Henry had too much respect for Surrey's opinion to hand back Ireland at once to Kildare; but he had resolved to reduce expenses, and was therefore obliged to place the government in the hands of someone who had the strength to make authority respected. No one satisfied this condition except Sir Piers Butler, and Surrey was allowed to appoint him Deputy, retaining the office of Lord-Lieutenant himself. There were objections to Sir Piers, as to every Irish governor. The Butlers would not take the field except under him or his eldest son, and he was generally laid up with gout all the winter. Lord James, as the heir was called, was active enough, but young and inexperienced. The choice, however, lay between Ormonde and Kildare, and Sir Piers was so cautiously handled, that he abstained from driving a hard bargain. [Sidenote: The experiment is not successful.] [Sidenote: O'Neills and O'Donnells.] The experiment was not very successful; for the Geraldines were all-powerful in the Pale, and the new Lord Deputy, when in Dublin, was separated from his own country by his rival's dominions. He took the oath on March 26, 1522, but the O'Mores, who had heard that Kildare was on his way to restore the good old times, soon began to threaten the Pale. In the North a war broke out on such an unusually large scale as to make it probable that O'Neill had promised Kildare to give the new Deputy as much trouble as possible. Indeed, when Kildare did actually return, he at once went to O'Neill's aid. The chief of Tyrone may have required little persuasion to attack his hereditary foes, but the number of his allies was very uncommon. MacWilliam of Clanricarde, Tirlough O'Brien, Bishop of Killaloe, with many of his clansmen, O'Connor Don and O'Connor Roe, MacWilliam of Mayo, and MacDermot of Moylurg, all agreed to assemble on the southern border of Donegal. O'Neill brought to the trysting place Magennis, O'Rourke, and MacMahon, and many Scottish mercenaries in the hereditary service of his family. 'Great numbers,' we are told, 'of the English of Meath, and the gallowglasses of the province of Leinster, of the Clan-Donnell and Clan-Sheehy, also came thither, from their attachment to the daughter of the Earl of Kildare, who was O'Neill's mother.' To oppose this vast host, O'Donnell had only the clans immediately subject to him, O'Boyle, O'Gallagher, O'Dogherty, and the three septs of MacSwiney, hereditary gallowglasses of Tyrconnell. He mustered his forces near Trim, on the Tyrone side of the Finn, and there awaited the onset. But O'Neill adopted tactics very usual in Irish warfare, passed by the northern shore of Lough Erne, reached Ballyshannon without fighting, and slaughtered the garrison of MacSwineys there. O'Donnell retaliated by sending his son Manus to ravage the nearest districts of Tyrone, and himself hurried in pursuit of O'Neill across the pass now called Barnesmore Gap. Again declining battle, O'Neill turned