Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/149

 SHAN a NEIL. 129 August. the English army, so hardly gotten, is now vanquished, and I wrecked and dishonoured by the vileness of other men's deeds.' 1 The answer of Cecil to this sad despatch betrays the intriguing factiousness which dis- graced Elizabeth's Court. Lord Pembroke seemed to be the only nobleman whose patriotism could be depended on ; and in Pembroke's absence there ' was not a person no/ Cecil reiterated, 'not one,' who did not either wish so well to Shan O'Neil or so ill to the Earl of Sussex as rather to welcome the news than regret the English loss. 2 The truth was soon known in London notwithstand- ing 'the varnished tale' with which Sussex had sought to hide it. A letter from Lady Kildare to her husband represented the English army as having been totally defeated ; and Elizabeth, irritated as usual at the profit- less expense in which she had been involved, determined, in her first vexation, to bury no more money in Irish morasses. Kildare undertook to persuade Shan into conformity if she would leave him in possession of what it appeared she was without power to take from him ; the Queen consented to everything which he proposed, and the old method of governing Ireland by the Irish that is, of leaving it to its proper anarchy was about to be resumed. Most tempting and yet most fatal ; for the true desire of the Irish leaders was to cut the links altogether which bound them to England, and 1 Sussex to Cecil, July 31 : Irish MSS. 2 Cecil to Sussex, August 12 : WRIGHT, vol. i. VOL. VII. 9