[Sidenote: Inchiquin's truce with the Confederacy]
[Sidenote: The truce condemned by the bishops, April 27.]
Inchiquin having declared himself a Royalist, there was nothing to prevent those who had made the Ormonde peace from coming to terms with him also. When the late raid was fresh in his memory, even Rinuccini had seen the necessity of doing something of the kind. Now that Kilkenny and Waterford seemed safe he strenuously opposed any cessation or truce on the ground that it would leave things as before. Inchiquin's change of front had left him without allies, and this was the time to crush the author of the Cashel massacre. The Supreme Council urged that they were in no condition to maintain a war, and that even if they were it would be bad policy to drive Inchiquin to desperation. The result would be to deliver Cork, Youghal, and Kinsale to the Parliament, who would always grant him fair terms for such valuable possessions. Inchiquin was certainly very anti-Catholic, 'yet, as we are informed, he suffers our priests to live and mass to be celebrated within his quarters,' and he would allow tithes to be paid in Tipperary and 'Cashel and all the churches which were profaned there' to be restored to their old uses. Michael Jones was making great preparations in Dublin, and the Confederacy would soon have to reckon with him. 'Your lordship knows by experience,' they reminded the nuncio, 'that when the enemy insulted over your lordship at the walls of Waterford, and stood at defiance with us at the gates of Kilkenny, how slow our forces were drawing to a head, when after orders upon orders, ten times at least, issued by us, one on the neck of another, to General Preston, General O'Neill, and the Lord Taaffe, scarce three thousand men could be brought into the city before the enemy retreated.' But Rinuccini above all things dreaded the return of Ormonde, and persisted in opposing a truce 'with any of a contrary religion,' though he was willing to agree to an 'accommodation, confederacy, or some such like contract,' based not upon the _status quo_, but upon a distinct advantage to be gained. He held a meeting of fourteen bishops, who decided that no one could with a safe conscience agree to the truce. There was a minority of six, but, according to the custom on such occasions, they signed with the rest.[124]