According to the first informers Ormonde was to be murdered as well as the King. The Protestants were to be massacred as in 1641, and Ireland taken charge of by a papal nuncio with the assistance of Louis XIV. A little later the extreme Protestants were denouncing the Lord Lieutenant as favourable to the plot. He hardly knew what to make of the news, and even Coventry was puzzled for a time. Orders of the most stringent kind were soon sent from England, and there was nothing to do but to obey them. The English Government were assured not only that Ormonde was to be killed through Peter Talbot's contrivance, but that the nuncio had been already sent, and also 40,000 black bills to arm the Irish. Ormonde was at Kilkenny when he received Southwell's letter with a report of the first day's proceedings at the English Privy Council. 'I have the honour,' he said, 'to be singly named with the King. Who may come in after I know not, but sure His Majesty was to be better attended than by me alone.... I hope I shall rather go alone than in the company they designed me; though it be the best in the world.' On his return to Dublin he found Archbishop Talbot already in close custody. 'Peter Walsh,' he wrote, 'is able to say something of Peter Talbot's threats against my life, but I would not have him called to testify anything without his own free consent.' Officers and soldiers were recalled to quarters, and the oath of supremacy ordered to be strictly enforced. Popish residents for twelve months in garrison towns were not disturbed, but strict rules were made against fresh ones coming in, and in the cases of Drogheda, Cork, Wexford, Limerick, Waterford, Youghal, and Galway, fairs and markets were to be held outside the walls. Roman Catholics were forbidden to keep arms without licence, and their dignitaries as well as all Jesuits and regulars were ordered to leave the kingdom. As usual in former cases, the latter order was very imperfectly obeyed, and three months later a reward was offered for apprehension of the most important ecclesiastics--ten pounds for a bishop or Jesuit, and five pounds for any of the others.[119] [Sidenote: Ormonde accused of favouring the Papists.]