It was, said he, 'by cowardice the dreadfullest beginning that ever was seen in Ireland.
Ah! Mr.Secretary, what unfortunate star hung over me that day to draw me, that never could be persuaded to be absent from the army at any time--to be then absent for a little disease of another man?
_The rearward was the best and picked soldiers in all this land._ If I or any stout man had been that day with them, we had made an end of Shane--which is now farther off than ever it was.

Never before durst Scot or Irishman look on Englishmen in plain or wood since I was here; and now Shane, in a plain three miles away from any wood, and where I would have asked of God to have had him, hath, with 120 horse, and a few Scots and galloglasse, _scarce half in numbers_, charged our whole army, and by the cowardice of one wretch whom I hold dear to me as my own brother, was like in one hour to have left not one man of that army alive, and after to have taken me and the rest at Armagh.

The fame of the English army, so hardly gotten, is now vanished, and I, wretched and dishonoured, by the vileness of other men's deeds.' This is real history that Mr.Froude has given us.

It places the actors before us, enables us to discern their characters, tells us who they are and what they have done.

It shows also the value and the necessity of documentary evidence for establishing the truth of history.