I57I-] -STATh OF IRELAND. 277 The leading English Catholics were sickened at the favours which were heaped upon a charlatan. Yet they were both obliged to welcome Philip's assistance in the form in which he chose to offer it ; and Stukely was maintained in glory at Madrid, or was sunning himself at Rome under the patronage of Pope Pius, till at length the discovery of the conspiracy in England, the execu- tion of Norfolk, and the increasing difficulties in Flanders, forced Philip to seek his own safety by aban- doning his dreams and by returning to his old alliance with Elizabeth. Ireland meanwhile remained simmering in half-ex- plosive rebellion. Every day the armada was looked for at Galway or Dungarvan, while the English garrisons spent their time in plunder or mutiny, or in massa- cres as useless as they were brutal. Sir Henry Sidney obtained at last the recall for which he had sued so long. He had overrun the four provinces, he had blown up castles and harried towns, and had all the chiefs in the country one by one under his feet. It was the way of a bird in the air, the way of a ship upon the sea, the way of a serpent upon the rock. The reeds bent under the wind ; when the wind had passed by they were in their old place, and he could only long to turn his back for ever on the scene of so profitless a service. The Archbishop of Dublin entreated Cecil not* to listen to his prayer. ' In all the realm/ he said, * there was no such pilot for stormy weather.' l But Sidney's urgency 1 Adam Loftus to Cecil, October 20, 1570 ; MSS. Ireland.
