[Sidenote: First negotiations for peace, September 1644.]
The result of Ormonde's application to Muskerry and his colleagues in the Oxford business was a letter from the general assembly of the Confederates appointing commissioners to treat for peace. The Oxford agents, all lawyers except Muskerry, Antrim's brother, and Colonel O'Brien, were nominated, with the addition of Mountgarret, Antrim, Archbishop Fleming, Sir Richard Everard, Patrick Darcy, and John Dillon. Of these commissioners, Martin, Dillon and Barron were afterwards proposed by the Confederates as judges of the superior courts, and nearly all the others as Privy Councillors. Ormonde objected at once to 'your Archbishop of Dublin, who, though a man as free from exception (as unto his person) as any we could expect to be treated with, for we have heard exceeding much good of him, and we do believe no less, so as if we were to admit any of his function he should be the man.' He had already announced that he would not treat with any clergyman, and the Confederates gave way. Some delay had been caused, and the commissioners did not meet Ormonde until September 1, when they practically repeated the Oxford propositions. The cessation was at once prolonged to December 1, and questions of statute law and of title to land being involved, a committee of lawyers was appointed to assist the Lord Lieutenant. The chief demands were the repeal of the penal laws, the suspension of Poynings' Act, and the power of their 'free Parliament' to try offences. They were all rejected.
[Sidenote: Ormonde's difficult position.]
The negotiations were then suspended for a time. Sir Henry Tichborne, who thought the cessation very dishonourable, left Oxford on December 31. He and others were taken at sea by one of Swanley's captains, and were sent to the Tower. Tichborne was soon released, and afterwards sided definitely with the Parliament in Ireland. About the same time Swanley intercepted some correspondence between the Confederates and their foreign allies, and he sent copies to Ormonde, cautioning him about the dangers hanging over his 'truly honoured family' and his ambiguous position with regard to the Protestants. The Lord Lieutenant's task was indeed a hard one. The question of a universal act of oblivion was left undecided, the Confederates contending that their oath of association precluded all exceptions, while Ormonde was unwilling to pardon criminals merely because the country had been in a state of war. In the end, Charles conceded the act of oblivion to 'all treasons and offences, capital, criminal, and personal' on land, and to piracy and its attendant crimes in the Irish seas.[63]