Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/611

 I$8o.] THE DESMOND REBELLION. 591 better pleased if the choice of justice or mercy had been reserved to herself; and she left no doubt for which alternative she would have decided by adding, that their treatment ' would/ in that case, ' have served for a terrour to such as might hereafter be drawn to be the executioners of so wicked an enterprise, when they should hear that as well the heads as the inferiors had received punishment according to their de- _ . December, merits. l Ihe execution was not complained of by Mendoza. The incapacity with which the enter- prise had been conducted, and the miserable defence which the unfortunate wretches had made for themselves, rendered him indifferent to their fate as a soldier, while their absolute destruction relieved Philip of further concern for their fate. 2 So ended the grand expedition, the subject of so many prayers, the first effort made by the Father of Christendom in his own behalf for the recovery of his lost dominions. The blessed banner had been scratched by the thorns in the woods of Limerick. The Legate was thenceforward to be hunted like a wolf among the mountains, cursed at heart by the people whose super- stition still protected him. The soldiers of the cross possessed no more of the land which they had come to conquer than the soil which covered their bones. The Irish branch of the great enterprise concerted at Kheims had broken in the hands of its projectors. There re- mained nothing of it but a catalogue of horrible me- 1 The Queen to Lord Grey, De- | 2 Descifrada de Don Bernardino, cember, 1580: MSS. Ireland. | II de Deciembre : MSS. Simancas.