Sidney. On the opposite side stood Sir William Cecil, the advocate of an alliance with the Archduke Charles of Austria, and when, in the spring of 1561, the suspicious death of Leicester's wife threw a cloud over Leicester's prospects, Cecil seized the opportunity to remove Sidney from court, under a pretext that his presence was required in Wales. But his seclusion was of short duration. In April 1562 Sidney was despatched on a diplomatic mission to the court of France, with the object of mediating between the contending factions of Guise and Condé. Failing to accomplish this, he was, on his return to England, sent to Scotland to plead his failure as an excuse for postponing the proposed interview between Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots ‘till the ensuing year, or till the wars of France were ended.’
Sidney's opinion on Irish affairs carried weight in opposition to Sussex, and his inclination to favour the Earl of Desmond in his dispute with the Earl of Ormonde over the prize-moneys of Youghal and Kinsale sowed the seeds of undying hatred between himself and Ormonde [see Fitzgerald, Gerald, fifteenth Earl of Desmond; Butler, Thomas, tenth Earl of Ormonde]. Meanwhile, though Sussex's government of Ireland may have been far from satisfactory, it could hardly be said that, since he quitted the country in the spring of 1564, things had gone much better with his successor, Sir Nicholas Arnold. It was only natural that Elizabeth, apart from her desire to try a cheaper government, should turn to Sussex's critic, Sidney, whom she had on 14 May invested with the order of the Garter. As for Sidney, he was willing enough to undertake the task, provided certain stipulations affecting him in his private and public capacity were complied with. His commission, with the title of lord deputy, was finally sealed on 13 Oct. 1565.
On 13 Jan. 1566, after numberless delays owing to the tempestuous weather, Sidney arrived in Dublin; the prospect before him was disheartening in the extreme. The Pale itself, wasted by continual invasion, harassed by an insolent and dissolute mob that disgraced the name of soldiers, and swarming with beggars, could hardly boast two gentlemen able to lend twenty pounds. In Munster, parts of which had formerly been as well inhabited as many shires in England, a man might now ride twenty miles without meeting a human habitation. The state of Connaught was little better. Only in Ulster, where the rebellious Shane O'Neill, ‘the only strong and rich man in Ireland,’ ruled with a rod of iron, were any signs of prosperity visible. To him, therefore, as the cause of most of the misery that met his gaze, Sidney at once addressed himself. Shane was in no compliant mood. Sidney, finding diplomacy useless, turned to Elizabeth for the necessary means to coerce him. Despite some cavilling on the part of Sussex, Elizabeth, after listening to Sir Francis Knollys's impartial corroboration of Sidney's view of the situation, acquiesced in the inevitable. On 6 Sept. Colonel Edward Randolph (d 1566) [q. v.] sailed from Bristol with an auxiliary force of one thousand men. Sidney, who during the month of August had been occupied in guarding the northern frontier of the Pale, hearing of Randolph's arrival in Lough Foyle, at once pushed forward with the army into Tyrone. Nothing was seen of Shane, who contented himself with watching the progress of the invaders, and skirmishing occasionally with the rear-guard at a safe distance. Sidney effected a junction with Randolph and restored Calvagh O'Donnell [q. v.] to his own. He then turned his steps southward through Connaught to Athlone, where he had to swim the Shannon. Consequently he took steps for the erection of a strong bridge there, which ‘greatly benefited the country.’ Between the end of November and the following Lent he made several unsuccessful inroads into Tyrone, though sometimes so close upon Shane's heels that his ‘vauntcurrers felt his couch warm where he lay last night.’ Nevertheless the plan of restoring O'Donnell and planting a garrison at Derry bore fruit at last, and early in June 1567 Sidney had the satisfaction of announcing to Elizabeth that the rebel who had so long disputed her authority had been assassinated by his personal foemen, the Macdonnells.
To Sidney, Shane's death was a piece of good luck. In another respect he was not so fortunate. From the first he had declined to move in the dispute between Ormonde and Desmond without proper legal assistance. He knew that, however partial he showed himself towards Ormonde, he could satisfy neither him nor Elizabeth. But he was at last obliged, in consequence of Ormonde's complaints, ‘to address himself southward against Desmond.’ Accordingly quitting Kilmainham on 27 Jan., and proceeding through Leix, he came to Kilkenny, where a sessions was held, several malefactors executed, and Piers Butler, Ormonde's younger brother, committed for gaol-breaking, but, on account of his youth and submissive behaviour, pardoned. In Tipperary Sidney spent fifteen days ‘endevoringe myself to the uttermoste of my power for the reformacion of the infinite disorders which there I founde.’ At Fethard
