The war in Ireland being now undertaken by Cromwell, we must give a brief retrospective glance at what had been passing there. Perhaps no country was ever so torn to pieces by different factions. The Catholics were divided amongst themselves: there were the Catholics of the Pale, and the Old Irish Catholics, part of whom followed the faction of Rinuccini, the Pope's Nuncio, who was at the head of the Council of Kilkenny, while others followed General Preston and Viscount Taaffe. The Irish Royalists--who consisted chiefly of Episcopalians--ranged themselves under the banner of Ormond. The approach of Cromwell warned them to suppress their various feuds and unite against the Parliament. To strengthen the Parliament force, Jones, the Governor of Dublin, and Monk, who commanded in Ulster, made overtures to Owen Roe O'Neil, the head of the Old Irish in Ulster. Ormond had arrived in Ireland, and Inchiquin and Preston, the leaders of the forces of the Irish Council, which had now repudiated the Pope's Nuncio, joined him; but O'Neil held back, not trusting Ormond, and he sent a messenger to Charles in France, offering to treat directly with him. But Ormond ordered the Earl of Castlehaven to attack O'Neil, which he did, and speedily reduced his garrisons of Maryborough and Athy. Enraged at this whilst he was offering his services to the king, O'Neil listened to the proposals of Monk, who was himself hard pressed by the Scottish Royalists, and had been compelled to retire from Belfast to Dundalk. Monk supplied O'Neil with ammunition, and O'Neil undertook to cut off the communication between the Royalists in the north and Ormond in the south. Monk sent word of this arrangement, and the "grandees," as they were called, or members of the Great Council, entertained the plan in secret--publicly they dared not, for the followers of O'Neil were those Ulster Irish who had committed the horrible massacres of 1641. No sooner, however, did the rumour of this coalition become known, than the greatest excitement prevailed. The army and the people were filled with horror and indignation. They appealed to the solemn engagement of the army to avenge the blood of their fellow Protestants slaughtered by these savages; they reminded the Council and the Parliament of the invectives heaped by them on the late king for making peace with these blood-stained natives; and now _they_ were expected to become the allies and associates of these very men. The Parliament saw how vain it was to strive against the feeling, and annulled the agreement. Hugh Peters harangued the public from the pulpit, excusing the Council on account of the real facts of the case having been concealed from them, and the whole weight of the transaction fell on Monk, who was just then in London, and who was assured that nothing but his past services saved him from the punishment of his indiscretion.