Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/637

 1583-] THE DESMOND REBELLION. 617 gleanings of the harvest had been gathered, and it was called peace. The insurgents of the Pale were dead or in exile. Tirlogh Lenogh, unable to move on account of the Scots when Fitzmaurice landed, and distrusting afterwards the chances of the insurrection, had spared his own people till Spain would speak out more clearly. Submission was the order of the day. Connaught had been scourged into quiet by Malby and Brabazon. Clan- rickard died, and his sons, united hitherto in evil, quarrelled over his inheritance. The younger brother, John, was the favourite of the clan. He was a rollick- ing, marauding scoundrel, ' beloved by all the bards, and rhymers, and women/ and setting a fair example of morality by living in incest with his sister, Lady Mary, the wife of O'Rourke of Roscommon. Ulick the elder, fearing his too successful rivalry, marked him down one night when he was out on an expedition for plunder, broke into the castle where he was sleeping, and murdered him. The service was well received, and well rewarded. Ulick, with Elizabeth's consent, was installed at Portumna in the earldom. 1 One more cruel melodrama at Dublin concluded the tragedy of the Desmond rebellion. It had arisen from the direct action of the Pope. Fitzmaurice had landed with a Papal commission and an accredited Legate. The rebels everywhere pleaded Elizabeth's deposition as the ground of the war, and in England as well as Ireland the Pope was trying the question of aUegiance, with i Connaught correspondence, November, 1583: M88. Ireland.