, undeterred by failure, presented himself next before the
Pope. Here he was more successful, and preparations for the collection
of a considerable force was at once set on foot, a prominent English
refugee, Dr. Nicolas Saunders, being appointed to accompany it
as legate.

Saunders, who had distinguished himself not long before by a violent
personal attack against Elizabeth, threw himself heart and soul into the
enterprise, and in a letter to Philip pointed out all the advantages
that were to be won by it to the Catholic cause. "Men," he assured him,
"were not needed." Guns, powder, a little money, and a ship or two with
stores from Spain, and the whole country would soon be at his feet.

Although absurdly ignorant, as his own letters prove, of a country of
which he had once been nominally king, Philip knew rather more probably
about the circumstance of the case than Saunders, and he met these
insinuating suggestions coldly. A fleet in the end was fitted out and
sent from Civita Vecchia, under the command of an English adventurer
Stukeley, the same Stukeley in whose favour we saw Shane O'Neill
appealing to Elizabeth. Though it started for Ireland it never arrived
there. Touching at Lisbon, Stukeley was easily persuaded to give up his
first scheme, and to join Sebastian, king of Portugal, in a buccaneering
expedition to Morocco, and at the battle of Alcansar both he and
Sebastian with the greater part of their men were killed.

Fitzmaurice meanwhile had gone to Spain by land, and had there embarked
for Ireland, accompanied by his wife, two children, Saunders, the
legate, Allen, an Irish priest, a small party of Italians and Spaniards,
and a few English refugees, and bringing with them a banner especially
consecrated by the Pope for this service.

Their landing-place was Dingle, and from there they crossed to Smerwick,
where they fortified the small island peninsula of Oilen-an-Oir, or
"Gold Island," where they were joined by John and James Fitzgerald,
brothers of the Earl of Desmond, and by a party of two hundred
O'Flaherties from Iar Connaught, who, however, speedily left again.

But Desmond still vacillated helplessly. Now that the time had come he
could not make up his mind what to do, or with whom to side. He was
evidently cowed. His three imprisonments lay heavily upon his soul. He
knew the power of England better too than most of his adherents, and
shrank from measuring his own strength against it. What he did