rebels of England.' By the third the clergy were ordered under severe penalties to preach unity, 'and we hereby manifest our detestation against all such divisions between either provinces or families, or between old English and old Irish, or any of the English or Scotch adhering to his Majesty.' The last decree was one of excommunication against the highwaymen called Idle Boys, and against all who relieved them. Clergymen were forbidden on pain of suspension to give them the Sacrament or to bury them in consecrated ground.[165] FOOTNOTES: [147] The two declarations, August 23 and 24, are in the new edition of Carlyle's _Cromwell_, i. 455 and iii. 410. [148] Wood's _Fasti_, ed. Bliss, 77, and his _Life and Times_, ed. Clark, i. 110. The correspondence between Aston and Ormonde, from the Carte MSS., August 25 to September 10, is in _Contemp. Hist._ ii. 233-261. As to the composition of the garrison see also Gardiner's _Commonwealth_, i. 124, and the note to Murphy's _Cromwell in Ireland_, p. 86. [149] The chief authority for the storm is Cromwell's own letter to Lenthall, dated September 17; Ormonde's account is dated September 29. The above, with those of Ludlow, Bate, and Wood, are collected in _Contemp. Hist._ ii. 262-276. For Cromwell's battering train see Mr. Firth's _Cromwell's Army_, p. 170. Elaborate accounts of the siege, with maps, are in Gardiner's _Commonwealth_, chap. v., and in Murphy's _Cromwell in Ireland_, chaps. vii. and viii. [150] Letters of Peters and Cromwell, September 15 and 16, in _Whitelock_, iii. 110, which were read in Parliament; letters of Ormonde and Aston, _ut sup._ For Talbot's obligations to Reynolds see Clarke's _Life of James II._ i. 326. Hugh Peters says shortly 'Aston the governor killed, none spared.' [151] The terms of the treaty between Ormonde and O'Neill from the Carte papers is in _Contemp. Hist._ ii. 300, the negotiations, _ib._ 237 _sqq._ The first mention of O'Neill's illness is in his letter of September 19, 'an unexpected fit of sickness in my knee, whereof I am not fully cleared yet.' [152] Summons to Dundalk, September 12, 1640, in Carlyle. Venables to Cromwell, September 22, in _Contemp. Hist._ ii. 267; Brief Chronicle, _ib._ iii. 157; Ormonde's report on the state of the armies, _ib._ ii. 465; O'Neill's last letter to Ormonde, November 1, _ib._ 315; _Aphorismical Discovery_, chap. xiv. In _Spicilegium Ossoriense_, ii. 33, are four letters from O'Neill, dated May 18, 1649, to Rinuccini, to Dean Massari, and to Cardinals la Cuena and Pamphili. Daniel O'Neill's letter of October 6 to Ormonde is in _Contemp. Hist._ ii. 294. There is no reason whatever to suppose that Owen Roe O'Neill was poisoned. [153] Cromwell's letters are in _Carlyle_, and the terms demanded by Synnott in Cary's _Memorials_, ii. 181. Castlehaven's _Memoirs_, p. 80.