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successfully for his assassination. The Sugan Earl and Florence MacCarthy were captured and sent to the Tower. On the other hand, O'Donnell obtained several trifling successes in Ulster and Connaught. Lord Mountjoy abandoned the old system of marching in force across the country, dispersing the insurgents merely to rally again, and occupied various posts in the disturbed districts, whence he was able to send out flying columns. At Benburb, on 1 6th July 1 60 1, the Lord-Deputy, with a loss of but five English, defeated a party of Hugh O'Neill's followers, killing his secretary and 200 of his kerns. Of their Irish auxiliaries the English lost twenty-six killed and seventy-five wounded, concerning whom Fynes Moryson writes : " Those L-ish being such as had been rebels, and were like upon the least discontent to turne rebels, and such as were kept in pay rather to keepe them from taking part with the rebels, then any service they could doe us, the death of those unpeaceable sword- men, though falling on our side, yet was rather gaine then losse to the common- wealth." On the 23rd September 1601 a Spanish fleet, conveying 4,000 men and a quantity of arms and stores, under Don Juan d'Aguila, entered Kinsale harbour. D'Aguila occupied the town and defences, sent back his transports for reinforce- ments, and communicated with O'Neill. Lord Mountjoy and Sir George Carew, with a force of 2,000 Irish and 1,000 English, immediately invested Kinsale, while their fleet blockaded the harbour. Reinforcements were hastened from Eng- land, and before long there were 11,800 foot and 857 horse before the town. Hugh O'Neill allowed three months to elapse before he appeared at Belgoley, a hill north of Kinsale, a mile from the Anglo- Irish camp. Both he and O'Donnell had wasted much time on the way south in plunderin( and burning the districts under Anglo-Irish rule and influence. Mountjoy's forces had by that time been reduced by death and sickness, and the necessity of oc- cupying minor posts, to 6, 5 87 . O'Neill had under his command about 6,000 foot and 500 horse, including O'Donnell's division of 2,500, and 300 Spaniards, who had been landed at Castlehaven. If he had held this large force in hand, and cut off the supplies of Mountjoy's army, there is little doubt but that he might have raised the siege, and efiected a junction with the Spaniards; but he allowed himself to be urged into action by messages from D'Aguila, and by the precipitancy of O'Donnell, and on the night of the 23rd and 24th December (o.s.), having arranged beforehand with the 414
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Spaniards, he made an attack upon the entrenchments of the besiegers. Mount- joy had received private information of the intended movement, and was on the alert. The night was dark, broken by frequent flashes of lightning. Captain Tyrrell led the vanguard, O'Neill the centre, O'Donnell the rear. The guides missed their course, and when they reached the entrenchments at dawn of day they found the English army under arms, the cavalry mounted and in advance, and all ready to receive them. As O'Neill en- deavoured to bring his division into some order, the English cavalry poured down upon him. For an hour his troops strug- gled to maintain their ground. There was fearful confusion and carnage. The Spani- ards made a gallant stand ; their leader was taken, and most of them were cut to pieces. O'Donnell's division came at length into the field, and repulsed a wing of the English cavalry ; but the panic of the Irish became general, and ended in utter rout. Mountjoy's loss was compara- tively small. Fynes Moryson computes O'Neill's at 14 officers and 1,995 men killed, and 76 wounded. "After the battUe," says the same writer, " the Lord Deputy, in the middest of the dead bodies, caused thanks to be given to God for this victory." The Four Masters tell us that O'Neill and O'Donnell camped that night at Inishannon — " There prevailed much reproach on reproach, moaning and dejec- tion, melancholy and anguish, in every quarter throughout the camp." Tlie Spanish force capitulated on 2nd Janu- ary 1602. O'Donnell immediately sailed for Spain in the hope of procuring ad- ditional assistance, and O'Neill returned with his followers to Tyrone. Follow- ing up the defeated Earl on his retreat north from Kinsale, Lord Mountjoy broke to pieces the stone at Tullaghoge, upon which, for centuries, the O'Neills had been inaugurated. The war was practically at an end, although O'Neill held out for another year. The state of Ulster was ap- proximating to that of Munster after the Desmond war : " No spectacle was more frequent in the ditches of townes, and especiallie in wasted countries, then to see multitudes of these pooer people dead, with their mouths all coloured greene by eating nettles, docks, and aU things they could rend up above ground. These and very many like lamentable effects followed their rebellion." If O'Neill could not continue the war, the English Goverimient was utterly sick of it. Within four years it had cost Elizabeth, " besides great con- cordatums, great charge of munitions, and
