g a game with the English authorities which as
things then were is almost beyond belief. He was outwitting or cajoling
the veterans of Irish government, who knew perfectly well what he was,
and yet let him amuse them with false expectations--men like Sir John
Norreys, who broke his heart when he found out how Tyrone had baffled
and made a fool of him. Wishing to gain time for help from Spain, and to
extend the rebellion, he revolted, submitted, sued for pardon but did
not care to take it when granted, fearlessly presented himself before
the English officers while he was still beleaguering their posts, led
the English forces a chase through mountains and bogs, inflicted heavy
losses on them, and yet managed to keep negotiations open as long as it
suited him. From 1594 to 1598, the rebellion had been gaining ground; it
had crept round from Ulster to Connaught, from Connaught to Leinster,
and now from Connaught to the borders of Munster. But Munster, with its
English landlords and settlers, was still on the whole quiet. At the end
of 1597, the Council at Dublin reported home that "Munster was the best
tempered of all the rest at this present time; for that though not long
since sundry loose persons" (among them the base sons of Lord Roche,
Spenser's adversary in land suits) "became Robin Hoods and slew some of
the undertakers, dwelling scattered in thatched houses and remote places
near to woods and fastnesses, yet now they are cut off, and no known
disturbers left who are like to make any dangerous alteration on the
sudden." But they go on to add that they "have intelligence that many
are practised withal from the North, to be of combination with the rest,
and stir coals in Munster, whereby the whole realm might be in a general
uproar." And they repeat their opinion that they must be prepared for a
"universal Irish war, intended to shake off all English government."

In April, 1598, Tyrone received a new pardon; in the following August,
he surprised an English army near Armagh, and shattered it with a
defeat, the bloodiest and most complete ever received by the English in
Ireland. Then the storm burst. Tyrone sent a force into Munster: and
once more Munster rose. It was a rising of the dispossessed proprietors
and the whole native population against the English undertakers; a
"ragged number of rogues and boys," as the English Council describes
them; rebel kernes, pouring out of the "great wood," and from Arlo, the
"chief f