[Sidenote: O'Neill and Preston on bad terms.]
Rinuccini wished O'Neill to attack Dublin before Ormonde could return thither; but the Ulster general excused himself on the ground that he had no artillery, and came to Kilkenny instead. Benburb had been fought and won by men who were defending a strong position in their own country, and the means for a serious siege were wanting. An officer who was with the northern army near Birr described it as consisting of 5000 infantry, of which rather more than half were pretty well armed, 'the rest as the rabble used to be in the beginning of the distractions.' The horse were under 400, good and bad, and there were only five field-pieces 'of about a foot and a half long.' When O'Neill was at Kilkenny a month later Ormonde learned that his army was composed of 8000 foot, more than half of them without muskets, and seventeen or eighteen small troops of miserable horse 'whereof not above two armed with pistol, and none with defensive arms.' About 8000 'of the Ulster families, unarmed,' accompanied the troops. Preston's cavalry were well appointed, but it was estimated that the combined armies could not in any case exceed 13,000, with five pieces of artillery and very few stores of any kind. The two generals acted quite independently. O'Neill took all the castles and towns in Queen's County, and made himself master of Athlone. Preston temporised, and both were much more intent upon outwitting each other than upon taking Dublin. The Leinster people did not like to see the hungry northerns devouring their province, and they flocked to Preston's standard, so that he became as least as strong as his rival. Early in October Rinuccini went to Kilkea, then in the possession of Robert Nugent, provincial of the Jesuits, to whom it had been granted for the use of the Society by his kinswoman Elizabeth Countess of Kildare. Nugent lent 1500_l._ to the nuncio, and voluntarily undertook the task of victualling the army; but this clerical commissary was not more successful than a clerical general proved to be later on. 'The good man,' says Bellings, 'how perfect soever his mathematical demonstrations might have been, failed in the practice, which affords a thousand circumstances that commonly lie out of the road of divinity and speculation.' The two armies were together, though not united, in the neighbourhood of Kilcock, whence they advanced by Harristown and Naas to Lucan, within seven miles of Dublin. The Leinster men thought O'Neill's object was to conquer them, while he believed, or perhaps only professed to believe, that Preston was conspiring with Ormonde to place him between two fires. Successful joint action under these circumstances was impossible, and it appeared to the nuncio that 'arms at first devoted to religion were about to minister to private passions alone.' The two generals met at Lucan, but could not agree, and Rinuccini joined them there in hopes of at least preventing a collision between Leinster and Ulster.[100]