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HISTORY

OF

IRELAND.

CHAP. XXVII.

Contests of Ormond and the clergy-Clanricarde's administration Negociation with the duke of Lorrain-Progress of the republicans-Siege of Limerick Executions-Siege of Galway-Further proceedings-Executions Disposal of forfeituresCromwell protector-Miscellaneous transactionsCromwell's indulgence to the Irish-Arbitrary measure with respect to the press-Administration of Henry Cromwell—His resignation-Proceedings of the royalists Council of officers-Ludlow-Seizure of the Castle and its reduction.

XXVII.

WHILE Ireton and Coote were completing their C H A P. conquests, the former in the south, the latter in the north, the marquis of Ormond was deeply engaged, Ormond besides his military efforts, in contests with the Ro-and the mish clergy, who, intent on a delusive object, the

VOL. II

B

establish

clergy.

XXVII.

CHAP. establishment of the papal power in Ireland under their own administration, by the intervention of a foreign prince, counteracted the plans of the royalists, and thus unintentionally facilitated the progress of the English republicans on the subjugation of the whole. As all Connaught, with Limerick, still remained in the hands of the confederates, and as this town, together with those of Sligo and Galway, could be easily fortified beyond any danger from Ireton's force, and were commodious by their ports for the reception of succours from abroad, a successful opposition might long have been made to the republican arms, if unanimity and resolution had prevailed among the professed abetters of the royal cause. Proposing, by the advantage of the important post of Limerick, to prepare in the winter an army fit to face the enemy in the ensuing spring, but denied by the citizens, when he requested their admission of eighteen hundred men for a garrison, Ormond, by the advice of the commissioners of trust, summoned twenty-four prelates to this town to consult with him on the distracted state of affairs, and proposed to them that either obedience to his authority should be procured by their influence, or some other way should be recommended, by which it might be preserved, on his withdrawing from the kingdom.

1

Among the proposals of this assembly, mostly lax and indefinite, the most precise and important were, that the receiver-general should account for the sums levied since the peace; and that a privy council should be composed of native nobility, spiritual and temporal,

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