The Marquis, now Duke, of Ormond was the King’s lieutenant of Ireland; and the rebels had made a confederacy amongst themselves; and these confederates had made a kind of league with the lieutenant, wherein they agreed, upon liberty given them in the exercise of their religion, to be faithful to and assist the King. To these also were joined some forces raised by the Earls of Castlehaven and Clanricarde and my Lord Inchiquin; so that they were the greatest united strength in the island. But there were amongst them a great many other Papists, that would by no means subject themselves to Protestants; and these were called the Nuntio’s party, as the others were called the confederate party. These parties not agreeing, and the confederate party having broken their articles, the lord-lieutenant seeing them ready to besiege him in Dublin, and not able to defend it, did, to preserve the place for the Protestants, surrender it to the Parliament of England; and came over to the King at that time when he was carried from place to place by the army. From England he went over to the Prince, now King, residing then at Paris. But the confederates, affrighted with the news that the Rump was sending over an army thither, desired the Prince by letters, to send back my Lord of Ormond, engaging themselves to submit absolutely to the King’s authority, and to obey my Lord of Ormond as his lieutenant. And hereupon he was sent back. This was about a year before the going over of Cromwell. In which time, by the dissensions in Ireland between the confederate party and the Nuntio’s party, and discontents about command, this otherwise sufficient power effected nothing; and was at last defeated, August the 2nd, by a sally out of Dublin, which they were besieging. Within a few days after arrived Cromwell, who with extraordinary diligence and horrid executions, in less than a twelvemonth that he stayed there, subdued in a manner the whole nation; having killed or exterminated a great part of them, and leaving his son-in-law Ireton to subdue the rest. But Ireton died there before the business was quite done, of the plague. This was one step more towards Cromwell’s exaltation to the throne. _B._ What a miserable condition was Ireland reduced to by the learning of the Roman, as well as England was by the learning of the Presbyterian clergy.