Gradually, as the area over which the power of the Deputy and his able assistant grew wider and wider, that of the Tyrone fell away and faded.  “The consequence of an Irish chieftain above all others,” observes Leland most weightily, “depended upon opinion.”  A true success, that is to say, of which the gleaming plumes and trophies were not immediately visible, would have been far more disastrous than a real failure which could have been gilded over with a little delusive gleam of triumph.  There was no gleams, real or imaginary, now.  Tyrone was fast coming to the end of his resources.  Surrender or starvation were staring him with ugly insistence in the face.

The war, in fact, was on the point of dying out from sheer exhaustion, when a new element came to infuse momentary courage into the breasts of the insurgents.  Fifty Spanish ships, with Don Juan d’Aguilar and three thousand soldiers on board, sailed into Kinsale harbour, where they proceeded to disembark and to occupy the town.

The instant the news of this landing reached Mountjoy, he, with characteristic vigour, hurried south with every soldier he could collect, so as to cut off the new arrivals before their allies had time to appear.  Not a moment was lost.  The Spaniards had landed on the 20th of September, 1601, and by the 23rd the first English soldiers appeared before the town, and before the end of the month Mountjoy and Carew had concentrated every man they had in Ireland around Kinsale.

Tyrone and O’Donnell also hurried south, but their progress was slower, and when they arrived they found their allies closely besieged on all sides.  Taking advantage of a frost, which had made the bogs passable, O’Donnell stole round the English forces and joined another party of Spaniards who had just effected a landing at Castlehaven.  All Kerry was now up in arms, under two local chiefs, O’Sullivan Beare and O’Driscoll.  The struggle had resolved itself into the question which side could hold out longest.  The English had the command of the sea, but were the Spanish fleet to return their position would become to the last degree perilous.  The game for Tyrone to play was clearly a waiting one.  The Spaniards in Kinsale were weary however of their position, and urged him to try and surprise the English camp.  Reluctantly, and against his own judgment, he consented.  The surprise failed utterly.  Information of it had already reached Carew.  The English were under arms, and after a short struggle Tyrone’s men gave way.  Twelve hundred were killed, and the rest fled in disorder.  The Spaniards thereupon surrendered Kinsale, and were allowed to re-embark for Spain; many of the Irish, including O’Donnell, accompanying them.

This was practically the end.  Tyrone retreated to the north, collecting the remnants of his army as he went.  Carew went south to wreak a summary vengeance upon O’Sullivan Beare, and the other Kerry insurgents, while Mountjoy, following in the wake of Tyrone, hemmed him gradually further and further north, repeating at the same time that wasting process which had already been only too brilliantly successful.