While at Inniscarra, O'Neil lost in single combat one of his most accomplished officers, the chief of Fermanagh. Maguire, accompanied only by a Priest and two horsemen, was making observations nearer to the city than the camp, when Sir Warham St. Leger, Marshal of Munster, issued out of Cork with a company of soldiers, probably on a similar mission. Both were in advance of their attendants when they came unexpectedly face to face. Both were famous as horsemen and for the use of their weapons, and neither would retrace his steps. The Irish chief, poising his spear, dashed forward against his opponent, but received a pistol shot which proved mortal the same day. He, however, had strength enough left to drive his spear through the neck of St. Leger, and to effect his escape from the English cavalry. Saint Leger was carried back to Cork where he expired; Maguire, on reaching the camp, had barely time left to make his last confession, when he breathed his last. This untoward event, the necessity of preventing possible dissensions in Fermanagh, and still more, the menacing movements of the new Deputy, lately sworn in at Dublin, obliged O'Neil to return home earlier than he intended. Soon after reaching Dungannon he had the gratification of receiving a most gracious letter from Pope Clement VIII., together with a crown of phoenix feathers, symbolical of the consideration with which he was regarded by the Sovereign Pontiff.
A new Deputy had landed at Howth on the 24th of February, 1600, and was sworn in at Dublin the day following. This was Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, afterwards Earl of Devonshire, a nobleman now in his 37th year. He had been the rival, the enemy, and the devoted friend of the unfortunate Essex, whom he equalled in personal gifts, in courage, and in gallantry, but far exceeded in judgment, firmness, and foresight. He was one of a class of soldier-statesmen, peculiar to the second half of Elizabeth's reign, who affected authorship and the patronage of letters as a necessary complement to the manners of a courtier and commander. On the 2nd of April, Mountjoy, still at Dublin, wrote to her Majesty that the army had taken heart since his arrival, that he had no fear of the loss of the country, but was more anxious for Connaught than any other Province. He deplored the capture of Lord Ormond by the O'Moores, but hoped, if God prospered her arms during the summer, either "to bow or to break the crooked humours of these people." The three succeeding years of peace granted to England—interrupted only by the mad _emeute_ of Essex, and the silly intrigues of the King of Scotland—enabled Elizabeth to direct all the energies of the State, which had so immensely increased in wealth during her reign, for the subjugation of the Irish revolt.