protocoling to and fro, finally ratified them the following
April, and affixed the great seal to O'Neil's pardon.
But Tyrone, guided by intelligence received from Spain
or England, or both, evaded the royal messenger charged
to deliver him that instrument, and as the late truce
expired the first week of June, devoted himself anew to
military preparations.

In the month of June, 1598, the Council at Dublin were
in a state of fearful perplexity. O'Neil, two days after
the expiration of the truce, invested the fort on the
Blackwater, and seemed resolved to reduce it, if not by
force, by famine. O'Donnell, as usual, was operating on
the side of Connaught, where he had brought back O'Ruarc,
O'Conor Sligo, and McDermot, to the Confederacy, from
which they had been for a season estranged. Tyrrell and
O'Moore, leading spirits in the midland counties were
ravaging Ormond's palatinate of Tipperary almost without
opposition. An English reinforcement, debarked at Dungarvan,
was attacked on its march towards Dublin, and lost 400
men. In this emergency, before which even the iron nerve
of Ormond quailed, the Council took the resolution of
ordering one moiety of the Queen's troops under Ormond
to march south against Tyrrell and O'Moore; the other
under Marshal Bagnal, to proceed northward to the relief
of the Blackwater fort. Ormond's campaign was brief and
inglorious. After suffering a severe check in Leix, he
shut himself up in Kilkenny, where he heard of the
disastrous fate of Bagnal's expedition.