unmolested.[1] The Earl of Ossory, with Sir John St Loo, inade an appointment to meet Skeffington at Kilcaa,[2] where, if he brought cannon, they might recover the castles of the Government which were held by the Geraldines. He promised to go, and he might have done so without danger or difficulty; but he neither went nor sent; only a rumour came that the deputy was ill;[3] and in these delays, and with this ostentation of imbecility, the winter passed away, as if to convince every wavering Irishman that, strong as the English might be in their own land, the sword dropped from their nerveless hands when their feet were on Irish soil. Nor was this the only or the worst consequence. The army, lying idle in Dublin, grew disorganized; many of the soldiers deserted; and an impression spread abroad that Henry, after all, intended to return to the old policy, to pardon Fitzgerald, and to restore him to power.[4]
- ↑ Allen to Cromwell: State Papers, vol. ii. p. 220.
- ↑ In Kildare county, on the frontiers of the pale.
- ↑ The captains and I, the Earl (of Ossory), directed letters to the deputy to meet us in the county of Kildare, at Kilcaa, bringing with him ordnance accordingly, when the deputy appointed without fail to meet. At which day and place the said Earl, with the army (of) "Waterford failed not to be, and there did abide three days continually for the deputy; where he, neither any of the army, came not, ne any letter or word was had from him; but only that Sir James Fitzgerald told that he heard say he was sick.—Ossory to W. Cowley: State Papers, vol. ii. p. 251.
- ↑ Allen certainly thought so, or at least was unable to assure himself that it was not so. 'My simple advice shall be,' he wrote, 'that if ever the King intend to show his grace (which himself demandeth not in due manner) and to pardon him, to withdraw his charges and to pardon him out of hand; or else to send hither a proclamation under the Great Seal of England, that the King never intends to pardon him ne any that shall take part with
