The Queen, who seems to have had a certain admiration for Essex, was pleased with his last service, and inclined to favour his plans for the permanent plantation of the North. But her council, as she was careful to point out, required more information. Did he propose that the colonists in Clandeboye and between the Blackwater and the Pale should be English or Irish, or a mixture of both? Were his towns to be walled with stone or earth, or with a mixture of both? Had Maguire, Magennis, and MacMahon agreed to contribute towards the maintenance of 100 horse and 200 foot? What arrangements could be made for provisions, for maintaining garrisons, for labour and material? To resolve these doubts, which came rather late in the day, Essex was summoned to appear at Court as soon as he could leave his post. The choice being left to him, he decided not to go, and expressed an opinion that the conditional order came 'either of her Majesty's misliking of the cause, or of me as unable to execute the thing, and so make stay of me there, either by disallowing the work as not feasible, or else to essay as the honour of it should be reaped by another.'[293] FOOTNOTES: [264] Lord Deputy and Council to the Privy Council, Dec. 23, 1573; Sir Edmund Butler to Lord Deputy, Dec. 12, 1573; P. Sherlock to Burghley, Jan. 3, 1574. [265] Bourchier to Fitzwilliam, Dec. 17, 1573; Declaration of P. Sherlock, Dec. 18; Desmond to Justice Walshe, Dec. 28, 1573; Edward Castlelyn to Burghley, Jan. 16, 1574. (The latter was written at intervals from Dec. 2.) [266] Fitzgerald was despatched in Dec. 1573, and arrived in Ireland before Dec. 23; see Fitzwilliam's letter of that date; Burghley's notes in _Murdin_, p. 775. Edward Fitzgerald to Burghley, Feb. 13, 1574; Desmond to Lord Deputy and Council, and to E. Fitzgerald, Jan. 9. In the latter letter Desmond signs himself, 'Your assured friend and loving cousin.' The Privy Council to Desmond, Jan. 17, and the Queen to Fitzwilliam, Jan. 18, both in _Carew_. Instructions for the Lord Deputy of Ireland, March 30, in _Carew_. [267] P. Sherlock to Fitzwilliam, Dec. 22 and 23, 1573; to Burghley, Jan. 3, 1574; Mulrony O'Carroll to F. Cosby, Jan. 8 and 21; Carew to Tremayne, Feb. 6. [268] Edward Fitzgerald to Fitzwilliam, Jan. 18. The negotiations may be easily studied in five papers in _Carew_; printed under 1573, but belonging to 1573-4. [269] The Queen to Fitzwilliam, Jan. 31; _Perrott's Life_, p. 103; Privy Council to Fitzwilliam, March 29. [270] Essex to the Privy Council, sent by Wilsford and Carleton, Jan. 16, 1574. Consultations of Ireland, Nov. 17, 1573, in _Murdin_, p. 268. 'Doubts moved by the Queen,' 1573; S.P., _Ireland_, vol. xliii. (No. 36). [271] The Queen to Fitzwilliam, January 18; Fitzwilliam to Walsingham, Feb. 6; Lord Deputy and Council to the Queen, Feb. 10. [272] 'Reasons that may move the Queen,' &c., Feb. 19; Knollys to Burghley, in _Devereux_, p. 51.