Fearing that he would meet the same fate as the Earl of Strafford, Tuchet manage to escape 27 September, with the help of a friend and fled south into the Wicklow Mountains.

His intention was 'to gain a passage by Wexford into France, and from thence into England;’ but coming to Kilkenny, the headquarters of the confederate Catholics, he was persuaded to accept a command in the army, and was appointed general of horse under Sir Thomas Preston, 1st Viscount Tara.

It was believed among the northern Irish that his escape was a contrivance on the part of the Earl of Ormonde 'to work an understanding' between him and his kindred in rebellion, Castlehaven being related to him through the marriage of his sister with Edmund Roe Butler.

In 1644 the Irish Confederate Supreme Council decided to vote for Castlehaven as the commander of a 6,000-strong expedition force in a push against the Ulster-Scottish army under Robert Monro.

The great weakness of Castlehaven was that he was largely an amateur, lacking the patience to conduct sieges and somewhat touchy- it is said that some referred to him as Tiarna Beag or 'Little Lord.

'[2] The anonymous author of the Aphorismical Discovery, a contemporary account of events during the Confederate wars in Ireland, contemptuously referred to Castlehaven as the 'pigmeyan Goliath of Clanricarde.

He went back to Ireland, after seeing the Prince of Wales in Paris, to hold several commands in Leinster, Munster, and Clare but was unable to counter the actions of Cromwell and his son-in-law, Ireton.

[5] He participated in the battles of Rocroy, Cambrai, Seneffe, Maestricht, Charleroi and Mons[4] Castlehaven wrote his memoirs in 1681[6] in response to the hysteria of the Popish Plot.