they asserted that it was intended on that party to waylay
and murder them, and that their only safety was in flight.
Large rewards were offered for their capture, alive or
dead, but the necessities of both parties compelled a
truce during the remainder of Sidney's official career--
which terminated in his resignation--about four years
after the escape of the Desmonds from Dublin. Thus were
new elements of combination, at the moment least expected,
thrown, into the hands of the Munster Catholics.




CHAPTER V.

THE "UNDERTAKERS" IN ULSTER AND LEINSTER--DEFEAT AND
DEATH OF SIR JAMES FITZMAURICE.

Queen Elizabeth, when writing to Lord Sussex of a rumoured
rising by O'Neil, desired him to assure her lieges at
Dublin, that if O'Neil did rise, "it would be for their
advantage; for there will be estates for them who want."
The Sidney policy of treating Ireland as a discovered
country, whose inhabitants had no right to the soil,
except such as the discoverers graciously conceded to
them--begat a new order of men, unknown to the history
of other civilized states, which order we must now be at
some pains to introduce to the reader.

These "Undertakers," as they were called, differed widely