destined to raise the Bloody Hand, the cognizance of his house, to a prouder eminence than it had attained in Irish annals since the far-off days of Nial of the Hostages. Treacherous massacres of Irish chieftains dangerous to England’s supremacy in their country would appear to have been a special feature of Elizabeth’s reign. Under the Lord Deputy Sydney’s régime, A.D. 1577, Sir Francis Cosby, the English general commanding in the ancient territories of Leix and Offaly, unable to obtain the submission of the native chiefs by force of arms, invited several hundred of them to a banquet at the rath of Mullaghmast, in the present county of Kildare. The principal families represented were the O’Mores, O’Nolan’s, O’Kelly’s, and Lalors. The rath, or fort, was fitted up for the occasion, and, through the entrance, the unsuspecting Irish chieftains and their friends rode with happy hearts and smiling faces. But one of the Lalors who was rather belated, had his suspicions aroused by the dead silence which seemed to prevail in the rath, and by the peculiar circumstance that none of those who had entered came out to welcome the later arrivals. He bade the few friends who had accompanied him to remain outside, while he entered the fort to investigate. He took the precaution to draw his sword before he went in. Proceeding with caution, he was horrified at stumbling over the dead bodies of some of his neighbors just beyond the entrance. He retreated at once, but was set upon by assassins placed there to murder him. A powerful man, he wielded his blade with such good effect that he cut his way out, mounted his horse, and set off with his horrified associates at full gallop to his home at Dysart. More than four hundred confiding Irish gentlemen had entered the rath that day, and of all of them, only the sagacious Lalor escaped. The tribe of O’More alone lost nearly two hundred of its foremost members, but was not entirely exterminated. Rory Oge O’More, son of the slaughtered head of the tribe, made relentless war on the English Pale, and never desisted until he had more than avenged his kindred slain in the foul massacre of Mullaghmast. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER III The Geraldine War—Hugh O’Neill and “Red Hugh” O’Donnell