[Sidenote: Charges against Bingham,] Finding the Lord General favourable to them, the Mayo Burkes plied him hard with charges against Bingham 'and his most cruel and ungodly brother John.' They had seized most of the cattle, it was urged, upon various pretences, and in three years had become possessed of many castles and of 200 ploughlands, offering no title 'but a high gallows to the possessor.' 'Her Majesty's clemency,' they said, 'is better known to strange nations than to us her poor misers, being altogether racked and governed by the Binghams, the dregs of all iniquity, here _in culâ mundi_ far from God and our sovereign.' Bingham came to Dublin, and both he and Norris, who agreed in nothing else, were loud in their complaints of official inaction. He strongly maintained, and he certainly was right, that the Queen's true policy was to separate the two rebellious provinces and not to include them in the same treaty. The Dundalk articles now made it impossible to garrison Ballyshannon, and Sligo was the next best thing. The Connaught rebels, he said, 'will seek to retain their titles of Macs and O's with their unhonest law, even as Ulster does.' But Norris was probably right in believing that there would be no peace between Bingham and the Burkes, since they were 'so much embrued in each other's blood;' and when he went to Connaught the accused governor was detained in Dublin by Russell, lest the sight of him should hinder the negotiations at Galway or Athlone. Bingham took care to remind Burghley that the composition was better both for Crown and subject than anything yet devised, 'for the Irish lord is the greatest tyrant living, and taketh more regality by the tanist law than her Majesty doth, or ever did, by her princely prerogative.' [Sidenote: who leaves Ireland suddenly.] The summer passed in futile diplomacy, while O'Donnell lived upon the western province and spared his own country. 'If Bingham,' said the Queen, 'appear guilty, he shall be removed; but we must not condemn a governor unheard and without good proof.' Tired of waiting, the suspected chief commissioner left Ireland without leave, on September 25, and on his arrival in London was committed to the Fleet.[259] [Sidenote: Catholic confederacy,] [Sidenote: and general attack] [Sidenote: on English settlers.] It suited the Queen to take an optimistic view of the situation, but the confederacy against her was spreading gradually over all Ireland. The Connaught rebels put Norris off from month to month and from week to week, while the Ulster chiefs used the respite afforded them to draw in Munster, with which the Clan Sheehy, the old Desmond gallowglasses, gave a ready means of communication. Tyrone had just received full pardon, yet he wrote as follows:--