as
austere a theory of Irish government. Ralegh in November, 1580, was with
Lord Grey's army. With the assistance of an English fleet under Admiral
Winter it blockaded at Smerwick in Kerry a mixed Spanish and Irish
garrison. On November 10 the garrison capitulated without conditions.
Thereupon Grey sent in Ralegh and Macworth, who had the ward of the day.
They are stated by Hooker, in his continuation of Holinshed, to have
made a great slaughter. Four hundred Spaniards and Italians were put to
the sword. All the Irishmen and several Irish women were hanged. An
Englishman and an Irish priest, who suffered the same doom, had their
legs and arms first broken. Only the foreign officers were held to
ransom. The act was that of the Deputy. Afterwards it was discovered
that the massacre excited general horror through Europe. Attempts were
made to repudiate sympathy with it on the Queen's part. Bacon wrote that
she was much displeased at the slaughter. Her own letters to Grey
comment on the whole proceeding as greatly to her liking. She expresses
discontent only that she had not been left free to kill or spare the
officers at her discretion. Personally Ralegh cannot be accounted
amenable for the atrocity. He is not named in Grey's despatch to the
Council. But it would be folly to pretend that he disapproved it.
Hooker, his eulogist, claims it for him as an eminent distinction. He
cordially sympathized with Grey's ideal of a Mahometan conquest for
Ireland.

[Sidenote: _Feats of Arms._]

His Irish service gave him opportunities of a nobler order. He ventured
his life in a score of hazardous feats. On one occasion his horse was
desperately wounded. He must have been slain but for the aid of his
servant Nicholas Wright, a trusty Yorkshireman. Another time the
Seneschal of Imokelly with fifteen horsemen and sixty foot lay in wait
for him at a ford between Youghal and Cork. He had crossed in safety
when Henry Moile, one of a few Downshire horsemen he had added to his
foot soldiers, was thrown in the middle of the stream. Back rode Ralegh,
and stood by his comrade in the face of tremendous odds. The Seneschal,
though his men outnumbered Ralegh's by twenty to one, was intimidated.
He let Ralegh accomplish his purpose, which was the occupation of
Barry's Court, the seat of Lord Barry. Barry was one of the Irish nobles
whose loyalty was not fixed. Ralegh desired to convince the class of the
futility of resistance by sudden blows. His c