WE dwell at greater length on the Elizabethan era in Ireland than, perhaps, on any other, because then began the really fatal turn in the fortunes of the Irish nation. Notwithstanding splendid triumphs in the field, cunning and treachery were fated to overcome patriotism and heroic courage. But, before this great cloud gloomed upon her, Ireland was still destined to witness many days of glory, and to win her most renowned victory. The spring and early summer of 1598 saw Captain Williams still holding Portmore, on the Blackwater, stubbornly for England, but his rations were nearly exhausted and he managed to get word of his desperate condition to Marshal Bagnal, who, at the head of a splendidly appointed army of veteran troops, horse and foot, marched northward from Newry to his succor. His first operations were successful and he came very near to capturing O’Neill himself, at a place called Mullaghbane, not far from Armagh. Then Bagnal pushed on to raise the siege of Portmore, where Williams was living on his starved horses and suffering all the pangs of hunger. O’Neill, having been fully informed of Marshal Bagnal’s progress, summoned O’Donnell and his other allies to join him immediately, which they did. He left Portmore to the famine-stricken garrison, and turned his face southward fully resolved to give battle to his redoubted brother-in-law before he could reach the Blackwater. Thoroughly acquainted with the character of the country through which the English were to pass, he had no difficulty in choosing his ground. He took post, therefore, in the hilly, wooded, and marshy angle formed by the Callan and Blackwater Rivers, at a point where a sluggish rivulet runs from a large bog toward the main river, and which is called, in the Gaelic tongue, Beal-an-atha-buidhe, in English, “the Mouth of the Yellow Ford,” destined to give title to the Irish Bannockburn. This field is about two and one-half miles N.W. from Armagh.