[Sidenote: Protestant proposals equally extreme.]
[Sidenote: No compromise appears possible.]
If the propositions of the Confederate agents seemed scandalous to Digby, those of Coote and his colleagues will not seem less so to modern readers. They demanded, among other things, that all penal laws should be strictly executed, that all the Roman Catholic clergy should be banished out of Ireland, that the oath of supremacy should be taken by every member of Parliament, mayor, sheriff, or magistrate; that no lawyer refusing to take that oath should be allowed to practise; and that there should be a 'competent Protestant army.' After a few days, the Protestant agents were summoned to meet Ussher, Henry Leslie, Radcliffe, and others. Radcliffe, on behalf of the Committee of Council, said their proposals were unreasonable, and that peace could never be made on any such terms. The agents then agreed to modify the demands, but still insisted firmly on the full execution of the penal laws, on maintaining the existing Parliament and Poynings' law, on the encouragement of plantations, and on disabling lawyers who refused the oath of supremacy. They waived the expulsion of Roman Catholic priests and the oath _ex officio_, and also the demand that all churches should be restored to them, rebuilt and refitted 'at the charge of the Confederate Roman Catholics.' A week later the agents were summoned before the King in council. Charles asked them whether they wanted peace or war. They said they preferred peace, but only upon honourable terms; and the King answered that he also would choose the hazard of war rather than that they should suffer by a peace of his making. He could not, he added, help them with men, money, arms, ammunition, or victuals, nor could he allow them to join with those who had taken the Covenant. It was consistent with Charles's love for tortuous ways that he had tried to prevent Coote and his friends from knowing what the propositions of the Confederate agents were. They had oozed out, of course, and, making a virtue of necessity, the King now gave them a copy and requested their answers. This was done, and the absolute incompatibility of the two sets of agents was conclusively shown.[57]