The campaign of 1580 was, however, destined to be decisive.
Sir John of Desmond, being invited to an amicable conference
by the Lord Barry, was entrapped by an English force
under Captain Zouch, in the woods surrounding Castle
Lyons, and put to death on the spot. The young Sir James
had previously been captured on a foray into Muskerry,
and executed at Cork, so that of the brothers there now
remained but Earl Gerald, the next victim of the
machinations which had already proved so fatal to his
family. Perceiving at length the true designs cherished
against him, the Earl took the field in the spring of
1580, and obtained two considerable advantages, one at
Pea-field, against the English under Roberts, and a second
at Knockgraffon against the Anglo-Irish, under the brothers
of the Earl of Ormond, the recusant members of the original
league. Both these actions were fought in Tipperary, and
raised anew the hopes of the Munster Catholics. An
unsuccessful attempt on Adare was the only other military
event in which the Earl bore a part; he wintered in
Aharlow, where his Christmas was rather that of an outlaw
than of the Lord Palatine of Desmond. In Aharlow he had
the misfortune to lose the gifted and heroic Nuncio, Dr.
Saunders, whose great services, at that period, taken
together with those of Cardinal Allen, long endeared the
faithful English to the faithful Irish Catholics.

The sequel of the second Geraldine League may be rapidly
narrated. In September, 1580, the fort at Smerwick, where
Fitzmaurice had landed from Galicia, received a garrison
of 800 men, chiefly Spaniards and Italians, under Don