amounted to an assumption of the sovereign authority, they were careful to convey to the king new assurances of their devotion to his person, and to state to him reasons in justification of their conduct.  Their former messengers, though Protestants of rank and acknowledged loyalty, had been arrested, imprisoned, and, in one instance at least, tortured by order of their enemies.  They now adopted a more secure channel of communication, and transmitted their petitions through the hands of the commander-in-chief.  In these the supreme council detailed a long list of grievances which they prayed might be redressed.  They repelled with warmth the imputation of disloyalty or rebellion.  If they had taken up arms, they had been compelled by a succession of injuries beyond human endurance, of injuries in their religion, in their

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1642.  Oct. 1.]

honour and estates, and in the liberties of their country. Their enemies were the enemies of the king.

The men who had sworn to extirpate them from their native soil were the same who sought to deprive him of his crown.  They therefore conjured him to summon a new parliament in Ireland, to allow them the free exercise of that religion which they had inherited from their fathers, and to confirm to Irishmen their national rights, as he had already done to his subjects of England and Scotland.[1]

The very first of these petitions, praying for a cessation of arms, had suggested a new line of policy to the king.[2] He privately informed the marquess of Ormond of his wish to bring over a portion of his Irish army that it might be employed in his service in England; required him for that purpose to conclude[a] an armistice with the insurgents, and sent to him instructions for the regulation of his conduct.  This despatch was secret; it was followed by a public warrant; and that was succeeded by a peremptory command.  But much occurred to retard the object, and irritate the impatience of the monarch.  Ormond, for his own security, and the service of his sovereign, deemed it politic to assume a tone of superiority, and to reject most of the demands of the confederates, who, he saw, were already divided into parties, and influenced by opposite counsels.  The ancient Irish and the clergy, whose efforts were directed by Scaramp, a papal envoy, warmly opposed the project.  Their enemies, they observed, had been reduced to extreme distress; their victorious army under Preston made daily inroads to the very gates of the capital.  Why should they descend from the vantage-ground which they had

[Footnote 1:  Carte, iii. 110, 111, 136.]

[Footnote 2:  Carte, iii. 90.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1643.  April 23.]

gained? why, without a motive, resign the prize when it was brought within their reach?  It was not easy to answer their arguments; but the lords of the pale, attached through habit to the English government, anxiously longed for an armistice as the preparatory step to a peace.  Their exertions prevailed.  A cessation of arms was concluded[a] for twelve months; and the confederates, to the surprise of their enemies, consented to contribute towards the support of the royal army the sum of fifteen thousand pounds in money, and the value of fifteen thousand pounds in provisions.[1]