the Scots; his countess, though compelled to live with him and to be the mother of his children, had felt his brutality, repented of her folly, and perhaps attempted to escape. In the day time when he was abroad marauding, she was coupled like a hound to a page or a horse-boy, and only released at night when he returned to his evening orgies. The fierce Campbells were not men to bear tamely these outrages from a drunken savage on the sister of their chief; and Sussex conceived that if the Scots could by any contrivance be separated from Shan they might be used as a whip to scourge him.'

Elizabeth bade Sussex do his best. The Irish council agreed with the Deputy that the position of things 'was the most dangerous that had ever been in Ireland;' and that if the Queen intended to continue to hold the country Shan must be crushed at all hazards and at all costs. In desperate acquiescence she consented to supply the means for another invasion; yet, with characteristic perversity, she refused to accept Sussex's estimate of his own inability to conduct it. In submitting to his opinion she insisted that he should take the responsibility of carrying it into action.

Once more therefore the Deputy prepared for war. Fresh stores were thrown into Armagh, and the troops there increased to a number which could harass Tyrone

1 'Shan O'Neil possesseth O'Don- | board, when he is present, she is at nell's wife, and by him she is with liberty.'-Randolph to Cecil: Scotch child. She is all day chained by the MSS. Rolls House. arm to a little boy, and at bed and

through the winter. The M'Connells were plied with promises to which they were not unwilling to listen; and among the O'Neils themselves a faction was raised opposed to Shan under Tirlogh, the murderer of the Baron of Dungannon. O'Donnell was encouraged to hold out; M'Guyre defended himself in his islands. By the beginning of February Sussex undertook to relieve them.

Unhappily the Deputy had but too accurately measured his own incapacity. His assassination plots were but the forlorn resources of a man who felt his work too heavy for him; the Irish council had no confidence in a man who had none in himself; and certain that any enterprise which was left to him to conduct would end in disaster, they were unwilling to waste their men, their money, or their reputation. The army was disaffected, disorganized, and mutinous; Sussex lamented its condition to the Home Government, but was powerless to improve it; at length Kildare and Ormond, in the name of the other loyal noblemen and gentlemen, declared that they had changed their minds; they declined to supply their promised contingents for the invasion, and requested that it should be no longer thought of. The farmers of the Pale gathered courage from the example. They too refused to serve. When required to supply provisions, they replied with complaining of the extortion of the soldiers. They swore they would rather be hanged at their own doors' than establish such a precedent. If the Deputy looked to have provisions from them he would find himself de

December.

ceived;' and Sussex, distracted and miserable, could only declare that the Irish council was in a conspiracy 'to keep O'Neil from falling.'1

1563.

Thus February passed and March, and M'Guyre and O'Donnell were not relieved. At last, between threats and entreaty, Sussex wrung from Ormond an unwilling acquiescence;

April. and on the 6th of April, with a mixed force of Irish and English, ill armed, ill supplied, dispirited and almost disloyal, Sussex set out for the north. He took but provision for three weeks with him. A vague hope was held out by the farmers that a second supply should be collected at Dundalk.

The achievements of an army so composed and so commanded scarcely require to be detailed. The sole result of a winter's expensive, if worthless, preparation was thus summed up in the report from the Deputy to the Queen :

'April 6. The army arrives at Armagh.

'April 8. We return to Newry to bring up stores and ammunition which had been left behind.

April 11. We again advance to Armagh, where we remain waiting for the arrival of galloglasse and kerne from the Pale.

'April 14. A letter from James M'Connell, which

we answer.

April 15. The galloglasse not coming, we go upon Shan's cattle, of which we take enough to serve us;

1 Sussex to Elizabeth, February 19; Sussex to the English Council, March 1; Sussex to Cecil, March 1: Irish MSS. Rolls House.

we should have taken more if we had had galloglasse. 'April 16. We return to Armagh.

April 17, 18, 19. We wait for the galloglasse. At last we send back to Dublin for them, and begin to

fortify the churchyard.

'April 20. We write to M'Connell, who will not come to us, notwithstanding his promise.

'April 21. We survey the Trough Mountains, said to be the strongest place in Ireland.

April 22. We return to Armagh with the spoil taken, which would have been much greater if we had had galloglasse, and because St George's even forced me, her Majesty's lieutenant, to return to Divine service that night.

'April 23. 'Divine service.''

The three weeks had now all but expired; the provisions were consumed; it was necessary to fall back on the Pale, and if the farmers had kept their word, if he could obtain some Irish horse, and if the Scots did not assist Shan, which he thought it likely that they would do, Sussex trusted on his next advance that he would accomplish something more. Conscious of failure, he threw the blame on others. I have been commanded to the field,' he wrote to Cecil, and I have not one penny of money; I must lead forth an army and have no commission; I must continue in the field and I see not how I shall be victualled; I must fortify and have no working tools.' 1

1 Sussex to the Council, April 24; Sussex to Cecil, April 24: Irish MSS.

Such, after six months of preparation, was the Deputy's hopeless condition; the money, in which, if the complaints in England of the expenses of the Irish war were justified, he had not been stinted, all gone; and neither food nor even spade and mattock. In the Pale 'he could not get a man to serve the Queen, nor a peck of corn to feed the army.' At length, with a wild determination to do something, he made May. a plundering raid towards Clogher, feeding his men on the cattle which they could steal, wasted a few miles of country, and having succeeded in proving to the Irish that he could do them no serious harm, relinquished the expedition in despair. He exclaimed loudly that the fault did not rest with him. The Scots had deceived him. The Englishry of the Pale' were secretly unwilling that the rebellion should be put down. The Ulster chiefs durst not move because they distrusted his power to protect them. The rupture between England and France had given a stimulus to the rebellion, and to expel Shan was but a Sisyphus' labour.' 2

There may have been some faint foundation for these excuses. The Irish council, satisfied of the Deputy's incapacity, had failed to exert themselves; while in England the old policy of leaving Ireland to be governed by the Irish had many defenders; and Elizabeth had been urged to maintain an inefficient person against his will in the command, with a hope, un

'Sussex to the Council, April 28: Irish MSS.

2 Sussex to Cecil, May 20.