Preston returned for answer, that he would receive no letters of his, or orders, but through the Supreme Council which he had sworn to obey. In such circumstances, what is an excommunication?

112. Reduced to this extremity, the Nuncio convened a National Synod, to assemble at Galway, August 15, hoping to make a powerful stand by means of the Sacraments, which be hoped the Clergy would refuse to all who opposed him!This was a formidable manœuvre; but the Council, aware of the design, ordered all civil Magistrates to intercept the Clergy on their way to Galway, and, if necessary, to retain them by force from assembling at so critical a time; and Lord Clanricard perceiving that the Nuncio studiously evaded some queries which he put to him relative to his spiritual power, and convinced that he was

• His Letter to Lord Clanricard, dated Galway, Aug. 2, 1648, demanding, on pain of excommunication, that the Provincial of the Franciscans, whom Clanricard had made prisoner, on a charge of high treason, should be enlarged, as being immediately subject to the Holy See, and Clanricard's reply, may be seen in Carve's Lyra, p. 341, &c,-Thess

not governed in his proceedings bona fide, marched directly to Galway, where he was, and laid siege to the town.

118. It was now that Father Reily, Vicar General of Dublin, intrigued with the Parliamentary General Jones, as already mentioned, to bring about a coalition between Owen Roe and the Parliament, against the Nobility and Gentry of his own communion, against every thing that was loyal and noble, and almost every man that had any genuine sense of virtue or religion in his Country!

Jones was far from being averse to this overture; he feared the expected arrival of Ormond from France; he wished to whet the swords of the Irish against each other; to destroy the undisciplined troops of Clanricard and Taafe, by the disciplined veterans of Owen Roe's more powerful army; and to overwhelm them all in the end. He therefore closed with

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Letters, and the queries annexed to them, being very scarce, and unknown to the editors of the folio edition, as well as of the 8vo. edition of Clanricard's Letters, shall be published in an Appendis.

Father Reily; and Owen Roe, having by this treaty secured the families and herds of his Ulster Creachts, marched to surprise Kilkenny, which by a treasonable correspondence between Father Reily and O'Ceanga, Guardian of the Franciscans, was to be betrayed, with Lord Muskerry, and the whole Catholic Council into his hands!

Most fortunately, Reily's letters were intercepted, as already mentioned; and the conspiracy being detected, and the Catholic Generals co-operating heartily with Inchiquin, O'Nial with great difficulty escaped, by forced marches, to the North.

Peace concluded between Ormond and the Catholics-and violated by the foreign-influenced Bishops.

114. Meantime Ormond landed at Corke, Sep. 29, 1648, and signified to the General Assembly at Kilkenny, that he had power to conclude a peace, and would receive their proposals at Carrick, any day they would appoint. This proposition was received with the

greatest joy; an admonition was sent by the assembly to the Nuncio in Galway, to quit the kingdom; and Ormond was invited to Kilkenny, and was received there in a style of pomp and magnificence, and with a cordiality, which he never experienced before. The whole body of the Assembly went out to meet him, at some distance from the town; the bells of the Cathedral announced the joyful tidings as he approached; the cannons played from the ramparts; the Gentry and Clergy crowded from all the neighbourhood to cheer him as he passed; and the Mayor and Aldermen paid him all those honours, which such Corporations usually pay to the sovereign authority of the kingdom.

115. The peace which Ormond and the Catholics so anxiously desired, was facilitated also by the arrival of French of Ferns, and Sir N. Plunket, whom the Nuncio's party had sent as Agents to Rome; for they returned, at this very time, without any aid or expectations from the Pope. They brought an account that the Turks had landed in Candia; that the

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Pope's States were menaced; that his treasury was empty; and that now his Irish subjects (in spirituals no doubt) must shift for themselves.*

Under these circumstances, the Catholic Council concluded a peace with Ormond, Jan. 17, 1649, nem. con. after the Articles had been repeatedly debated, after they had been thrice read, and thrice agreed to on the day before.

Nine consecrated Bishops, who were present, subscribed the Articles, and sent circular letters to all Cities and Corporations of their party, enjoining them to submit; the whole Assembly repaired in a body, on the same day, to the castle of Kilkenny, amid the acclamations of thousands, to ratify them; and there, with all the solemnity imaginable, Ormond sitting under a canopy, on a throne of state,

Those who argue against the oath of supremacy merely from the words "Head of the Church in Spirituals," ought to reflect that the foreign-influenced Bishops themselves have affixed to this word spirituals a temporal meaning. Thus in their Synod of Kilkenny, May 1642, they order that all who have invaded the goods, movable or immovable, spiritual or temporal, of Protestants, not being enemies, should be excommunicated, See the original Act in Borlase's Appendix.