Commons were to form a single
House, the latter, two hundred and twenty-six in number, representing
all the important cities and towns. A supreme Cabinet was to be formed,
composed of six members for each of the four provinces, twenty-four in
all, who might be lords spiritual or temporal, or commoners, according
to the choice of the Parliament. This Cabinet, thus selected from the
whole Parliament, was the responsible executive of the country; and
under the Supreme Council a series of Provincial Councils and County
Councils were to be formed along the same lines.

[Illustration: Donegal Castle.]

This plan was adopted at a general meeting of all the influential forces
of the country, which assembled in May at Kilkenny, where many
Parliaments had sat during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Writs
were issued for elections under the new Constitution, and the date of
the first assembly of the new Parliament was fixed for October. The new
national body enjoyed abundant revenues, and no small state marked its
deliberations in Kilkenny. We read of an endless series of
illuminations, receptions, banquets and balls,--the whole of the Norman
nobility of Leinster lavishing their great wealth in magnificent
display. The Supreme Council journeyed in state from Kilkenny to
Wexford, from Wexford to Waterford, from Waterford to Limerick and
Galway, surrounded by hundreds of horsemen with drawn swords, and
accompanied by an army of officials. We hear of "civil and military
representations of comedies and stage plays, feasts and banquets, and
palate-enticing dishes."

The General Assembly, duly elected, finally met on October 23, 1642, at
Kilkenny. On the same day was fought the battle of Edgehill, between
the king of England and the forces of the English Parliament. This
battle was the signal for division of counsels in the new Assembly. The
Norman lords of Leinster, who stood on the ground of feudalism, and
lived under the shadow of royal authority, were strongly drawn to take
the side of the king against the English Parliament, and overtures of
negotiation were made, which came near gaining a recognition and
legalization of the General Assembly by the English Crown.

While the leaders at Kilkenny were being drawn towards the royalists of
England, Owen Roe O'Neill was successfully holding Ulster against the
Puritan forces under Monroe and Leslie, with their headquarters at
Carrickfergus. Thus matters went on till the autumn