The English were then in disgrace at Rome, where the appointment of a Welshman as Rector of the new college had caused a mutiny among the students, and Allen doubted whether his own credit was good, but it was upon him that the red hat was at last conferred. To Sanders must be ascribed most of what was written in Fitzmaurice's name, and that was a small part of what fell from his prolific pen. Queen Elizabeth, said the nuncio, was a heretic. She was childless, and the approaching extinction of Henry VIII.'s race was an evident judgment. She was 'a wicked woman, neither born in true wedlock nor esteeming her Christendom, and therefore deprived by the Vicar of Christ, her and your lawful judge.' Her feminine supremacy was a continuation of that which the Devil implanted in Paradise when he made Eve Adam's mistress in God's matters.' When a knowledge of Celtic was necessary Sanders's place might be taken by Cornelius O'Mulrian, an observant friar, lately provided to the see of Killaloe, or by Donough O'Gallagher, of the same order, who was provided to Killala in 1570. Letters in Irish were written to the Munster MacDonnells, Hebridean gallowglasses serving in Desmond, whom Fitzmaurice exhorts to help him at once--'first, inasmuch as we are fighting for our faith, and for the Church of God; and next, that we are defending our country, and extirpating heretics, barbarians, and unjust and lawless men; and besides that you were never employed by any lord who will pay you and your people their wages and bounty better than I shall, inasmuch as I never was at any time more competent to pay it than now.... We are on the side of truth and they on the side of falsehood; we are Catholic Christians, and they are heretics; justice is with us, and injustice with them.... All the bonaght men shall get their pay readily, and moreover we shall all obtain eternal wages from our Lord, from the loving Jesus, on account of fighting for his sake.... I was never more thankful to God for having great power and influence than now. Advise every one of your friends who likes fighting for his religion and his country better than for gold and silver, or who wishes to obtain them all, to come to me, and that he will find each of these things.'[18] [Sidenote: Fitzmaurice appeals to Desmond.] In the letter written by Sanders to Desmond in Fitzmaurice's name, the Earl is reminded that the latter 'warfareth under Christ's banner, for the restoring of the Catholic faith in Ireland.' Then, flying into the first person in his hurry, he says His Holiness 'has made me general-captain of this Holy War.' There are many allusions to Christ's banner and to the ancient glories of the Geraldines, and the epistle ends with a recommendation to 'your fellows, and to all my good cousins your children, and to my dear uncle your brother, longing to see all us, all one, first as in faith so in field, and afterwards in glory and life everlasting.'