no reversal of the confiscation of Catholic-owned land. Under pressure from Rinuccini and the Catholic Bishops, the peace was voted down by the Confederate General Assembly. Bellings and his colleagues, which included Peter Valesius Walsh, were temporarily arrested and detained in Kilkenny Castle, but were released in time to conclude a new Omonde Peace with the Royalists in 1648. However, by this time it was too late to help the English Royalists and the English Parliament turned its attention on Ireland, re-conquering it in 1649–1653. See Also Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. Bellings managed to flee to the Royalist court in exile in France but his lands were confiscated in bulk by the Parliamentarians. In fact, they had been devastated in the wars anyway, as they lay directly on the route to Dublin taken by the contending armies. Restoration After the English Restoration, Bellings was rewarded by Ormonde, (now Lord Deputy of Ireland) for his loyalty to the Royalist cause by being one of the few Confederates to recover their confiscated estates in the Act of Settlement 1662. In later life, he wrote a several-volume history of the 1640s, called The Confederation and War in Ireland. Bellings' account was written in the 1670s, from the perspective of a sound royalist, whose property had been recovered after the Restoration. He, therefore, presented the rebellion as a tragic accident caused by the King's untrustworthy ministers, and which was joined only reluctantly, and under extreme provocation, by him and his fellow Palesmen and Irish nobles. Although Bellings is often considered a typical Old Englishman, he considered himself Irish and his writings show a good familiarity with Irish Gaelic, including the Old Irish texts such as the Lebor Gabála Érenn. He died in September 1677 and was buried at Mulhuddart, near Dublin, near his wife. His tomb, which was enclosed by a wall has no inscription visible upon it. His son, another Richard Bellings, gained fame as the secretary to Catherine of Braganza. Notes References – 1642 to 1660 – Southern Fingal 1613 births 1677 deaths Irish Roman Catholic Confederates People of the Irish Confederate Wars Irish MPs 1639–1649 17th-century Irish historians