Page 198 - Demo

198 Stephen Dunford: The Journey of The IrIsh
the Plumes,’ on account of the number of plumes from English helmets that were found strewn about the field after the encounter. With the Irish hovering at his rear Essex returned to Dublin from the south having achieved very little and with a bedraggled army greatly reduced in numbers and exhausted.
Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, by William Segar, 1588
The patience of monarchs is scarce, it is maintained, and Elizabeth, enraged at the mis- erable failure of Essex in his ignis fatuus, his ‘impractical scheme,’ as his southern expedition came to be known, severely censored him and also her Irish Council for not having, in the first instance, advised Essex to march into Ulster.
When at length he did set out for the north, in August 1599, the forces at his disposal were not large enough to warrant his anticipating the overthrow of the formidable rebel army. In fact, Essex found the confederates occupying such a strong position that nego- tiations not fighting ensued. O’Neill, commanding the rebels, laid down the conditions on which he was prepared to make peace. A truce was duly agreed on, after which Essex set out for England in order to explain satisfactorily to a dissatisfied Elizabeth his egregious failure.
Meanwhile, the forces of the Crown had met with another sobering reverse. O’Donnell, having laid siege to the castle of the O’Connors, in Sligo, was threatened by a large force un-
ffff