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borders of Connaught, with the purpose of completely reducing it. O'Donell collected his own troops, and appointed a meeting with numerous other chiefs near the English camp. But the English had been consuming their provision; and, being thus for a considerable time deterred from their purpose by the presence of a numerous force (which they could not bring to an action), were obliged to relinquish their plan and retire.

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The Irish had within the last few years made a rapid progress in the arms and arts of war, and, by the activity and influence of O'Donell, the chiefs were becoming united. These considerations disquieted the council and lord-justice. They had also heard of the king of Spain's designs, which they probably understood more fully than the native chiefs whom he desired to render instrumental to his policy. It was therefore thought expedient to send invitations to O'Neale and O'Donell to enter into terms of peace with the English government. For this purpose the earl of Ormonde and the archbishop of Cashel were sent with liberal offers, which, as they were not accepted, we need not detail. They related to them the conditions which the council proposed respecting the peace, viz., that they should have the entire possession of the province of Conor, except that part of the county extending from Dundalk to the Boyne, which was possessed by the English for a long time; and that the English should not pass beyond the hill, except that the English of Carrickfergus should be free from plunder by this agreement for ever, and the English of Carlingford and Newry to have the same privilege; and that the English government should not send any officer as a governor over them, nor in any other way force any rent or taxes upon them, except whatever tax their ancestors used to pay," &c.* The parties on either side met on a hill near Dundalk; Ormonde delivered his errand, and when he had done, O'Donell and O'Neale retired to consult. O'Donell represented strongly all the wrongs they had suffered from the English, and insisted there was no faith to be given to their promises; he also referred to their treaty with the king of Spain, and the danger of losing his countenance and assistance for ever after, should they now deceive him. With this view some of the chiefs agreed; while others, less resentful and more cautious, told him that they would be sorry if they refused the offers of government. O'Donell's voice outweighed all resistance, and Ormonde and the bishop returned to Dublin.

On this, writes the biographer, the queen ordered large preparations for an Irish war. Bingham was recalled from Connaught, and Sir Conyers Clifford sent over. The munificence and popular manners of this gentleman conciliated many of the Connaught chiefs. Among those who joined him were O'Conor Roe, and Macdermot of Moylung, and O'Conor Sligo; of whom the latter had been at the English court, and came over in command of a body of English.

O'Donell commenced by a plundering inroad upon the territories of O'Conor Sligo, after which he encamped in Brefne of Connaught, to await the coming up of his friends. Upon being joined by these,

* MS.

he marched against Athenry. There he was joined by Mac William Bourke, and they stormed the fort, which they took with considerable loss of life on both sides. Their loss was compensated by a very rich

plunder of every kind of riches, "of brass, of iron, of armour, of clothing, and of every thing that was useful to the people."

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From this they sent their plundering parties through Clanricarde, and laid waste all the country to the gates of Galway. Near Galway they encamped at Lynch's causeway, and O'Donell proceeded to the monastery of the hill at the gates of that city, in order to exchange their plunder for arms and for more portable wealth, as he should be thus enabled to extend his operations when disencumbered of the vast droves of cattle which embarrassed all his movements. In this he failed, and was therefore compelled to direct his march homewards across the "centre of Connaught." On his way he had a skirmish with O'Conor Sligo, over whom he gained a slight advantage; in this affair a son of Mac William Bourke was slain. O'Donell proceeded home and suffered his own troops to disperse that they might rest; but left his mercenaries with the Connaught chiefs, to carry on the war with O'Conor, under the command of Niall O'Donell, a near kinsman of his own. This chief continued the work of plunder, which was carried on chiefly to compel the Connaught chiefs to return to O'Donell. By this means a few were gained to his party.

About April, a Spanish ship arrived bearing a small force to O'Donell. Landing in the harbour of Killibegs, they marched to Donegal, where they were munificently entertained. "He presented them with hounds and horses; they then returned carrying with them an account of the situation of the country." We pass the details of a desultory struggle, in which Mac William Bourke was repeatedly expelled from his territories by a rival claimant with the aid of the English.

