in the government was filled by the Council at Dublin, whose choice fell on Sir William Pelham, another distinguished military man, lately arrived from England. Throughout the summer and autumn months the war was maintained, with varying fortune on either side. In the combats of Gortnatibrid and Enagbeg, in Limerick, the final success, according to Irish accounts, was with the Geraldines, though they had the misfortune to lose Cardinal Allen, Sir Thomas Fitzgerald and Sir Thomas Browne. Retiring into winter quarters at Aharlow, they had a third engagement with the garrison of Kilmallock, which attempted, without success, to intercept their march. 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.