410
REIGN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH.
[ch. 18.
and to hold the people under military rule.[1] Evil tongues whispered, also, that difficulties had brought disputes where there ought to have been only cordiality;, that the deputy was arbitrary, and his subordinates more anxious to prove him to be wrong than to teach him what was right. Whether this was calumny the future would show: for the present, all parties hurried to deny the existence of so early a disagreement. There were enemies by this time in the field, and Lord Leonard was at least a soldier. He composed the mutiny for a time with promises, and he resolved to escape the dissensions of Dublin, and distinguish, by some marked success, the first year of his command. Henry had sent him orders to break, if possible, the coalition in the west. July.In July he marched with a thousand men into Kilkenny, and thence turning towards Limerick, he took possession of a deserted castle belonging to Desmond, in an island on Lough Gryr. Carrigogonnell, a strong fortress on the Shannon, fell next into his hands. He placed it in the custody of an Irish chief who was supposed to be faithful; and, pausing for a day in the town of Limerick, he set himself to destroy the celebrated bridge at Castle Connell, a few miles distant, which O'Brien had thrown across the river to command the ingress from Clare into Munster. His way led up the southern bank of the Shannon. On reaching the spot he found four arches of the bridge broken down. On the portion of it which was left
- ↑ Lord Deputy and Council of Ireland to Cromwell: State Papers, voL ii. p. 318; Cowley to Cromwell: ibid. p. 323.