About midsummer, a new lord-justice, Thomas lord Borough, was sent over by the queen. He ordered Clifford to march into Tirconnell without delay. He was joined by the earl of Thomond, and Clanricarde, O'Conor Sligo, and O'Conor Roe, and a strong reinforcement of English troops sent by the lord-justice, so that, to use the description of the secretary, there were "twenty-two regiments of foot-soldiers, and ten regiments of cavalry of chosen troops, with their strong coats of hardened iron, with their strong-rivetted, long-bladed, strong-hafted spears, with loud-voiced sharp-sighted guns, and with sharp swords of hardened blades and handsome firmly-fixed hafts, and with crooked combed helmets."‡ This army marched by Sligo to the banks of the Samer, all the fords of which were strongly guarded by O'Donellthey resolved to pass at the ford of Cuil-uain-an-tsainre. Here they passed, notwithstanding a bloody resistance, in which Morogh O'Brien, baron of Inchiquin, was shot in the middle of his men, and died in the water. The English marched to the brink of Easroe, where they encamped to await the artillery which the governor had ordered to be brought by sea from Galway. On Sunday these arrived in Lough Erne, and they proceeded to batter the fortress on the brink of Ath

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Seanaigh. Of this affair, the account given by O'Donell's biographer compels us to suspect that his estimate of the English force must be a violent exaggeration, as he tells us that they were routed by the fire of the fort.

According to the prolix account of our MS. biographer, Hugh O'Donell contrived so dexterously to surround the English on every side, to cut off stragglers, and to intercept supplies, that in some days they found it necessary to retreat; but were so enfeebled with long watchings, and insufficient food, that even the retreat through a hostile territory was become dangerous and difficult. The Irish had now, by the care of O'Donell, arrived at a high state of discipline, and were become formidable antagonists to encounter in the charge. Under these trying circumstances, the only course which remained was to cross the Samer at a deep and dangerous ford, to which none but the best and bravest knights were held equal. Here the English army crossed with the loss of many, who were carried down by the force of the waters. They were also attacked by a brisk fire by O'Donell, which they had no means to return, and which destroyed many; and to crown their misfortunes, they were compelled to abandon the whole of their artillery and military stores which could not be carried across. O'Donell led his troops over one of the fords which he had in his possession, and coming again up with the English, who were in a most deplorable condition, there ensued a desultory exchange of fire with considerable loss on both sides, but without any decisive result, until both were compelled to cease from fatigue, or the approach of night warned them to desist. The English reached Sligo, and O'Donell marched home.

Not long after, O'Donell received a summons to march to the aid of O'Neale. The English lord-justice was come to Armagh, by Drogheda and Dundalk, with an army. O'Donell lost no time; and then, according to the new system of tactics which seems to have been chiefly adopted by him, the English were soon surrounded on every side by bodies of Irish, who distressed them with perpetual assaults after the manner of the cossacks in modern war, allowing them to have no sleep or rest by night or day. On this occasion it chanced that the lord-justice took a small party to reconnoitre the country from a hill top at some small distance from his camp. Scarcely had they arrived at the summit when they were attacked by a strong party of Irish. The lord-justice and the earl of Kildare, who had accompanied him, received wounds of which they died in a few days after, and their guard escaped, with the loss of many, to the camp. The English, deprived of their leaders, found it necessary to retire.

The remainder of the year 1597, and the commencement of the next, were chiefly employed by O'Donell in a plundering excursion into Connaught, against O'Conor Roe; and also in compelling O'Rourke, whose politics were unsettled, to join the native party. But he shortly received a complaint from O'Neale, of the great inconvenience he sustained from a fort which the English had erected some time before on the great river* north of Armagh, and garrisoned *The Blackwater: this fort was long contested by the earl of Tyrone, being the key to his country.

with three hundred men. After some useless assaults, O'Neale contrived to cut off the means of supply, and the fort soon became reduced to great distress. On hearing this the government sent an army of five thousand men to their relief. O'Donell soon joined his ally, and the two armies, in a state of complete preparation, soon fronted each other in battle array. The biographer of O'Donell tells the whole of the array and preparations on both sides, and the speech with which O'Donell cheered his followers. He assured them of the victory on the strong ground of the justice of their cause. They were still further encouraged by the prophecy of a "prophetic saint who could not tell a lie," and it is added by the simplicity of the biographer, that "he who first showed this prophecy of the saint, was a famous poet, who had an extraordinary talent for invention. His name was Ferfeas O'Clery."

