ce. Yet here is the miserably cold, _jejune_,
feeble, and imperfect record which we find in the Annals of the Four
Masters:--'The Lord Justice of Ireland, namely Thomas Fitzwalter
(Sussex), marched into Tyrone to take revenge for the capture of
Caloach O'Donel, and also for his own quarrels with the country.
He encamped with a great army at Armagh, and constructed deep
entrenchments and impregnable ramparts about the great church of
Armagh, which he intended to keep constantly guarded. O'Neill, i.e.
John, having received intelligence of this, sent a party of his
faithful men and friends with Caloach O'Donel to guard and keep
him from the Lord Justice, and they conveyed him from one island to
another, in the recesses and sequestered places of Tyrone. After some
time the Lord Justice sent out from the camp at Armagh, a number of
his captains with 1000 men to take some prey and plunder in Oriel.
O'Neill, having received private information and intelligence of those
great troops marching into Oriel, proceeded privately and silently to
where they were, and came up to them after they had collected their
prey; a battle ensued in which many were slain on both sides; and
finally the preys were abandoned, and fell into the hands of their
original possessors on that occasion.'

That is the whole account of the most signal victory over the English
that had crowned the arms of Ulster during those wars! Not a word of
the disparity of the forces, or the flight of the English cavalry,
or the slaughter of the Englishmen-at-arms, or the humiliation and
disabled condition of the garrison at Armagh. Equally unsatisfactory
is the record of the subsequent march through Tyrone by Sussex, in the
course of which his army slaughtered 4000 head of cattle, which they
could not drive away. Of this tremendous destruction of property the
Four Masters do not say a word. Such omissions often occur in their
annals, even when dealing with contemporary events. Uncritical as they
were and extremely credulous, how can we trust the records which they
give of remote ages?

CHAPTER III.

O'NEILL, SOVEREIGN OF ULSTER.

The moral atmosphere of Elizabeth's court was not favourable to public
virtue. Strange to say at this time Lord Pembroke seemed to be the
only nobleman connected with it whose patriotism could be depended on;
and, according to Cecil, there was not another person, 'no not one'
who did not either wish well to Shane O'Neill, or so ill t