But treason was busy in the Irish camp and country among the discontented members of the neighbouring clans. The election of chiefs for life, always a fruitful source of bickering and envy, supplied the very material upon which "the princely policie" of division, recommended by Bacon to Essex, might be exercised. Dowcra succeeded in the summer in winning over Art O'Neil, son of Turlogh, the early adversary of the great Hugh; before the year was over, by bribes and promises, he seduced Nial Garve, in the absence of his chief in Connaught, and Nial, having once entered on the career of treason, pursued it with all the dogged courage of his disposition. Though his wife, sister to Red Hugh, forsook him, though his name was execrated throughout the Province, except by his blindly devoted personal followers, he served the English during the remainder of the war with a zeal and ability to which they acknowledged themselves deeply indebted. By a rapid march, at the head of 1,000 men, supplied by Dowcra, he surprised the town of Lifford, which his new allies promptly fortified with walls of stone, and entrusted to him to defend. Red Hugh, on learning this alarming incident, hastened from the West to invest the place. After sitting before it an entire month, with no other advantage than a sally repulsed, he concluded to go into winter quarters. Arthur O'Neil and Nial Garve had the dignity of knighthood conferred upon them, and were, besides, recognized for the day by the English officials as the future O'Neil and O'Donnell. In like manner, "a Queen's Maguire" had been raised up in Fermanagh, "a Queen's O'Reilly" in Cavan, and other chiefs of smaller districts were provided with occupation enough at their own doors by the "princely policie" of Lord Bacon.
The English interest in Munster during the first year of Mountjoy's administration had recovered much of its lost predominance. The new President, Sir George Carew, afterwards Earl of Totness, was brother to that knightly "undertaker" who claimed the moiety of Desmond, and met his death at Glenmalure. He was a soldier of the new school, who prided himself especially on his "wit and cunning," in the composition of "sham and counterfeit letters." He had an early experience in the Irish wars, first as Governor of Askeaton Castle, and afterwards as Lieutenant General of the Ordnance. Subsequently he was employed in putting England in a state of defence against the Spaniards, and had just returned from an embassy to Poland, when he was ordered to join Mountjoy with the rank of Lord President. He has left us a memoir of his administration, civil and military, edited by his natural son and Secretary, Thomas Stafford—exceedingly interesting to read both as to matter and manner, but the documents embodied in which are about as reliable as the speeches which are read in Livy. Some of them are admitted forgeries; others are at least of doubtful authenticity. After escaping with Lord Thomond from the scene of Ormond's capture, his first act on reaching Cork was to conclude a month's truce with Florence McCarthy. This he did, in order to gain time to perfect a plot for the destruction of O'Neil's other friend, called in derision, by the Anglo-Irish of Munster, the _sugane_ (or straw-rope) Earl of Desmond.