Lord Barry's answer was spirited: he reminded O'Neill, that he, an Anglo-Irish baron, was altogether differently circumstanced with respect to the Queen of England, from the ancient Celtic race ;-which indeed was true :— "for you shall understand," he says, "that I hold my lordships and lands, immediately under God, of her majestie and her most noble progenitors, by corporall service, and of none other, by very ancient tenour; which service and tenour none may dispense withal but the true possessor of the crowne of England, bing now our sovereign lady Queen Elizabeth." He then demands "restitution of his spoyle and prisoners;—and after," he continues, unless be better advised for your loyalty, use your discretions against mee and mine, and spare not if you please, for I doubt not, with the helpe of God and my prince to bee quit with some of you hereafter, though now not able to use resistance. And so wishing you to become true and faithful subjects to God and your prince, I end, at Barry Court, this twenty-sixe of February, 1599"-1600.

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It does not appear that O'Neill used any further severity towards Barry or his people in consequence of this obstinacy.

All this time the English forces in Munster lay closely shut up in Cork, and a few other garrisons, not daring to keep the field. Sir Warham Saint Leger and Sir Henry Power were now the queen's commissioners for the government of these southern troops until a new Lord President of Munster should be appointed instead of Sir Thomas Norreys: but while O'Neill was in the South their dominion was bounded by the walls of Cork.

One day, in this same month of February, 1600, "Tyrone with his hell-hounds," as an English historian has it, "being not far from Corke," these two functionaries were riding out to take the air, about a mile from the city, accompanied by some officers and gentlemen and a guard of horsemen. Suddenly they were confronted by Mac Gwire at the head of a patrolling party of O'Neill's cavalry; and, on the instant, Sir Warham discharged a pistol at the chieftain of Fermanagh and wounded him mortally; but Mac Gwire, before he fell, struck Saint Leger so crushing a blow with his truncheon upon the head, that he also fell dead from his horse. Save these two, not a blow was struck on either side.* The English betook themselves to the city, and ventured abroad more cautiously afterwards.

"The intent of O'Neill's journey," as Moryson tells us, 66 was to set as great combustion as he could in Munster, and so, taking pledges of the rebels, to leave them under the command of one chief head." And now having accomplished his mission there, he turned his face homeward; marched through Ormond,-through Westmeath between Athlone and Mullingar, and arrived in his dominions of Ulster without meeting an enemy; although there was then in Ireland a royal army amounting, after all the havoc made in it during the past year, to 14,422 foot, and 1,231 horse,† well provided with artillery and all military stores.

*Pacata Hibernia.

† Moryson. Before O'Neill's wars we hear of no English force employed in Ireland amounting to more than two or three thousand men.

CHAPTER XIII.

EXPEDITION TO DERRY-TREACHEROUS POLICY OF MOUNTJOY.

A. D. 1600.

WHILST the prince of Ulster was awakening and organizing the South, a new English deputy had arrived in Dublin, a more formidable enemy by far than any whom O'Neill had yet encountered. Charles Blount, Baron Mountjoy, who was not only an experienced officer, but a nobleman of much learning and taste, a "" bookish man," as his secretary describes him,-a powerful theologian and confuter of Papists, arrived in February to take the command in Ireland. He had strict instructions to establish at once powerful garrisons in Derry and Ballyshannon; and to effect this paramount object, additional troops were to be poured into Ireland and placed at the governor's disposal;-a fleet of transport ships was to be provided.No toil, or peril, or blood; no fraud, corruption, or treasure, was to be spared which might become necessary for the reduction of this re

Camden.

nowned Northern chieftain and his gallant Ulster septs under the sway of England. Not that the queen of that country had any claim to the North, or any subjects there, or any just quarrel with the inhabitants or their chiefs; but English undertakers lusted after the broad lands of Ulster;-English divines longed to undertake the rich livings, the fertile carucates, ballyboes, and plow-lands wherewith Catholic piety had endowed that Northern church. And besides, an Irish annalist tells us, "it was great vexation of mind to the queen and her councils in England and Ireland, that the Kinel Conal, Kinel Eoghain and all Ulster, besides those chiefs that were confederated with them, had made so long and successful a defence against them. They also remembered, yea, it secretly preyed like a consumption upon their hearts, that so many of their people had been lost and so much of their money and wealth consumed in carrying on the Irish war." ""* So the preparations of England were on a larger scale than ever: another desperate effort was determined upon; and the ablest man in the queen's dominions was sent to conduct it.

Mountjoy had not been a week in Ireland when news reached him that O'Neill was on his march northward, and intended to pass through Westmeath. He instantly drew together all his available force and set forth from Dublin to intercept

* Cited in the admirable historical sketch of Derry in the Ordnance Memoir.

him:* but O'Neill had advanced so rapidly that when Mountjoy arrived in Westmeath the Irish were already in O'Reilly's country: he did not follow them into the North, but returned to the Pale to take counsel with the other English officers, on the operations of that grand campaign which was now meditated against every province of the Island.

In the same ship that carried Mountjoy to Ireland came Sir George Carew, to whom the queen gave the title of "President of Munster," and assigned a body of three thousand foot and two hundred and fifty horse, for serving in that province. About the same time a powerful armament, destined for Lough Foyle, embarked at Chester and sailed to Carrickfergus bay, where it was joined by a thousand additional troops drafted from various garrisons in Ireland. Sir Henry Docwra was chosen to command it; and on the 7th of May he set sail from Carrickfergus, with a fleet of sixty-seven sail, carrying four thousand infantry and two hundred horse,† besides the seamen. They took with them, according to Sir Henry's own account, a quantitie of dealboards and spars of timber, 100 flocke bedds, with other necessaries to furnish an hospitall withall; one piece of demy cannon of brass, two culverins of iron, a master-gunner, two mastermasons, and two master-carpenters, allowed in

*Pacata Hib.

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It is an instance of Moryson's uncandid practice of falsifying numbers, &c., that he officially states Docwra's cavalry at 100 men; when Sir Henry himself admits he had twice that number.