Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/595

 1567 ] DEA TH OF VNEIL. 575 ing the misfortune not to come of treason but of God's ordinance, bore it well ; ' ' she was willing to do that which should be wanting to repair the loss ; ' 1 and Cecil was able to write cheerfully to Sidney, telling him to make the best of the accident, and let it stimulate him to fresh exertions. 2 Happily the essential work had been done already, and the ruin of Derry came too late to profit Shan. His own people, divided and dispirited, were mutinying against a leader who no longer commanded success. In May a joint movement was concerted between Sidney and the O'Donnells, and while the Deputy with the light horse of the Pale overran Tyrone and carried off three thousand cattle, Hugh O'Donnell came down on Shan on the river which runs into Lough Foyle. The spot where the supremacy of Ulster was snatched decisively from the ambition of the O'Neils, is called in the despatches Gaviston. The situation is now difficult to identify. It was somewhere perhaps between Lifford and Londonderry, on the west side of the river Conscious that he was playing his last card, Shan had gathered together the whole of his remaining force, and had still nearly three thousand men with him. The O'Donnells were fewer in number ; but victory, as gener- ally happens, followed the tide in which events were setting. After a brief fight the O'Neils broke and fled ; the enemy was behind them, the river was in front ; and when the Irish battle-cries had died away over moor and 1 Cecil to Leicester, May, 1567 : Irish MSS. Rolls House. - ' Et contra audentior ito.' Cecil to Sidney, May 13 : MS. Ibid.