1 560.] DEATH OF a NEIL. 565 nell was at last rewarded for liis fidelity and sufferings, and the whole tribe with eager protestations of allegi- ance gave sureties for their future loyalty. Leaving O'Donnell in possession, and scarcely paus- ing to rest his troops, Sidney again went forward. On the 1 9th he was at Bally shannon ; on the 2 2nd at Sligo ; on the 24th he passed over the bogs and moun- tains of Mayo into Roscommon ; and then, 'leaving behind them as fruitful a country as was in England or Ireland all utterly waste/ the army turned their faces homewards, waded the Shannon at Athlone for lack of a bridge on the 26th, and so back to the Pale. Twenty castles had been taken as they went along, and left in hands that could be trusted. ' In all that long and painful journey/ Sidney was able to say that ' there had not died of sickness but three persons ; ' men and horses were brought back in full health and strength, while ' her Majesty's honour was re-established among the Irishry and grown to no small veneration ' i an expedition 'comparable only to Alexander's journey into Bactria/ wrote an admirer of Sidney to Cecil re- vealing what to Irish eyes appeared the magnitude of the difficulty, and forming a measure of the effect which it produced. The English Deputy had bearded Shan in his stronghold, burnt his houses, pillaged his people, and had fastened a body of police in the midst of them to keep them waking in the winter nights. He had penetrated the hitherto impregnable fortresses of moun- 1 Sir H. Sidney and the Earl of Kildare to Elizabeth, November 12: Irish MSS. Rolls House.
