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The Confederation’s leadership entered 1647 with unresolved disputes over both religion and strategy. The failed peace agreement negotiated with James Butler, marquess of Ormond, the king’s lord lieutenant, had divided Confederate opinion in 1646. Giovanni Battista Rinuccini, the papal nuncio, and many clergy had rejected a settlement that did not secure sufficiently extensive guarantees for Catholic worship and property. Others, especially among the Old English Catholic political elite, considered a negotiated arrangement with the crown essential.
Falkland had been sworn in as lord deputy in Dublin in September 1622, arriving as an investigating commission was completing its examination of Irish government. That inquiry had exposed administrative weakness and encouraged demands in London for retrenchment. In 1623 the deputy had to run an Irish administration whose military establishment, offices and pensions depended on money from England, while the crown expected Ireland to become less expensive. The problem was political as much as financial. Savings made from a distance could reduce the resources available to maintain order, reward service and sustain the institutions through which the crown exercised authority.
