who had the chief command, was about a mile in advance at the head
of another body of cavalry, when a horseman was observed by him,
galloping wildly in the distance and waving his handkerchief as a
signal. He returned instantly, followed by his men, and flung himself
into the _mêleé_. Shane receiving such a charge of those few men, and
seeing more coming after, ran no farther risk, blew a recall note,
and withdrew unpursued. Fitzwilliam's courage alone prevented the army
from being annihilated. Out of 500 English 50 lay dead, and 50 more
were badly wounded. The survivors fell back to Armagh 'so _dismayed_
as to be unfit for farther service.' Pitiable were the lamentations
of the lord deputy to Cecil on this catastrophe. It was, said he, 'by
cowardice the dreadfullest beginning that ever was seen in Ireland.
Ah! Mr. Secretary, what unfortunate star hung over me that day to draw
me, that never could be persuaded to be absent from the army at any
time--to be then absent for a little disease of another man? _The
rearward was the best and picked soldiers in all this land._ If I
or any stout man had been that day with them, we had made an end of
Shane--which is now farther off than ever it was. Never before durst
Scot or Irishman look on Englishmen in plain or wood since I was here;
and now Shane, in a plain three miles away from any wood, and where I
would have asked of God to have had him, hath, with 120 horse, and a
few Scots and galloglasse, _scarce half in numbers_, charged our whole
army, and by the cowardice of one wretch whom I hold dear to me as
my own brother, was like in one hour to have left not one man of that
army alive, and after to have taken me and the rest at Armagh. The
fame of the English army, so hardly gotten, is now vanished, and I,
wretched and dishonoured, by the vileness of other men's deeds.'

This is real history that Mr. Froude has given us. It places the
actors before us, enables us to discern their characters, tells us