The nuncio considers himself the virtual head…

The nuncio considers himself the virtual head of the Confederate Catholic party in Ireland.

The Supreme Council of the Confederates has come to an agreement with Ormonde, signed March 28, 1646.

Under its terms, Catholics will be allowed to serve in public office and find schools; there are also verbal promises of future concessions on religious toleration.

There is an amnesty for acts committed in the Rebellion of 1641 and a guarantee against further seizure of Irish Catholic land.

The Supreme Council also puts great hope in a secret treaty they have concluded with the Earl of Glamorgan on the King's behalf, which promises further concessions to Irish Catholics in the future.

However, there is no reversal of Poynings Law which subordinates the Irish Parliament to the English one, no reversal of the Protestant domination of Parliament and no reversal of the main plantations, or colonization, in Ulster and Munster.

Moreover, regarding the religious articles of the treaty, all churches taken over by Catholics in the war will have to be returned to Protestant hands and public practice of Catholicism is not guaranteed.

In return for the concessions that are made, Irish troops are to be sent to England to fight for the royalists in the English Civil War.

However, the terms agreed are not acceptable to either the Catholic clergy, the Irish military commanders—notably Owen Roe O'Neill and Thomas Preston—or the majority of the General Assembly.

Nor is Rinuccini the papal nuncio party to the treaty, which leaves untouched the objects of his mission; he had induced nine of the Irish bishops to sign a protest against any arrangement with Ormonde or the king that will not guarantee the maintenance of the Catholic religion.