228 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 59 The care with which the details of this large pro- ject were drawn out implies that it was seriously con- sidered. Either however the country did not respond to the invitation, or it was set aside in favour of another, at once more practicable, more audacious, and moro questionable. The suppression of Shan's rebellion reopened the disputes between the Earls of Ormond and Desmond, which Sidney's skill had held for a time suspended. The points at issue between them were so many and so complicated that the Irish lawyers could not see their way through them -but the House of Butler had been as faithful to the English Crown as the Greraldiiies had been > disloyal. Lord Ormond had been educated in London as the playfellow in childhood of Elizabeth and Ed- ward, and the Queen had insisted that, with law or without it, the right should be found on Ormond's side. But for the disobedience of the Deputy she would have driven Desmond into an alliance with Shan O'Neil ; and now when the danger was over, although Desmond had kept clear of treason, and although Lord Win- chester and Cecil strongly dissuaded her, she determined > to bring him to trial. The Earl at the first summons surrendered to Sir H. Sidney, and was sent as a prisoner to London. The Geraldines, both in Kildare and the South, it is true, were a dangerous race : Elizabeth perhaps thought it politically wise to bring them on their knees. The trial was put off, and Desmond, more lucky than his kinsmen of the past generation, escaped a dungeon in
