I5&2.] THE DESMOND REBELLION. 603 The condition of Munster was beyond imagination frightful. The herds had been swept away, the ground had not been tilled, and famine came to devour what the sword had left. ( This country/ wrote Sir Warham St Leger from Cork in the spring of 1582, * is so ruined, as it is well near unpeopled by the murders and spoils done by the traitors on the one side, and by the killing and spoil done by the soldiers on the other side, together with the great mortality in town and country, which is such as the like hath never been seen. There hath died by famine only, not so few as thirty thousand in this province in less than half a year, besides others that are hanged and killed/ 1 The outlaws still clung to the forests. Of the once brilliant house of Desmond, the Earl and his little son who was in England were all that now were left. His brothers' heads were rotting by the side of their cousin's James Fitzmaurice on Dublin Castle. But the clans- men held passionately to their chief and his lost cause. Four Geraldines who had flinched and applied for their pardons were taken at night from their cabins and carried into Desmond's camp. They were arraigned as traitors and hewn in pieces by their kindred, 'every sword in the band taking part in their deaths/ ' So/ said the Earl, ' shall every Geraldine be served who will not follow me.' In their despair they were still danger- ous, and had their snatches of fierce revenge. Half the garrison of Adair were surprised and massacred. Fitz- 1 Sir Warham St Leger to Sir John Perrot, April 22, 1582 ; MSS. Ireland.
