In the south Rinucini was rushing from town to town and pulpit to
pulpit, fiercely arousing all the Catholic animosity of the country
against both English parties alike. In this he was supported by Owen
O'Neill, who, with his victorious army, hastened south to meet him.
Together the chief and the legate marched in September of the same year
into Kilkenny; took possession of the Council Chamber; flung the
Moderates assembled there, including old Lord Mountgarret and the rest
of the Council, into prison. Ormond was in Dublin, helpless to meet this
new combination. No orders came from England. The royal cause seemed to
be hopelessly lost. All Ireland was swarming with the troops of the
insurgents. Lord Inchiquin, who had for a while declared for the king,
had now gone over to the Parliament. O'Neill and the legate's army was
daily gathering strength. It needed but a little more energy on their
part and Dublin itself, with all its helpless crowd of fugitives, must
fall into their hands.

In this dilemma Ormond came to a resolution. To throw in his lot with
Rinucini and the rebels of the north, stained as the latter were in his
eyes with innocent blood, was impossible. Even had they been disposed to
combine heartily with him for the royal cause he could hardly have done
so; as it was there was barely a pretence of any such intention. If
Charles could effect his escape and would put himself in their hands,
then, indeed, they said they would support him. In that case, however,
it would have been as king of Ireland rather than England. Ormond could
not and would not stoop to any such negotiations. He wrote to the
English Parliament offering to surrender Dublin into their hands, and to
leave the country. The offer was accepted, and a month later he had
relinquished the impossible post, and joined the other escaped Royalists
in France.

XXXVIII.

THE CONFUSION DEEPENS.

The indescribable confusion of aims and parties in Ireland begins at
this point to take even more rapid and perplexing turns. That "poor
panther Inchiquin," as one of his opponents derisively calls him, who
had already made one bound from king to Parliament, now, upon some fresh
offence, bounded back again, and made overtures to Preston and the
Moderates. Rinucini, whose only policy was to hinder any union between
the Catholics and Royalists, thereupon fled to O'Neill, and together
they opposed the Moderates tooth and nail. The latter were now seriously
a