O'Donell drew up his army opposite to the English, and behind a line of deep trenches which he caused to be dug. Here he ordered that the charge of the English should be awaited. The result was according to his expectations: when the English came on, the force of their charge was broken by the interruption thus offered. While they were so arrested, O'Donell caused them to be attacked on both flanks. To resist this the English were obliged to weaken their centre, and their line was broken by O'Donell's men, who rushed with impetuosity in among their thinned ranks. This might have been counteracted by the superiority of the English tactics and armour; but an accidental occurrence turned the fortune of the day. A soldier whose ammunition was exhausted, went to supply himself at a powder barrel; and in doing this he let fall a spark of fire from his match into the powder. An explosion was the instant consequence: several score of barrels of powder blew up, spreading destruction and terror from the centre to the utmost flanks of the English. The field was for sometime in total darkness, and as it cleared away it appeared that the English general and most of his staff were slain. The English were scattered, and the leaders on the opposite side seeing and seizing on the occasion, poured in amongst them, insulating them into small groups, and cutting them to pieces in detail; so that half their number was lost, and of the rest few escaped unhurt. Such was the battle of the Yellow-ford.

In consequence of this tremendous loss, Armagh was surrendered by the English; they were not allowed to take their arms, the commander alone excepted.

O'Donell completed the operations of this year by compelling the MacDonoghs to sell him the town and castle of Ballymote.* They had been for several years in possession of the castle, which stood on their own patrimony, and had been accustomed to make it a repository for the plunder of the surrounding country. It was now, however, to be apprehended that it might fall into the hands of the English. To prevent this, O'Donell resolved to obtain possession, and gave the MacDonoghs the equitable price of £400 and three hundred cows. Here he took up his residence. His numerous expeditions in a southern direction seem to have made this change desirable on the score of

*On the north bank of the Moyne, a river between the counties of Mayo and Sligo.

convenience. And it also placed him in a position more favourable to the enlargement of his apparent prospects, as occupying a position more central, more within the range of a country over which he might hope, by the expulsion of the English, and the forfeitures of their Irish allies, to obtain a wide-spreading dominion, without interfering with the territories of the O'Neales and other northern chiefs, his faithful allies and kinsmen.

A main part of his hopes rested on the support he expected from the alliance of Spain. Thither his eye was turned through life, for the effective aid which might be hoped for from the wealth and warlike reputation of the Spaniards, as also from the inveterate hostility between the courts of Philip and Elizabeth. In the present year, 1598, he sent thither an ambassador to hasten this lingering but often promised succour; after which, his restless activity found vent in an expedition against Clanricarde, to which he had made a convenient approximation of residence. Having overborne the now feeble resistance of the earl of Clanricarde, and slaughtered many of his men, he swept over Clanricarde and returned with his plunder to Ballymote.

In the year following, the restless activity of O'Donell received a new direction. The Connaught chiefs having been spoiled year after year, until they had no longer any thing to lose, at last were allowed to enjoy the immunity of this dreary condition; and Red Hugh looked to the rich and well-stocked hills of Munster for the spoil which pillaged Connaught could no longer supply. There were for this other motives no less powerful than a love of plunder—the thirst for vengeance. The earl of Thomond had joined with the English governor in his attack on Tyrconnell. With these intentions Red Hugh appointed a meeting of his forces and allies at Ballymote, and marched into Thomond on the 17th February, 1599. Spreading his troops in the wonted manner over the country, they swept together a vast booty of cattle of every kind, took the castle of Inchiquin, with many others, and returned home with the plunder of the whole country, having left almost nothing behind. This was the work of about twelve days, during which the invaders met no check.

In the following June, O'Donell's emissary to Spain returned in a Spanish vessel, laden with a supply of arms, which were distributed between O'Donell and his ally, the earl of Tyrone.

His

The lord-lieutenant had in the meantime suffered his activity to be wasted by rebels of much less immediate importance. He overran Leix and Ophaly with a large army, and returned to Dublin. force was thus weakened unnecessarily, and he was compelled to apply for a reinforcement for the purpose of invading the insurgent chiefs of Ulster. In pursuance of this duty, he directed the president of Connaught to approach Belick to menace the earl of Tyrone on that side, while he himself should attack him on the other. Sir Conyers Clifford marched with 1500 men, and taking his way as directed, was met in a pass of the Curlew mountains-by a party of Irish which Ware, Cox, Leland, and most other writers who mention the circumstance, describe as led by O'Rourke, who is not mentioned in the account of the Irish historian. Assuming each party to have known best the circumstances of their own side, and taking the particulars in

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