in England swayed the destiny of Ireland then as now.  The poor vacillating, double-dealing king was delivered to the Puritans, tried, and executed.  But before Cromwell came to smash the confederation and everything papal in Ireland, the Irish chief gladdened the hearts of his countrymen by the glorious victory of Benburb, one of the most memorable in Irish history.

In a naturally strong position, the Irish, for four hours, received and repulsed the various charges of the Puritan horse.  Then as the sun began to descend, pouring its rays upon the enemy, O’Neill led his whole force—­five thousand men against eight—­to the attack.  One terrible onset swept away every trace of resistance.  There were counted on the field 3,243 of the Covenanters, and of the Catholics but 70 killed and 100 wounded.  Lord Ardes, and 21 Scottish officers, 32 standards, 1,500 draught horses, and all the guns and tents, were captured.  Monroe fled to Lisburn and thence to Carrickfergus, where he shut himself up till he could obtain reinforcements.  O’Neill forwarded the captured colours to the Nuncio at Limerick, by whom they were solemnly placed in the choir of St. Mary’s Cathedral, and afterwards, at the request of Pope Innocent, sent to Rome.  The Te Deum was chanted in the confederate capital; penitential psalms were sung in the northern fortresses.  ‘The Lord of Hosts,’ wrote Monroe, ‘has rubbed shame on our faces till once we are humbled.’  O’Neill emblazoned the cross and keys on his banner with the Red Hand of Ulster, and openly resumed the title originally chosen by his adherents at Clones, ‘the Catholic Army.’