mares, of which
the choicest were sent to Fitzwilliam. Sir Brian himself, his brother,
and Lady O'Neill, were carried as prisoners to Dublin, where they were
soon after executed.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Froude, vol. xi. p.179.]

Essex did not miscalculate the probable effect of this exploit. It
raised him high in the estimation of the Anglo-Irish of the Pale. 'The
taint of the country was upon him; he had made himself no better than
themselves, and was the hero of the hour.' The effect of such conduct
and such a spirit in the rulers, may be imagined. A few weeks later,
Sir Edward Fitton wrote: 'I may say of Ireland, that it is quiet;
but if universal oppression of the mean sort by the great; if murder,
robberies, burnings make an ill commonwealth, then I cannot say we are
in a good case ... Public sentiment in Dublin, however, was unanimous
in its approbation. Essex was the man who would cauterize the
long-standing sores. There was a soldier in Ireland at last who
understood the work that was to be done, and the way to set about it.
Beloved by the soldiers, admirable alike for religion, nobility, and
courtesy, altogether the queen's, and not bewitched by the factions
of the realm, the governor of Ulster had but to be armed with supreme
power, and the long-wished-for conquest of Ireland would be easily and
instantly achieved.'

These feelings were not unnatural to the party in Dublin, now
represented by the men who recently declared that they rejoiced in
the election of a Fenian convict in Tipperary, and declared that they
would vote for such a candidate in preference to a loyal man. But how
did Queen Elizabeth receive the news of the treacherous and atrocious
massacre at Belfast? She was not displeased. 'Her occasional
disapprobation of severities of this kind,' says Mr. Froude, 'was
confined to cases to which the attention of Europe happened to be
especially directed. She told Essex that he was a great ornament of
her nobility, she wished she had many as ready as he to spend their
lives for the benefit of their country.'

Thus encouraged by his sovereign, and smarting under the reproach of
cowardice cast on him by Leicester, Essex determined to render his
name illustrious by a still more signal deed of heroism. After an
unprovoked raid on the territories of O'Neill in Tyrone, carrying
off cattle and slaughtering great numbers of innocent people whom
his soldiers hunted down, he perpetrated another massacre, which is
c