The Royalist party at once recognized his heir as Charles II. They were reinforced by many Parliamentarian Protestants who were shocked and horrified by the decapitation of the king; and so Old Irish and New Irish, Confederates and Ormondists, made common cause against the Parliament, which was defended in Dublin by the redoubtable General Jones, and in Derry by the ferocious younger Coote. Even the sanguinary Inchiquin again became a Royalist and captured several towns of strength and importance from his recent allies. Ormond massed his army and, aided by Major-General Purcell, made an attempt to storm Dublin. But Michael Jones made a night sortie from the city and scattered Ormond and Purcell and their followers to the winds of heaven. The Irish generals mutually blamed each other and there was much bitter crimination and recrimination, but all this could not remedy the disaster that incapacity and over-confidence had brought about. Owen O’Neill kept his army, which fronted Coote, near Derry, intact, but lost his best friend when the impetuous Nuncio, who had spared neither denunciation nor excommunication in dealing with the trimming Anglo-Catholic leaders, disgusted with the whole wretched business, suddenly departed for the port of Galway and sailed in his own ship for Rome. Had this good man had to deal with leaders like Owen O’Neill, faithful, sensible, and unselfish, Ireland would have been an independent nation ere he returned to the Eternal City. His retirement placed O’Neill and the “Old Irish” in great perplexity as regarded a military policy. Ormond, the treacherous, was, nominally at least, commander-in-chief of the royal army, and his trusted lieutenants, Preston and Inchiquin, were O’Neill’s bitter foes.