all its horrors. A royal order was
promulgated, that all should renounce the Catholic faith, yield up the
priests, receive from the heretical minister the morality and tenets of
the Gospel. Threats, penalties and force were to be employed to enforce
compliance. Every effort of the Queen and her emissaries was directed to
despoil the Irish Catholics of their property, and exterminate them.
More than once did they attempt this, for they knew that not otherwise
could the Catholic religion be suppressed in our island, _unless by the
extermination of those in whose hearts it was implanted_; nor could
their heretical teachings be propagated, while the natives were alive to
detest and execrate them."[419]

In 1561 Sussex returned from England with reinforcements for his army,
and marched to Armagh, where he established himself in the Cathedral.
From thence he sent out a large body of troops to plunder in Tyrone, but
they were intercepted by the redoubtable Shane O'Neill, and suffered so
serious a defeat as to alarm the inhabitants of the Pale, and even the
English nation. Fresh supplies of men and arms were hastily despatched
from England, and the Earls of Desmond, Ormonde, Kildare, Thomond, and
Clanrickarde assembled round the Viceregal standard to assist in
suppressing the formidable foe. And well might they fear the
lion-hearted chieftain! A few years later, Sidney describes him as the
only strong man in Ireland. The Queen was warned, that unless he were
speedily put down, she would lose Ireland, as her sister had lost
Calais. He had gained all Ulster by his sword, and ruled therein with a
far stronger hand, and on a far firmer foundation, than ever any English
monarch had obtained in any part of Ireland. Ulster was his _terra
clausa_; and he would be a bold, or, perhaps I should rather say, a rash
man, who dare intrude in these dominions. He could muster seven thousand
men in the field; and though he seldom hazarded a general engagement, he
"slew in conflicts 3,500 soldiers and 300 Scots of Sidney's army."[420]
The English chronicler, Hooker, who lived in times when the blaze and
smoke of houses and haggards, set on fire by Shane, could be seen even
from Dublin Castle, declares that it was feared he intended to make a
conquest over the whole land.

Even his letters are signed, if not written, in royal style.[421] He
dates one _Ex finibus de Tirconail_, when about to wage war with the
neighbouring sept of O'Donnell; he da