and Irish refugees--among them the celebrated Saunders,
Alien, sometimes called Cardinal Alien, and O'Mulrian,
Bishop of Killaloe. A force of about 1,000 men was enlisted
at the expense of Pope Gregory XIII., in the Papal States,
and placed under an experienced captain, Hercules Pisano.
They were shipped at Civita Vecchia by a squadron under
the command of Thomas Stukely, an English adventurer,
who had served both for and against the Irish Catholics,
but had joined Fitzmaurice in Spain and accompanied him
to Rome. On the strength of some remote or pretended
relationship to the McMurroghs, Stukely obtained from
the Pope the titles of Marquis of Leinster and Baron of
Idrone and Ross; at Fitzmaurice's urgent request--so it
is stated--he was named Vice-Admiral of the fleet. The
whole expedition was fitted out at the expense of the
Pope, but it was secretly agreed that it should be
supported, after landing in Ireland, at the charge of
Philip II. Fitzmaurice, travelling overland to Spain,
was to unite there with another party of adventurers,
and to form a junction with Stukely and Pisano on the
coast of Kerry. So with the Papal benediction gladdening
his heart, and a most earnest exhortation from the Holy
Father to the Catholics of Ireland to follow his banner,
this noblest of all the Catholic Geraldines departed from
Rome, to try again the hazard of war in his own country.

This was in the spring of the year 1579. Sir Henry Sidney,
after many years' direction of the government, had been
recalled at his own request; Sir William Drury was acting
as Lord Justice; and Sir Nicholas Malby as President of