From this point he says they exhibited "menaces and warnings," and hanged two Spanish fugitives they had laid hold of, "to put the defenders in fear." The troops demanded by trumpet a surrender of the castle, but the Spaniards declined all proposals. For seventeen days, Cuellar says, the besiegers lay against them, but were unable to get a favourable position for attack. "At length, a severe storm and a great fall of snow compelled them to withdraw without having accomplished anything." In the _State Papers_, under date 12th October, 1588, the Lord Deputy asks the Privy Council of England to send at once two thousand "sufficient and thoroughly appointed men" to join the service directed against the main body of 3,000 Spaniards in O'Donnell's country and the North. In the same month, Fenton writes to the Lord Deputy "that the Spaniards are marching towards Sligo, and are very near Lough Erne." There were, no doubt, a large number of Spaniards who had escaped the dangers of the sea, and had fled for refuge to O'Donnell, O'Neill, and O'Rourke, all of whom were very favourable to them; but the Lord Deputy, for his own ends, greatly exaggerated both their numbers and strength. They were merely fugitives acting on the defensive, and not then inclined to be aggressive. They well knew the fate of hundreds of their countrymen, and what they might expect if they fell into the hands of the Lord Deputy. [Illustration: THE SPANIARDS HOLDING ROSSCLOGHER CASTLE AGAINST THE LORD DEPUTY. ] In the County of Clare, at this time, was another MacClancy--Boethius. He was Elizabeth's High Sheriff there, and, unlike his namesake of Rossclogher, he cruelly treated and killed a number of Spaniards of the Armada, who had been shipwrecked off that coast. In memory of his conduct then, he is cursed every seventh year in a church in Spain. In the _State Papers_ no reference is made to this expedition against MacClancy's castle; all that is said is that troops arrived at Athlone on 10th November, 1588, and returned to Dublin on 23rd December following, "without loss of any one of her Majesty's army; neither brought I home, as the captains inform me, scarce twenty sick persons or thereabouts; neither found I the water, nor other great impediments which were objected before my going out, to have been dangerous, otherwise than very reasonable to pass." In these vague terms Fitzwilliam disposes of a disagreeable subject which he knew was more for his own credit not to enlarge upon. It seems probable that Cuellar has over-estimated the number of soldiers sent to storm the castle which he was defending; there is, however, no ground for doubting the general truth of his account of the transaction. MacClancy, we know, was the subject of peculiar hatred by the authorities; Bingham describes him as "an arch-rebel, and the most barbarous creature in Ireland," and the fact of his having given shelter to Spanish fugitives made him ten times worse in their eyes.