Editing Irish Confederate Wars (section)

===Victory and defeat for the Confederates===
[[Image:bunrattybig.jpg|thumbnail|250px|right|[[Siege of Bunratty|Bunratty Castle, besieged]] and taken by the Irish Confederates from an English Parliamentarian force in 1646.]]
The stalemate, however, broke in 1646. During the summer after the end of the [[First English Civil War]], the Confederate military tried to make as many gains in Ireland as they could before the expected invasion by the forces of the English Parliament. In that effort they were quite successful. On 5 June 1646, [[Owen Roe O'Neill|Owen O'Neill]] defeated a Parliamentary and Scottish army commanded by Robert Munro at [[Battle of Benburb|Benburb]]. During July, [[Thomas Preston, 1st Viscount Tara|Thomas Preston]] leading the Leinster Army of the Confederates captured the Parliamentary stronghold at Roscommon while Donough McCarthy Viscount Muskerry captured the castle of [[Siege of Bunratty|Bunratty]].<ref name=BCW1 >Plant, The Confederate War: Timeline 1641–52.</ref>

On 30 July, however, it was proclaimed in Dublin by the Royalists that the Confederate Supreme Council had signed a peace treaty on 28 March 1646 with King Charles as represented by Ormonde. The treaty was signed unbeknownst to the Confederate military commanders and without the participation of the leader of the Catholic clergy, [[Giovanni Battista Rinuccini|Rinuccini]], who had arrived in Ireland with money and arms as the Papal Nuncio nine months earlier.<ref name=BCW1/><ref name=Scott >Scott.</ref>

Many provisions of the treaty were unacceptable to Rinuccini and the Confederate military commanders, especially sending military support to Royalists in England for a cause that was seemingly ended with the conclusion of the civil war. Rinuccini and the Confederate military commanders also believed that there might be a chance for them to defeat the English in Ireland and take total control given the magnitude of their recent victories. As so, Rinuccini publicly denounced the Ormonde treaty on 12 August. Rinuccini and the Confederate military then marched upon Kilkenny, declared the Ormonde treaty void, and create a new Confederate Supreme Council.<ref name=BCW1/><ref name=Scott/><ref name=BCW2 >Plant, The First Ormond Peace, 1646.</ref>

Trying next to take control of Ireland, the Confederate armies commanded by O'Neill and Preston attempted to capture Dublin, Ormonde's Royalist garrison by siege. Their plan to seize Dublin failed, however, as the Royalists had devastated the land around their capital and the Confederate commanders were unable to feed their armies. The inability to capture Dublin was an embarrassment to Rinuccini and the Confederates as it exposed the folly of their strategy of conquesting Ireland. Ormonde then turned to negotiations with the English Parliament and ultimately handed the city over to a Parliamentarian army commanded by Colonel Michael Jones on 19 June 1647.<ref name=BCW1/><ref name=Scott/>

In 1647, the Parliamentarian forces inflicted a shattering series of defeats on the Confederates, ultimately forcing them to join a Royalist coalition to try to hold off a Parliamentarian invasion. Firstly, in August 1647, when it tried to march on Dublin, Thomas Preston's Leinster army was annihilated at the [[battle of Dungans Hill]] by Jones' Parliamentarian army. This was the best trained and best equipped Confederate army and the loss of its manpower and equipment was a body blow to the Confederation. Secondly, the Parliamentarians based in [[Cork (city)|Cork]] devastated the Confederates' territory in [[Munster]], provoking famine among the civilian population. In September, they [[Sack of Cashel|stormed Cashel]], not only taking the town but also massacring its garrison and inhabitants, including several Catholic clerics. When the Irish Munster army brought them to battle at [[battle of Knocknanauss|Knocknanauss]] in November, they too were crushed. [[Sligo]] also changed hands again – captured by the Ulster British settlers' army. The battles in this phase of the war were exceptionally bloody: in the battles of 1646–47, the losers had up to half of those engaged killed – most commonly in the rout after the battle was decided. In the three largest engagements of 1647, no less than 1% of the Irish male population (around 7,000–8,000 men) were killed in battle.

This string of defeats forced the Confederates to come to a deal with the [[Cavalier|Royalists]], and to put their troops under their command. Amid factional fighting within their ranks over this deal, the Confederates dissolved their association in 1648 and accepted [[James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde|Ormonde]] as the commander in chief of the Royalist coalition in Ireland. Inchiquin, the Parliamentarian commander in Cork, also defected to the Royalists after the arrest of King Charles I.

The Confederates were fatally divided over this compromise. Rinuccini, the Papal Nuncio, threatened to [[excommunicate]] anyone who accepted the deal. Particularly galling for him was the alliance with Inchiquin, who had massacred Catholic civilians and clergy in Munster in 1647. There was even a brief period of civil war in 1648 between [[Owen Roe O'Neill]]'s Ulster Army, as he refused to accept the Royalist alliance, and the new Royalist–Confederate coalition. O'Neill neglected to secure adequate supplies and was unable to force a change in policy on his former comrades. During this divisive period the Confederates missed a second strategic chance to reorganise while their opponents were engaged in the [[Second English Civil War]] (1648–49), which was lost by their royalist allies.