Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/618

 598 REIGN OF ELIZABETH, [CH. 62. deep into their souls, and desperate as were the fortunes of the rebellion, the young lords of the Pale, and the sons of the half-reclaimed families of Munster, the Bar- ries, the Roches, the Fitzgeralds, the MacTeigues, and the O'Sullivans, chose rather to live as ' Robin Hoods ' with Desmond, than to enjoy their properties in peace under the rule of an English Deputy. 1 In answer to the proclamation of pardon, Desmond dashed into the hitherto unspoiled country of his cousin Fitzgerald of Decies, who had sent in his submission to Grey, burnt thirty- six villages and swept off or destroyed seven thousand cattle. 2 Lying in the mountains between Waterford and Cork, he made the Butlers suffer in turn what the Butlers had inflicted upon Kerry. Ormond, roused again into fury, took the field in turn. Backwards and forwards the tide of havoc swayed, and at last so wretched, so desolate became Munster, ' that the lowing of a cow, or the voice of the ploughman, was not to be heard that year from Dingle to the Rock of Cashel.' 3 To kill an Irishman in that province was thought no more of than to kill a mad dog ; and small distinction was made at last between friends and enemies. Not only, says Mendoza, ' do the English make organized inroads upon them, killing men, women, and children, but I understand one of the council has a letter from Ireland, in which it is related that an English officer, a favourite of the Viceroy, invited seventeen Irish gentle- to 1 Sir Warham St Leger Burghley, 1581 : MS$. Ireland. 2 St Leger to Burghley, Juno 3 : MSS. Ibid. 3 Annals of the Four Masters, A.' 1581.