was so uncertain that neither man nor horse could bear it, whereas in August food everywhere was abundant, and the soldiers would have time to become hardened to their work.’  They could winter somewhere on the Bann; harry Tyrone night and day without remission, and so break Shane to the ground and ruin him.  There was no time to be lost.  Maguire had come into Dublin, reporting that his last cottage was in ashes, and his last cow driven over the hill into Shane’s country; while Argyle, with the whole disposable force of the western isles, was expected to join him in summer.  O’Neill himself, after an abortive attempt to entrap Sidney at Dundalk, made a sudden attack on that town in July; but his men were beaten back, ’and eighteen heads were left behind to grin hideously over the gates.’  He then returned to Armagh and burned the cathedral to the ground, to prevent its being again occupied by an English garrison.  He next sent a swift messenger to Desmond, calling for a rising in Munster.  ‘Now was the time or never’ to set upon the enemies of Ireland.  If Desmond failed, or turned against his country, God would avenge it on him.  But Desmond’s reply was an offer to the deputy ’to go against the rebel with all his power.  The Scots also held back.’  Shane offered them all Antrim to join him, all the cattle in the country, and the release of Sorleyboy from captivity; but Antrim and its cattle they believed that they could recover for themselves, and James M’Connell had left a brother Allaster, who was watching with eager eyes for an opportunity to revenge the death of his kinsman, and the dishonour with which Shane had stained his race.

In the meantime troops and money came over from England, and on September 17, Colonel Randolph was at the head of an army in Lough Foyle; and the lord deputy took the field accompanied by Kildare, the old O’Donel, Shane Maguire, and O’Dogherty.  So that this war against O’Neill was waged for the dispossessed Irish chiefs as well as for England.  Armagh city they found a mere heap of blackened stones.  Marching without obstruction to Ben brook, one of O’Neill’s best and largest houses, which they found ’utterly burned and razed to the ground,’ thence they went on towards Clogher, ’through pleasant fields, and villages so well inhabited as no Irish county in the realm was like it.’  The Bishop of Clogher was out with Shane in the field.  ’His well-fattened flock were devoured by Sidney’s men as by a flight of Egyptian locusts.’  ‘There we stayed,’ said Sidney, ’to destroy the corn; we burned the country for 124 miles compass, and we found by experience that now was the time of the year to do the rebel most harm.’  But he says not a word of the harm he was doing to the poor innocent peasantry, whose industry had produced the crops, to the terrified women and children whom he was thus consigning to a horrible lingering death by famine.  This was a strange commencement of his own programme to treat the people with justice.