glance the difficulties and advantages of the position of Irish
affairs and the Confederate movement. "He had set his mind," says the
author of the _Confederation of Kilkenny_, "on one grand object--the
freedom of the Church, in possession of all her rights and dignities,
and the emancipation of the Catholic people from the degradation to
which English imperialism had condemned them. The churches which the
piety of Catholic lords and chieftains had erected, he determined to
secure to the rightful inheritors. His mind and feelings recoiled from
the idea of worshipping in crypts and catacombs; he abhorred the notion
of a priest or bishop performing a sacred rite as though it were a
felony; and despite the wily artifices of Ormonde and his faction, he
resolved to teach the people of Ireland that they were not to remain
mere dependents on English bounty, when a stern resolve might win for
them the privileges of freemen."[481]

The following extract from Rinuccini's own report, will show how
thoroughly he was master of the situation in a diplomatic point of view:
"From time immemorial two adverse parties have always existed among the
Catholics of Ireland. The first are called the 'old Irish.' They are
most numerous in Ulster, where they seem to have their head-quarters;
for even the Earl of Tyrone placed himself at their head, and maintained
a protracted war against Elizabeth. The second may be called the 'old
English,'--a race introduced into Ireland in the reign of Henry II., the
fifth king in succession from William the Conqueror; so called to
distinguish them from the 'new English,' who have come into the kingdom
along with the modern heresy. These parties are opposed to each other
principally on the following grounds: the old Irish, entertaining a
great aversion for heresy, are also averse to the dominion of England,
and have Biased, generally speaking, to accept the investiture of Church
property offered to them since the apostacy of the Kings of England from
the Church. The others, on the contrary, enriched with the spoils of the
monasteries, and thus bound to the King by obligation, no less than by
interest, neither seek nor desire anything but the exaltation of the
crown, esteem no laws but those of the realm, are thoroughly English in
their feelings, and, from their constant familiarity with heretics, are
less jealous of differences of religion."

The Nuncio then goes on to state how even the military command was