By his disappearance the power of the Irish in Ulster was broken, and the way was at last prepared for subduing the northern portion of Ireland.
In the South of Ireland the young Earl of Desmond was in a particularly strong position, but, unfortunately, he was personally weak and vacillating, and by playing off the Earl of Ormond against him Elizabeth was able to keep him in subjection to England, to use him against Shane O'Neill, and to prevent him from taking part in a national or religious confederation. In 1567 the Earl was arrested and sent to London, where he was detained as a prisoner. Although the Lord Deputy allowed himself to be received at Limerick by Bishop Lacy with full Catholic ceremonial, still the appointment of Protestant commissioners to administer the territories of Desmond, and the intrusion of a queen's archbishop into the See of Cashel (1567) made it clear that the government was determined to force the new religion on the people. About the same time the Pope took steps to strengthen the Catholics of Munster by appointing Maurice Fitzgibbon, commendatory abbot of a Cistercian monastery in Mayo, to the vacant See of Cashel. The new archbishop was in close correspondence with the Desmond party in Ireland, and with Philip II. of Spain. On his arrival in Ireland (1569) he found that James Fitzmaurice, the cousin of the Earl of Desmond, was organising a confederation to defend the Catholic religion. MacCarthy Mor, the O'Briens of Thomond, the sons of the Earl of Clanrickard, and Sir Edmund Butler had promised their assistance.
The new archbishop came to Cashel, took possession of his cathedral in spite of the presence of the royal intruder, and even went so far as to force the latter to attend a solemn Mass in the cathedral. This is the only foundation for the story that he suffered personal violence to MacCaghwell or that he captured him and brought him a prisoner to Spain.[67]
The Earl of Sidney mustered his forces to proceed against the rebels, and the Earl of Ormond was sent over from England to detach his brother Sir Edmund Butler from his alliance with the Desmonds. The Archbishop of Cashel was dispatched into Spain to seek the assistance of Philip II. (1569), and he brought with him a document purporting to be signed by thirteen archbishops and bishops, and by most of the leading Irish and Anglo-Irish nobles in Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, asking the King of Spain to assist them in their defence of the Catholic religion, and offering to accept as their sovereign any Spanish or Burgundian prince whom Philip II. might wish to nominate.[68] The fact that the Pope had published in February 1570the Bull, /Regnans in excelsis/ announcing the excommunication and deposition of Queen Elizabeth served to encourage the Catholics of Munster, but notwithstanding this sentence the archbishop failed to obtain any effective assistance either from Spain or from the Pope.
Undaunted by the ill-success of his agent, Fitzmaurice issued a proclamation addressed to the prelates, princes, and lords of Ireland, announcing that he had taken up arms against a heretical ruler who had been excommunicated and deposed by the Pope, that a large body of English Catholics were in rebellion or were ready to rise, that he had been appointed by the Pope captain-general of the Irish Catholic forces, and that it behoved them to rally to his standard to defend the Catholic faith, to suppress all false teachers and schismatical services, and to deliver their country from heresy and tyranny.[69]
Fitzmaurice was, however, disappointed in his hopes. The Earl of Ormond hastened over to Ireland to hold the Butler territories for the queen. Many of his confederates deserted him or were overthrown, and after a long struggle he was overcome and obliged to make his submission (1573-74).
In 1575 James Fitzmaurice fled from Ireland to seek assistance from some of the Catholic rulers of the Continent. His petitions met, however, with scant success in Paris, Lisbon, and Madrid, and it was only from Pope Gregory XIII. that he received any promise of men and arms. Already an English adventurer named Stukely had been intriguing with the Pope to obtain a small army and fleet for a descent upon Ireland, and the celebrated English theologian and controversialist, Nicholas Sander,[70] who was working at the Roman Court on behalf of the English exiles, also favoured the attempt. The expedition started in 1578, but when Stukely, who was in supreme command, reached Lisbon, he joined his forces with those of the King of Portugal in an attack on the Moors, in the course of which he was killed, and his army was destroyed. By the exertions of Sander and of the nuncio at Madrid, Fitzmaurice was enabled to fit out a small ship, and in 1579, accompanied by Sander as papal representative, he arrived in Dingle.