The superb English array, all glittering in steel armor and with their arms flashing back pencils of sunlight, Bagnal himself in the van, appeared at the opening of the wooded pass, which, all unknown to the marshal, was garrisoned by five hundred Irish kerns early on the sultry morning of August 10th—T. D. McGee says the 15th—1598. The head of the column was attacked immediately by the Celtic infantry, who, however, obedient to orders, soon fell back on the main body, which was drawn up behind a breastwork, in front of which was a long trench, dug pretty deep, and concealed by wattles (dry sticks) and fresh-cut sods—a stratagem borrowed by O’Neill from the tactics of Bruce, so successfully put in practice at Bannockburn, nearly three centuries before. Having finally cleared the pass, not without copious bloodshed, Bagnal debouched from it, and deployed his forces on the plain in face of the Irish army. His cavalry, under Generals Brooke, Montacute, and Fleming, shouting, “St. George for England!” charged fiercely up to the Irish trench, where the horses floundered in the covered trap set for them, and then the Irish foot, leaping over their breastwork, piked to death the unfortunate riders. Bagnal, in no wise daunted, pressed on with his chosen troops, animating them by shout and gesture. A part of the Irish works, battered by his cannon, was carried, and the English thought the battle won. They were preparing to follow up their success when, suddenly, O’Neill himself appeared, at the head of his main body, who had abandoned their slight defences, and came on to meet the English with flashing musketry and “push of pike.” Bagnal’s artillery, with which he was well provided, did much damage to O’Neill’s men, but nothing could withstand the Irish charge that day. O’Donnell’s dashing clan nobly seconded their kinsmen of Tyrone, and a most desperate conflict ensued. Bagnal and his soldiers deported themselves bravely, as became tried warriors, but, in the crisis of the fight, the marshal fell, a wagon-load of powder exploded in the English lines, their ranks became confused, and few of their regiments preserved their formation. The Irish cavalry destroyed utterly what remained of the English horse. “By this time,” says Mitchel, “the cannon were all taken; the cries of ‘St. George’ had failed or were turned to death-shrieks, and once more, England’s royal standard sank before the Red Hand of Tyrone.” The English rout was appalling, and the chronicler of O’Donnell says: “They were pursued in couples, in threes, in scores, in thirties, and in hundreds.” At a point where the carnage was greatest, the country people still show the traveler the Bloody Loaming (lane) which was choked with corpses on that day of slaughter. Two thousand five hundred English soldiers perished in the battle and flight; and among the fallen were the marshal, as already related, twenty-two other superior officers, and a large number of captains, lieutenants, and ensigns.