actually die. Trial Despite being on the run and with a price on his head, Plunkett refused to leave his flock. At some point before his final incarceration, he took refuge in a church that once stood in the townland of Killartry, in the parish of Clogherhead in County Louth, seven miles outside Drogheda. He was arrested in Dublin on 6 December 1679 and imprisoned in Dublin Castle, where he gave absolution to the dying Talbot. Plunkett was tried at Dundalk for conspiring against the state by allegedly plotting to bring 20,000 French soldiers into the country, and for levying a tax on his clergy to support 70,000 men for rebellion. Though this was unproven, some in government circles were worried about the possibility that a repetition of the Irish rebellion of 1641 was being planned and in any case, this was a convenient excuse for proceeding against Plunkett. The Duke of Ormonde, aware that Lord Essex was using the crisis to undermine him, did not defend Plunkett in public. In private however, he made clear his belief in Plunkett's innocence and his contempt for the informers against him: "silly drunken vagabonds... whom no schoolboy would trust to rob an orchard". Plunkett did not object to facing an all-Protestant jury, but the trial soon collapsed as the prosecution witnesses were themselves wanted men and afraid to turn up in court. Lord Shaftesbury knew Plunkett would never be convicted in Ireland, irrespective of the jury's composition, and so had Plunkett moved to Newgate Prison in London in order to face trial at Westminster Hall. The first grand jury found no true bill, but he was not released. The second trial has generally been regarded as a serious miscarriage of justice; Plunkett was denied defending counsel (although Hugh Reily acted as his legal advisor) and time to assemble his defence witnesses, and he was also frustrated in his attempts to obtain the criminal records of those who were to give evidence against him. His servant James McKenna, and a relative, John Plunkett, had travelled back to Ireland and failed within the time available to bring back witnesses and evidence for the defence. During the trial, Archbishop Plunkett had disputed the right of the court to try him in England and he also drew attention to the criminal past of the witnesses, but to no avail. Lord Chief Justice Sir Francis Pemberton addressing