ABSTRACT
The treaty with the Association of Confederate Catholics swas Ormond's most creative act of states-manship. The Association of Confederate Catholics came to an end, and supreme power within royalist and Catholic Ireland now passed to Ormond and 12 Catholic 'commissioners of trust'. Whatever the justice of this demand, had Ormond yielded it would have blown apart the entire land settlement of Ireland and caused a rebellion among his Protestant supporters. Equally, it exacerbated the distrust of Catholic towns such as Wexford, Waterford and Limerick to the extent that they would no longer admit Ormond's soldiers or obey his orders. The resistance at Waterford also demonstrates that the 'effusion of blood' at Drogheda and Wexford, rather than cowing the Irish into submission, had sharpened the resolve of royalists and Confederates alike to resist the invader with every ounce of their strength.
