of firm ground,
surrounded by the vast bog of Allen, harried the county of Wicklow, and
alarmed even the suburbs of Dublin. Such expeditions indeed were not
always successful. Sometimes the plunderers fell in with parties of
militia or with detachments from the English garrisons, in situations in
which disguise, flight and resistance were alike impossible. When this
happened every kerne who was taken was hanged, without any ceremony, on
the nearest tree. [76]

At the head quarters of the Irish army there was, during the winter, no
authority capable of exacting obedience even within a circle of a mile.
Tyrconnel was absent at the Court of France. He had left the supreme
government in the hands of a Council of Regency composed of twelve
persons. The nominal command of the army he had confided to Berwick; but
Berwick, though, as was afterwards proved, a man of no common courage
and capacity, was young and inexperienced. His powers were unsuspected
by the world and by himself; [77] and he submitted without reluctance
to the tutelage of a Council of War nominated by the Lord Lieutenant.
Neither the Council of Regency nor the Council of War was popular at
Limerick. The Irish complained that men who were not Irish had been
entrusted with a large share in the administration. The cry was loudest
against an officer named Thomas Maxwell. For it was certain that he was
a Scotchman; it was doubtful whether he was a Roman Catholic; and he had
not concealed the dislike which he felt for that Celtic Parliament which
had repealed the Act of Settlement and passed the Act of Attainder.
[78] The discontent, fomented by the arts of intriguers, among whom
the cunning and unprincipled Henry Luttrell seems to have been the most
active, soon broke forth into open rebellion. A great meeting was held.
Many officers of the army, some peers, some lawyers of high note and
some prelates of the Roman Catholic Church were present. It was resolved
that the government set up by the Lord Lieutenant was unknown to the
constitution. Ireland, it was said, could be legally governed, in the
absence of the King, only by a Lord Lieutenant, by a Lord Deputy or by
Lords Justices. The King was absent. The Lord Lieutenant was absent.
There was no Lord Deputy. There were no Lords Justices. The Act by
which Tyrconnel had delegated his authority to a junto composed of his
creatures was a mere nullity. The nation was therefore left without any
legitimate chief, and mig