for a spear to enter her heart, while she leaneth on it; so the wars of York and Lancaster may free us from the proud, imperious English; and the Irish, like the Scotch, have a king and a state of their own."
Desmond's eyes flashed for a moment, as Keating thus presented before them the picture he most desired to behold; but they grew cold again. "The means, reverend prior, the arms, the money, the soldiers?"
"A bold stroke brings all: strike one blow, and Ireland is at our feet. "We must not tarry; now the Butlers and their party are asleep in their security; gather men together; march forward boldly; strike at the highest, Dublin herself."
"Father," replied the earl, "long before I were half way there, my litter would be abandoned even by its bearers, and we left alone among the bogs and mountains, to feed as we may, or die. If there be any sooth in your scheme, it can only prove good, inasmuch as we secure Connaught to ourselves, and turn this corner of the island into a kingdom; but neither one word, nor one blow, will gain Dublin. You are right so far,—something must be done, and speedily; and, if it be well done, we may do more, till by the aid of the blessed St. Patrick and white-tooth'd Bridget! we tread upon the necks of the Butlers."
This one thing to be undertaken, after much consultation among the chieftains, was the siege of Waterford: it had been summoned to acknowledge Duke Richard as its lord, and had refused: Keating was very averse to spending time before a fortified town. "On, on, boutez en avant!" He reminded Lord Barry of his device, and strove to awaken ambition in him. The prior of Kilmainham had spent all his life in Dublin, a chief member of the government, a seditious, factious but influential man: the capital to him was all that was worth having, while, to these lords of Munster, the smallest victory over their particular rivals, or the gaining a chief city in a district, which was their world, appeared more glorious than entering London itself victoriously, if meanwhile Waterford, or any one of the many towns of Ireland, held out against them.
On the fifteenth of July, 1497, the duke of York, the earl of Desmond, and the other many chief of many names, some Geraldines, all allied to, or subject to them, as the O'Briens, the Roches, the Macarthys, the Barrys, and others, assembled at Youghall, a town subject to the earl of Desmond, and situated about midway between Cork and Waterford, at the mouth of the river Blackwater.
On the twenty-second of July the army was in movement, and entered the county of Waterford; the chiefs, at the
