to make a concerted attack.  Advancing in two separate columns they destroyed everything which came in their way; men, women, children, infants, the old, the blind, the sick all alike were mercilessly slaughtered; not a roof, however humble, was spared; not a living creature that crossed their path survived to tell the tale.  Lady Fitzmaurice and her two little children seem to have been amongst the number of these nameless and uncounted victims, for they were never heard of again.  From Adare and Askeaton to the extreme limits of Kerry, everything perishable was destroyed.  The two commanders met one another at Tralee, and from this point carried on their raid in unison, and returned, to Askeaton and Cork, leaving the whole country a desert behind them.  There was little or no resistance.  The Desmond clansmen were not soldiers; they were unarmed, or armed only with spears and skeans.  They had just lost their only leader.  They could do nothing but sullenly watch the progress of the English forces.  Desmond, his two brothers, and the legate were already fugitives.  The rising seemed to be all but crushed, when a new incident occurred to spur it into a momentary vitality.

Four Spanish vessels, containing 800 men, chiefly Italians, had managed to pass unperceived by the English admiral, Winter’s, fleet, and to land at Smerwick, where they established themselves in Fitzmaurice’s dismantled fort.  They found everything in confusion.  They had brought large supplies of arms for their Irish allies, but there were apparently no Irish allies to give them to.  The legate and Desmond had first to be found, and now that arms had come, the Munster tribesmen had for the most part been killed or dispersed.  Ormond and Pelham’s terrible raid had done its work, and the heart of the rising was broken.  The Pale, however, had now caught the fire, and though Kildare, its natural leader, still hung back, Lord Baltinglass and some of the bolder spirits flew to arms, and threw themselves into the Wicklow highlands where they joined their forces with those of the O’Byrnes, and were presently joined by Sir John of Desmond and a handful of Fitzgeralds.

Lord Grey de Wilton had by this time arrived in Ireland as deputy.  Utterly inexperienced in Irish wars, he despised and underrated the capabilities of those opposed to him, and refused peremptorily to listen to the advice of more experienced men.  Hastening south, his advanced guard was caught by Baltinglass and the other insurgents in the valley of Glenmalure.  A well-directed fire was poured into the defile; the English troops broke, and tried to flee, and were shot down in numbers amongst the rocks.

Lord Grey had no time to retrieve this disaster.  Leaving the Pale to the mercy of the successful rebels, he hastened south, and arrived in Kerry before Smerwick fort.  Amongst the small band of officers who accompanied him on this occasion were Walter Raleigh and Edmund Spenser, both then young men, and both of them all but unknown to fame.