Sidney left Dublin late in July with 600 men, Sir Barnaby Fitzpatrick, 'the most sufficient man in counsel and action for the war that ever I found of that country birth,' being left to guard the southern frontier of the Pale, while Fitzwilliam and Kildare held the O'Neills in check as best they might. After visiting and rebuking Kilkenny, the Lord Deputy entered Tipperary, the rebels burning their houses in front of him. His first intention was to go straight to Cork, where the citizens entertained the notion of giving Lady St. Leger up to Fitzmaurice, but hearing that a relieving force of 400 men had arrived by sea from England, he encamped near Clonmel, where he found the people good and loyal. Written challenges were thrown into the camp, promising that the rebels would fight him, and he sent for reinforcements to Waterford. The citizens answered that they had no spare men, and that besides they were exempted by their charter; but they had afterwards to pay a fine for their stiff-necked conduct. Proclamation of pardon had no effect, and the palatinate jurisdiction of the House of Ormonde was advanced by the principal gentlemen of Tipperary as a reason for not exerting themselves to restore order. 'We are,' they said, 'of this county more ancient inhabiters and freeholders than any Butler is, and were the first conquerors of this soil from the Irishry.... England gave us away to a Butler.... We and our ancestors acknowledged him as our lord and captain, and indeed we know no other sovereign but him, whose lieutenant, Sir Edmund Butler, his brother and heir-apparent, is him we follow, and him we will follow and do as he commandeth us.' Messengers to the chief rebels failed. They reported, not quite truly, perhaps, Sir Edmund Butler's opinion that Leicester, Ormonde's mortal foe, was about to marry the Queen and be King, and that Sidney was to be King of Ireland under him, 'as might appear,' the Lord Deputy said, 'by bearing the ragged staff continually in my pensile before me, as indeed I did.' 'That blessed babe, Edward Butler,' who had been Sidney's page, professed great affection for his old master, and hoped that he would not go on to meet certain disaster. He had done all, he said, by Ormonde's orders. Sir Theobald Butler of Cahir, who was always trying to assert his independence of Ormonde, was the only one of the family who voluntarily came to Sidney, by whom he was recommended for a peerage.[171] [Sidenote: Sidney persuades his men to advance.]