434
REIGN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH.
[ch. 18.
priests of all the Irishry did preach daily that every man ought, for the salvation of his soul, to fight and make war against the King's Majesty and his true subjects; and if any of them did die in the quarrel, his soul that so should be dead should go to heaven, as the souls of St Peter and St Paul, which suffered death and martyrdom for God's sake.'[1] The enterprise in Ireland, as elsewhere, terminated abortively, the Emperor, who was its central spring, declining to be set in motion. The Celtic chiefs, however, who, had the business become serious, would not perhaps have been the most effective of the confederates, were the last to relinquish the agitation. July.Their menaces continued loud till the summer; and in July Desmond 'began the dance' by attacking Kilkenny. Lord Leonard, who for the time had recovered his senses, now found O'Connor, whom the year before he had called 'his right hand,' to be the rankest of traitors.[2] He thought there was more falsehood in the Irish 'than in all the devils in hell;'[3] and he had so weakened the Earl of Ormond that it was doubtful whether any part of Munster could be protected.… He was roused at last, it seemed. The plan of the rebels was that O'Neil and O'Donnell should make their way with young Fitzgerald to Maynooth. Desmond was then to join them; and they calculated that the name of Kildare would set the coun-
