[263] Russell's Journal; Declaration by the Lord Deputy and Council (including Norris and Fenton) in _Carew_, No. 261, soon after Christmas 1596.
[264] Calendar of S. P. _Domestic_, Sept. 30 and Dec. 22, 1596; Letters in _Carew_ from Nov. 30 to Dec. 9. On Aug. 10 Tyrone wrote to Russell that he was surprised at his reasonable offer of peace not being accepted; this was a month after his incendiary letter to the Munster chiefs. Russell answered that peace with his sovereign was a 'proud word,' and that he was sent to 'cherish the dutiful and correct the lewd, of which number thou art the ringleader... thy popish shavelings shall not absolve thee' (MSS. _Lansdowne_, vol. lxxxiv). Petition of Sir W. Russell in _Carew_, 1596, No. 253. As to the letters see Burghley to his son Robert, March 30, 1596, in Wright's _Elizabeth_ and elsewhere. On Oct. 22, 1596, Anthony Bacon wrote to his mother 'that from Ireland there were cross advertisements from the Lord Deputy on the one side, and Sir John Norris on the other, the first as a good trumpet, sounding continually the alarm against the enemy, the latter serving as a treble viol to invite to dance and be merry upon false hopes of a hollow peace, and that these opposite accounts made many fear rather the ruin than the reformation of the State, upon that infallible ground, _quod omne regnum divisum in se dissipabitur_'; which sums up the situation very well.--Birch's _Memoirs_, ii. 180.
[265] These abortive negotiations are pretty fully detailed in Fynes Moryson's _Itinerary_, part ii. book i. ch. i. under 1596; Russell's Journal.
[266] Clanricarde to Russell, Jan. 15, 1597; Oliver French, mayor of Galway, to Russell, Jan. 19; Bingham to Sir R. Gardiner, Jan. 20 and 27. These four letters are printed in Wright's _Elizabeth_. Russell's Journal; _Four Masters_, 1596 and 1597; the Queen to the Lord Deputy and Council, Dec. 4, 1596, in Morrin's _Patent Rolls_, under 39 Eliz.: 'As to the proceeding for the examination of the complaint against Bingham and the trial thereof, we think it meet that, after the complaints shall be made privy of our hard usage of him here, and the remitting of him to be tried in Connaught, &c.'
The destruction of Feagh MacHugh enabled Russell to leave Ireland without discredit, but the latter days of his government were darkened by a disaster of a very unusual kind. One hundred and forty barrels of powder which had been drawn from the quay to Wine-tavern Street exploded, accidentally as was supposed, and there was a great destruction of life and property. Men were blown bodily over the housetops, and among the dead were many 'sons of gentlemen who had come from all parts of Ireland to be educated in the city.'