sight of Smerwick Bay, and of
the fort on the sandy isthmus in which the Italians and Spaniards were
lying in the hope of slipping back to Spain. The Legate had no sanguine
aspirations left; every roof that could harbour the Geraldines had been
destroyed in the English forays; Desmond was hiding, like a wild beast,
in the Wood. By all the principles of modern warfare, the time had come
for mercy and conciliation, and one man in Ireland, Ormond, thought as
much. But Lord Grey was a soldier of the old disposition, an implacable
enemy to Popery, what we now call a 'Puritan' of the most fierce and
frigid type. There is no evidence to show that the gentle Englishmen who
accompanied him, some of the best and loveliest spirits of the age,
shrank from sharing his fanaticism. There was massacre to be gone
through, but neither Edmund Spenser, nor Fulke Greville, nor Walter
Raleigh dreamed of withdrawing his sanction. The story has been told and
retold. For simple horror it is surpassed, in the Irish history of the
time, only by the earlier exploit which depopulated the island of
Rathlin. In the perfectly legitimate opening of the siege of Fort del
Ore, Raleigh held a very prominent commission, and we see that his
talents were rapidly being recognised, from the fact that for the first
three days he was entrusted with the principal command. It would appear
that on the fourth day, when the Italians waved their white flag and
screamed 'Misericordia! misericordia!' it was not Raleigh, but Zouch,
who was commanding in the trenches. The parley the Catholics demanded
was refused, and they were told they need not hope for mercy. Next day,
which was November 9, 1580, the fort yielded helplessly. Raleigh and
Mackworth received Grey's orders to enter and 'fall straight to
execution.'

It was thought proper to give Catholic Europe a warning not to meddle
with Catholic Ireland. In the words of the official report immediately
sent home to Walsingham, as soon as the fort was yielded, 'all the Irish
men and women were hanged, and 600 and upwards of Italians, Spaniards,
Biscayans and others put to the sword. The Colonel, Captain, Secretary,
Campmaster, and others of the best sort, saved to the number of 20
persons.' Of these last, two had their arms and legs broken before
being hanged on a gallows on the wall of the fort. The bodies of the six
hundred were stripped and laid out on the sands--'as gallant goodly
personages,' Lord Grey reported, 'as