Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/610

$96 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 62. sands ' as gallant and goodly personages/ said Grey, ' as ever were beheld.' To him it was but the natural and obvious method of disposing of an enemy who had deserved no quarter. His own force amounted barely to eight hundred men, and he probably could not, if he had wished, have conveyed so large a body of prisoners in safety across Ireland to Dublin. 1 Camden says that Grey shed tears, and that Elizabeth wished the cruelty, though necessary, undone. It is possible that some pity was felt for subjects of the King of Spain which was refused to the wives and babies of the Irish chiefs, and some traces of compunction may be read in Grey's description of the row of bodies. Elizabeth however, if she may be judged by the letter which she wrote on the occasion, regretted only that the officers had not shared the punishment which had been extended to the rank and file. She paid the Deputy the compliment which she reserved for the rarest occasions. To the official letter of thanks she prefixed a gracious sentence in her own hand. 2 She promised to respect the in- dulgence which had been extended to Don Bastian and the gentlemen, but she said that she would have been 1 Grey to Elizabeth, November 12; Sir Geoffrey Fenton to Wal- singham, November '14; "W. Smith to Burghley, November 28 ; Cap- tain Bingham to , November 12 : MSS. Ireland. ~ ' By thu Queen, your loving Sovereign, Elizabeth R. The mighty hand of the Almightiest power hath showed manifestly the force of his strength in the weakness of feeblest sex and mind this year, to make men ashamed ever hereafter to disdain us ; in which action I joy that you have been chosen the instrument of his glory, which I mean to give you no cause to forethink.' The Queen to Lord Grey, December, 1580 : MSS. Ireland.