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DES and strengthened. The Earl hastened to meet his foreign auxiliaries, and some weeks were spent in desultory excursions in the neighbourhood. On 31st October, Lord Grey, burning to retrieve his recent disgrace in Glenmalure, encamped with a strong force under experienced officers some eight miles from Smerwick. Five days afterwards Admiral "Winter arrived with his fleet from Kinsale. Heavy guns were landed, trenches opposite the fort were opened on the 7th, and on the l0th the Spaniards surrendered—unconditionally, according to English dispatches: Irish authorities state that the lives and liberties of the soldiers were guaranteed. After surrendering, the English commander asked who they were, and for what purpose they had landed in Ireland; to which they replied in effect that they had been brought over to Ireland "upon fair speeches and great promises, which they had found vain and false." Next morning the officers were, by Lord Grey's orders, reserved for ransom, while the soldiers were slaughtered in cold blood, and a few women and a priest amongst them were hanged. The bodies, 600 in all, were stripped and laid out upon the sands—"as gallant and goodly personages, said Grey, "as ever were beheld." "To him," says Mr. Froude, "it was but the natural and obvious method of disposing of an enemy who had deserved no quarter. His own force amounted barely to 800 men, and he probably could not, if he had wished, have conveyed so large a body of prisoners in safety across Ireland to Dublin." Sir Walter Raleigh was one of the officers commanding the party who carried the Deputy's orders into execution. The war in Munster now assumed, if possible, a more savage character, and untold atrocities were committed on both sides. A large though diminishing number of followers still surrounded the Earl and his Countess. About July 1581, while encamped at Aghadoe, Killarney, he was taken unawares by Captain Zouch, many of his men were slain, and he escaped with difficulty. In September he penetrated as far as Cashel, and carried off to Aherlow large spoil of cattle and other property. In the course of the next winter Dr. Saunders, the Papal Legate, died of cold and exposure. In August 1581, one year after his brother's death, Sir John of Desmond was intercepted (a spy having given information as to his whereabouts) at Castlelyons by Captain Zouch with a strong party, was wounded by a spear thrust, and expired before his enemies had carried him a mile. His body was thrown across his own steed, and conveyed to Cork, where it was hanged in chains—his head being cut off for exposure on Dublin Castle. The unhappy Earl now remained alone in arms. While the Government offered terms to such minor persons as would submit, he was excluded from mercy. The large rewards offered for his capture appeared to attach the peasantry of Desmond only the more to the faith and fortunes of their old lord. Hunted from place to place, he occasionally dealt heavy blows at his adversaries. The Glen of Aherlow was his favourite retreat, at other times he requented the woods in the south-west of limerick, or the fastnesses of Kerry, He passed Christmas of this year at Kilquane, near Kilmallock. There he was surprised by a party of soldiers led by a spy, John Welsh; the Earl's retreat was surrounded, and he and the Countess only saved themselves by plunging into a river hard by, and hiding in the water under an overhanging bank until the enemy had retired. On 28th April 1583 he wrote to Queen Elizabeth, offering to come to terms—"So as me country, castles, possessions, and lands, with me son, might be put and left in the hands and quiet possession of me council and followers, and also me religion and conscience not barred." About June, Lady Desmond, the companion hitherto of all her husband's wanderings, left him, probably by his own desire. Free from the incumbrance of her presence, the aged Earl wandered from glen to glen, and mountain to mountain, attended only by a priest and three or four faithful followers who would not leave him, "Where they did dress their meat," says Hooker, as quoted by Haverty, "thence they would remove to eat it in another place, and from thence go into another place to lie. In the nights they would watch; in the forenoon they would be upon the hills and mountains to descry the country, and in the afternoon they would sleep." On the 9th November he left the woods near Castleisland and went westward towards Tralee. Some of his kerns carried off forty cows and nine horses for his use from Maurice MacOwen, who immediately despatched messengers to Lieutenant Stanley at Dingle, and to his brothers-in-law, Owen and Donnell Moriarty, The two latter followed in the track of the prey, with a band of eighteen kerns. At Castlemaine they obtained the assistance of a few soldiers. From Tralee they traced them to Glanageenty. When dusk fell they saw a fire in the glen beneath them. At dawn (11th November 1583) the Moriartys with Daniel O'Kelly, one of the soldiers, took the lead 143