Even when, after more than one furiously reproachful letter from the queen, and after his army had been recruited by an additional force of two thousand men, he at last started for the north, nothing of any importance happened.  He and Tyrone held an amicable and unwitnessed conference at a ford of the little river Lagan, at which the enemies of the viceroy did not scruple afterwards to assert that treason had been concocted.  What, at any rate, is certain is that Essex agreed to an armistice, which, with so overwhelming a force at his own disposal, naturally awakened no little anger and astonishment.  Tyrone’s personal courtesy evidently produced a strong effect upon the other earl.  They were old acquaintances, and Tyrone was no doubt able to place his case in strong relief.  Essex, too, had that generosity of mind which made him inconveniently open to expostulation, and he knew probably well enough that the wrongs of which Tyrone complained were far from imaginary ones.

Another and a yet more furious letter from the queen startled him for his own safety.  Availing himself of a permission he had brought with him to return should occasion seem to require it, he left the command in the hands of subordinates, flew to Dublin, and embarked immediately for England.  What befel him upon his arrival is familiar to every school child, and the relation of it must not be allowed to divert us from following the further course of events in Ireland.

[Illustration:  CINERARY URN. (From a Tumulus near Dublin.)]

XXX.

END OF THE TYRONE REBELLION.

A very different man from the chivalrous and quixotic Essex now took the reins.  Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, had expected to be sent to Ireland when Essex had suddenly been appointed with ampler powers and a more extended consequence, and the disappointment had caused him to follow the course of that ill-starred favourite with ill-concealed jealousy to its tragic end.

Mountjoy was himself a man of cold, clear-sighted, self-seeking temperament.  In almost all English histories dealing with this period his steadiness and solid unshowy qualities are contrasted with Essex’s flightiness and failure, to the natural disadvantage of the latter.  This, however, is not perhaps quite the last word upon the matter, and it is only fair to Essex that this should be realized.

[Illustration:  CAPTURE OF THE EARL OF ORMOND BY THE O’MORES. (From the “Pacata Hibernia,” of Sir G. Carew.) 1.  Ormond and his followers; 2.  Rebel horse and foot; 3.  Rebels concealed in woods; 4.  Bogs.]