garrison there he fell back into Meath, where in a few days he was joined by Ormond with flying companies of 'galloglasse.'

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But Sussex did not yet understand the man with whom he was dealing. He allowed himself to be amused and delayed by negotiations; and while he was making promises to Shan which it is likely that he intended to disregard, Armagh was almost lost again.

Seeing a number of kerne scattered about the town the officer in command sallied out upon them, when Shan himself suddenly appeared, accompanied by the Catholic Archbishop, on a hill outside the walls; and the English had but time to recover their defences when the whole Irish army, led by a procession of monks and 'every man carrying a faggot,' came on to burn the cathedral over their heads. The monks sung a mass ; the primate walked three times up and down the lines, willing the rebels to go forward, for God was on their side.' Shan swore a great oath not to turn his back while an Englishman was left alive; and with scream and yell his men came on. Fortunately there were no Scots among them. The English, though outnumbered ten to one, stood steady in the churchyard, and after a sharp hand to hand fight drove back the howling crowd. The Irish retired into the 'friars' houses' outside the cathedral close, set them on fire, and ran for their lives.

1 'The second of this month we assembled at Raskreagh, and still treated with Shan for his going to your Majesty, making him great

offers if he would go quietly.’— Sussex to the Queen, July 16: Irish MSS.

So far all was well. After this there was no more talk of treating;` and by the 18th, Sussex and Ormond were themselves at Armagh, with a force-had there been skill to direct it-sufficient to have swept Tyrone from border to border.

The weather however was wet, the rivers were high, and slight difficulties seemed large to the English commander. He stayed in the town doing nothing till the end of the month, when his provisions began to run short, and necessity compelled him to move. Spies brought him word that in the direction of Cavan there were certain herds of cows which an active party might cut off; and cattle-driving being the approved method of making war in Ireland, the Deputy determined to have them.

The Earl of Ormond was ill, and Sussex, in an evil hour for his reputation, would not leave him. His troops without their commander set out with Irish guides for the spot where the cows had been seen.

O'Neil as may be supposed had been playing upon Saxon credulity; the spies were his own men ; and the object was merely to draw the English among bogs and rivers where they could be destroyed. They were to have been attacked at night at their first halting-place; and they escaped only by the accident of an alteration of route. Early the following morning they were marching forward in loose order; Fitzwilliam, with a hundred horse, was a mile in advance; five hundred men-at-arms with a few hundred loyal Irish of the Pale straggled after him; another hundred horse under James Wingfield brought up the rear.

Weaker in numbers, for his whole force did not amount to more than six hundred men, O'Neil came up with them from behind. Wingfield instead of holding his ground galloped forward upon the men-at-arms, and as horses and men were struggling in confusion together, on came the Irish with their wild battle-cry-' Laundarg Abo!'-'The bloody hand!'-'Strike for O'Neil.' The cavalry, between shame and fear, rode down their own men, and extricated themselves only to fly panic-stricken from the field to the crest of an adjoining hill, while Shan's troopers rode through the broken ranks 'cutting down the footmen on all sides.'

Fitzwilliam, ignorant of what was passing behind him, was riding leisurely forwards, when a horseman was observed galloping wildly in the distance and waving his handkerchief for a signal. The yells and cries were heard through the misty morning air, and Fitzwilliam, followed by a gentleman named Parkinson and ten or twelve of his own servants, hurried back ‘in a happy hour.'

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Without a moment's delay he flung himself into the mêlée. Sir George Stanley was close behind him with the rest of the advanced horse; and Shan, receiving such a charge of those few men and seeing more coming after,' ran no further risk, blew a recall note and withdrew unpursued. Fitzwilliam's courage alone had prevented the army from being annihilated. Out of five hundred English, fifty lay dead, and fifty more were badly wounded; the Irish contingent had disappeared; and the survivors of the force fell back to Armagh so dismayed' as to be unfit for further service.

In his official report to the Queen the Earl of Sussex made light of his loss, and pretended that after a slight repulse he had won a brilliant victory. The object of the false despatch however was less to deceive Elizabeth than to blind the English world. To Cecil the Deputy was more open, and though professing still that he had escaped defeat, admitted the magnitude of the disaster.

'By the cowardice of some,' Sussex said, 'all was like to have been lost, and by the worthiness of two men all was restored and the contrary part overthrown. It was by cowardice the dreadfullest beginning that ever was seen in Ireland; and by the valiantness of a few (thanks be given to God!) brought to a good end. Ah! Mr Secretary, what unfortunate star hung over me that day to draw me, that never could be persuaded to be absent from the army at any time, to be then absent for a little disease of another man? The rereward was the best and picked soldiers in all this land. If I or any stout man had been that day with them, we had made an end of Shan, which is now further off than ever it was. Never before durst Scot or Irishman look on Englishmen in plain or wood since I was here; and now Shan, in a plain three miles away from any wood, and where I would have asked of God to have had him, hath with a hundred and twenty horse and a few Scots and galloglasse, scarce half in numbers, charged our whole army, and by the cowardice of one wretch whom I hold dear to me as my own brother, was like in one hour to have left not one man of that army alive, and after to have taken me and the rest at Armagh. The fame of

the English army, so hardly gotten, is now vanquished, and I wrecked and dishonoured by the vileness of other men's deeds.'1

August.

The answer of Cecil to this sad despatch betrays the intriguing factiousness which disgraced Elizabeth's Court. Lord Pembroke seemed to be the only nobleman whose patriotism could be depended and in Pembroke's absence there was not a person -no,' Cecil reiterated, 'not one,' who did not either wish so well to Shan O'Neil or so ill to the Earl of Sussex as rather to welcome the news than regret the English loss.2

on;

The truth was soon known in London notwithstanding 'the varnished tale' with which Sussex had sought to hide it. A letter from Lady Kildare to her husband represented the English army as having been totally defeated; and Elizabeth, irritated as usual at the profitless expense in which she had been involved, determined, in her first vexation, to bury no more money in Irish morasses. Kildare undertook to persuade Shan into conformity if she would leave him in possession of what it appeared she was without power to take from him; the Queen consented to everything which he proposed, and the old method of governing Ireland by the Irishthat is, of leaving it to its proper anarchy-was about to be resumed. Most tempting and yet most fatal; for the true desire of the Irish leaders was to cut the links altogether which bound them to England, and

VOL. VII.

Sussex to Cecil, July 31: Irish MSS.

2 Cecil to Sussex, August 12: WRIGHT, vol. i.

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