measures, and Sidney obtained leave to explain his new
policy in person to her Majesty. Accordingly in October
he sailed for England, taking with him the Earl and his
brother John of Desmond, who had been invited to Dublin,
and were detained as prisoners of State; Hugh O'Neil, as
yet known by no other title than Baron of Dungannon; the
O'Conor Sligo, and other chiefs and noblemen. He seems
to have carried his policy triumphantly with the Queen,
and from henceforth for many a long year "the dulce ways"
and "politic drifts" recommended by the great Cardinal
Statesman of Henry VIII. were to give way to that
remorseless struggle in which the only alternative offered
to the Irish was--uniformity or extermination. Of this
policy, Sir Henry Sidney may, it seems to me, be fairly
considered the author; Stafford, and even Cromwell were
but finishers of his work. One cannot repress a sigh that
so ferocious a design as the extermination of a whole
people should be associated in any degree with the
illustrious name of Sidney.

The triumphant Deputy arrived at Carrickfergus in September,
1568, from England. Here he received the "submission,"
as it is called, of Tirlogh, the new O'Neil, and turned
his steps southwards in full assurance that this chief
of Tyrone was not another "strong man" like the last. A
new Privy Council was sworn in on his arrival at Dublin,
with royal instructions "to concur with" the Deputy, and
20,000 pounds a year in addition to the whole of the cess
levied in the country were guaranteed to enable him to
carry out his great scheme of the "reduction." A Parliament