[Sidenote: who imprisons the Supreme Council.]
[Sidenote: O'Neill and Preston at Kilkenny.]
Digby remained at Kilkenny and made one more effort for the King. He proposed that the nuncio and three or four bishops should give an undertaking in writing to support the peace and unite with Ormonde against the common enemy, on condition of receiving a firm private assurance that the penal laws should be repealed and that they should not be disturbed in their church possessions until a meeting of a new Parliament to carry out the articles. Rinuccini would hear of nothing less than Glamorgan's treaty fortified by part of Sir Kenelm Digby's. Of the latter he never received the official text, and his instructions were not to proceed without it. He entered Kilkenny in triumph and took the city into his protection, relieving it from the interdict which Roth, Bishop of Ossory, had proclaimed. O'Neill's army encamped in the immediate neighbourhood and made all resistance impossible. Rinuccini then proceeded to imprison the old Supreme Council. Mountgarret's eldest son Edmond, Bellings the secretary and historian, and Lord Muskerry, the viceroy's brother-in-law, were among those confined in the castle. Geoffrey Brown, who had been conspicuous among the commissioners for concluding the peace, and was intended to be a judge, was arrested at Galway, but the citizens refused to send him to the nuncio. O'Neill and Preston both entered Kilkenny, and assisted 'the lord nuncio and congregation of the clergy' in choosing a new council of seventeen members. Four were bishops, Walsh of Cashel, Bourke of Clonfert, Macmahon of Clogher, and French of Ferns; among the others were Glamorgan, who was appointed general of Munster in Muskerry's place, Owen Roe O'Neill, Preston, and Sir Phelim O'Neill. The great object was now to take Dublin, and Ormonde was told that he had no chance of defending himself against 17,000 foot and 1700 horse. If the city was taken by assault it was likely that neither man, woman, nor child would be spared, but this might be averted if Ormonde would adhere to the Glamorgan treaty. 'If,' was the Lord-Lieutenant's answer, 'I could have assured the clergy my lord of Glamorgan's conditions, I had not retired hither. They are things I have nothing to do with, nor will have. If they be valid in themselves, they need no corroboration; if invalid, I have no power to give them strength.' After this Rinuccini concluded that if he wanted Dublin he would have to get it taken, while Ormonde, who felt his weakness, opened communications with the English Parliament.[99]