Next day they departed for Limerick; but the countess, probably so instructed, for the earl claimed the merit afterwards, gave information to the Mayor of Limerick, who three days later seized the two ecclesiastics and sent them to Kilmallock, where Lord Justice William Drury then was with an army.
The Creeds had lived near Kilmallock, at Ballygrennan Castle, since the 17th century, but Mrs Meredith's uncle, William Creed, divided up the land after his only daughter, Mrs Eliza Bowyer Bower, removed with her husband to Iwerne Minster, Dorset.