sidelined on the military side. After his disastrous defeat on 16 July 1642 at Glenmaquin near Raphoe in County Donegal against the Protestant Laggan Army led by Sir Robert Stewart, his kinsman, Owen Roe O'Neill, a professional soldier, arrived from the Spanish Netherlands and was made general of the Confederate's Ulster army. Phelim O'Neill served as cavalry commander under him and spent most of the next six years fighting against the Scottish Covenanter army that had landed in Ulster. He fought in the army's victory at the Battle of Benburb on 5 June 1646. In Confederate politics, O'Neill was a moderate, advocating a deal with Charles I and the Irish and English Royalists as a means of winning the war against the English Parliament and the Scottish Covenanters. In 1648, he voted for such a deal, the Second Ormond Peace, splitting with Owen Roe O'Neill, who opposed it along with most of the Ulster army. He and several other moderates such as Alexander MacDonnell, 3rd Earl of Antrim and Arthur Magennis, Viscount Iveagh left the Ulster army because of their dispute with the hard-liners. In the summer of that year, the Confederate armies fought among themselves over this issue, with the pro-Royalists prevailing. However, this was not enough to stop Ireland from being conquered by the New Model Army of Oliver Cromwell in 1649–53. The well-trained and supplied Parliamentarians crushed all Confederate and Royalist resistance and imposed a harsh settlement on Irish Catholics. Third marriage In November 1649 O'Neill married Jean Gordon, the widow of Claud Hamilton, 2nd Baron Hamilton of Strabane, who had died on 14 June 1638. Defeat at Scarrifholis and surrender of Charlemont O'Neill fought in the Ulster Army at the Battle of Scarrifholis in 1650 where it was routed by Charles Coote, 2nd Baronet of Castle Cuff. O'Neill escaped from the battle and retreated with a rest of the Ulster army to the Charlemont Fort. Together with his stepson James Hamilton, 3rd Baron Hamilton of Strabane he held the fort against Coote, inflicting heavy casualties on the English troops in the Siege of Charlemont, but surrendered on terms on 6 August 1650 and marching away with his remaining troops was expected to embark and take service in France. However, O'Neill decided to rather go into hiding. Trial and execution Anyone implicated in the Rebellion of 1641 was held responsible for the massacres of Protestant civilians and