the exaltation of the Holy Roman Catholic Church and the advancement of his Majesty's service,' a Supreme Council was appointed, with both executive and judicial authority; control over all officers, even generals, in the field; and power to hear and determine all matters capital, criminal or civil, 'except the right or title of land.' Owen Roe O'Neill was appointed general for Ulster, Preston for Leinster, and Colonel Gerald Barry for Munster. For Connaught, Colonel John Bourke was named lieutenant-general only, in the hope that Clanricarde would be induced to join. There were some bickerings between Owen Roe and Sir Phelim, who had just married Preston's daughter, and who wished to be in command of his own province, and between Rory O'More and other Leinster gentlemen, but they were smoothed over for the time. All the generals had seen service on the Continent.[22] [Sidenote: Constitution of the Supreme Council.] [Sidenote: Provincial Councils.] The Supreme Council consisted of twenty-four persons, four taken from each province. Of these only four, an O'Neill and a Magennis from Ulster, an O'Brien from Munster and Lord Mayo, were not sworn in at the time. Lord Mountgarret was appointed president, Bellings secretary, and Richard Shee clerk. Of the whole twenty-four four were peers and five bishops. Provincial and county councils were also constituted, but they had no real existence, or a very shadowy one. That for Leinster was appointed, but was overshadowed by the Supreme Council, and events soon showed that military force and not new-fangled civil departments was the determining quantity during the revolutionary period. [Sidenote: Protestants and neutrals to lose their estates.] [Sidenote: Church property to be transferred.] The assembly decreed that lands taken from their owners since October 1, 1641, should be restored on pain of the new possessor being treated as an enemy; provided that if the old owner 'be declared a neuter or enemy by the supreme or provincial,' then the land should be surrendered not to him, but to the council, 'to be disposed of towards the maintenance of the general cause.' The war was a religious one, and thus the lands of all who were not prepared to espouse the Roman Catholic cause were to be forfeited, or at the least sequestered. English, Welsh and Scotch Roman Catholics were to be treated as well as natives of Ireland. All Church temporalities were at one stroke transferred from Protestants to Roman Catholics. It must have been from the first evident to all cool observers that no accommodation on these terms could ever be made with any settled English Government. After sitting for about a month the assembly adjourned till May 20 next. They had ordered 4000_l._ worth coin to be struck, and 5820 men to be raised as the Leinster contingent. The Kilkenny government never had any real authority, except in the south-east of Ireland.[23] [Sidenote: The royal authority slighted.] [Sidenote: Flags.]