Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/584

 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 62. without waiting for instructions, snatched the command of Munster, gathered together the remains of Drury'a troops, attacked the Geraldines again, killed an English Jesuit who had accompanied Sanders, destroyed a mon- astery where the rebels had concealed their wounded, and dispatched them all. He then ordered Desmond to come to him, and when Desmond hesitated, he marched to Ashketyn to look for him, burning farms and villages on his way, and killing all that he met. Unprepared for these vigorous measures, the Earl had admitted his brothers and Sanders himself into the castle, where they were all together when Malby arrived under the walls. The castle was too strong to be taken without cannon. The English commander had none with him, and the season did not allow him to keep his troops long ex- posed. He burnt the town to the gates therefore. He destroyed the abbey under the Earl's and the Legate's eyes, and broke in pieces the tombs of the Desmonds ; l and then after wasting the whole country round and leaving a small garrison in Adair, he returned to his own command in Connaught. But the example was far from producing its expected effect. The Queen, who by this time had learnt the smallness of the force which had arrived at Dingle, be- lieved that she had been deceived. She complained angrily of the expense into which she had been be- trayed in sending troops which were not needed, and 1 Ashketyn, or Askeaton as it is now called, stands at the head of a creek running into the Shannon, fifteen miles below Limerick. The ruins of the abhey are still to be seen as Malby left them.